Character Sexuality

[philman]

I don't think this is a troll thread, the OP seemed to ask a couple of questions perfectly innocently, even if many don't agree, which in my opinion were then jumped on by some people who assumed his intentions were very different and the thread has devolved from there. With too many people starting to get heated on both sides.

I think everything that needs to be said has been said already, the only things happening now are people saying the same things in ever more incendiary ways and this thread is not heading in any direction with a good destination.

[fanofts]

Mar 21, 2017 20:24:31 GMT @korba said:

...

First, re the childlessness: I would actually find it interesting to see anonymous demographics on Gunnerkrigg Court readers, not only in that category. Off-hand I can think of two people who have mentioned their children on this forum, one of whom mentioned reading the comic to their kid.
...

Comic readership demographics

TL/DR: almost impossible to find; young males mostly, huge variation, unreliable stats

I'm also interested in the wider demographics of story based comics, but can only offer this info dump.
Or skip to reading list at end.

literacytrust.org.uk - extensive annual large sample United Kingdom surveys show boys/girls read comics in ratio 60/40, mainly when young, declining substantially with age.

- Alexa.com : great majority webcomic readers are young males

www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gunnerkrigg.com mostly male readers from home with some college ed

contrast scarygoround.com mostly female from work, graduate school and college ed

octopuspie.com almost 50/50 split, graduate school and college

sssscomic.com similar

- statista : subscription required, minimal very general results available for free

Website traffic measures - very inconsistent results:

- www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-websites-to-track-a-websites-traffic/

Monthly visits, all from similarweb.com unless specified:

- similarweb.com/website/xkcd.com 20 million; trafficestimate.com/xkcd.com 6 million

- questionablecontent.net 11.4 million; 2.5 million trafficestimate

- smbc-comics.com 9.5 million

- gunnerkrigg.com 4 million, under 1 million by trafficestimate

- girlgeniusonline.com 2.2 million; 700 thousand trafficestimate

- sinfest.net 1.9 million

- killsixbilliondemons.com 1.2 million

- scarygoround.com 844 thousand

- dresdencodak.com 470 thousand

- octopuspie.com 383 thousand; 200 thousand trafficestimate

My tangential reading list:

- Alison Marie Hight, “What are ye, little mannie?”: The Persistence of Fairy Culture in Scotland, 1572-1703 and 1811-1927 a chronologically comparative study of fairy culture and belief in early modern and Victorian Scotland
findable online: Hight_AM_T_2014.pdf

- charlotte rose millar, the witch’s familiar in sixteenth-century england
findable online: 109-204-1-SM.pdf

[philman]

fanofts That's a really interesting analysis, maybe even deserves its own thread, even if it mostly proves how unreliable any statistics are for this sort of thing.

I was surprised how skewed the male/female ratio was, I am male but assumed this comic would have a more evenly mixed audience, it doesn't seem aimed at one gender more than another.

Also this is the best stat:

Annie Bot Face is the 4th most important thing to the comic.

[Elysium]

I once had some Japanese lessons over the Summer, there were 3 persons: me, a woman, and a gay man.
So in terms of cold hard statistics the group was 66% male, 33% female and 33% homosexual.

Now what can we learn from this? No, not nothing; what we can learn is that the smaller the studied group, the farther you will stray from the global statistical figure.

If you want a skewed probability, here's one: what's the probability that a group would consist of a half-fire elemental psychopomp, a technological mechagoddess, a stressed out reality warper, a demon sealed in a stuffed toy, the real Vegeta and a pain-glorifying robot prophet?

[philman]

Mar 22, 2017 14:16:35 GMT Elysium said:

If you want a skewed probability, here's one: what's the probability that a group would consist of a half-fire elemental psychopomp, a technological mechagoddess, a stressed out reality warper, a demon sealed in a stuffed toy, the real Vegeta and a pain-glorifying robot prophet?

What are the chances that a "normal" group would be interesting enough to be the subject of a comic?

[fanofts]

Mar 22, 2017 12:37:03 GMT philman said:

fanofts That's a really interesting analysis, maybe even deserves its own thread, even if it mostly proves how unreliable any statistics are for this sort of thing.

I was surprised how skewed the male/female ratio was, I am male but assumed this comic would have a more evenly mixed audience, it doesn't seem aimed at one gender more than another.

Also this is the best stat:

Annie Bot Face is the 4th most important thing to the comic.

The over hyping of recent statistics partly prompted me to dig deeper.
It's not the fault of the stats or the methodology but the awful treatment by news media,
and the public generally. It affects not only politics and social studies but hard science too.

The ratio for those webcomics is skewed, I selected the top 10 or so, added a few I follow.

Following screencaps are from literacytrust report, which may be hard to find, google for
Young_people_s_reading_2015_-_Final.pdf
and select the www.docucu-archive.com cache.

"Manchester_2016_-_Final.pdf" is also interesting.

more data snippets:



2007 thread : gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/8/reader-groups



more men than women: www.alexa.com/siteinfo/proboards.com



monthly using facebook: graphicpolicy.com/tag/facebook-fandom/

beware of unscientific methodology used:

US Gender Interest : men interested in women same 17% as women interested in men

same sex interest 0.6%

Attachments:

[speedwell]

This thread becomes a liability at the exact point when it starts using the characters and comic as proxy for a fight about whether homosexuality needs to be "decently hidden" or "freely celebrated". To me, that point has been passed.

[lisanela]

I have now personally reached the point where I wish we were all fighting about the proper way to cook pasta*, and I think everyone has said what they wanted to say, so I'm voting for the thread to be closed in relative peace. 

*the Infamous Pasta Point

[Aura]

Here's a nifty thought: it doesn't matter!

If I wanna make a comic where everyone is gay, so be it. If I wanna make a comic where nobody is gay, so be it. If you don't like it, don't read it--that's my policy.

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Jeez. 4 pages.

Mar 20, 2017 17:08:01 GMT Daedalus said:

Mar 20, 2017 14:02:06 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

I also don't see how discussion should be banned. Especially since we aren't even discussing the merits of it, rather just that it exists.

To clarify: I did not say this topic should be banned. It has just been discussed before, and the last time it came up, it spawned a notorious 25-page flame war that led to Tom dropping the banhammer on multiple users. So I was understandably skittish about seeing it raise its head again. Nothing personal against you, sorry.

Thanks. I felt a little attacked the last time I was on here.

Mar 20, 2017 14:21:13 GMT fia said:

Can we get a mod to shut this down, by any chance?


(I know it's hard for you to understand, Mitth'raw'nuruodo, but questioning the prevalence or believability of gay or nonbinary relationships is pretty homophobic, offensive, and hurtful to everyone involved. Moreover, the premise of your question makes no room for dissent. Your question basically boils down to, "Is it too gay in here, or is it just me?" To which many people are, naturally, emphatically answering, "NO". But you seem to be waiting around for someone to defend you, which is not going to happen, because you are not really assessing the merit of your own inquiry. So if no one deletes your thread please apologize, delete it yourself, and go home.)

This is why I get so bothered. I am not passing judgement, or anything. Questioning anything is homophobic? I won't delete this, and I hope that you can see that others can have different opinions and not hate you.

Mar 21, 2017 17:21:04 GMT Tom Siddell said:

This thread has been reported as a possible troll/hate thread. If people wish to see it gone, please post below.

Wow. Tom, I am not trolling. I tried to as clearly as possible state that I am not a troll. Whether or not the thread needs to be shut down, that is a different point. But I would like to state that I am not hating, nor trolling.

Mar 22, 2017 8:47:18 GMT Morpheus said:

I think this was probably a troll from the get-go, and it seems far from unlikely that it's gonna burn at some point. I say shut it down before it goes all wrong.

Absolutely not. I don't understand why anyone would think this. I have very, very carefully made sure not to offend anyone. If questioning is hatred, please, do not come to university. My job is to question everything, and I simply asked a question. If the question itself offended you, I apologize. I didn't mean it to, but I don't think you should be offended at the same time.

[Aura]

I don't believe this is a troll thread either, just someone who is not into the homosexuality in the comic (which I get, dissenting opinions are good for society). Unfortunately, people get really heated about subjects like sexuality, religion, politics etc, which OP probably knew would happen.

However we can't just shut someone down for having a different opinion to the majority and call them a troll. The most mature thing to do in the situation is to let sleeping dogs lie and lock the thread. People can decide for themselves if they want to continue reading a comic with *shock/horror* gay characters, people can weigh the pros and cons of their beliefs on their own.

[kukapetal]

What if you think two of the gay relationships are well-written, interesting (if dysfunctional), and feel organic to the characters, while the other two feel underdeveloped, bland/weird and seem tacked on for no real narrative reason?

Wouldn't that show you're critiquing the writing, not the presence of gay people themselves?

[Noka]

Mar 18, 2017 15:51:20 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

Is it just me, or do there seem to be a lot of homosexual/bisexual characters? I'm not trying to impinge upon anyone, it just seems less than ordinary to me. According to most of the data that I can find, many say 3%, but some do say up to 8%. These are American statistics, British run at about 1.5%.

Of the recently focused and main characters, Shadow and Robot (both seem masculine to me, maybe forum consensus is different), Paz and Kat, and Red and Ayilu are. Smitty and Parley are not. Annie I do not know. That seems a bit statistically significant. 75% of the couples are.

I'm just wondering if it is breaking anyone else's suspension of disbelief? Couple this with the increasingly uncomfortable endless beatdowns of Annie, and the comic is just becoming less interesting to me.

EDIT: I do not want a flamewar. Does posting that you don't want a flamewar, necessitate a flamewar?

EDIT II: This is not a troll, and if you are offended, I am sorry. I do not think that I should apologize for asking the question, but it would be rude not to apologize if you are offended.

Here's the basics on why nobody takes these statistics seriously: human psychology and societal pressure result in skewed statistics. Because the only way you could get sexuality data is a self-report survey (unless you really want to follow thousands of participants to try and determine the gay sex they're all having), we have to take into account that society as a whole only recently started to relax about sexuality. We still treat heterosexuality as the default. This only matters because humans, when presented with a "default", don't examine themselves: they assume they're the default, and possibly then assume they're just bad at it. Listen to people when they're first diagnosed with mental illnesses: "I'm not normal!?". While I'm not trying to imply homosexuality is a mental illness (it isn't), this extends into all walks of life. People often assume themselves the default and don't further examine things like their sexuality. Where does that leave us? Well.

When people self-report, they self-report based on their personal perception of themselves. If they only think they've experienced sexual attraction to the opposite sex, then they'll advocate that they're straight. For their current existence, this is true, but if they're suppressing their desire for the same sex unconsciously, then they can't self-report that. Not even mentioning that, because the Kinsey Scale is a scale, some fail to recognize the "weaker" feelings for a given sex as sexual attraction or romantic affection.

In other words, self-report surveys on sexuality are fundamentally unreliable. They only locate people who have learned of and accepted their attractions that are outside of pure heterosexuality. This would be a smaller number in the long run, because society actually actively discourages sexual exploration by making masculinity/femininity a binary situation with social consequences for defection. (aka, if you're more feminine/less masculine, or vice versa, you get socially scorned).

Now, to explain why I'm perfectly fine with the court's homosexuals: They really are a minority, and they're primarily young people. Beyond that, many of them are from the forest (Red/Ayilu & Shadow) or never worried about it in the first place (Robot). Kat and Paz clearly had to overcome their socialization (Kat's fears of rejection by Annie and Reynard, Paz's own desire for affection from a boy earlier on) to really come together and admit they were attracted to each other, and that was cool!

Ultimately, it's personal interpretation, but most of the gay couples in Gunnerkrigg Court have some kind of tie to the forest, which I think is almost definitely on purpose. But I don't think it's fair to say "THE GAYS ARE UNREALISTICALLY PROMINENT". People try and insist that gays/lesbians are a miniscule part of the population, but we have no way to actually meaningfully statistically measure that without years upon years of effort. Worse, we have people realizing they're not straight quite a bit of the time, which invalidates old surveys they were a part of. The flexibility of human sexuality means that, honestly, we should ignore any statistics or estimations thereof until we have a better way of measuring homosexuality than self-reports.

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Mar 22, 2017 18:05:44 GMT Aura said:

I don't believe this is a troll thread either, just someone who is not into the homosexuality in the comic (which I get, dissenting opinions are good for society). Unfortunately, people get really heated about subjects like sexuality, religion, politics etc, which OP probably knew would happen.

However we can't just shut someone down for having a different opinion to the majority and call them a troll. The most mature thing to do in the situation is to let sleeping dogs lie and lock the thread. People can decide for themselves if they want to continue reading a comic with *shock/horror* gay characters, people can weigh the pros and cons of their beliefs on their own.

I really didn't think that it would have provoked this reaction. If someone questioned my deeply held beliefs, I wouldn't get heated unless someone started personally attacking me. And again, if anyone feels personally attacked by me, I'm sorry you feel that way, that was not my intention. But if someone did question my beliefs, I would attempt to discuss them with someone.

Already, some people have pointed out some details that I did not take into account.

1. The Court is a distinct and different culture than the rest of Western European heritage.
2. The comic is self-described as "about weird girls".

I just don't understand why there is a cry for locking the thread. I guess I'm just more optimistic about dialogue.

Mar 22, 2017 18:13:43 GMT kukapetal said:

What if you think two of the gay relationships are well-written, interesting (if dysfunctional), and feel organic to the characters, while the other two feel underdeveloped, bland/weird and seem tacked on for no real narrative reason?

Wouldn't that show you're critiquing the writing, not the presence of gay people themselves?

I thought that was implicit. I am not a fan of the path the last few chapters have taken.

[Deleted]

Edit: redacted some of this after consideration, since I don't see it leading anywhere fruitful. Except this, which I don't think is worth all that much either, it's just an addendum spawned by a strange restlessness.

Once upon a time there was a French writer, green-haired as all elective Parisians are, more or less; and he wrote a few poems that talked of lesbians, the original stock from the bawdy lair of the Tenth Muse, even (whom I'd still like as my psychopomp, if she's eligible -- or rather if I am); for this, he was convicted of lewdness, depravity, or whatever sounded most condemning, and his poems suppressed by force of law. He wrote other poems, too, including one in Latin that used the same rhyme-scheme as "Dies iræ" (or, a century later, "Lines Written In Oregon"), and included commentary on his artistic vision alongside; he was actually rather staunchly enamoured with antiquity and, with his sensitive sense of smell and thoughts of "Antiope's haunches with the breast of a boy", hated bad grammar, the Ocean, and sloppy choices. Not all of those other poems were found as "problematic" (though how e.g. "meos circa lumbos mica / o castitatis lorica" would be found any less "depraved" is anyone's guess -- perhaps because those who learn "dead languages" are hopeless anyway?).

Heaven forbid that people make judgments for themselves. And Hell, in turn, forbid that people make judgments for others.

I'd find it as absurd if said writer's crime was to write poems that did not talk of lesbians. Anyone should think what they think, love what and whom they love, say what must be said, to hatch a kindred thought, and stand for themselves when others try to infringe upon these freedoms, whatever their intent. Actually I can imagine little that crafts bonds as well as an amicable round of mud- or perhaps arm-wrestling (simile but not only that) -- or that's just something I'd like to do after writing too much.

Tolerating dissenting opinions and their arguments, and not wishing for them to be censored by force of authority, does not imply any support at all for those opinions or arguments. Or at least, not in my case. For reasons of my own whimsy and perhaps even design, I made a chiefly aesthetic counter-argument to Thrawn's position ("realism" vs. "verisimilitude", and that the potential for artistic invention lies mostly not with individual signs, but how they are tied together; post on p.2). I consider his criteria to judge art a possible approach, but reject them publicly for myself (and I also questioned why homosexuality of all things would be the statistical outlier he'd focus on, when there are many others, suspecting that there are indeed personal reasons and the debate is not purely aesthetic). Nobody else is thereby forced to respect his opinion.

All people draw their lines in the sand at some distance, which has fortunately never been normed, and scoff at the Roman soldier trampling them underfoot in ignorance of our very own way to eye-ball; and that cannot stop him from drawing his sword; but perhaps there is some other world in which it would be impossible for him not to kneel down, silently watch, and begin, with rare questions interspersed, to understand what the other was doing. If every creature is to us a book, picture and mirror, then I must pessimistically ask what happens when two mirrors are facing each other -- but to see them from in between may prove as beautiful as it is arresting.

(PS. fanofts: I must find time to read up, at least, on the witches' familiars -- thanks for the "off-topic".)

[Darkfeather21]

RE: The sexualities.

[clover]

Mar 22, 2017 17:39:08 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

Absolutely not. I don't understand why anyone would think this. I have very, very carefully made sure not to offend anyone. If questioning is hatred, please, do not come to university. My job is to question everything, and I simply asked a question. If the question itself offended you, I apologize. I didn't mean it to, but I don't think you should be offended at the same time.

Some questions are worth being offended by. There is no magic bubble into which a spirit of genuine inquiry allows the intent of a question as written to override the impact of a question as written. 

If this notion appears alien to you, I can supply analogue questions that represent the truth of this matter that I can supply from real life experiences which has led to the above ^ as an iron-clad rule of dialogue for me.

[jinxiii]

I mean I can see how you can have a difference of opinion but arguing that you're not a troll and then saying stuff like:

Mar 19, 2017 20:01:40 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

The strange hair colors in anime is immersion breaking for me. I understand it isn't comprehensible to you, but that it alright.

really isn't helping your case. Particularly when your avatar is a humanoid blue star wars dude who you presumably enjoy despite his blue skin being immersion breaking and the fact that an humanoid intelligent creature from another planet and evolution tree is statistically improbable. :/

You mentioned that you're a biology professor so I'm going to speak biologically as possible in a haiku.

teenagers hormones
people dating excited
just not nerd annie

Mar 22, 2017 19:55:42 GMT Darkfeather21 said:

RE: The sexualities.

Sums it up.

I mean if we are asking for more straight characters showcased a little closer I have to say I'd love to see Jenny and Jack any day. If you're looking for less gay characters that just seems a little weird and I can see why people's jimmies are a bit rustled. You don't seem to have a goal other than "the ratio is off, is anyone else find this offputting?", which seems to imply one of the former two solutions but isn't decisive enough.

[Elysium]

Mar 22, 2017 14:46:33 GMT philman said:

Mar 22, 2017 14:16:35 GMT Elysium said:

If you want a skewed probability, here's one: what's the probability that a group would consist of a half-fire elemental psychopomp, a technological mechagoddess, a stressed out reality warper, a demon sealed in a stuffed toy, the real Vegeta and a pain-glorifying robot prophet?

What are the chances that a "normal" group would be interesting enough to be the subject of a comic?

Chances are directly proportinal with the skill of the writer.

Reminds me a the Iris zero manga; in a world were everybody can see in AR, the hero doesn't have this luxury so he uses his brain to solve things.

[Noka]

Mar 23, 2017 1:38:38 GMT clover said:

Mar 22, 2017 17:39:08 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

Absolutely not. I don't understand why anyone would think this. I have very, very carefully made sure not to offend anyone. If questioning is hatred, please, do not come to university. My job is to question everything, and I simply asked a question. If the question itself offended you, I apologize. I didn't mean it to, but I don't think you should be offended at the same time.

Some questions are worth being offended by. There is no magic bubble into which a spirit of genuine inquiry allows the intent of a question as written to override the impact of a question as written. 

If this notion appears alien to you, I can supply analogue questions that represent the truth of this matter that I can supply from real life experiences which has led to the above ^ as an iron-clad rule of dialogue for me.

Plus, questions like this offend because they're often sealioning.

They've already been answered, effectively, and you could probably look up the information that you're requesting. You could probably find the reasons that sexualities are skewed in this way, or you could reread the comic and notice the themes that make the forest much more sexually free compared to the court, and assume that.

Beyond that, if you're asking a question like "Are you guys sure that it's realistic to have more than one or two homosexual relationships in this comic? How do you ignore the unrealism?", yeah, of course it's going to be offensive. Your assumption ("gays aren't this proliferous, it's unrealistic") coupled with a meaningless statistic (75% of relationships, ignoring the like 20-30 other canon straight relationships and attractions in the comic) is offensive. Pretending your question was fueled by just a desire to know does not make your assumptions and baseless statements any less offensive.

[donna]

Mar 18, 2017 17:23:33 GMT QuotePilgrim said:

You should consider the fact that, while the overall percentage of homosexual/bisexual people in the world is pretty low, it varies from place to place, and you should expect to find environments where almost everyone is homosexual just by chance.

The number we tend to use in the US is 10%.  It's been compared to left-handedness. But, yes, there are definitely environments (as one person mentioned) where this is quite rare or quite common. Also, friends tend to be more like their friends.

[donna]

Mar 20, 2017 8:47:57 GMT foxurus said:

Red and Ayilu broke my suspension of disbelief a bit. It doesn't really make sense to me that fairies would have romantic inclinations. But then, every time fairy society comes up it takes me out of the story, so maybe I just don't like fairies.

I did have a knee-jerk "is he trying to make a point?/this feels like overcompensation" reaction at one point, but I think that's just my bias.

I'm curious why fairies should not have romantic inclinations? Furthermore, these are fairies who wanted become human so badly that they were willing to commit suicide to get it. So even if fairies existed, and even if most of them did not have romantic tendencies, what about the skewed sample of suicide-committing-human-loving fairies? (Now I am thinking of Ariel - Mermaid...)

[kukapetal]

The "sea lioning" concept seems extremely unfair to those who are accused of it. It starts off with an assumption that certain arguments are already proven, and everyone already accepts this, before implying that the person questioning it must therefore actually understand and agree with said argument and are therefore simply feigning ignorance so they can rile people up.

It then goes on to claim that anyone questioning an idea or argument is being invasive, badgering, and monopolizing everyone's time and resources, even if they're asking in a way that can be easily ignored or avoided (posting a single thread on a forum that anyone can choose to skip over).

In short, it makes a lot of unfair and potentially untrue assumptions just to vilify and invalidate someone who's asking a question the accuser doesn't like and is perfectly capable of ignoring.

[jda]

Well, and then a single off the grid theme gets a flame war and 4(and counting) pages.

[kukapetal]

It barely qualifies as a flame war at this point, and all the number of replies proves is that people felt the topic was worth replying to, for whatever reason. All replies were voluntary, not forced on the other posters by the OP.

I think we're all more than capable of taking responsibility for our own actions. If a post gets a lot of replies, that's on those of us who replied.

And that's going with the assumption that a lot of replies is bad thing, when I'm sure that many people feel the opposite.

[Zox Tomana]

I'd like to ask the OP a quick question. What has been taking you out of the story more: the number of homosexual relationships, or the way the story has been going over the past several chapters (you've described this as an Annie bash-fest)?

[puntosmx]

Mar 22, 2017 18:42:01 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

I thought that was implicit. I am not a fan of the path the last few chapters have taken.

I'm also quite displeased on the last chapter.
The aesthetic was weird.
The faeries broke continuity very harshly (although.... what did I expect of fae?).
Annie lost her spine that she proved she still had when facing the Psychopomps.
Ayilu has 50 faces, 49 of them are dumb and the last one too.
And I in general disliked the tone of the comic.

....
But well, I haven't enjoyed all the previous chapters either..... we just need this new one to be awesome to compensate.
Maybe in a future chapter we'll understand why things were portrayed in this way, as it happens with previous chapters now that I'm re-reading them.

Mar 22, 2017 17:29:57 GMT Aura said:

Here's a nifty thought: it doesn't matter!

If I wanna make a comic where everyone is gay, so be it. If I wanna make a comic where nobody is gay, so be it. If you don't like it, don't read it--that's my policy.

I totally agree.
Maybe people who wonder about homosexuality being portrayed on GC are less worried about the coming being about homosexuality, but rather because it wasn't in the first place, and they suddenly worry it may become a major theme in the comic.

I don't think that is becoming a major theme, but I can understand people fearing it might be.
I've seen webcomics shift themes over time, and that's a common reason why people stop following them.

[xtinas]

Yeah, there's nothing good gonna come out of this thread. There's a pack of folk arguing that they should be able to Just Ask Questions of whatever flavor they want without offending Those Others, and nothing really goes well with that as the starting point.

[zbeeblebrox]

Oh wow I thought someone necro'd an old thread for a minute. I can't believe this is new - I swear, I step away for a couple days...
Anyway, didn't we put this topic to bed years ago? Must we rouse it from its slumber for four straight pages of trash?

[Rasselas]

Mar 22, 2017 18:42:01 GMT Mitth'raw'nuruodo said:

I just don't understand why there is a cry for locking the thread. I guess I'm just more optimistic about dialogue.

You, you have been on the Internet before, yes?

It's incredibly easy for emotions to turn a discussion dark. In this case, I believe a warning should've sufficed, and calling to Tom&mods served as such a warning.

On the other hand, I know what it's like to raise unpopular points and discuss something that goes against the grain. Whenever I've done it, I've sincerely regretted it, not because I saw the error of my ways but because it ends up a hassle for me. It's not like I'll learn anything new, I'm the one bringing the new standpoint, which means I've already considered the caveats. Usually, the wiser majority of this forum makes even this uphill battle worthwhile. But pick your battles, man. I feel that the issue you raised was not a hill worth dying on.