A couple of days ago I signed up with a new Ning community (which shall remain nameless to protect the ignorant), and within a few hours I was both swamped with friend requests (probably the usual deviants, but you never know) and banned from the group. Banned. Why was I unceremoniously kicked out of this place just after joining (and without a word, I may add)? Was I a troublemaker who started a flame war?
No. I was "temporarily" banned from this group because I used the following avatar:
This is the trademark Aurora Black avatar, which I have used (and still use) in various message boards and online communities without complaint until now. The reason I don't use it on MySpace is because of their clear-cut non-nudity clause (regarding profile pics), and I respected their rules. Unfortunately, the piss-ant community in question wasn't as forthcoming with that information, so I was unexpectedly thrown out on my ass. I repeat, this was done without a word of warning. When I contacted the moderator to see what the hell happened, he replied that he'd gotten complaints about the av, yada yada yada... and then he came out and said, "this is a place for ____ writers, not erotica writers."
What the hell? Since when are writers limited to just one genre over another? Does he mean that erotica writers can't write other things? Who the hell is he or his puritanical group to judge me because my avatar *GASP* shows a nipple? My guess is that those complaints came from some really vocal and uptight people for me to get yanked in just a matter of hours, and that pisses me off to no end.
It would have been an easy thing to change my av to something nice and safe and cutesy and then ask to return to that group (actually, from the tone of that moderator's email, begging would have been required), but I just said "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" by asking him to just delete my membership entirely. Okay, so I was a bit more polite than that. LOL!
I don't want to be a part of something that has a problem with what I'm about. Yeah, I write erotica. So what? I write other stuff as well, but some folks just lump you into the "pornographer" category the moment they catch a whiff of anything sexual in nature.
Anyway, I'm better off without them but they lost a really good thing by not giving me a chance. Screw 'em.
Have a good weekend, everybody! *waves*
