I have so many thoughts around this.
Couple of things: Does dogpiling happen? Yep. Do folks sometimes say stupid shit and then get all defensive about it when people call them out on it? Yep.
Can we *all* do a better job of listening before we react? Yep.
A couple of things I have observed about perception in my years in this particular B/F/T community (going on 14 years now) is that 2 things seem to happen with regularity.
1. Someone says something stupid, gets called out on it, defends it, gets called out by more folks, defends it even more and messier, folks get pissed at one another, someone is a "bully", a member of a "clique", or a "gang", and before you know it, sides are taken and the whole thing is a hot mess.
2. Someone says something stupid, someone gets really pissed about it and calls them out in a shitty way, the person is truly sorry about it and owns that they should have thought about it more, the mad person won't let it go, sides get taken again and the whole thing is a hot mess.
The really frustrating thing that has happened in the past several times is that this has sometimes escalated to "The Space" somehow becoming responsible for what an individual said.
Who has the responsibility in a situation like this:
New member comes to the site, identifies as a Femme, starts a thread entitled "Where are all the rich Butches?!" and proceeds to post about how they are tired of encountering Butches who don't have jobs or live with their Momma.
What if someone feels like they are being really classist and says, "Hey, maybe money isn't the most important thing in the world! I think you are really missing out on some good people because you are being super classist about this and shallow"
Commence argument.
I think some of the frustration I have seen comes when folks seem unwilling to examine their privileges or narrow-minded idealism. This is not to say that folks don't get to have desires. I'm all for that! But what if their desire is couched in denigrating other people's ways of being?
(Thinking about how discussions on loving BBW Femmes often includes sizist anti-thin comments or how discussions about Butches often has commentary around "eeewwwwwwwww" for Butches who date other Butches)
There is another component here that I'd like to mention around intent. Some folks have been around a long, long time and have finely-honed bullshit detectors. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing when folks call bullshit on a brand new person showing up on the site, getting super familiar with lots of folks, claiming to be a millionaire a doctor or a pilot, and having several different weird stories around their life that don't add up.
Why? Because it's happened 100 times.
So are some folks jaded? You bet your ass.
