Ho ho ho!

One of the great fab things about SL is that we can get involved in cultures that otherwise we perhaps wouldn't normally. In particular the American big days of the year suddenly push themselves into my life. 4th July, Thanksgiving, Black Friday for example, I would know more or less nothing about if it wasn't for my experience in SL.

I learnt last year that the Americans consider "The Holidays" to mean a three month stretch of the year from Halloween, through Thanksgiving, past Christmas and into New Year. Not bad a lifestyle when a quarter of their lives is considered a holiday!

I have been encouraged to get into the "Holiday" mood although typically I don't engage in anything with snow, dodgy patterned jumpers, men with white beards or anything that jingles until at the very earliest mid December!

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My good friend Summer Seale who makes the best fairy magical particle sculpty stuff in SL sent me a prezzie of a complete set of her Chrimbo trees. Ain't they beautiful?!

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And another friend of mine brock, sent me this link to enjoy - A faux fire with Chrimbo tunes tinkling out.

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Forceme Silverspar rushes off and starts baking mince pies with enthusiasm!

My third rant of the day about that class

This is about complaining.

Now, I do know I form opinions quickly and largely I stick to them. Maybe it is an ability I have to gather a lot of data and information quickly and churn out a conclusion after analysing what I have experienced.

I actually love it when someone changes my opinion though thought and discussion; it happens rarely.

I have had it pointed out to me that I form opinions TOO quickly. Well, maybe I do. But even when I don't and purposefully take my time to evaluate something, I go through the same process and get the same result, so I don't much see the point.

One thing tho, is that not many people get to know my opinions on people and things. I typically keep them to myself. I know that might be hard to understand when I write a blog that appears to be full of opinionated bullshit. But it is the truth... I make thousands of judgements everyday in SL. Rarely do I choose to share negative opinions about other people and places; mostly, I keep names outta things. I am not here to make enemies.

If I have a complaint about something, I usually go into IM with whoever and politely share my view. Here is an example of a complaint I made... I am quite fed up with spamming gestures at clubs and wonder, does any actually enjoy them? They piss me off stupid.

Forceme Silverspar: Just a personal view, it's a shame about the spam from your gestures
****** ******: ok sorry you feel that way
****** ******: it's part of the job
****** ******: have you clubbed much
****** ******: I've worked several clubs over two years
Forceme Silverspar: Is it something the customers want here?
****** ******: apparently
****** ******: no one complains
Forceme Silverspar: Who do I need to complain to, someone in management?
****** ******: the manager is (*** *****)
Forceme Silverspar: Thank you
****** ******: we have rules to be followed sir
****** ******: and part is putting out gestures
Forceme Silverspar: Oh I am not getting at you, I understand you are following instructions...
Forceme Silverspar: If it is a rule management have implemented, then they need to know what at least one customer thinks...
****** ******: sure
Forceme Silverspar: And the fact noone has complained, makes me more keen to do so. It's not a problem, I simply mute those who keep spamming gestures, but I just prefer not to mute people.
****** ******: ah ok
****** ******: well sorry but until further notice I have to gesture
****** ******: so I guess you mute me
Forceme Silverspar: Thanks for your time and consideration
****** ******: sure
****** ******: np

"No one complains". Well feck! That makes it alright then!!!?! Must be me! I am the ONLY person in SL who can't stand gestures!!?! Silly me for not liking them, I will do my very best to adore them in future. I have spent hundred and hundreds of hours in hundreds of clubs and NEVER have I ever heard anyone say as a gesture text continuously fills up the screen,"Oh I love gestures, gimme more gimme more" I just don't believe patrons of clubs see it as a bonus to their experience when they have their screens filled with crap.

Anyhow... that was just an example... let me follow this up with what I had after that class yesterday... As I have already said, my nerves were jangling and me teeth were ground down so eventually I decided to leave.

I didn't moan, complain or cause a scene with my opinions. I REALLY do keep most of my opinions to myself, honestly.

But then, the teacher IM'ed me. With tact in one hand and diplomacy in the other, I had the following conversation with her...

**** ********: Thank you for coming. I hope you enjoyed the class :)
Forceme Silverspar: I did some. I think the huge chunks of copied text from the internet being pasted is such large quantities for such a long time is not a good way to teach. I thought some interaction with the class rather than the constant C&P would improve it. Thanks for delivering it, but I couldn't stand any more text chucked at me.
**** ********: ty for the feedback :)
**** ********: How would you deliver such a class?
Forceme Silverspar: Not have all that content in...
**** ********: what would you replace it with?
Forceme Silverspar: The first bit was appropriate, and then you went off into copying stuff I have read before from Good Sex Guides on the internet. I have the URLs you have used. Now if Tantric sex is following the Good Sex Guides, then OK, but I think Tantric sexuality is more than that...
Forceme Silverspar: I would simply not do the copy and paste stuff....
Forceme Silverspar: I was hoping you have knowledge and experience as you are teaching it? I presume you have? I didn't see any of that there in that class.
Forceme Silverspar: Just other peoples words, which is a shame.
**** ********: There is lots to cover
Forceme Silverspar: You only cover what you advertise...
Forceme Silverspar: Call it Basics and Advanced Class if you like...
Forceme Silverspar: And interact with your students...
Forceme Silverspar: You didn't pause for questions... or ask any questions yourself, you had no idea of our thoughts or if we were following you...
**** ********: I do that for time considerations
**** ********: and then questions at the end
Forceme Silverspar: After you've gone through 20,000 words?
Forceme Silverspar: Any question I might have had would be long gone.
**** ********: hopefully.. they write their thoughts/questions down for the end
Forceme Silverspar: I suggest you slow down, and sepcialise your content...
Forceme Silverspar: And put yourself into your teaching...
Forceme Silverspar: Not Google.
**** ********: nobody else complained.. and I believe that is because they haven't been ecposed to Tantra as you have
Forceme Silverspar: They left...
Forceme Silverspar: That's why they didnt complain.
**** ********: and there is nothing wrong with using the Internet to teach as well.. IMO
**** ********: maybe I should split the class into part 1 and 2
Forceme Silverspar: I wouldn't have complained, if you hadnt IM'ed me. And really, it isn't a complaint, as you say I am giving you feedback.
Forceme Silverspar: Yes, good idea.
Forceme Silverspar: Oh don't get me wrong...
Forceme Silverspar: I use the internet no end....
Forceme Silverspar: But for RESEARCH
Forceme Silverspar: Not to paste directly huge chunks of text.
Forceme Silverspar: Pasting text from the internet as you did is not teaching...
**** ********: oh?
Forceme Silverspar: No...
Forceme Silverspar: Teaching is about getting your knowledge and experience to someone else so they understand and can use it
Forceme Silverspar: Agree?
**** ********: thought that is what I was doing
Forceme Silverspar: No...
Forceme Silverspar: I wish it was...
Forceme Silverspar: Like I said...
Forceme Silverspar: I saw nothing of you in there...
**** ********: so refrences to rl and sl were from the internet as well?
Forceme Silverspar: I saw the writers of those URLs, which BTW are fully copyrighted.
Forceme Silverspar: OK, I am trying to help you, I see you are taking offense...
Forceme Silverspar: Bye for now, take good care.
**** ********: bye

I actually said "Fuck off" in RL as I closed that conversation. Like, she asks me and then doesn't like the answers I give and sulks. Why do people do that? Why do people ask for my opinions and thoughts and then pout when I don't say what they wanna hear? If you don't want my opinion, then don't open that can worms!

If no one else has complained, I don't give a shit because it has no bearing on my opinion whether someone has complained about something or not. When people say that, are they meaning I must be wrong as no one thinks as I do? I think that's what they like to think.

Tell that to Darwin, daVinci and Marx.

6,598 words

I know my in my last post I wrote a negative thing about the teacher. But let me share this with you...

A teacher is NOT someone who knows how to use Google and the Copy & Paste hot keys. The class on Tantric sexuality was entirely copied from copyrighted URLs. The one exception to this was her SL comment about men 's reasons for coming into SL which I talked about in the previous post. Huge great swathes of text, long paragraph after long paragraph pasted for students to read. Boom boom boom, relentless and constant. Boom boom boom. Fast.

I am very happy to read, I am able to read lots of text, take it in and digest it. But after an hour and a half of the wrong paced drip feeding of information , I just couldn't take anymore of the bombardment, I left. Like everyone else had. I was last man standing. I do usually have the patience of a saint, but this was worse torture than any cruel mean dominant could ever dream up!

To be honest, I was following "her" text on the original URLs she had used to lift them on my other screen; I found the presentation of the whole web page to read much easier to take in than her morsels and it settled my grinding teeth, a little.

There was no pausing, no inviting of questions, no asking of questions by her to check student understanding, no interaction with the students whatsoever other than my interuption, no explaining, no giving of personal examples, no sharing of experience, no nothing of the person herself in the delivery of her class. Just copied text from others' work. That is not teaching. If it was teaching, then why don't we sack all RL teachers, lecturers, instructors and just give children and adults an internet connection and Google's URL to learn from?

I took her hour and a half class (having missed the last half hour to save my sanity) and pasted it into Word to do a word count on it. You can see the results above. It covers 11 pages of SOLID text with a font size of 12, using 6,598 words in 137 paragraphs in 90 minutes. Torture, I tell you, torture! How much can I remember of it? Well quite a lot as it happens, probably due to the fact I already know the contents of Good Sex Guides. What did I learn about Tantric sexuality? Nothing. Other than reinforcing my idea of how not to teach. How much did I enjoy it? Not at all.

This is not about teaching styles because every teacher has their own style, this is about people thinking teaching is easy. That all we do is stand up in front of people and spout. It is not. There are skills involved in being able to teach effectively. I am sure we can all look back to our school days and remember a teacher who made us want to learn, even if their subject was not our favourite. They made learning fun or they engaged or encouraged us like the other teachers didn't.

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As for the content of the class... the words she had copied from the URL sites... Coming from general vanilla Good Sex Guides, is that what Tantric sexuality is about?

Why do men come into SL?

I went to a class today on Tantra and Tantric sexuality. Its a subject that interests me, one that I think has great potential to work and something I wanted to know more about.

Forceme Silverspar sighs. The class was advertised as being 2 hours long. (Maybe it was getting us used to the Tantric idea of taking time and extending what could have taken 3 mins!) I was prepared to sit there for two hours...

I will talk about the class in my next post... I have lots to say about the aftermath! Actually I have enough thoughts for about 5 posts from this class! I dunno which one to start with?!?!?!

I'll start with my first...

The teacher, I use that term loosely, I am sorry, sounds rude, but I am afraid it's true, threw into the class the following words...

**** ********: Nurture your erotic relationship with yourself with female self pleasuring. Men in SL usually don't have a problem with this, in fact, most men came to SL to mastrubate anyway and don't even think much about a 'relationship' with self. We need to feel comfortable with who we are, how we look rl.. "is it okay?".. "Do I tell my SL partner what Im doing?"

Eh? Where she got that fact from, that "most men come to SL to masturbate"?

I couldn't help interrupt her...

Forceme Silverspar: How do you know most men come into SL to masturbate?
**** ********smiles
**** ********: I have been here over three years.. I know because men approach me all the time
Forceme Silverspar: Men who wanna masturbate, probably...
Forceme Silverspar: I think its a harsh judgement you make on men there, sorry to have interrupted.

Now, is it me or is that an utterly stupid thing to say? Has she spoken to every man in SL and asked them if they have come in SL to masturbate and taken a tally chart?

And anyway, I just don't believe it...

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When you look at LL lastest figures regarding number of Adult/Mature/PG sims as follows...

* Estate - Adult: 1338
* Estate - Mature: 19366
* Estate - Offline: 23
* Estate - PG: 3179
* Linden - Adult: 348
* Linden - Mature: 3840
* Linden - Offline: 1
* Linden - PG: 1422

...it doesn't take toooooooooooooo much figuring to see more people are interested in PG activities than Adult activities.

If ya gonna park yaself in a sex sim then of course you are going to get this propositions but her statement is totally flawed. It's like hanging out at the sim called "Carpenters-R-Us" and complaining everyone in SL is a wood worker!

I can honestly say I can count on one hand the times I have been propositioned outside of a sex sim with men saying they wanna masturbate. And I have come across thousands and thousands of men in my time in SL. Am I totally wrong? Why do most men come in SL?

Texturing contest

I do think its important to get out into SL... Away from the sometimes anal and blinkered, even suffocating and insular circle that SL BDSM can be.

I make a point to seek out and sit in on non-BDSM events. I mean, where other than SL can I wonder in off the street and go listen to a high-brow university professor lecture about the Blue Tongue Desease? Or maybe listen to a South African midwife talking about her work and answering my questions... Or maybe learn about and support some charity that takes me fancy.

Not only do I enjoy learning and listening about *almost* anything, I get quite a buzz when I get an IM from one of the other big-time-vanilla attendees asking about the lifestyle. I can feel the shock and surprise as they comment on my profile or what I teach. So in some ways, I never do escape the BDSM world, my profile, my collar my tag say it all.

This looked a fun little event...

No Building, just texturing an object provided by the host and using the textures from the library. This is a timed event with prizes to the top three contestants. Winners determined by a vote from the contestants. This is a fun way to wrap up your weekend. 6PM SLT

It was being run by a charity called Dream Travelers who are a support group of stroke survivors. Their sim is HERE.We were all given a windmill to texture up in 45 minutes! I don't think I have ever opened up the library textures which was all we were allowed to use. I have no idea what's in there and I didn't think I had time to go browsing so I just used colours and light rather than textures.

It was really good fun, not stressful or hard work, the folk there were coolio and I thoroughly enjoyed the time out.

109!

It's been two weeks minus one day since I started my own group and look! 109 people already! Which isn't bad at all I don't think! My Bonanza BDSM Academy had 105 people in it when I left and that had been running over a year.
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It is also great to see folks who have been to my new location put me in their Picks! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and it really helps to spread the word about my classes and my new location.

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So a reminder folks! If you want notices to my classes, JOIN MY GROUP!

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FORCEME SILVERSPAR'S CLASSES

Living proof...

...that mastering me is HARD WORK! Look, in 7 months I have aged Master by 20 years! Maybe even 30 years? Forceme Silverspar grins wide.
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I had a chap turn up to class today; he gave me quite a shock to be truthful.

The quality of the skin tho was something else... Finally someone has done quality "Old" skin. The details around the eyes are incredible, I zoomed right in, just amazing... This pic doesn't do it justice.

Master got the LM and off we went... If you want bloody good quality old skin, black, white and Obama, have a mosey on down to HERE. Second floor.

Maybe you too can see your Master age before your very eyes. You have to be quick, the change can happen in seconds! Depends how naughty you are!