Sexting and flirting at 7 Cups

Thanks for the tip @Laura.

I agree with what @Kane said.

I also want to stress the importance of how we present ourselves. I personally have had incoming sex chats even without having my picture on. However I did noticed some people treated me nicer when I did put my picture on at one point, and that's something that felt very weird. I am sure having a picture on draws more attention and that's normal, your picture is who you are I guess, but there are some pictures that are bound to attract more of sex chatters.

I often see some of those who complain of having a lot of sex chats, sporting pictures focused on their cleavage/décolleté, have a picture of themselves focused on their swimsuit or topless sporting their muscles plus skinny shorts in the gym. Sometimes you can even tell the camera focus was set to a specific sexualized spot. Know that when you have such picture on you will often have more sex chats than someone with a cat or someone with a picture of their face smiling. That means when a sex chatter is scanning through the browse page, someone presenting themselves in similar ways to the mentioned examples will most likely be the target and not someone with their face, or a slice of chocolate cake picture. I know that is hard to hear. People shouldn't sexualize everything, but it is the truth, we see it all the time in experimental tests done where the way we present ourselves often determine how people approach us and the attention we get, sometimes. So my biggest suggestion is to have a picture that is professional. I don't mean wear a suit, but one that if you decide to share it on a professional platform like LinkedIn, won't make people comment that "This is not Facebook/Twitter", and it is a picture that you are proud that it reflects your personal brand.

Thanks for this superbly timed post. More and more and more reports come into my inbox from new Listeners with regards to this issue, all the time. In the end to all the listeners I have only one thing to say: who you talk to, is YOUR choice. Empower yourself!

Internet can be a scary place. Behind anonymity, people become fearless. And people target people. But we must make sure we actively make this community safe - specifically for the female community here. ^_^

Having said that, @Laura , I think that it is time we have some sort of mechanism to actively stop this. As the size of the community grows, there are BOUND to be stalkers and spammers(already seen phishing links in forums). The goal is have an admin up 24X7, but ideally its impossible. Therefore this is my suggestion for it:

report button on profiles: For all reports, quality mentors(or someone??) should be able to temporarily hit suspend/remove the report till further notice...report option should have reason properly mentioned and a window to write in what happened. Then an admin, whenever online, can look into this issue.

If suspended, they can *still* see and use their account - with a caveat - their messages will hit a wall, so they dont know they are gone at all. It is like a temporary hellban. But it will be reversed by an admin, and given by a mentor - (we have one around almost all the time)

Reason why I want this to happen: suppose I am a listener. I want to harass someone(ofc not :P) I can send them a message. They block me. I send them message as a guest.they block again, clear cache, reset tcp ip stack, im back, or if I use a VPN god help I will harass everyone everytime

​Technically, implementation is a challenge, but very doable, most sites do this...and as a mature website we must have this in place. What are your thoughts, @GlenM , @ezraBC , @ krinkthemellowunicorn

This post is excellent, thank you for looking for a way to protect us

Though, this part kind of worries me:
2) Added censoring from the Member/Guest side. Note: We have no intention of hindering any member/guest ability to discuss a sexual problem. We will not censor specific words. Instead, we will censor specific phrases in which the context is clearly indicated.

What happens if the member is talking to us about an issue with someone else who was telling those specific phrases to them? I feel like if the censor keeps telling them it's inappropriate they might have a problem actually sharing their story with us, kind of like a barrier, when they had no intention to flirt or sext but are simply explaining what happened with someone else.

Thank you very much for addressing this! I believe that 7 Cups is a "Safe Place" for anyone to come, but has become infiltrated with people who have ignoble intentions toward other users. I would like everyone to feel safe and comfortable here as I'm sure anyone else would. Hopefully in the near future we will be able to reduce or completely purge our website of people who have intentions of harming our members through sexting or other inappropriate behavior.

I do have a question about the group support chat rooms: We have a few members/listeners that make female-targeted messages such as "Good night, ladies." or "Where are the ladies?" Should we address this in the chat rooms? If so, how should we go about doing it?

Since becoming a Peer Support and Mentor - I get many messages from newbie listeners who are women, sharing a confusing/upsetting encounter with a troll who wanted sexting in a 1-1 conversation.

It is disheartening -- most of these women have been listeners for less than three days. They have volunteered with lovely generosity to help people in need, and some of them have been subjected to distressing sexual harassment.

Here are some of the things we discuss:

-- We talk about how to tell the difference between a malicious exploitive troll who wants sexual gratification and a sincere member with a genuine issue regarding sexuality.

-- I give them links to forum threads regarding dealing with trolls.

-- With regard to members dealing with genuine issues regarding their sexuality, I let them know about the array of resources at 7 Cups regarding sexuality and gender issues.

-- I explain what to do about trolls (how to block/ban).

-- And we discuss what to do if they are uncomfortable chatting with a member about any issue that arises in a chat, including issues relating to sexuality:

I explain about how to ask for help in the listener chat rooms; how to ask if another listener can take the chat; and, if no one in the chat rooms can help -- how to suggest politely to the member that we lack the ability to help in this area and how to suggest that the member visit Browse Listeners to browse for a listener with expertise in that area). We talk about how to do searches in Browse Listeners, etc., which most of them don't yet know.

-- One thing I always suggest: I tell new female listeners that, during the first few weeks or months of being a listener, they may wish to refrain from taking Personal Chat Requests. It seems that many of the trolls target the newest female listeners because the newest rookies aren't sure what to do -- and will tend to remain in the chat longer.

The trolls often hunt for women who have recently become listeners, because the experienced listeners are more likely to Detect and Eject a troll pretty fast.

So it can be advisable to take chats from the General Request list for a while. There can still be problems, but the specific targeting of newbie women is eliminated.

I think this is an incredibly important thing to discuss on 7 Cups, as it also affects people outside of 7 Cups too. My sympathies go to those who have had to deal with this, or still are dealing with this, as you deserve much fairer and kinder treatment.

In my opinion this is demonstrative of a deeply sexist issue permeated among society, which consists of the dichotomy of Knight in Shining Armour, and Damsel in Distress. In this sexist perspective, women cannot possibly be satisfied with their appearance until they're suffocating in compliments, drowning any imminent self-doubt that they'd have. In this sexist perspective, a woman's worth is defined by her appearance, and is the top priority irrelevant of education, occupation, skills, interests, hobbies etc. In this sexist perspective, the Knights in Shining Armour complimenting women on their appearance is a sign of true valiance, bravery and courage, and must be rewarded with a "thank you" and it is the height of dishonour in this sexist perspective to deny the Knight in Shining Armour recognition of this brave complimenting.

What causes this to be such a problem is that there is such a lack of empathy from the person who advances the female on how they might feel, and is an example of purely egocentric thinking. It is an example of possessive behaviour, as the advancer seeks some sort of ownership of the female, as they see the female as seeking compliments from them somehow.

Specifically on 7 Cups though, this causes huge problems such as;
1) Unfairly targeting someone
2) Neglecting others
3) Sending out negative impressions about Listeners
4) Coerces that someone into a response
5) Deviates from constructive discussion
6) Makes people feel the need to show a picture of themselves in order to be noticed
7) Creates apathy towards 7 Cups

@Kane makes an incredibly vital point regarding there being negative reassurance. Many will respond that they were "simply being nice" and this is indicative of that person seeking approval of being nice, sweet etc, which is understandable yet it still remains inappropriate. You can't seek approval or validation at the detriment to the welfare of others, it simply isn't, and with good reason, tolerated.

@Laura I want to thank you so much for writing this, because some people believe that by virtue of being anonymous, they are free to say what they wish, and we must clamp down on that. People here need to feel safe and valued, and not targeted. We're here to help people, and that is our mission, and goal.

I would like to thank you for your well-written post, I wish I could upvote this more than once. I do strongly agree with. :)

@Laura

This is a important topic and I'm glad your dealing with it ! Over the last year iv supported a few members who have told me about things related to this ... I hope every listener on 7cups understands how harmful it is to become sexual with anyone the support here on this site 😊

@Lara

Thank you for putting this out and clearing this up for me