Secure Computing Saga Gets Weirder
March 9th, 2006So the whole Boing Boing vs. Secure Computing saga (my radio piece is here and NYT coverage is here) has gotten just a touch weirder.
From the NYT piece:
In an e-mail message to Xeni Jardin, another of Boing Boing’s chiefs, Tomo Foote-Lennox, a director of filtering data for Secure Computing, asked why the bloggers were starting a war. “We discussed several ways that you could organize your site so that I could protect the kids and you could distribute all the information you wanted,” Mr. Foote-Lennox wrote.
A couple of bloggers, Joi Ito, (who found the link from Sean Bonner) and Kathryn Cramer, and sex blogger Violet Blue have found that Mr. Foote-Lennox isn’t quite the “protector of kids” that he’d like to make himself out to be.
All those bloggers (and probably others) have found that Mr. Foote-Lennox turns up on Google’s Usenet Archives (aka “Google Groups”) under the alt.sex.diapers group, (for adult baby fetishists) in entries from 1996. He posts here inviting people to a party, and again here writing about that party.
Violet said it best:
I’ve lectured on panels with AB practitioners and pro-doms who specialize in AB play. This, however, is a particularly disturbing context for an AB fetishist. This is exactly the problem we’re facing; people like Lennox are likey *dangerously* confusing fantasy with reality. The important thing to remember, though is that AB and diaper fetishists are typically not sexualizing babies, though it is a very, VERY extreme type of fetish play that you need to really be articulate about. In my strong opinion, it is not a fetish that someone who works for, or with, children should be doing; how can anyone ever know where fantasy and reality merge in their minds?
Look, I don’t think it’s anyone’s business what someone does to get off in their private lives. But it’s a HUGE red flag when the person aggressively “protecting children” is into AB play; I’d way rather have a medical fetishist or a human pony — something neutral. Or at least a dominatrix, who spends her professional time negotiating the differences between fantasy and reality (often explaining these distinctions to AB’s). Now no one can ever know if Lennox knows what it means to be a responsible adult (especially one who can keep a fetish on a low profile). Either way, AB’s have a very different way of seeing children and childhood than the rest of us. The key thing with most ABers is that they typically don’t sexualize children — the want to *be* children in the worst way, and it’s usually the mommy figure that’s sexualized.
March 10th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
The Death Knell of boingboing
I’m not naive enough to believe boingboing will actually cease to publish. People find it interesting, and more importantly, they’re making cash. I have a history with Cory Doctorow. But, in this latest problem, he is only a cog in…
March 10th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
[...] This blog linked to my earlier post about the Boing Boing/Secure Computing debacle. [...]
March 11th, 2006 at 2:05 am
Listen all of you out in bloggerland. Adult Babies are real live adults who know the difference between the bedroom and the boardroom. You act all high and mighty saying stupid stuff like:
“This is exactly the problem we’re facing; people like Lennox are likey *dangerously* confusing fantasy with reality.”
You have NO PROOF that he does not know the difference between fantasy and reality. It is all conjecture and is destroying a man’s reputation for the sake of corporate animosity. You have no idea about his morality, you are just trying to smear his name because you don’t what he is doing in the corporate world. It is highly “likely” that you are all confused and don’t know the difference between an Adult Baby and a real Baby. It is also highly “likely” that those who smear him are idiots.
Adult Baby Bri – a moral adult baby who is a Christian
March 13th, 2006 at 10:17 am
I don’t really care whether or not you’re a Christian or whether or not you’re into AB. Fine. That’s your own business. This is the point:
April 16th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
I think that both sides have very interesting arguments. Very informative.
April 16th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
But the only thing about that argument is that it’s just like asking “which sex toy is better, a dildo or a vibrator?” You are always gonna have people saying that vibrators are better than dildos and you’re always gonna have people saying that dildos are better than vibrators. It’s a catch 22. How can a side ever win this argument?
April 16th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Who actually wins?