AIBU to say that if you work in child protection you shouldn't post pictures of yourself wanking at work in fetish gear?

[ArcheryAnnie]

People do all kinds of things in their private life, and - as long as it's all consensual, and involving adults, in private - that's absolutely fine with me. Even if it involves fetish stuff that I find deeply unsexy. It's your private time and your business.

But if you bring your fetish into work, that's really inappropriate. Involving other people in your kink without their consent is not OK.

If you bring your fetish into work and take time to entertain yourself in the loos with it, that's way, way beyond really inappropriate.

If you work in child protection campaigning, and bring your fetish into work, and take time to entertain yourself in the loos with it, and take a photo of yourself while doing it, and upload that photo onto the internet, then you probably need to consider whether a career in child protection is really for you.

(And if you are doing this while working on campaigns about abused and neglected children, you should not be surprised when people ask what made you so aroused.)

And dear NSPCC - who I used to have a direct debit to, and who used to be in my will - people objecting to this are not being homophobic or "bullying". Many of who are objecting to your staff member's actions are ourselves gay. We just seem to have a better grasp of safeguarding than you do.

From the other thread:

GColdtimer
It has been pitched to the Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph, the Times and the Sun. The Sun has everything that was in the public domain on Saturday including a transcript of the video.

Make of that what you will.

All Bergdorf needed was some proper training as to why that was inappropriate. It's a general problem when you get celebrities to be 'ambassadors' for a charity: they quite often say and do stuff which is well-intentioned but stupid.

I don't know, maybe sleb ambassadors are different in terms of what we can expect of them, but really, why should anyone get a job for which they are deeply unqualified? No-one's going to give me a job if I say I haven't got the faintest idea about the basic principles, but all I need is some training.

Although of course, maybe this doesn't apply to sleb ambassadors, though normally, if you choose someone to represent you, it's someone who has a personal interest and experience in that particular subject: People who represent Gingerbread have either been single parents or grew up in a single parent family. So to some extent, at least they have some kind of background in whatever it is they're representing even if they're not in-depth experts. Bergdof has no track record at all with child protection. I suppose Bergdof was a child once and therefore maybe that's where the synergy is, but given that Bergdof actively supports stuff that goes against basic safeguarding, it's just not a good fit. Bergdof is the most bizarre choice they could have had, Peter Stringfellow might have been as appropriate. I don't see it as something that could have been overcome with training.

I am amazed that celeb and talent officer is an actual job.

Clearly a slow day at the office. 😂

For those of you saying “it’s fine to go to work in full gimp”

Would be ok for a member of school staff to do so? I’m a teacher, so I’m assuming you wouldn’t want me slipping a rubber suit on under my work clothes? What about the admin staff, the reprograohics lady? The IT team? The cleaners? The caretaker? The business manager? HR? Finance guy? None of them are directly child facing?

Would it be ok if one - or all, maybe - had gimp suits on under their clothes and were playing out their fetish at school?

Go on, how far will you go on this fucking stupid liberal rollercoaster?

I agree it is not a child's job to make adults feel better. I was simply pointing out a reason why an adult might not disapprove of a child performer ie reasons other than a predatory interest in that child.

I'm so sorry to lower the tone of the debate...

But how fuckin' sweaty would you be wearing rubber AS WELL AS your smart work outfit?! And the wanking would just make it worse 🤢

TheHeathenOfSuburbia

I'm guessing a lot of talc must be involved.

If you spent your tween/teen days being bullied, feeling misunderstood and treated as bad and wrong and disgusting, seeing another kid be celebrated for the sort of things you dreamed about probably makes you feel better.

If a 10-year-old is dreaming about twerking in an adult only club and having money thrown at them, something has gone very wrong.

I'm guessing a lot of talc must be involved

I sacked a man for wanking and uploading a video online and it being linked to work. I also sacked a man for wanking in the toilets. Both straight.

Vile, entitled fetishtic males who get off on doing this kid of thing in public. Nothing to do with sexuality
and all to do with failure to understand basic boundaries - it's not a human right to wank at work ffs.

Still chuckling at NSPVC. Thanks Sandy.

HeyDuggees

Thank God there are employers who get it.

Besides anything else, as a hypothetical co-worker of someone so desperate to bring their kink to work, I haven't consented to be around someone's kink!

The kink community is always so emphatic that they understand consent better than all the boring normies - well, not if you are supporting this behaviour! Unless you have explicit consent from all others to engage in your kink in the spaces you share with them, keep it at home!!! How hard is this to understand ?

That old saying 'keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out' comes to mind in this situation.

If a 10-year-old is dreaming about twerking in an adult only club and having money thrown at them, something has gone very wrong.

Amen.

Also, fuck off Owen Jones, and take your pathetic misogyny with you.

"The kink community is always so emphatic that they understand consent better than all the boring normies"

Although this is often repeated, in my thankfully limited experience, this is far from the case. I have been to some clubs where my boundaries were stamped all over.

Never again.

Although this is often repeated, in my thankfully limited experience, this is far from the case. I have been to some clubs where my boundaries were stamped all over.

There's a great deal of gaslighting, coercive control, narcissism, abuse of power & manipulation present in this current storm.

All of course representing risk to Safeguarding & being features of abuse.

I see pp’s point re: Desmond and the American child beauty queen circuit, I noticed the similarities too but there is also a crucial difference here: in one video he’s shown on stage in an adult club at night, he comes on stage strips off his outer layers and dances while adults throw money onto the stage – all of which clearly mimics/ connotes stripping for money and sexual gratification of the audience, and this sexualises Desmond’s performance. This, for me, is problematic and suggestive of child exploitation; it looks an awful lot like grooming – one of the definitions of which, from the NSPCC site, involves encouraging inappropriate sexual behaviour for a child’s age. Similarly re: Bergdorf the NSPCC also warn against emotional connections with strangers who are adults. Also, is it me, or does Desmond look unwell? He reminds me of children suffering from malnutrition of some kind.

As for the workplace wanker, apart from anything else it seems like behaviour that would contribute to a hostile work environment, and like most people (and I have worked in some very liberal work environments) I don’t know anywhere where I could do something like this – with or without fetish gear – and video it for an open online site and not be hauled up for misconduct…in addition if overheard, even without the video coverage, I would expect to be regarded as making colleagues wishing to use shared bathroom facilities uncomfortable and/or intimidated. Telling work colleagues about masturbatory habits while in the workplace would be considered ‘hostile’ so actually doing it seems to me rather more problematic.

I don’t know if anyone is following Sarah Phillimore’s Twitter feed, she seems to be a family law barrister with expertise in child protection. She has written a formal letter to the NSPCC re: their intent to investigate their employee’s actions, her comments and subsequent Tweets if bona fide, which they appear to be, make for fascinating reading:

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1139186612506714112

Her tweets seem to have gone.

They are there. Just click the link a couple of times and it appears along with all the replies.

Desmond is Amazing is also on video simulating snorting ketamine.

I think anyone who would post online of them wanking in their work toilet is revolting no matter what their sexual orientation or organisation they work for. I work in education and if anyone did that I’m sure it would be seen as gross (in both senses) misconduct.

They’re still there Larry