Volunteer Moderating is FUN!

I've been a devout fan of a particular dating site known as OK Cupid for a good long while now. Someone I met in Iraq (yes, that same someone) introduced me to it not long after we first met. It's not like Facebook or Match.com, it's actually daily comprehensive, the results you get are almost a direct result of the "effort" you put into your profile. Pictures, paragraphs, interests and thousands upon thousands of humbling, hilarious & downright bizarre questions you can answer to better make your best "match" on the site.

And if you've been a good boy/girl for long enough, you MIGHT BE selected to be an anonymous "moderator" for  site content. 

Sound strange? I guess, rather than pay flesh & blood humans to scour the site looking for pictures of penises or Ryan Gosling, they leave flagged pictures and profiles to be whooshed into a cue for moderators to comment & vote on. OK Cupid's site has rules about what kind of photos can be posted and what can't, and every so often some people don't pay attention. On occasion, neither do the "anonymous" moderators. 

Sometimes, the results are fucking hilarious: 

I'd date Optimus Prime, but I wouldn't want to have sex with him.

Turns out it was a fake profile, but still... Is this Magicarp's hipster daughter?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of legalizing & regulating consensual sex-work, but wouldn't RedTube be a better place to go for something like this? Besides, how do I know this isn't false advertising? Are you SURE you're not a cop? Because if you say you're NOT, then I don't have to do anything you say.

And THIS is why that whole "Friend-Zone" thing is bullshit: You are not entitled to another person's affections if they don't consent to your desires. Move on, get over her. Maybe the "non" sex worker has an available appointment slot, IDK.

I swear this isn't a joke, someone ACTUALLY used this for their profile picture. WAIT, it gets better...

Sometimes people will photoshop their faces onto the bodies of other people/animals/machine, which is technically not allowed. Photos taken with filters with SOME modifications are one thing, but something about this photo set off my gaydar in a bit of a Silence Of the Lambs kind of way.

You caught it alright, caught the BAN-HAMMER!

Every so often, someone finds a profile that exists JUST to advertise really weird things to people, which is also not allowed. 

Then there are moderators who don't pay attention to what they've flagged. In this case, the picture marked Not The User actually DOES feature the user in a very... INTERESTING situation.

Fucking hipsters...

OH WAIT, now it's getting interesting!

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If you're squeamish you might not want to keep scrolling (NSFW)

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This guy is actually a repeat offender. Really, WHY?

I just don't get why guys post dick-pics on otherwise public dating sites. What are they thinking? Do they really honestly think "I'mma show my dick to strangers on the Internet, because THAT'LL get bitches to talk to me! LMAO TURN UP!!" If THAT is your honest strategy, or if you just have THAT MUCH free time on your hands, you fail at life & trying to attract the affections of someone just as shallow and insecure as YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE should be the least of your immediate concerns. 

The Long Hard Road out of Hell

I just concluded a two-hour long interview with a representative from Human Rights Watch about everything that my Unit put me through in Iraq. I'm extremely optimistic about the outcome of this painfully lengthy but very necessary documentation process, it makes things "official" that I'm not just shouting into the abyss with my story. Many survivors of military sexual trauma seem to get the feeling that nobody wants to hear their sob stories, and I admit that for a good long while I had been feeling the exact same way. But NOW, despite feeling residual reverberation from re-telling every horrible little incident & detail, I'm actually feeling pretty good about this.

THIS is the point of no return, I cannot recant or retract my public testimony at this point, and despite all the pain this whole ordeal has caused me I wouldn't want to.

It's entirely possible that things might get harder for me in some ways now, but this needed to happen: Today I stood in the middle of the road directly in the path of the tank that wanted to crush me, I have stepped up the game and I AM WINNING.

I say this a lot, but I'd like to thank each and every person, podcast & project that has given me a platform from which to speak out. 

I have A LOT OF BEERS to buy for people ^_^ 

Well Fuck You, Too.

Yesterday, 45 Senators voted to filibuster the Military Justice Improvement Act. Senator John Boozeman of Arkansas was among them, which comes as a colossal disappointment considering that he e-mailed me PERSONALLY going on about how "committed" he was to "solving this very serious issue."

Okay, Mr Senator, I guess elected officials who (are supposed to) work off of tax-payer money just do whatever the fuck they want, then? Many of you rally up and absolutely worship Servive-Members & Veterans, yet once the polls close and you manage to get re-elected you lot step all over us like we're mere insects.

Don't worry, Mr Boozeman, your party's arrogance will continue to do itself in over then next decade or so and hopefully you'll never again have to suffer the pressures of actually making good on your own words. 

Signed,

JENIFER L CHADBOURNE (A Veteran you {oh you WISH!} bent over a desk yesterday)