Trigger Warning!

TRIGGER WARNING: The following trigger warning will mention several triggers. The mere sight of these words is toxic to some people, and therefore those people should stop reading now and go to bed. Unless something really awful happened to them in a bed once, in which case I apologize for not posting a trigger warning about the word "bed". I am sincerely sorry for any offence I may have caused and I will undergo sensitivity training forthwith.

TRIGGER WARNING: The word "rape" will appear in this post more than once. So will the words "gay", "trans", "man", "woman", and, oh, yeah, "polyamory"--trust me, that last one's there for a good reason, even if I can't figure out what that reason is--and if any of those pixel-patterns are traumatic for you, please retire to your safe space at once.

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YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
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Polyamory has come a long way since the early nineties when the word was coined. I only need look at my own coming-out process for proof of that.
Coming out of any closet is a scary proposition. Announcing to the world that you are different, and not just different but proudly, defiantly different--who wouldn't feel butterflies? And yet, for me at least, the reactions have been almost universally positive.  Not one friend disowned me. Nobody told me that I was to keep my mind and my hands off his wife or girlfriend. Many people were excited and happy for me; many others were carefully neutral, which amounts to the same. I only fielded a couple of viscerally negative reactions and even they weren't as negative as they might have been.

Anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about--go here and check this out.

I was prepared for much worse. Misunderstandings still abound about what it means to be poly--hell, the community itself has half a hundred working definitions, which doesn't help. But the rest of the world is apt to miss the common threads of honesty, trust and transparency that run through all those definitions. They're also unlikely to understand that "loving many" doesn't mean "desiring everyone"--in that way, poly is a lot like bisexuality. Regardless, I didn't face anything I couldn't handle. Could be that I wrote my coming-out post well enough to sufficiently lessen people's concerns. Could be that I'm just blessed with very good friends. I lean towards the latter explanation, myself.

My friends are as understanding as they can be--much thanks--but it's critical that people in a fledgling community band together, and so I have begun to seek out other poly people. Searching them out online is easiest: us polys don't t generally go around waving flags.
To that end, I joined one open international forum that has a few hundred Canadians on it, as well as a closed group on Facebook. And it's this Facebook group that has triggered (sorry) this post.

Closed groups are invite only: you click "Join Group" and wait for an admin to admit you. It took about twelve hours before I got my invitation. In that invitation was an admonition to read and comment on the rules thread before posting or commenting on any other thread--the Facebook equivalent of an end user license agreement.

This one was surprisingly long. There were more than two full screens, not just of text, but of text with links to more text--"Thou shalt not do such-and-such" and here's why.

It was immediately clear that this group is heavily moderated. The consequences for disobeying any of their rules were instant banishment and removal of the offending content. Moderation is a good thing in internet forums...in moderation. You want to keep the trolls down to a dull roar and combat the spam-bots. But this went way beyond anything that could be reasonably expected...by me, at any rate.

First rule: no cruising. Well, that's perfectly acceptable--I'm here to talk about polyamory with like-minded people and, well, yeah, meet some, for online values of "meet". I've said repeatedly that polyamory isn't about sex and "cruising' is the last thing on my mind. Okay, that's fine--so are all the sub-rules to this rule--no unsolicited friend requests, no 'stalking' and so on.

Second rule: treat everyone with respect. Well, yeah. Unless I'm treated otherwise, respect online is my watchword. Okay, so I agree to all this, I'm ready to join up, right?

Not even close.

The third rule was "do not put down anyone's polyamory". Okay, I have a wee problem here. I know that the monogamous world is full of people who think polyamory is a symptom of the moral decay of the universe, and poly people are exceeding wary (and weary) of being told they are evil degenerates. Further, there are many possible polyamorous configurations, any of which may work (or not) for the people involved, and just because you're in a polyfidelitous triad doesn't mean the non-hierarchial polycule across town is doing it wrong; and neither is the solopoly girl in the next town over, and for those of you who think I just lapsed into Martian, there's an exhaustive glossary here, which you are under no obligation to look at as it's tangential to my point.

My point being there are lots of right ways to do poly-there are also ways that are very, very wrong. (pdf) And if I see somebody screwing up, or about to screw up, their relationship and hurt any number of people including themselves, you're damn right I'm going to call them on it.

Moving on.

"Check your privilege". So help me, I had to look that up using the link provided, not because I had no idea what white privilege or male privilege or hetero privilege was, but because I couldn't figure out what the hell any of that had to do with polyamory. No matter, there would be zero tolerance for posts exhibiting privilege--they and their posters would be forcibly removed.

"You are not allowed to discuss Dan Savage in this forum". Wait, say what? Dan Savage is--well, I won't say he's a hero of mine, but I respect him highly, both for his It Gets Better Project and for his humorous, earthy and usually dead-on advice column.  Still, maybe there's something I don't know about him, some awful thing he did that makes him persona non grata. Better click the helpful link to find out what it is.

Oh dear Gawd.

Repeated Use of the 'T' Word--spelled "t****y" on the site, because "tranny" for "transexual" is obviously grossly insensitive.  Clap the man in stocks. He was also berated for his "sex-positivity", which led one woman to feel she could not say no to any sexual request. I've been reading Savage Love almost since its inception and I can state with absolute assurance that Dan Savage understands and respects people's right to say "no" to anything they are uncomfortable with.
There are a large number of other gripes, all of which have to do with Dan Savage's opinions that somebody obviously disagreed with. How sad, that somebody's response to an opinion they disagree with is to try to remove it from their sight. I just bet the next rule is going to be about

"You must post trigger warnings if you discuss anything offensive or traumatic. This is a safe space. Failure to do so upon request will result in immediate banishment and removal of the offensive content."

Sigh.

Okay, I'd better get my feelings clear out front here. If you have been raped, abused, assaulted, bullied,  exploited or hurt in any way at all, I'm here to lend as much support as I can give. I have been through my own dark hells, and I empathize with those most of you who have been in hell--or who are still there, for that matter. I care. I really do. Often too much--it's a failing of mine. If you suffered something traumatic, and you are beset by flashbacks and other personal demons because of it--please, seek the help you desperately need and make steps towards healing. I'll help as best I can.

But I can't make it didn't happen.

I can't assure you that from this moment on you're never going to be hurt again and I certainly can't
remove the trauma and all its associated words from your sight. At some point you have to--ahem--suck it up, buttercup. As bad as whatever you went through was, you are not alone in your hurt and you are not entitled to live off it indefinitely.

I've longed for warnings myself--usually when somebody posts one of those horrific animal-abuse stories on Facebook "to raise awareness"--gee, thanks, I knew bad shit happens to animals already and I didn't need the visual reminder. And I would also expect some kind of warning before a graphic image or description is displayed. But what any of that would be doing in a forum dedicated to multiple committed loving relationships is a mystery for the ages. Apparently there's so much of it in there that the mods can't deal with it on a case-by-case basis but instead have to post extensive warnings against it and require strict compliance as a condition of joining.

It's not that I want to go out there and deliberately offend, let alone hurt, anyone. It's that I feel very much like these kind of restrictions make it impossible for an honest, frank discussion on anything at all. If you are so terrified of being offended and hurt that you have to remove all possibility of either--what, pray tell, are you doing on the internet?







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