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# 2025-02-26 - Healing The Guru Curse by Mischa Byruck | |
I met a woman at a facilitator training a few years ago. She was in | |
tears because she was about to quit the environmental activist | |
organization for which she was a loyal volunteer. | |
The problem? The head of the organization, a man in his mid-forties, | |
had started sleeping with a young woman who had recently joined up to | |
volunteer. | |
Was their relationship abusive? I asked. No, she said. Not at all. | |
They both seemed happy. And besides, at this organization volunteers | |
and organizers routinely partied together and slept with each other. | |
But there was now a dynamic in the organization that she simply | |
couldn't abide. She felt unsafe, a clenching in her stomach that was | |
all the more troublesome because she couldn't fully rationalize it. | |
The other members of the organization felt the same as she did: | |
everyone was uneasy, but they couldn't say why: after all, who were | |
they to challenge anyone's sexual decisions? The relationship was | |
consensual, but it was destroying the organization. | |
# My Story | |
I'm a men's sexual integrity coach. I support my clients to turn | |
their biggest sexual and relational missteps into opportunities for | |
growth. I'm an education and accountability partner for Bonobo | |
Network, the Bay Area's premiere sex-positive community organization, | |
Bloom, the dating app for edge-of-culture communities, and the | |
Consent Academy. | |
http://www.bonobonetwork.com/ | |
https://bloomcommunity.com/ | |
https://www.consent.academy/ | |
Over the past 5 years I've worked with over a hundred men 1:1, most | |
of them leaders in their communities, supporting them in the | |
grinding, complex, and multifaceted journey of accountability. Often, | |
they're able to shift old patterns, repair with the people they've | |
harmed, and return to their communities better, safer, and wiser. | |
My focus has increasingly become on working with CEO's, organizers, | |
teachers, and thought leaders, who, when they fuck up around sex, | |
create exponentially more harm. I'm talking here about rape and | |
assault, yes, but also all the other more common forms of sexual | |
harm: misuse and abuse of power around sex, betrayal, cheating, | |
harassment, slander, emotional endangerment, and a myriad of other | |
more subtle energetic violations and transgressions. | |
I'm also often called in to support leaders who haven't committed | |
"transgressions," at all, but rather, as in the example above, have | |
"disrupted the field" in the spaces and communities they are in | |
charge of, by the WAY they have conducted their sexual lives. This | |
too is a form of sexual harm. | |
I got into this work because I too have caused harm with my | |
sexuality; misreading cues, misattuning, moving too fast, and failing | |
to recognize my power and influence in ways that have caused harm. | |
I've seen firsthand both how prevalent sexual harm is, and also, more | |
hopefully, how preventable so much of it can be. | |
And I am driven, as are so many of my fellow sex and consent | |
educators, sexual harm advocates, restorative justice practitioners, | |
and counselors, by a vision of a sexually liberated society that | |
holds accountability as its core value. | |
I also personally practice all the tools I'm going to describe today. | |
To begin with, I welcome any feedback and commit to receiving it with | |
gratitude and non-defensiveness. If you think I'm dangerous and want | |
to warn others, I invite you to report me via my website to my | |
external accountability supervisors: Angel Adeyoha, the head of | |
Folsom Street Fair (The largest leather and kink event in the world) | |
and Marcia Baczynski, the author of Creating Consent Culture. | |
http://www.evolve.men/contact | |
https://askingforwhatyouwant.com/ | |
https://www.creatingconsentculture.com/ | |
# Acknowledging Trauma | |
Before I begin, I'd like to first take a moment to acknowledge anyone | |
who carries sexual trauma, especially the people that my clients have | |
harmed. | |
Those who have lost sleep, tossing and turning with the image of my | |
clients in their heads. Those who have been forced to leave the room | |
when my clients have entered, who have been abandoned by their | |
friends because my clients were more popular or more powerful. Who | |
have experienced fear and pain during sex as a result of my clients' | |
actions. Those who have shed tears of rage at the impunity with which | |
my clients move through the world. | |
Thank you. | |
# The Evolution of the "#MeToo Men" | |
The prominent men called out through the #metoo movement were | |
originally in mainstream industries and large institutions: film, | |
news, politics and business. But #metoo has also seen the heads of | |
some counter-cultural organizations, and in particular, organizations | |
focused on sex themselves, brought to task for misusing their power | |
around sex. | |
The Neotantra schools Source Tantra and Agama yoga, Bay area | |
sex-positive communities Interchange and Organ House, Sex-forward | |
company One Taste, and The Center for Consciousness Medicine, and the | |
International School of Temple Arts (Currently a client), have all | |
been impacted by accusations of assault and abusing power around sex. | |
And this is to say nothing of the dozens of called-out sex educators, | |
polyamory experts, and authors, as well as the hundreds of | |
sex-positive dance collectives, polyamory communities, communes, | |
group houses, and other intentional spaces that have been torn apart | |
by sexual harm. | |
Often, the harm we see in these communities does not look like | |
assault or rape; but rather the diminishment of trust created by | |
leaders who seem unaware of both power and trauma, and how the two | |
can interact to create harm. | |
I call this the Guru Curse. | |
> The Guru Curse: the perceived inevitability that subcultural male | |
> teachers and leaders will do harm around sex. | |
# Sex-Positive Spaces and Their Leaders | |
Sexual harm is pervasive across the world, but it is worse when it | |
occurs in sex-positive spaces, and exponentially worse when the | |
leaders are the ones causing it. | |
I'm talking about the organizers, figureheads, directors, and | |
educators at yoga retreats, dance events, tantra schools, swingers | |
clubs, activist conclaves, Techy co-living spaces, kink dungeons, | |
transformational growth conferences, polyamory groups, psychedelic | |
journeying communities, and, of course, large-scale counter-culture | |
events like concerts and festivals. | |
Spaces that celebrate kink, queerness, and alternative sexual | |
expression (From nudity to orgies) are, for many, a refuge from a | |
mainstream world that has told those of us who love them that we're | |
NOT OK: Too loud, too weird, too slutty. | |
We come to these spaces to find acceptance, to seek pleasure, and to | |
free ourselves from the shame-based repression of our forebears. We | |
come to feel safe! | |
*And when we come, it is often from a place of scarcity, hunger, or | |
vulnerability.* | |
> To be in a sex-positive space is to take risks, with our bodies, | |
> our insecurities, our triggers, our traumas, and our reputations. | |
> And we put the energetic burden of these risks onto the organizers | |
> of such spaces. We rely on them to keep us safe, from others, from | |
> themselves, and even from ourselves. | |
> | |
> So when sexual harm happens within these kinds of spaces, it's | |
> often even more disappointing, and more harmful, than it is in the | |
> mainstream world. And when the leaders of these spaces are the ones | |
> doing harm, the disappointment is magnified into betrayal. Trust is | |
> shattered, communities reel, and everyone points fingers. | |
> | |
> Spaces where sex is welcome require new tools for leaders. And... | |
> these tools EXIST! Right now they're being developed by hundreds of | |
> communities figuring out how to love each other more safely. | |
# A Moment of Empathy | |
Before I go any further, I want to invite you into an exercise. | |
I invite you to imagine my clients. They're all men, and almost all | |
in positions of leadership. At times they have been creepy, | |
repeatedly bothered women, pushed for sex, ignored or steamrolled | |
past soft no's, been sexually aggressive, and sometimes directly | |
violated consent. | |
Are you imagining them? | |
Good. | |
Now, if you're willing, please pause and turn your attention to | |
yourself. And to a time that you harmed someone, maybe even around | |
sex or love. | |
Recall, if you're willing, the feelings of guilt and shame you | |
experienced. The fear of being discovered, the fear of being the | |
villain, the fear that you're a bad person. Remember the deeper | |
shadows too: the resentment towards the person you harmed, the | |
excuses you made, the rationalization and defensiveness and | |
denial. | |
Now think of someone seeing you do this, and drawing the WORST | |
possible interpretation, creating a story about you that disregards | |
the context, that flattens nuance, and that denies you the benefit of | |
the doubt. Imagine how hard they would judge you. | |
Take a deep, slow breath. | |
And now, I invite you to soften. To see the humanity of my clients as | |
you would want people to see your own. To see their pain and their | |
vulnerability, their vast complexity. I invite you to see that we are | |
all swimming in the same muddy waters that create entitlement and | |
insecurities and traumas and harm. We are all capable of harming | |
others. | |
Thank you. | |
# On Accountability | |
And thanks for sticking with me so far. | |
I talk a lot about accountability, but it's a misunderstood term. The | |
most elegant definition I've found comes from Danielle Sered, the | |
founder of Common Justice, one of the most prominent restorative | |
justice organizations in the world. She writes: | |
> "Often, people who recognize the harms caused by punishment seek to | |
> replace it with mercy. (Yet) mercy alone often fails to acknowledge | |
> the suffering of those harmed or to take seriously the | |
> responsibility of those who caused that pain... Accountability | |
> offers both of these. ... True accountability ... is a set of | |
> actions as equal and opposite as possible to the wrongful actions | |
> committed by the person who caused harm. It is the active exercise | |
> of power in the opposite direction of harm; as such, it is a force | |
> for healing." | |
The vision I mentioned earlier, of a sexually liberated society that | |
holds accountability as its core value, was originally articulated by | |
intersectional feminist pioneers like bell hooks and Audre Lorde, and | |
prison abolition movement thought leaders like adrienne maree Brown, | |
Mia Mingus, and Shira Hassan. It is a vision also influenced by the | |
Harm Reduction movement (Think needle exchanges and | |
decriminalization), the mythopoetic men's movement, organizations | |
like Evryman and Sacred Sons, and experts on supporting men's | |
transformation in a Patriarchal society like Terrence Real. | |
> Sex-positive leaders need a unique set of tools to lead with | |
> safety, and chief among these is the skill of accountability, | |
> rooted in a new understanding of the way that sex and power | |
> interact. | |
# Power-Imbalanced Sex | |
In my exploration of the harm that leaders do with sex, I've been | |
particularly inspired by the pioneering work of Oxford Philosophy | |
professor Amia Srinivasan, who writes about the ways that | |
power-imbalanced sex can be consensual but also systemically | |
damaging. | |
It's often the case that my clients are not violating consent at all, | |
but rather are neglecting their responsibilities as leaders, in ways | |
that lead to broader harm. The sex is consensual for the people | |
having it; but the people AROUND it are harmed. This insight runs up | |
against the common understanding, embedded incredibly deeply in all | |
facets of our liberal society, that "all's fair in love and war," and | |
that no one should ever question what "two consenting adults" are | |
doing. | |
So let's go back to that environmental activist organization. When | |
the executive director started sleeping with the new woman, here are | |
a few of the dynamics that began to play out within the collective: | |
Some of the people in the organization experienced jealousy of the | |
leader's new lover. Others began to realize their leader had now | |
become their romantic competition. Either way, many began to question | |
his ability to make impartial judgments about assigning | |
responsibilities and found themselves vigilantly ensuring that his | |
new lover wasn't receiving extra privileges or cushy assignments. | |
Others, especially the femmes, started to feel like prey: was sex and | |
flirtation now expected of them to get ahead in this organization? | |
There was resentment at being forced to wonder each morning before | |
coming in to volunteer: how much makeup should I put on? Am I now | |
being judged by how much I sexually appeal to our director? For | |
others, a more protective instinct kicked in: They feared the young | |
woman would be hurt, and then discarded, and their mistrust in their | |
leader grew. | |
All of a sudden, their workplace had somehow become centered on their | |
leader's love life: Will this relationship work out? What if they | |
break up? Will she be forced to leave? They didn't want to stand in | |
judgment of the way he dated, but it was unavoidable. | |
Some now found it harder to trust their leader to deal with other | |
sex-related harms fairly. After all, after displaying such ignorance | |
about the impact of his own sexual choices, how could he be trusted | |
to adjudicate fairly if one employee harmed another, especially if | |
the harm involved sex? | |
New questions emerged: Is this community a sexual free-for-all? A | |
meat market in which those with the most power have their choice of | |
those with the most conventional beauty? And in which the youngest | |
and conventionally prettiest have the most direct access to power, | |
through sex? And, if that's true, doesn't this belie the progressive | |
vision that brought us all together in the first place? | |
None of these questions were named, and none of them answered, and in | |
that silence, the people in the organization started to lose trust in | |
their leader. Their story became: "he's just here for his own | |
benefit: taking his pick of the women, and he'll discard this one | |
like he did his last girlfriend." | |
Soon the story became still worse, "Since our leader is willing to | |
incur the inevitable emotional fallout when he dumps this young woman | |
for the next one, it's clear that he doesn't care about hurting us, | |
the people who have placed our trust in him." | |
And so, the space was disrupted. There was infighting and gossip, and | |
everyone could feel the tension. Yet because the culture was supposed | |
to be sex-positive, and the relationship was clearly consensual, no | |
one even brought it up to him. And the leader, blind to the dynamics | |
he was creating, and convinced of his right to date whoever he | |
wanted, didn't shift course or examine his actions in context. | |
The parties continued, but they had a different energy now. People | |
began to analyze the leader's every move. The affectionate hugs and | |
flirtations that had previously felt endearing now appeared sinister. | |
People were on guard, unable to relax, and distracted from the work | |
they were there to do. The harm had been done. And so they began to | |
leave. | |
> The three lessons I take from this story, and the many, many others | |
> like it that I've heard, are these: | |
> | |
> First, power-imbalanced sex often hurts the people around it, even | |
> if those involved are consenting. | |
> | |
> Second, harm and distrust within sexual space quickly becomes | |
> pervasive without a studious awareness of how power and sex | |
> interact. | |
> | |
> And third, people's sense of comfort, safety and trust in a | |
> sex-positive space comes, first and foremost, from the knowledge | |
> that the leaders of that space will prioritize the health of the | |
> collective over their individual desires. | |
# What Works? | |
We're coming to the meat of my talk, which is all about the ways that | |
leaders in sex-positive spaces can create cultures of accountability | |
to reduce sexual harm. | |
Fortunately, I've been blessed to see many examples of power-aware, | |
trauma-informed, and joy-inducing leadership in sex-positive spaces. | |
These leaders aren't perfect, but they tend to have in common the | |
following skills: | |
* They navigate their power in a way that takes EVERYONE into account. | |
* They don't get defensive when they get called out. | |
* They know how to take accountability when they fuck up. | |
* They proactively seek out feedback. | |
* They have someone they are accountable to. | |
* They are open about past harms. | |
* They have their own set of rules that govern their actions, and | |
which make sense for them. | |
These leaders, and their communities, tend to be FAR more resilient | |
than those that indulge in the conceit that the only kinds of sexual | |
harm to care about are aggravated rape and assault, or that sexual | |
harm is only done by bad people; who insist on good-vibes only, who | |
deflect anyone who raises hard topics as an annoyance, or, on the | |
flipside, who are so unwilling to hold the complexities of harm that | |
they immediately eject anyone who may have done some. | |
# Three skills | |
Let's dive into the first of these three skills a bit more. | |
## Power-Literacy | |
When I say power, I'm talking about formal power like being the boss, | |
or the landlord, but also identity-based power through race, class, | |
gender, and ability, as well as more abstract privileges like beauty, | |
charisma, or confidence. I'm also talking about the power of not | |
holding as much trauma in your body as the person across from you, | |
and contextual power like social rank: being the most educated person | |
in the room, having a great reputation, having lots of friends, | |
having access to the drugs or the knowledge or the wisdom that's | |
elevated in the space. | |
> And what I've seen is that it's not the presence of power that | |
> creates problems; it's the delusional conceit that power's not | |
> there. That the boss shouldn't have to act any differently just | |
> because he's the boss; that the most experienced person in the room | |
> shouldn't have to show restraint; that the party host need not | |
> exercise additional discernment. | |
I can't tell you how many times I've seen good-looking, well-off, | |
charismatic, influential straight, cis, white men who are genuinely | |
shocked that they held so much INFLUENCE over the people around them! | |
Shocked that people might be dramatically impacted by even their most | |
offhand remarks! And humbled by the way that others, in sex, might | |
defer to them, silently accept their desires, and avoid disappointing | |
them even as they cause harm. (I have been this man, many times) | |
Strong leaders, however, tend to understand power well: they have a | |
sense of where their own insecurities and "blind spots" lie, and of | |
where they might inadvertently intimidate others. They make it a | |
habit to correct for the power differentials where they can, and not | |
to take advantage of them when they can't. | |
One way they defang power is simply by acknowledging it, which | |
establishes trust and fosters connection by creating a shared | |
reality. | |
These leaders can name the power dynamics at play when it's called | |
for, and they do so gracefully and skillfully, sometimes out loud, to | |
create a safer environment around them. Here's what it looks like: | |
"I recognize that it might be challenging to critique me since I'm | |
the organizer of the march, so I really appreciate any thoughts | |
you're willing to share." | |
"I'm the head of the organization that many of you work for, so I'm | |
not going to be the one in charge of distributing drugs, as that can | |
create an obligation dynamic which is dangerous in a sexual context." | |
## Non-Defensiveness | |
Leaders I admire invite feedback by demonstrating that when they get | |
it, they will respond with grace and humility, and a serious | |
commitment to change, rather than shutting down the person who | |
corrected them, appeasing and then ignoring them, or going into | |
denial or deflection. | |
Defensiveness is particularly destructive in a leader because it | |
signals to everyone that there's no willingness to change; that | |
critique will be received as attack. It's already immensely | |
uncomfortable to speak truth to power; but knowing that giving you | |
feedback will result in anger radically reduces the likelihood that | |
anyone will tell you anything. | |
> Honestly, it's an accepted trope among my colleagues in sexual harm | |
> prevention that the WAY someone reacts to being told they caused | |
> harm tells us most of what we need to know. | |
Effective leaders practice non-defensiveness by seeking our feedback | |
about even the tiniest offences and treating that feedback seriously. | |
It can look as simple as: "Thank you for telling me that I negatively | |
impacted you. I'm going to take some time to process this." | |
I recently worked with a major sexuality educator who had a pattern | |
of propositioning his teaching assistants. Before he found me, he | |
turned what could have been a relatively small course correction into | |
a multi-year-long-ordeal because he was so resistant and defensive | |
when his assistants, and eventually, others in his community, told | |
him that he was doing harm. When he finally did come to me we zeroed | |
in on developing this skill, and he finally "got it." He's since | |
returned to teaching with a rigorous rule against such flirtations, | |
and a much thicker skin. He now receives even the saltiest feedback | |
with seriousness, equanimity, and gratitude, which of course, sets | |
everyone around him at ease. | |
## Accountability | |
Have you ever seen someone who was told they did harm (Maybe it was | |
you) whose immediate reaction made the whole thing 10 times worse? | |
Of course you have. And it doesn't have to be denial, deflection, | |
gaslighting. I've seen plenty of public mea culpas that cause more | |
harm, further erode trust, and create more drama. | |
One of the MOST fundamental skills, perhaps the most fundamental, is | |
to know how to take accountability, restore integrity, and | |
communicate a genuine apology to people you've harmed and to the | |
community you're in charge of. | |
For leaders this means making private and public statements that name | |
the harm, acknowledge the impact, and list specific, actionable | |
things that they're doing to prevent similar harm in the future. | |
> I harmed you, it was selfish. | |
> | |
> I harmed you, and I could have done better. | |
> | |
> I could have wielded my power more consciously, but instead I chose | |
> to pursue my own agenda. | |
> | |
> I disrespected you and the community I serve. | |
> | |
> It was wrong. I'm sorry. | |
> | |
> And here's what I'm doing to prevent it from happening again. | |
I can't emphasize enough how important it is that leaders be able to | |
take accountability well. If the choice was between learning this | |
skill and having an official code of conduct, taking a consent | |
course, and bringing in an outside legal consultant, I would | |
recommend this. Any system or process can be dodged, any rule can be | |
danced around, and any course material can be ignored, if the energy | |
of accountability is not present. | |
# Four Tools | |
So far so good, right? Navigate power well, don't get defensive, and | |
know how to apologize! | |
But smart leaders of sex-positive spaces go beyond skills: they | |
deploy specific social technologies to mitigate their impact and | |
convey a sense of safety and trust to the people they are responsible | |
for. | |
## The External Supervisory Structure | |
The first of these technologies is the voluntary supervisor. | |
Many of the leaders I work with exist outside formal power | |
structures. They don't have bosses, they work in unregulated | |
industries like coaching or psychedelic-assisted therapy, or they're | |
the heads of informal and underground communities. There's no | |
built-in accountability at all! | |
And the smart ones know that, just being able to point out power | |
dynamics isn't enough--No matter how many courses they take and books | |
they read, there are perspectives and insights they'll miss. | |
This is where voluntary supervisors come in. | |
Basically, a leader finds someone they respect, ideally with | |
identities and backgrounds distinct from their own, and, essentially, | |
RELINQUISHES some of their power and autonomy to them. (In the same | |
way that many therapists have supervisors or nonprofit executive | |
directors have oversight boards) | |
These VOLUNTARY SUPERVISORS are people they check in with regularly | |
to review challenging situations. But they're not just advisors; they | |
have the power to tell a leader to stop organizing events, pause | |
teaching or working with clients, withdraw from leadership roles, | |
take specific areas of work off their plate, implement specific | |
policies in their organization, take supplemental classes, get into | |
therapy, stop drinking, and take a break from attending high-risk | |
social events or engaging in high-risk sexual activities. | |
For example: A rabbi I know is a single man, recently divorced, and | |
actively dating. When he started at his current rabbinical post he | |
immediately secured an ethics advisor who he meets with twice a month | |
to review his dating life and ensure he's managing his power and | |
influence wisely and for the good of the community. Amazing! | |
## The Public Call for Experiences | |
The next one is all about seeking out feedback proactively. It's the | |
Call for Experiences. | |
It looks like this: A leader makes an announcement requesting that | |
anyone who's had an experience with him share it with a small group | |
of people, ideally respected leaders with diverse backgrounds. That | |
group then gets together, reviews the responses, and identifies | |
patterns that they then relay back to the leader in a way that is | |
completely anonymous. | |
This kind of process is often part of a larger "accountability | |
process" for someone after they've done harm, but it doesn't have to | |
be! It can just be a proactive one. It's a useful way to demonstrate | |
an interest in understanding your own patterns. I've done it, and | |
it's definitely scary, but it's doable, and becoming more common. | |
An example of this is one man I recently worked with who had gotten | |
kicked out of a number of his communities, and was being prevented | |
from starting his own. So he paused, stepped back, and launched a | |
public call for experiences. I worked with some of his community | |
members to summarize the feedback, and, after six months of work on | |
himself based on the feedback of over a dozen people, he was able to | |
put out a public restoration and shift some of the ways he was | |
acting. He was authentically repentant, repaired where he could, and | |
his bravery in self-examination earned him back a lot of the trust | |
he'd lost. He reintegrated into his communities and set a positive | |
example for hundreds of others! | |
## Preemptive Disclosure | |
One of the most powerful ways to lead is by letting business | |
partners, students, podcast hosts, volunteers, colleagues and others | |
in your orbit or who are staking their reputation to yours, know | |
about harm you've done, especially in your recent past. | |
* I've seen teachers who include this in an upfront statement before | |
they start a class or workshop: "I caused harm last year, and was | |
in a process about it, and this is what happened.:" | |
* I've seen participants at burning man who joined a new camp and | |
proactively let their camp lead know about having done harm in a | |
previous camp. | |
* I've seen therapists who let prospective clients know about a past | |
breach of integrity, and how they handled it. | |
Now, sharing anything about your past is always a controversial | |
decision. It's a legal liability, and in many situations can be | |
dangerous to your reputation. That said, I've also seen people keep | |
the skeletons hidden and have it came back to bite them--they apply | |
and then get turned down for jobs, housing, and communities, even | |
after years, because of the rumors they never proactively addressed. | |
This isn't a one-size-fits-all all practice. None of these are. Every | |
situation is different, and they all require human connection, | |
relationality, and conversation. | |
## Personalized policies, rules, and standards | |
The last area to address is how leaders go about ensuring, as I | |
described before, that they are placing the health of the collective | |
over their individual desires. | |
The most basic and obvious way, of course, is for leaders to abstain | |
from sex with anyone they're in any way a leader of. But that can get | |
complicated, if for no other reason than that sexual repression tends | |
to breed abuse. | |
So the most creative leaders come up with their own standards, based | |
on recognizing their own patterns and weak spots. | |
* One person I know has a consistent practice of asking peers to | |
review a potential sexual connection for negative potential impact | |
before engaging in it. | |
* One man I know, a prominent head of a sex party organization, has a | |
rule of never hooking up with anyone who's been around for less | |
than a year. (This one might have been supportive at that | |
environmental nonprofit) | |
* A woman I know has the rule of thumb that she doesn't share sexual | |
energy with anyone who still sees her as a leader or influencer | |
first, rather than a whole-ass human. | |
* Some people's rule is simply never to initiate first. | |
* Others never combine sex with drugs. | |
* Still others use a waiting period: 3, 6, 12 months before hooking | |
up with anyone they've had power over. | |
These rules might sound arbitrary or inadequate, but people are | |
complicated, and they tend to BREAK rules imposed on their sexual | |
freedom, especially by others. | |
What works is for leaders to develop a deep sense of their own | |
integrity, to understand the power they have over others, and to use | |
that understanding to drive their accountability practices. | |
# Towards our Sex-Positive Future | |
We've talked about how easy it is for leaders to harm within | |
sex-positive spaces, and some of the ways that smart leaders are | |
adjusting their practices to reduce harm and role model | |
accountability. | |
We're nearing the end, and I'm so grateful to you for sticking with me. | |
> If I'm going to leave you with one idea; one concept, one tool | |
> above all others; it's the importance of accountability: the active | |
> exercise of power in the opposite direction of harm. | |
The truth is, Being a leader in a sex-positive space is incredibly | |
difficult. When leaders let their guards down, others tend to put | |
theirs up. Their instincts and desires, which they, like us, have | |
fought so hard for the right and the courage and the freedom to | |
express authentically and without shame, can so easily cause those | |
around them to feel less safe. | |
Meanwhile, people will inevitably project all their biases, | |
prejudices, and traumas onto their leaders in ways that no one can | |
ever completely prevent or control. | |
> I believe in sex-positive spaces and communities as fundamentally | |
> liberatory projects, but they can also too easily re-traumatize the | |
> people in them, fostering trust and then shattering it, and | |
> recreating the same oppressive, shame-filled, and harmful dynamics | |
> that we're all trying to escape. | |
# Accountability is Liberation | |
I've found it both true and useful to see the harm we do as rooted in | |
systems of oppression, like Patriarchy, and White Supremacy. | |
I have pushed for emotionless sex in the past in part because, as a | |
man, and like so many others, I've been raised to evaluate my worth | |
based on the notches on my belt, and somewhere along the way I lost | |
the parts of my humanity that would immediately recognize such | |
actions as harmful. I've needed lots of coaching, therapy, and | |
corrective experiences to return to my humanity, but most of all, | |
I've needed accountability. | |
It's only through accountability for the harm I cause under | |
Patriarchy, without shame, blame, or excuses, that I've begun to free | |
myself of the alienation, superiority, and entitlement of modern | |
manhood. | |
It's only through accountability that I've ever felt free of the | |
fear, guilt, shame and self-loathing of those who do harm. | |
It's only through accountability that my clients ever really lift | |
from their shoulders the weight of community condemnation. | |
And it is only by living accountably, preventing harm where I can, | |
owning it when I can't, and constantly striving to improve, that I | |
feel secure in my leadership. | |
For when we take accountability, without evasion or minimization or | |
deflection, we heal rifts in the fabric of our society that we don't | |
even have the words to describe. And when leaders pursue | |
accountability as a way of being, they create healing not just for | |
the people they've harmed, but for everyone whose lives they touch. | |
> Accountability is liberation for all of us. | |
# Accountability is key to community resilience | |
The incomparable bell hooks, in her book all about love, called on us | |
to center what she called "the practice of love within the context of | |
community." | |
And truly, what could be more loving than taking accountability for | |
the harm we do to each other? | |
Fucking up and then fixing it well actually fosters TRUST, the key | |
element that was destroyed at that environmental organization I | |
described, and that clearly, despite the shared mission and all the | |
sex parties, wasn't really there to begin with. If it was, then | |
someone would have raised the issue with the leader. | |
> The more we trust each other, the more resilient our communities | |
> become. | |
So many communities break up after their leaders refuse to take | |
accountability for harm! We cancel each other, abandon each other, | |
eject each other from the community, get lost in a morass of justice | |
processes, pods, investigations, mediations, punishment, and | |
recrimination. | |
That's why I believe the key to community resilience is not process | |
or procedure; it's for everyone, starting with our leaders, to | |
authentically care about accountability, and to PRACTICE IT | |
THEMSELVES through power-awareness, non-defensiveness, and proactive | |
harm redution and prevention. | |
Leaders who consistently deepen do this, and who have the humility to | |
know they can't see everything, who pre-empt the inevitability of | |
harm by setting up systems for themselves to support their own | |
integrity, who know how to deal with harm as it arises and are not | |
afraid to face it, foster trust and inspire others. | |
And THIS, my friends, is how we build a new future. | |
> We must liberate our understanding of justice just as we have | |
> liberated our sexualities, balancing the ecstasy of sexual freedom | |
> with the sobriety of skillful prevention and repair. We accept that | |
> sexual liberation brings with it a massively increased potential | |
> for harm, and therefore immense new responsibilities for those who | |
> so bravely step forward to hold the spaces in which our liberation | |
> can occur. | |
We must humble ourselves before the immensity of the power we have | |
when people expose the most vulnerable parts of themselves to us, and | |
we must accept that our leaders will fall down on this path. We must | |
acknowledge that power is everywhere and we must learn to dance with | |
it with nuance and grace. We must center the possibility of change, | |
without letting anyone off the hook. | |
We must insist on complexity. And in doing so we will reduce harm and | |
begin to heal the Guru Curse. | |
Another world is possible. | |
I'll see you there. | |
From: https://medium.com/@mbyruck/healing-the-guru-curse-0bda268b824a | |
tags: community,counterculture,gender | |
# Tags | |
community | |
counterculture | |
gender |