How We Have Fulfilled Requests, Part 5 of 10
This post (5 of 10) is a portion of our larger report on “How We Have Fulfilled Requests of People Who Have Reported Harm.” Follow this link for an introduction to our terminology, how we facilitated and organized requests, and for a table of contents for each request.
Accountability Request 5:
For Charlie to unlearn his abusive behaviors and beliefs and replace them with behaviors and beliefs that respect his partners, peers, and the community.
Like tending a garden, transformation requires long-term effort; we have worked to sow seeds of change and offer fertile spaces for practice that we hope Charlie will continue to water and harvest for years to come. In response to requests that Charlie unlearn abusive patterns, the team has regularly tasked Charlie with journaling and prompted reflections, using “put yourself in this person’s shoes” and other directed empathy exercises to help him identify the variety of ways certain behavioral patterns might impact others. Some of the processing of this reflection work has been conducted in small group settings, full team meetings, and dialogue/listening circles which utilize a more formal way of sharing, connecting, and relating. We have also shared many resources, primarily but not exclusively in written format, to help him dig deeper and expand his practical understanding of challenging topics. This has also involved directly asking, confronting, and challenging Charlie (sometimes with his own prior writing on privilege) to own up to the times when he consciously and/or subconsciously chose to prioritize his power over others, to explicitly name and/or accept what benefits he was getting from his harmful behaviors, and to think of these issues not just through a lens of “empathy for another feeling harmed” but also through a lens of “these are the reasons I have chosen my behaviors and the ensuing benefits even when they harm others.” Additionally, this has involved Charlie digging into his own history to see how these patterns were learned and ingrained before any of us began working together, while not using that as an excuse for continuing them. Related to other asks, we also supported Charlie in looking at the professional ethical codes relevant to his past and present work, journal about how he related or didn’t to those standards, and help create a list of ethical principles he could relate to and/or abide by, especially when in industries that may not be as regulated. Part of this work helped yield a new consent policy and ethos for himself.
Multiple Contributors called on Charlie to attend regular therapy sessions. He was doing so before the pod’s formation, and since that point, the pod has regularly given Charlie prompts and topics to discuss during his therapy sessions. This most often occurred in small group meetings with the narrative collection team. On at least three occasions, they pointed out patterns, themes, and/or Charlie’s responses that needed deeper examination with a trained therapist. Additionally, the pod has shared its own updates with Charlie’s therapist at least four times, in conjunction with major points in our process. Charlie has, in turn, shared much of his in-therapy reflections with the pod in the forms of journaling and/or discussion.
Another Respondent requested that Charlie participate in a sex offender remediation program. We researched current offerings for those types of programs but were unable to find any community-based or dedicated programs other than those for people who have been formally charged with sex crimes. Such programs require a court order or legal sanction to enroll. We have invited community members to recommend programs that ideally follow a transformative justice approach or related ethic.
Here are some non-exhaustive examples of specific pod members’ contributions and some of the smaller-group and 1–1 meeting topics that support this request for unlearning and replacing harmful beliefs:
- Pod member Rachel Drake (she/they) has worked with Charlie on understanding his position as a leader in his field and the subtle, nuanced, complex, and evolving power dynamics of sex education. As a result of this work, he refined his consent practices around his students, workshop participants, peers, event planners, and demo models. These discussions led him to develop and share his professional consent policy.
- Pod member Bee Buehring (they/them) led work with Charlie about unlearning behaviors and belief systems such as internalized white male supremacy. They prompted him to look at the ways these belief systems can manifest within interpersonal dynamics (e.g. feelings of entitlement to spaces and access to people, unexamined attitudes of superiority or “rightness,” and mansplaining).
- Pod member Sarah Sloane (she/they) worked with Charlie to understand the importance of disclosing the accountability process to potential clients during the onboarding process (detailed in Request 8), focusing on ethics as sexuality educators and coaches, as well as exploring emerging and “better” practices in the field. Sarah also spoke extensively with Charlie about better practices for interactions with students, demo models, and event planners.
- Pod member Xiomara Giordano (she/her/they/them) worked with him on screening out potential clients who may not be an appropriate match because of their past trauma and his own past trauma and patterns of harm.
- Due to the structure of our team and people’s individual needs, the primary consultant, Aida Manduley (they/them), did not meet with Charlie one-on-one once the pod was formed (they did so beforehand, or later on in conjunction with Andy Izenson, who was another initial consultant that eventually pared down his participation). Instead, they shared their insight, advice, resources, and strategy in group settings and via digital means. Some of their most powerful contributions toward this request involved direct confrontations of Charlie and the strategic use of documentation and receipts. Aida also named and helped the pod examine concerning dynamics within the team, especially when Charlie was deploying his harmful behaviors with the group and when some pod members entered patterns of appeasing him or focusing on overstating positive change outside of context. They helped guide the pod and Charlie toward these requests and our overall accountability goals by offering relevant resources and information, helpful reframes, and alternative actions to use or consider using. Aida also regularly challenged and supported Charlie to explore the nuances of hypothetical scenarios as well as events and interactions that had taken place.
Follow this link to go to the Request 6: Meaningful apologies to individuals and the sex-positive community.
Follow this link for an introduction to our reporting on requests and a table of contents for each request.
