I'M A PERSON AND I DESERVE TO HAVE EQUAL INPUT INTO MY OWN RELATIONSHIPS

... and I also deserve the right to get pissed off when someone insults me and that person ought to feel the effects of pissing someone off.

There has been some discussion in several venues lately about primaries and secondaries in the poly community.   We did a Poly Weekly segment about it (coming out next week), it's been a discussion topic in several online and in-person discussions, tacit wrote a post about prescripting primary/secondary in order to create a delusion of control against change, and then RedPepper started a thread about it in the polyamory.com forums.

I had decided to rant about the primary/secondary issue because it kept coming up and I kept getting angry over it, but what sparked the *direction* of the following rant was the argument in the polyamory.com forums.   I've had a few run-ins with the members of the polyamory.com forum members, and this last one was the final one - I'm dropping my account the way I did when the old PolyMatchMaker forums had the same kind of people. I hear PMM has changed now, so I may re-sign up, at their request.

I've had it up to here with passive-aggressive and ego-centric behaviour.  I am sick to death of people who take every mother-fucking statement as a personal attack, whether it was directed at them or not, and whether the "attacker" even said whatever it was that got their panties in a bunch.  I am sick to death of getting into a discussion or debate on an important topic only to spend the next 8 fucking pages saying "I didn't say that, I said this and I was responding to [your quote here]".   And I am royally sick of moderators allowing people to be repeatedly insulting and offensive, as long as they say it with nice words, even after it has been repeatedly, politely pointed out that it was insulting, but when I'm fed up with being insulted, getting MY posts blocked because I didn't bother using nice words to express my frustration.

Sorry, but using cuss words is not the only way someone can make a "hostile and inflammatory attack".  I don't appreciate the way everyone else has to pacify and pander to a handful of the most vocal members because they get their feelings hurt everytime someone disagrees with them and they take it as a personal attack.  Being forced to defend myself every time I make a statement because someone thinks I was personally insulting *that person* is tiring and puts me on the defensive from the outset as I try to out-think how someone might possibly interpret something I said as "offensive" when I know damn well that I wasn't talking to or about whoever it is that will throw a hissy fit, or when I am talking to someone in particular but there's just no way to cushion the truth any more and still have it resemble the truth.  Especially when I and 2 or 3 others have already rephrased it as many ways as we can think of and people are still misinterpreting, or worse, outright saying the opposite.

I'm sick of people making generalizations like "all monogamous people are inherently selfish" and "a mono mind will read a book about polyamory and interpret its spirituality content differently than a poly mind" and "all women are bi and all men are straight" and "all men take flirting as a promise while all women naively take flirting not seriously", while those same exact people read a post that says "Poly people who make rules out of fear are insecure" and say "hey, not all people who make rules are insecure, you shouldn't generalize like that!"  And I'm fucking sick to the point of blind, spitting, rage of people saying that my relationships "don't count" because they're long-distance or not live-in or I wasn't there first, and that the primaries are more important than the secondaries, whomever they designate as "secondary" by whatever arbitrary limitations they place on relationships they're not in.

What strikes me most about this topic is that, over and over again, people don't seem to see any problem with saying "My life is more important than yours, therefore if we start dating, we require you to rearrange your life to suit our issues so that you make no meaningful impact on our lives.  We have it just as we like it and we don't need you coming in and messing that up, so we're going to limit your impact."   People continue to justify treating their future partners like threats, like criminals guilty until proven innocent, like dating is an adversarial relationship and all efforts must be made to preserve the status quo at all costs.  The new guy is the enemy and we have to protect the primary relationship against possible and unknown CHANGE, whether we know if that change will be good or not.  

"We want to have a relationship with you, but we don't want to, y'know, CHANGE anything about our lives to accomodate that new relationship.  Our lives should look exactly the same as it does now, except we get sex from you and we get to say we're dating you (but only when we want to say it, you're not allowed to decide when we say it). You do all the changing to make sure our lives stay exactly the same while still giving us sex and dating privileges with you."

And I have a BIG problem with that.  Why the fuck are you getting involved in any way with someone you view as a threat to your existing life?

Like non-religious folk for centuries, poly people who find themselves as "secondaries" (i.e. second-class citizens) to these selfish, self-centered, ego-centric, solipsistic assholes have been saying politely "um, y'know, I'd kinda like to have a say in my own relationship here, but since this whole relationship is new, I'm not going to insist that I be treated like a human being with equal rights because that might cause you to dump me".  OK, the non-religious or other-religious folk have been saying "uh, look, I have rights too, but I'll sit quietly over here, not demanding my rights, because you might kill me."  But the point is still the same. Things don't get changed when only one side is being polite and the other side goes on happily tromping all over the other side's life, liberty, and dignity.

So I'm not going to be polite.  In this post, I'm going to get angry.  I'm going to get emotional, raging angry.  I'm going to cuss and I'm going to be mean.  I'm going to call names.  I'm going to talk in the second person because it more effectively illustrates my anger, so if you don't personally do this (even though you're in a pre-existing couple or you use the words "primary" and "secondary), then assume I'm not talking about you. If you don't do this, pretend you came across a letter to someone else because I don't want to hear "I do primary/secondary but I don't do it like this".

I don't fucking care.  If you don't do this, I'm not talking to you (but it might benefit you to be more aware of how other people might perceive you).  If you *do* do this but are in denial, the last thing I want to hear is your justification and rationalization for why it's *different* when you fuck someone over.

I think you people need to hear just how insulting, just how offensive, just how HURTFUL you are to the people you date.   Too many people who become secondaries are not allowed to get upset or angry, or if they do, it's after you've already dumped their ass and you don't see it.   If you do happen to get a glimpse, you get all self-righteous and defensive, saying that the other person just didn't respect your relationship. Well why should they? You don't respect them!

So I'm going to show you what your actions do to other human beings.  I'm going to lash out like the secondaries you treat like non-people aren't allowed to.  I'm going to attempt to hurt you with my words the way you've hurt them and the way they aren't allowed to hurt you.   I'm going to show you the hurt feelings, the rage, and the emotional tantrum THAT YOU CAUSED with your insensitivity and lack of empathy because I think you need to see.  Because those people you hurt are unlikely to show you themselves, and because those who have been burned by you and others like you are afraid to speak up publicly because we have to be polite and respectful of your oh-so-special primary-bond, because there isn't "One True Way" so no one is allowed to say "you're doing it wrong!"

Maybe if you had to suffer through the fallout of your actions, you people would be a little more sensitive and think about your partners a little more and yourself a little less.  Since you're already partnered & looking for those single polys whose lives are unimportant enough to be absorbed into yours, you won't ever feel what it's like to be in this position, so I'm going to yell and scream the way these secondaries can't ever do themselves in the hopes that SOMEONE will look at this and say "I never realized I hurt another human being so badly."  Ya'll seriously need a Breakfast Club detention session where you have to come face to face with the people you're hurting and SEE their pain.

Of course, the ability to accept that we contributed to another's pain is a sign of true maturity, and those who treat secondaries like this are still stuck in the kindergarten-phase of life, where the world revolves around them and everyone else's feelings are incidental, if noticed at all, so I'll be shocked if I actually achieve my goal.  Oh well, at least shouting makes me feel better, since I can't actually knock you people upside the heads to beat some sense into you.  Believe me, if that method showed any evidence of working, you'd all see what kind of physical temper I traded for this verbal temper I now express online.

---

( Make sure to put on your flame-retardent suit first because I'm going to piss a lot of people off )

Futile Sex Offender Overreactions

http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/02/what-this-crime-problem-needs

Once again, the knee-jerk reaction of punishing people way above and beyond the scope of the crime comes to bite us in the ass.  First, it was making post-incarceration rights so limited that thousands of registered sex offenders became homeless, thereby making them less easy to keep track of and less accountable for their actions and more likely to commit other acts of crime just to survive.

Now, it's no recourse for the falsely accused.

These parents were accused, ACCUSED - not convicted - of abusing their child.  They have since been cleared of those charges, but the law mandates that they go on the list as soon as they're accused, without waiting for a conviction of guilt, and now they can't get off the list.

So these people whom the law has determined are innocent of any crime are subject to punishment for a crime they did not commit FOR LIFE, including housing and job restrictions UNTIL THEY DIE.

Great move people.  I hope those who make these unnecessary and unjust laws find themselves charged with the same crime.  Not convicted, mind you, because I don't want anyone to actually suffer abuse at their hands, and being falsely accused better serves the point I want to make.  And to that effect, let's hope they're accused of something totally ridiculous, like public exposure where they face the threat of the same punishment as a child rapist before they're dismissed.   I want them to experience, first hand, the injustice they have created since they are incapable of feeling empathy for other humans without actually experiencing the same thing.

I get the pain and rage that comes from being a victim or loved one of a victim of a horrible crime.  I think they are totally justified and should be allowed to feel those emotions.  But policy should not be written based on emotions, it should be based on evidence and careful evaluation of the facts.  And the fact is that there is an entire suite of crimes with a HUGE range of severity that are all lumped together, and people who have served their time continue to be punished for life when other crimes of equal or greater severity do not.

There was also the case of the guy who was convicted of rape, falsely accused by a woman who got drunk, ditched her girlfriends to take a ride home with this guy, saw her friends later who promptly got pissed at her for ditching them, and claimed she was raped to gain sympathy and avoid their anger. She stuck to her story through the trial and 4 whole years of incarceration before she confessed to her priest, who then badgered her into telling the cops.  She actually backed out of her promise to confess after she found out she was pregnant, but the priest watched her make and complete the phone call to the cops so she couldn't back out again.

What recourse or compensation does this guy get? He lost 4 years of his life, horrible experiences in jail that he will never be able to erase, and a charge of violent sex offender on his criminal record. His life is ruined.  The court system can't give him those years back, will we, as taxpayers who are responsible for footing the legal system's bill, or the girl pay for the years of therapy he might need to recover from his experiences as a convicted rapist in the prison system?  Will he be given housing equivalent to whatever housing he lost while in jail?  Will he be provided with a job of equal type and pay to make up for the one he lost?  Will his clothing and possessions be returned or replaced?  Will he be given back all the money he spent on his court battle, and any money lost while in prison and unable to access his funds?  Will his criminal record be wiped clean of this incident completely or will he be on the Sex Offender Registry for life like the poor couple in the story above?  Will that woman go personally to every one who ever knew of this man and explain to him that he is not a rapist, but that she is a selfish liar, to repair his reputation and the damage the belief in this lie caused to any relationships he had?

And what does the girl get for stealing this man's life? She'll get a year in jail for perjury, to be erased from her record when she completes her sentence & any probation she might be assigned.  Even if it stays on her record for a while, she is not subject to housing limitations, and employers won't see her with the same sort of prejudice they will see a man convicted of rape.  She destroyed a man's life & gets a fraction of the penalty the man she falsely accused suffered.  She stole his LIFE from him.  And our current justice system says "you naughty girl" while continuing to punish a man for something he didn't do.

Believe me, I totally get that women have a lot of injustices that we still need to make up for.  Men still make more money than women in the same job position, women are still shamed and intimidated from standing up for themselves and demanding justice.  A woman who does demand justice is often subjugated to further injustice in the pursuit of her own justice.  We still have a long way to go before true equality is met.

But we cannot be equal while continuing to demand special privileges.  Falsely accusing a man of a crime does not make up for the injustices that men perpetuate against women, and having fewer consequences does not level the playing field, it tries to turn the tables around to an equally unlevel field, just in the other direction.  

I am not trivializing rape here for pointing out the injustice of a man accused of rape getting a harsher punishment than the woman who falsely accused him.  Crying "rape" in order to avoid having her friends mad at her is trivializing rape, and she is contributing to the overall imbalance of gender power in our society by using the few handholds we've been given for something other than their intended purpose.  It fosters the resentment of the category of people who are being forced to give up their seat of power already, and it contributes to the impression that the very real protection this legal entity was designed to provide is not necessary, or worse, used as a weapon.

We need a system of prevention and punishment for crimes like rape.  It's a very real and horrible threat.  What we do not need is to trivialize that threat by classifying actions that have nothing to do with rape under the same umbrella, to condone the misuse of that system by looking the other way or issuing lesser penalties for the misuse of the system, or to continue to punish people after they have served the established time and/or penalty that all other criminals are afforded.  Rape is an assault.  But I happen to think falsely accusing someone of a crime as serious as rape is an assault too, only we're not going to do anything for the person who was "assaulted" in this case.  We're going to set him free and say "oh, sorry 'bout that ol' chap, no hard feelings, eh?"