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meowse :
An FBI Target Puts His Life Online
While I think this is going overboard, I have to say I agree with the overall message. A few months ago, our local poly discussion group was subverted by an undercover reporter. The bare facts are some reporter in Miami attended a poly meeting, posing as part of a couple who were swingers and wanted to try polyamory. The woman had a hidden camera in her purse and videotaped the meeting, complete with audio. A couple of days later, she emailed the group asking permission to attend the meeting. The moderator of the email list (not the owner or sole moderator of the group) responded that PolyC was a discussion group and did not wish to be in the position of becoming a "voice of the media" and therefore denied access to the meeting.
Now, the ironic thing is, had the reporter done even a cursory online search for Central Florida Poly websites, she would have stumbled uponserolynne would have granted one. Why is this ironic? Because serolynne is the woman behind the digitzing who made the cut for the video clip that was aired, without permission, on the news show.
meowse : An FBI Target Puts His Life Online
While I think this is going overboard, I have to say I agree with the overall message. A few months ago, our local poly discussion group was subverted by an undercover reporter. The bare facts are some reporter in Miami attended a poly meeting, posing as part of a couple who were swingers and wanted to try polyamory. The woman had a hidden camera in her purse and videotaped the meeting, complete with audio. A couple of days later, she emailed the group asking permission to attend the meeting. The moderator of the email list (not the owner or sole moderator of the group) responded that PolyC was a discussion group and did not wish to be in the position of becoming a "voice of the media" and therefore denied access to the meeting.
Now, the ironic thing is, had the reporter done even a cursory online search for Central Florida Poly websites, she would have stumbled upon
serolynne would have granted one. Why is this ironic? Because serolynne is the woman behind the digitzing who made the cut for the video clip that was aired, without permission, on the news show. Now, what does this have to do with an FBI target? Well, the ensuing aftermath of this debacle created a huge online debate about privacy and "coming out" and going public and the media and loss of civil rights, etc. My opinion about this subject in general is that I believe we have the right to privacy. However, "secrets" have power and our government and our media seem to think we do not have the right to privacy. It is my opinion that those of us who will suffer no tangible losses at the loss of privacy have an obligation to be as public as possible in our right to secure the rights to privacy for those who wish it voluntarily.
In other words, I engage in an activity that is persecuted and misunderstood. Common retaliation for people who pursue such activities include loss of job, child custody fights,and "interventions" from family and friends. I am in a position where none of those retaliations are applicable. Therefore, it is my duty and obligation, as a member of a "free" society and as a person who believes in civil liberties, to use my position to help fight the persecution and misunderstandings. I believe one of the appropriate tactics is for me to be "out" so that those who would persecute and/or misunderstand can learn more about this thing they fear and realize it is not something to fear. I believe that when we have removed the threat of persecution and fear and misunderstanding, people can then return to whatever level of privacy is most comfortable for them, rather than being forced into total privacy out of fear of retaliation.
Hence, I am very public.
It is my opinion that the more secrets you have, the more power someone else has over you in using those secrets. If you are afraid of being "outed", then someone can find out that fear and use it to whatever purposes they want ... blackmail, court cases, imprisonment, fines, any number of things depending upon the secret. People who wish to work for the government or the military, particularly in areas involving Intelligence and/or Security, have to go through a rigorous screening process. The funny thing is, a man with a secret, no matter what that secret is, can be prohibited from this type of position, but a gay man or a cross-dresser, or a poly man, or any other type of person who engages in socially-unacceptable activities/thoughts/beliefs *can* be accepted if this bit of information is common knowledge. If it is a secret, this person is in danger of blackmail and can be used by the enemy as a tool. If there are no secrets, the enemy cannot use this individual as a tool for their own purposes.
Back in the more mundane world that doesn't involve international espionage, if you have a job where you fear you can get fired if the boss finds out you're gay, or poly, or wiccan, or whatever, this boss has emense power over you whether he even realizes it or not. You live your life tinged with fear. You have to censor your words, limit your activities, even on the "off chance" someone *might* see you somewhere doing something.
I dated someone who worked for Disney, but he didn't work in the parks, he worked more for the business side of things. But Disney has a squeaky-clean image they try very hard to maintain, down to dictating the style and color of their employee's hair and facial hair. I mean, this goes beyond reasonable, as far as I'm concerned. Even those who do not deal directly with the public or clients are subject to this level of scrutiny. So, anyway, this guy worked for Disney. He was extremely concerned about being "caught" doing something that could affect him within his work environment. At the beginning of our relationship, we visited one of the parks as guests (along with a few other people). His concern was so great that I could not even hold his hand or give polite kisses while at the park, in case someone he knew saw him.
Now, I'm all for "appropriate" behaviour limitations. I don't view this as the same thing as fear and persecution affecting our level of privacy. We're not talking about having an orgy on It's A Small World. We're talking about an activity that is socially acceptable for the time and place. Eventually, he did lighten up and he did discover he would not suffer repercussions if his co-workers saw him holding hands with one of his girlfriends. But the point is that his fear of persecution and retaliation prevented him from enjoying even the most basic of freedoms and otherwise-appropriate activities. And this, I think, is unacceptable in a country that is supposed to be "the Land Of The Free".
So, while I do not believe that your average citizen is being subjected to intense government scrutiny (frankly, they just don't have the manpower to watch all of us all the time), nor do I think recording every minute of your day and broadcasting it to the general public is the answer (well, maybe in that guy's case, but probably not) ... I do believe that the more "out" you are, the more open and forthcoming about who you are, the less power people and government have over you to take away your freedoms. It may seem counterproductive to think that the key to privacy is to remove your own privacy voluntarily, and that's not really what I'm advocating. I claim that the less I try to keep people from knowing things, the less likely they are to try and find out, and the less ashamed or fearful I am of my actions, the less someone else will be able to use those things against me.
And for much more "subtle and insidious" reasons, keeping secrets about yourself under the guise of "privacy rights" can be detrimental to your own emotional and mental (and even physical) health!tacit has a wonderful post about that. The basic premise is that an abuser, either in a relationship or in a cult or in a government, seeks to seperate the individual from his or her support network. Observers who are unrelated to the activity or relationship can often see the situation in a way that someone totally emersed in it cannot. From the inside, it may not seem harmful, especially if things start out mild and then progress. But from the outside, your family and friends can often provide protection by alerting you to something harmful that you may be overlooking. Of course I don't believe that polyamory is harmful, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. But individuals and groups can use the term "polyamory" and yet be destructive, harmful, abusive. If you hide your relationship from your family and friends (assuming your family and friends are, themselves, not harmful, destructive, or abusive), you lose this support network and you lose this tool for protecting yourself.
My sister is not poly, nor does she really understand it. But she has the ability to go with a given. Meaning, she may not get why I want multiple partners, but in a discussion, she will accept the "multiple partners is desired" as a given and conduct the discussion accordingly. For instance, I had a partner who did not understand how his other partners affected me, especially if we were kept seperated. To that effect, he believed he should be allowed to date women who did not approve of me, just as long as they knew I was there and accepted a relationship with him under those conditions. First of all, I don't accept the "be allowed" phrase ... I don't want control over his life, I want to date people who are considerate of how their actions affect me. Second, I believe that everyone in the relationship should be there willingly and lovingly, not grudgingly. I believe I have the right to be accepted and embraced by my partners' other partners, not merely tolerated as a consequence of loving this man we share. When I told my sister of my breakup with him and why, she immediately responded with "well, yeah, if you're going to date multiple people, they had better all be into it." She grasped my position even though she doesn't inherently share my interest in this particular relationship style.
Not all family is as accepting as my sister is, but that's not really the point. Cutting yourself off from people who disapprove of you when you're happy and healthy just because your version of happy and healthy doesn't match what they think you should have to be happy and healthy is, I think, a reasonable course of action. But, to that effect, I am still "open" and "out" and then I find out who is that type of close-minded person, and the effect of me being "out" then weeds out those harmful elements. But keeping myself closeted out of fear of disapproval then does two things. It removes the support I could have from people like my sister, who is not like me, doesn't even fully understand me, but who loves and supports me and only wishes for my happiness even if it's not her brand of happiness. It also keeps the true abusers or harmful people in my life and gives their opinions weight in my life because I would be keeping my life secret in an effort to appease them when I should be finding out who they are and removing them from my life and removing their ability to affect my happiness.
In other words, I engage in an activity that is persecuted and misunderstood. Common retaliation for people who pursue such activities include loss of job, child custody fights,and "interventions" from family and friends. I am in a position where none of those retaliations are applicable. Therefore, it is my duty and obligation, as a member of a "free" society and as a person who believes in civil liberties, to use my position to help fight the persecution and misunderstandings. I believe one of the appropriate tactics is for me to be "out" so that those who would persecute and/or misunderstand can learn more about this thing they fear and realize it is not something to fear. I believe that when we have removed the threat of persecution and fear and misunderstanding, people can then return to whatever level of privacy is most comfortable for them, rather than being forced into total privacy out of fear of retaliation.
Hence, I am very public.
It is my opinion that the more secrets you have, the more power someone else has over you in using those secrets. If you are afraid of being "outed", then someone can find out that fear and use it to whatever purposes they want ... blackmail, court cases, imprisonment, fines, any number of things depending upon the secret. People who wish to work for the government or the military, particularly in areas involving Intelligence and/or Security, have to go through a rigorous screening process. The funny thing is, a man with a secret, no matter what that secret is, can be prohibited from this type of position, but a gay man or a cross-dresser, or a poly man, or any other type of person who engages in socially-unacceptable activities/thoughts/beliefs *can* be accepted if this bit of information is common knowledge. If it is a secret, this person is in danger of blackmail and can be used by the enemy as a tool. If there are no secrets, the enemy cannot use this individual as a tool for their own purposes.
Back in the more mundane world that doesn't involve international espionage, if you have a job where you fear you can get fired if the boss finds out you're gay, or poly, or wiccan, or whatever, this boss has emense power over you whether he even realizes it or not. You live your life tinged with fear. You have to censor your words, limit your activities, even on the "off chance" someone *might* see you somewhere doing something.
I dated someone who worked for Disney, but he didn't work in the parks, he worked more for the business side of things. But Disney has a squeaky-clean image they try very hard to maintain, down to dictating the style and color of their employee's hair and facial hair. I mean, this goes beyond reasonable, as far as I'm concerned. Even those who do not deal directly with the public or clients are subject to this level of scrutiny. So, anyway, this guy worked for Disney. He was extremely concerned about being "caught" doing something that could affect him within his work environment. At the beginning of our relationship, we visited one of the parks as guests (along with a few other people). His concern was so great that I could not even hold his hand or give polite kisses while at the park, in case someone he knew saw him.
Now, I'm all for "appropriate" behaviour limitations. I don't view this as the same thing as fear and persecution affecting our level of privacy. We're not talking about having an orgy on It's A Small World. We're talking about an activity that is socially acceptable for the time and place. Eventually, he did lighten up and he did discover he would not suffer repercussions if his co-workers saw him holding hands with one of his girlfriends. But the point is that his fear of persecution and retaliation prevented him from enjoying even the most basic of freedoms and otherwise-appropriate activities. And this, I think, is unacceptable in a country that is supposed to be "the Land Of The Free".
So, while I do not believe that your average citizen is being subjected to intense government scrutiny (frankly, they just don't have the manpower to watch all of us all the time), nor do I think recording every minute of your day and broadcasting it to the general public is the answer (well, maybe in that guy's case, but probably not) ... I do believe that the more "out" you are, the more open and forthcoming about who you are, the less power people and government have over you to take away your freedoms. It may seem counterproductive to think that the key to privacy is to remove your own privacy voluntarily, and that's not really what I'm advocating. I claim that the less I try to keep people from knowing things, the less likely they are to try and find out, and the less ashamed or fearful I am of my actions, the less someone else will be able to use those things against me.
And for much more "subtle and insidious" reasons, keeping secrets about yourself under the guise of "privacy rights" can be detrimental to your own emotional and mental (and even physical) health!
tacit has a wonderful post about that. The basic premise is that an abuser, either in a relationship or in a cult or in a government, seeks to seperate the individual from his or her support network. Observers who are unrelated to the activity or relationship can often see the situation in a way that someone totally emersed in it cannot. From the inside, it may not seem harmful, especially if things start out mild and then progress. But from the outside, your family and friends can often provide protection by alerting you to something harmful that you may be overlooking. Of course I don't believe that polyamory is harmful, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. But individuals and groups can use the term "polyamory" and yet be destructive, harmful, abusive. If you hide your relationship from your family and friends (assuming your family and friends are, themselves, not harmful, destructive, or abusive), you lose this support network and you lose this tool for protecting yourself. My sister is not poly, nor does she really understand it. But she has the ability to go with a given. Meaning, she may not get why I want multiple partners, but in a discussion, she will accept the "multiple partners is desired" as a given and conduct the discussion accordingly. For instance, I had a partner who did not understand how his other partners affected me, especially if we were kept seperated. To that effect, he believed he should be allowed to date women who did not approve of me, just as long as they knew I was there and accepted a relationship with him under those conditions. First of all, I don't accept the "be allowed" phrase ... I don't want control over his life, I want to date people who are considerate of how their actions affect me. Second, I believe that everyone in the relationship should be there willingly and lovingly, not grudgingly. I believe I have the right to be accepted and embraced by my partners' other partners, not merely tolerated as a consequence of loving this man we share. When I told my sister of my breakup with him and why, she immediately responded with "well, yeah, if you're going to date multiple people, they had better all be into it." She grasped my position even though she doesn't inherently share my interest in this particular relationship style.
Not all family is as accepting as my sister is, but that's not really the point. Cutting yourself off from people who disapprove of you when you're happy and healthy just because your version of happy and healthy doesn't match what they think you should have to be happy and healthy is, I think, a reasonable course of action. But, to that effect, I am still "open" and "out" and then I find out who is that type of close-minded person, and the effect of me being "out" then weeds out those harmful elements. But keeping myself closeted out of fear of disapproval then does two things. It removes the support I could have from people like my sister, who is not like me, doesn't even fully understand me, but who loves and supports me and only wishes for my happiness even if it's not her brand of happiness. It also keeps the true abusers or harmful people in my life and gives their opinions weight in my life because I would be keeping my life secret in an effort to appease them when I should be finding out who they are and removing them from my life and removing their ability to affect my happiness.
and
Sarcastic Sex Toy Blog
I immediately thought of tacit when I saw this site. It's a humorous approach to all the various types of sex toys on the market. The writer of the blog admits she doesn't actually try these toys out herself, she is merely poking fun at the descriptions. Because, frankly, they are quite obnoxious. And I happen to actually use some of these or would try some of these and I still think this site is awesome. There are toy reviews like:
multi-speed vibrating bullet with raised bumps for an exciting ride."
I am gratified to see that this product has raised bumps. I often search long and hard (tee hee) for a sex partner whose penis has raised bumps, but for some reason they always die shortly thereafter. So much for my "exciting ride."
