How to deal
Today I went to the organizer's meeting of an IRL kink group I belong to. We had to decide how to deal with a situation. One that happens all the time, but people don't know about it, or the right people don't know, or they don't know what to do, or they don't feel empowered to do anything.
How should a community deal with sexual assault?
One of the members of our group brought us a story. The women whose story it was wasn't comfortable talking about it in public. Her ex, who's in a leadership position (that was already in question due to a separate interpersonal issue), had sex with her multiple times against her will, violated her stated boundaries, and pressured her into not using her safeword by withholding affection afterward.
After hearing this story, we agreed that we wanted to hear his side (having a secret meeting without someone feels pretty underhanded), but that we had no reason to disbelieve what we'd heard, and if any one of those things happened we wouldn't want him in a leadership position in our group. It violates everything we stand for.
The question that's been on my mind since then is: should we try to completely bar him from our events? One of our members said she didn't want to get into someone else's "personal relationship choices." I think it goes beyond that. No one said it in the meeting, but I happened to be meeting up with my mom afterward and in explaining to her I immediately described it as rape. How do you deal with an accused rapist in your community? Eject them? If they admit to it? If they don't? If they're still around, are the people around them unsafe? When is spreading information gossiping and when is it protecting people? How do you keep people safe while avoiding the potential for unfair smear campaigns?
Acquaintance rape happens all the time, but the rapists' social groups rarely deal with it, even if they know what's going on.
In our case, most of these problems happened in conjunction with his heavy drinking. He told her he'd drink less and it wouldn't happen again; he didn't, and it did. What we want is for him to admit to wrongdoing and to get some kind of outside help so he never does this again. Part of me wants to tell him to go away and never come back; part of me thinks that we're just a small group of people, and he'll still be out there, doing the same to his next girlfriend. Even prosecuting rapists in the legal system doesn't really make them go away.
Sorry this is so scattered. My thoughts aren't collected yet. But I'm upset that this happened to her and that he violated our trust as a community, and I don't know what I should do about it.
How should a community deal with sexual assault?
One of the members of our group brought us a story. The women whose story it was wasn't comfortable talking about it in public. Her ex, who's in a leadership position (that was already in question due to a separate interpersonal issue), had sex with her multiple times against her will, violated her stated boundaries, and pressured her into not using her safeword by withholding affection afterward.
After hearing this story, we agreed that we wanted to hear his side (having a secret meeting without someone feels pretty underhanded), but that we had no reason to disbelieve what we'd heard, and if any one of those things happened we wouldn't want him in a leadership position in our group. It violates everything we stand for.
The question that's been on my mind since then is: should we try to completely bar him from our events? One of our members said she didn't want to get into someone else's "personal relationship choices." I think it goes beyond that. No one said it in the meeting, but I happened to be meeting up with my mom afterward and in explaining to her I immediately described it as rape. How do you deal with an accused rapist in your community? Eject them? If they admit to it? If they don't? If they're still around, are the people around them unsafe? When is spreading information gossiping and when is it protecting people? How do you keep people safe while avoiding the potential for unfair smear campaigns?
Acquaintance rape happens all the time, but the rapists' social groups rarely deal with it, even if they know what's going on.
In our case, most of these problems happened in conjunction with his heavy drinking. He told her he'd drink less and it wouldn't happen again; he didn't, and it did. What we want is for him to admit to wrongdoing and to get some kind of outside help so he never does this again. Part of me wants to tell him to go away and never come back; part of me thinks that we're just a small group of people, and he'll still be out there, doing the same to his next girlfriend. Even prosecuting rapists in the legal system doesn't really make them go away.
Sorry this is so scattered. My thoughts aren't collected yet. But I'm upset that this happened to her and that he violated our trust as a community, and I don't know what I should do about it.