My View: What I see as the Heart of the Matter

[taura_g]

The last line on drwex most excellent summation of his views is what I wonder any social community can come to some basic agreement of...

If we cannot find a way to work with each other - despite our different frameworks - to deal with an abuser and social gatherings then we have a pretty deep problem.In my LiveJournal alone (and I certainly don't have

Comments

[beowabbit]

Late to something but here’s a placeholder to try to remind myself to come back here and say a little bit at some point. This is something I’ve thought about quite a lot.

[intuition_ist]

how would you want to deal with an abuser and social gatherings within your social circle?I'm going to assume the gatherings in this question are at my home, since that's the context I have some control over. Short form: There are people connected to the community whom I want nothing to do with, and whom I do not want in my personal space, who will probably try to come if there is an open-invite party. Therefore, I do not and probably never will hold open-invite parties in my home

[mizarchivist]

This is about where I stand, too. I did try for big parties once upon a time (like 10-15 years ago) but quickly moved to curated to ease my spouse's discomfort at the chaos that is an open-invite. And now I've become someone who prefers carefully curated parties. These days I do not do well these days with large parties, particularly one I'm hosting. More than 10 people, and I'm really not having fun.
My habit has been to drift from people who generally cause chaos and strife around them: not necessarily abuse, but obviously that would fall into the spectrum. So, I've not had to immediately face this issue of what to do? I, like others, would like to think that I'd be willing to separate the unrepentant from the penitent. But, if this event I'm theoretically throwing is in my home, I also defer to the comfort of my whole house. I'm probably the least hard-lined of the four adults here... and yeah. So, ???

[dcltdw]

Now that I think about it, there is a case in one of my social circles that is similar to this. To summarize, some guy at one larp is accused by several women of sexual harrasment or assault. This guy plays at larps in $LOCATION1 whereas I tend to play in larps in $LOCATION2 and $LOCATION3

[yendi]

#3 is the thing that I think tends to really create havoc because people have a LOT of trouble accepting the possibility that this might be about their friends (also applies to "people they admire" -- I'll avoid examples here, as well, but there's a certain mindset that says that creating a great work of art or mentoring someone else who creates great art means the person in question must be innocent

[crazybone]

I struggle with this. I was raised in a religion that is really big on forgiveness and redemption but I was never really that good at it. I would let most things go eventually but, certain things were beyond the pale. Sexual assault of adults or children was one of these. Like most people a significant amount of this has to do with my personal feelings, outlook on life, and the experiences of those close to me. I've seen a bunch of people get off with a slap on the wrist for things like this way too often for second chances to be a default option.
Honestly I'm kind of envious of people like smacaski who have the ability to forgive, but not forget