Abusers and "Liberals" Are Both Harmful

For RC's most recent perspective on issues related to this article, see: Human Connections, and Sex

I had heard earlier about the discussions at the World Wide Conference about the rationality of homosexuality (ed.: see Report To The World-Wide Leaders' Meeting in Present Time No. 101). I want to thank you for bringing up the issue again. I will illustrate your point of view with an experience I had in RC and possibly add a little of my own thinking.

When I was about seventeen years old I went to an International Leaders' Workshop in The Netherlands. There I was seduced by an older man. For a long time I thought it was a joint decision, but having discharged a little bit on the incident, now it is clear that he set it all up.

I thank my dear friend, M-, who simply asked me the next morning, when I tried to get a session on the incident, why it was hard for me to live the no-socializing rule.

This incident, and the following short socialised relationship (completely on the seducer's initiative), reinforced my early decision (after an early abuse incident) that I should not expect anything good to happen for me, de facto resulting in not feeling that the RC Community is for me or that I am at home with this Community.

I am not saying that I did not have any distress that made me go along with this seduction (although I think we need to start being more courageous in stopping "violators" rather than sympathising with "victims"). However, I would much rather not have had this happen to me in the RC Community. It would have made it much safer over the years. Many people have silently wondered why a fine man like me was having so many difficulties in the Communities, and a few leaders have noticed and worked with me. And yes, I did develop a habit of setting up abusive and secretive relations with male Co-Counselors, which I am in the middle of cleaning up now.

I need to talk and cry about this incident many times, but the still-Co-Counseling seducer has not apologised to me. I think his struggle around "friendship" will not be resolved if he does not apologise to me and another (at the time young) male Co-Counselor with whom he set up a similar relationship. The latter is an excellent leader at this moment who has a hard time noticing the possibility of not being abused or ridiculed, or of being successful.

I will take the initiative now to make sure that the former violator apologises; he is probably too scared to even conceive of the option. He is, by the way, a fine person that I admire in many ways. (I probably need to discharge about that, too.) Riet has okayed me to lead a day for allies of Gays and Lesbians.

The program for allies, as I heard it from David, is:

  1. Do the early sexual memories work.
  2. Do the identity work.
  3. Set goals to eliminate Gay oppression, and discharge on that decision and feelings that come up as you go.

What most people still do not understand, I think, is that the weight and reactivity of the distresses, decisions, and feelings around sex for Gay, Lesbian, and bisexual people come largely from the oppression.

I think that people call themselves Gay for many individually different reasons, but once they have done that, the early sexual memories recordings are reinforced enormously by the weight of the oppression in ways that heterosexual people's early sexual memories recordings do not get reinforced. I am not sure that the early sexual memories recordings by themselves play the largest role in "making people Gay."

I am glad about your continued stand to make sure that people are being helped to remember that homosexuality is not rational for two additional reasons:

  1. To identify as Gay and to have that as a liberation strategy is a Western and upper-middle-class concept that I do not think we should be exporting to the rest of the world. From the friendships that I have with a variety of non-white "Gay" men, I have learned that such an export puts them in trouble.
  2. If RC were to have a different policy than that the oppression of any group is completely wrong and that we can not allow irrational behavior to be defended, encouraged, or passed on, if we were to carry any different policy, most of the world's population simply would not buy RC.

The Gay, Lesbian, and bisexual leaders are very well led by Jeanne d'Arc and David Njinsky. Jeanne d'Arc continues to gently and persistently get people's attention away from being different and having limited lives. David works hard to help the men get a sense of belonging, support women's leadership, and build strong personal connections. Their understanding of internalized Gay, Lesbian, and bisexual oppression and early sexual memories work is excellent. Their building of a strong community of leaders around them is successful. Their expectation of their constituency to stick to policy is very clear.

I think the challenge is to get the allies organized. Or, in a bigger picture, to look at oppressor distresses.

In a liberal country like The Netherlands there is not a lot of real attention for me around Gay issues. I was not openly Gay to my boss and colleagues at my last job for two years. It is impressive to see how oppressive liberal people can be. When I decided to talk about my Gay issues, because I needed to do that to show more of myself with these fine people, they could not listen for more than a very short period.

My clienting in sessions and my leading in RC have gone much better since I have decided that my Co-Counselors are not yet good allies on Gay liberation. I was pretending there. The struggle to open up and show more of myself is more realistic and fruitful now, though still slow and hard. I am not sure if much Community resource should go toward allies-to-Gay-liberation work unless the leaders are very clear on the connection with capitalism and are motivated by more than a desire to be "nice to those poor people." Otherwise they may easily get side-tracked into liberalism, "celebrating shameful behavior," etc. We need to end Gay oppression because it is ruining people's lives and keeping every other oppression in place.

X-
The Netherlands



Last modified: 2022-12-25 10:17:04+00