Guru falls

SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
The point is that they're written from a perspective of someone who has experience with polyamorous relationships. I think having partners that you don't speak to for months at a time negates your experience significantly.
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Well I did say that perhaps he called them partners to up his cred. But he has had local partners and nesting partners as well. I will agree that he should have disclosed if a partner he mentioned was one of those he didn't really see. However, does it really matter? He's basically writing about theory. All his examples could have been fictitous for all that matters.
 
vinsanity0 said:
Well I did say that perhaps he called them partners to up his cred. But he has had local partners and nesting partners as well. I will agree that he should have disclosed if a partner he mentioned was one of those he didn't really see. However, does it really matter? He's basically writing about theory. All his examples could have been fictitous for all that matters.
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Knowing that his examples are not really tested by practice does matter.
 
The more than two website was my basic resource when I was trying to answer the question of "Polyamory? WTF? Is that really possible?" Back then I took it as part of the evidence that ... yeah. Some people are living that way.
Knowing the two people most responsible for it are accusing each other of abuse takes A LOT of trustworthiness away from that source. It's a blow.
Last time I introduced someone to poly I gave him the "secondaries bill of rights" - I still think it's a good text, but I don't dare again recommending it without pointing out that the author couldn't walk his talk.

I read Lauren's story, the picture is consistent - a picture of Franklin having blind spots in basic social empathy. Maybe not really a picture of abuse, but a picture of harm being done by cleverly rationalized self-bias and ignorance. (Quotes below.)

It's important that Franklin's bias is being exposed. Now the weird taste that sometimes came through his writing (and led my then bf to reject it out of hand as "propaganda") is gaining clarity. Now whoever has learned from it while starting out with poly can reexamine how many of Franklin's rationalizations he adopted for himself. And that can be quite a painful process.

No matter how many times I communicated what I needed (which was literally like for him to initiate contact with me in any way at all ever), he seemed mystified each time I brought it up, like we’d never discussed it before and he was pleasantly curious about my alien ways. I kept trying for way longer than I should have because I was like…but you UNDERSTAND this! You write about it all the time! You just wrote a blog yesterday telling people to do what you NEVER DO. Eventually I gave up.
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There was just this way he would go blank when things got intense emotionally. Like poker faced.
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He held up his other partners as examples of how “secure” people behaved. His commitment to “rationality” led to a lot of development in my thoughts about how rationality sucks as a sole decision-making mechanism, without being informed by emotion and intuition and other things. I always felt I had to justify every need with a purely logical argument, and any failure to get my needs met was basically bc I was too hysterical to argue my position properly.
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I think they all seem very emotionally stunted and this insistence that it is about patriarchy rather than a bunch of adults who lack the skills needed to have adult relationships is very annoying. I find it misogynistic even.

Please do not cast me under the same light as these other women with their "partners" they don't speak to for months and who wait equally as long to have permission to have sex with the person they consider a partner.

I would expect any future book written by pod members or Eve to champion a very slow, restricted version of hierarchical polyamory with veto rules,check ins and group meetings. I think for them they tried to be different and cool by choosing this relationship style but they don't have the personal tools to succeed at it
 
Elsewhere someone else commented on the partner thing saying that general group of polyamorists like to "shock" people by saying "I have 15 partners". What they mean is that there are 15 people they are either in a proper relationship, recently had a "moment" with or have met in a dating capacity in recent years.

The way I understood that is supposing I have an acquaintance I know from events. One evening, we get closer and have sex or even just kiss and we decide that we might see each other again. We swap numbers and keep in contact but maybe nothing else will come if it. They'll call that person a partner. For me, that isn't even a friend with benefits.
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
Elsewhere someone else commented on the partner thing saying that general group of polyamorists like to "shock" people by saying "I have 15 partners". What they mean is that there are 15 people they are either in a proper relationship, recently had a "moment" with or have met in a dating capacity in recent years.

The way I understood that is supposing I have an acquaintance I know from events. One evening, we get closer and have sex or even just kiss and we decide that we might see each other again. We swap numbers and keep in contact but maybe nothing else will come if it. They'll call that person a partner. For me, that isn't even a friend with benefits.
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Yeah, I think "partner" is another word that is used so loosely that it loses all meaning in some cases.

I know that everyone does things differently, but even when I hear of someone who says they have four partners, it makes me wonder. There's only so much time after you subtract work/life stuff/ sleep and you have to divide it four ways? Even if you live with people that's not much in the way of quality one on one time. How deeply connected can you possibly be at that point?

Again, this is just my perspective, but I just don't get it I guess. I know that personally, I cap out at two "significant" relationships- there's just no time and emotional spoons for more without putting me in an unhappy position. For the occasional FWB or whatnot? Sure. But not something I'd term a capital R relationship.
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
I'm part way reading through Eve's. I do better with written word than spoken word.
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I read Paula's today. It was a bit repetitive, but more clear then some of the older one's - at least that was my impression.
 
Reading Paula's now. JFC. "How not to do D/S in one easy lesson."
:mad:
 
So I've made my way through all the stories and through Eve's Twitter thread. I found an article that summarizes how I feel about the whole "Pod" process: https://www.hadaraviram.com/2020/04...communities-what-if-anything-does-it-restore/

Do I think the Pod approach made this worse? Definitely. I think the survivors should have had the space to speak their own minds and not have a body of people do so on their behalf. I'm glad the Survivor Pod has acknowledged its mistakes and has passed the reins over to the survivors themselves. Their stories as they are on their page (https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/) are far more impactful than they were behind the wall of the Pod.

For all my irritation with the Pod I expressed earlier in this thread, I do want to say that reading the survivors' own stories, on their own website, has been an eye-opener. Franklin still comes across as a child and a general asshole, but the patterns of consent violations and lying portrayed by the survivors just paint him to be an extremely toxic person (frankly, I'm disgusted by his actions in these stories). I'm sad for the survivors, and I hope this helps them heal.

I do believe the people involved with the Survivor Pod had good intentions in mind, but I hope they learn from this. Suppressing the voices of the people you're representing just leads to confusion, skepticism, and mixed messages. Throw in "Transformative Justice" jargon that is meaningless to many people, and it just seems like a level of obfuscation on top. Ugh.

TLDR: The original process was a shitshow, but I'm glad the survivors got their voices heard, and I hope they can start healing.
 
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I hope everyone reads Eve's. Franklin's abusive behavior becomes chillingly clear in the last two "episodes" of Eve's story. It's not just being a shitty partner.
 
MeeraReed said:
I hope everyone reads Eve's. Franklin's abusive behavior becomes chillingly clear in the last two "episodes" of Eve's story. It's not just being a shitty partner.
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His lack of empathy that shows throughout the stories is chilling, especially when he "goes away". And "Pushing Buttons" as part of BDSM? JFC, no.

BTW, for folks who haven't read it yet, or got stuck, the last link in Eve's story (to go to Page 9) is broken and just cycles back to Page 8. Replace the '8' with a '9' in the URL and you're good to go.
 
Thanks for posting that, icesong. I agree that it rings hollow.

The only part I believe is where Franklin admits that he was "largely absent in his own relationships." Which is what all of his exes said.

I'm trying to keep the various relationships straight. I think the woman called Amy in Eve's account is the one Franklin calls his "current wife" without giving her a name. I assume the one Franklin calls Zaiah is "Vera" in Eve's account? But who is Maxine? (Franklin claims Eve did mean things to Maxine).
 
Considering they are both dysfunctional (imo), it's entirely possible they both see the other in the manner they describe.
 
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