maybe closed comunities are dangerous and forment abuse and using them for our discussion of inherently dangerous topics(sex, kink, relationships) is a bad idea. Maybe opt in communities that are more porus are a good idea. And maybe comunities that are porus need to be large enough to opt out of discussion of these topics without losing the comunity.

@drcable i think on top of that, we need more community tools for pushing against things? because a lot of the reason these places are bad is the good people slowly slink away because they get hurt or cant deal with the toxic, and the toxic people stick around.

once its mostly just toxic people, everyone new coming in are targets -- prey. its also why you often see those people presenting themselves as mentors and facilitators and knowledge-holders and teachers

@nire this is a thing. you've read https://thenewinquiry.com/essays/hot-allostatic-load/, right?

@drcable among others, yes

@nire yeah, I love that one cos it deals so well with the embodied stuff, and the tw stuff.

tl;dr: community is dangerous.

@drcable community is dangerous but only when it willingly isolates people

@drcable the rest are still dangerous but theres recourse

@nire yeah, but people don't talk about the dangers of forming in/out groups enough, its always just universal good(because, well, we're under attack, constantly)

@drcable yep :\ and plenty of infiltrators

@drcable but speaking of the whole in/outgroup thing, i think theres something a little more insidious but also not actively a thing?

trans people especially tend to not have had relationships before the age of 20

often, their first relationships are w/ people who have had many more relationships

and often many are in kink.

and their only exposure was erotica. And they have these unrealistic fantasies

and they almost all, get hurt. by their first two relationships

@drcable that said i know people who seek out new trans people to date them because of that, so its not all... unconscious

@nire one of my ongoing themes is trans women never get a girlhood(though, this is true for cis to some extent too) and this fundementally fucks us all up wrt se

@drcable yep:\

@nire @drcable this has absolutely been my experience. We need more people speaking out about how vital inclusive sex & relationships education is. SRE that talks about predators existing (and seeing out) any & all isolated communities. How to spot them, how to test if people are respecting your consent & boundaries.

@fxck @drcable im assuming SRE here is sex relationship education or something but i literally cant parse it as anything other than site reliability engineer, and with how much abuse is there i. it parsed fine and that is worrying <_<

@nire @drcable yeah I meant sex ed :) further thoughts, cw for csa & grooming -

rape culture in combination with homophobia & transphobia is a deadly force. My parents & the christian community i grew up in never ever mentioned lgbt folk. so when i was groomed as a teen by an older man, he was my only introduction to lgbt culture. i was taught that having an older sexual "mentor" was normal and now i have C-PTSD and a fucked up relationship with sex. i had no way to know what was happening wasn't normal, and nobody i could speak to or ask.