Given the rather strong and mixed reaction to one survivor's story, maybe we can point-out, hi-light, re-visit, or establish a stated policy of action when some comes to the site claiming perpetration of current abuse (planned, possible or actual).

I have not been able to find an established, stated policy. I hope we would have one given all the potential ramifications of these cases.

Robbie,

Good idea. At the moment our policy is that guys who have At Risk issues should request admission to the At Risk Forum from Ken Singer. We do not, however, have any policy concerning minors, at least not to my knowledge. I will raise your point in the ModForum and then get back to you here.

L.

I would encourage that we keep in mind inherent and bound obligations to public policy when considering our organizational policy.

I thought the policy was, not that I have actually seen it, to notify the Mods and let them deal with it. Or maybe it is to start several inflamatory rants and get everyone in an uproar. Both seem to work well.

LOL. Don't you like all that adrenaline Roger? :eyeroll:

What ever we do, let's keep in mind that if you are an undercover cop, the last thing you want to do is drive your suspect away and stop talking to you, right? The uproar serves to do that.

Also, if you have serious triggers, you have a certain responsibility to learn to handle them. Ignoring a trigger warning and then freaking out is not doing that. I'm not at all saying this is easy, it's very hard for me, but sometimes I wonder if people expect the world, or the site, should change so they aren't triggered. That severely limits speech on the site, and doesn't give people a chance to learn to manage triggers.

For me I never even knew the identity of my perps.
I've had to ask myself the question many times over, what would I do today if I met them. It's damned difficult. Given my Christian
background and affiliations I'm not sure what I would say.
I would hope I could say I could forgive them, but; I'm not even sure about that. Personally I would rather avoid the whole issue of being confronted with such a dilemma. Am I a piece of shit for thinking this way. I just don't want to confront this issue in this stage of my life when I need to heal myself first.

It is reckless ad irresponsible to ignore a sign that says DANGER OPEN PIT and walk into it and then yell at the pit and eveyone else who will listen because your there. If your stupid enough to do that please have the decency to quietly climb the ladder and get out and go away with lesson learned. I know I expect to much. What can I say.

This relates to personal accounability and responsibility of reading and reaction. I'm curious as to what MS.ORG's actual stated policy is on such information (nature of which I opened the thread).

If public policy and MS policy don't syncronize...we may have significant problems.

Hmmmm; I wonder if its too unmanly to forgive
Sometimes I eat my own words, or is it that I'm too soft ?
Life is one hell of a learning experience.

There was, few years ago, a self-confessed 'perp' here. He had confessed to the boy's family, and the police, and had served time in prison. He was also a survivor, and this perpetration was his 'acting out' (putting in quotes because whether it is 'acting out' or just direct perpetration is to each to judge). At the request of someone, he had posted what he had done, in great detail. Such uproar occurred, and he left the site of his own will. The moderaters were having difficultys at the time to determine where, at this site, a self acknowledged perpetrater belonged, whether it was in the 'At risk' forum only, or throughout the site, provided they was a survivor also. I do not know if any actual official 'policy' was decided in that case. (I was trying to find the long thread about it, but could not recall the time frame of it occurring, and did not want to look through hundreds of pages of old posts). Someone in that thread, Sinking I think, also posted a long, long list of resources for perpetraters, or people with high risk or thoughts to perpetrate. I believe there was like 20 resources on that list (again, anothe reason I tried to find that thread).

The actual person involved, I PM'ed with him some, and he seemed genuinely in remorse for what he did, genuinely upset for the hurt feelings he caused here, and overall, like he could be/was a decent person. Of course, my old sport coach comes across as genuinely respectable and decent as well. Not to say that man did not have his own sense of honor, but to say that I have made mistakes of seeing to much good in people who perhaps do not have so much.

I know that Ken Singer, and some of the moderaters, will recall the situation I am talking about, and perhaps one of them can let it be known if any official policy was ever determined for this situation.

andrei

I AM NOT AN IDIOT!!!, it WAS NOT marked "danger open pit" it was marked as the usual "this is what happened to me" trigger warning. No hints to something that shouldn't be here in the first place. I posted what was on my mind because of what it did to me, you were not here watching what it made me go through. I did report it to the mods and knew they'd take care of it. I did not ignore anything, you don't know how much preparation it is for me to sit down and go into the story section. How is it a survivor story if it's hurting a kid.... thanks for calling me an idiot elisha.

Triggers are expected with a lot of things here but dealing directly with perps is not an expectation. If I took on the responsibility of having to stay away from all triggers I wouldn't exist. It's an impossibility to live without them because they are not within my control and some of us don't desensitize to them in the first place.... there is no damage control.

Wow. Again, I apologize for my post. If it offended or triggered anyone, i an deeply and sincerely sorry.

Guys,

Two points. First, let's back off the comments that come so close to being pwersonal attacks on an individual. This is not allowed on our site. Second, a trigger warning is just that - it means "proceed at your own risk". Each of us has to determine where we are in in our recovery and whether or not we should be reading Survivor Stories or any other material bearing trigger warnings.

Much love,
Larry

"Trigger warning" is not a disclaimer to all responsibility of the writer. You all still missed what the whole problem was about. It's simple!

This was not just a graphic representation of what happened to someone. It was a display of unhealthy actions toward a child and hints to endangerment with no resolve. The original post had no regard for the safety of the said child. It posted an anonomous threat by it's wording which has no reason to be here for someone like me to even stumble upon.

I'll continue to defend my actions because doing the right thing whether or not someone else believes it is right is still the right thing. I don't expect everyone to have the same standards but don't rank on me for having them.

Read about the guidelines for suicidal threats, it's simular to what this stuff does.

Here is the thread from several years ago I was talking of in my first post, when there was discussion of a self-confessed 'perp' on this site. You can see some of the resources offered,and some of the thoughts on it at the time. However, whatever the official 'policy' mentioned by Ken singer at that time is not part of the thread, and I do not recall what the decision was.

http://www.malesurvivor.org/board/ubbthr...h=true#Post4699

Edited to add: Here is the post from Ken Singer of what was decided on that situation:

http://www.malesurvivor.org/board/ubbthr...h=true#Post7515

Those resources should be a link on the homepage, a deterant in big letters, and that they should try those first before coming here. They said 90% of perps were abused themselves as kids which sounds about right, there is a line that is crossed. It's read more like 90% percent of us are perps most of the time. Of course my "us and them", "black and white" thinking. I remember all of the post you mentioned ak, back then I couldn't speak about things even though I so badly wanted. Where we are we should not feel like we need to hide what we say.

If they do come here welcome them... in another area though, because they do have issues that the rest of us do not. Is that a mean, dishonest statement or too much to ask? Cater to them but don't include the rest of us who can't handle it, make it a choice of interest in helping them.

It is unsafe to me and I don't need a predatory individual involved with me trying to heal. It's damaging to be around MOST of them to me. Things from them come off as patronizing and deceptive. Some of it even feels like grooming stuff because "they understand". Even if they were in another area and then crossed over to never speak of it on this side would be unhealthy for me because now they're hiding something. I'll never see them as safe to be around children and very few safe for me personally, it's too hard to see motives through words on here. I have enough problems than to add this mess to the mix.

Its amazing...nothing changes over time.

Lol. Robbie, I totally agree with you on that one. for some reason, i'm having this feeling that this topic is going to turn out like the other one. i'm talking about the one that got 107 replys and 927 views in a little over a day.

.

Nice misplaced child hood avatar Robbie

Thanks...I lifted it myself.

Lol. So who is the kid who face is on that famous album? He looks really really familiar, i just can't place it.

Sorry we are WAY off the topic of the thread...but since I started it...I'll take license to mutate it:



From an album cover site: "The cover mixes a few disparate elements such as rainbows, a jester, puzzles and a stern looking child. The child worries me a small bit."

Ok. But that still didn't answer my question.

Probly just some nameless kid in the UK hired to stand like he was holding a bird (magpie) and look pissed-off at the world.

K.

I am kind of piecing things together here, and may be missing a piece or two, so if I am wrong about any of this, please correct me. I don't like being critical at all of a site that I have got so much out of the past three months or so, but it seems to me as if a glaring problem is taking shape in what I have read on this so far.

Until I read this thread just now I was unaware that this same problem had occurred before. Well, so it did, and apparently a policy was put in place...which raises the question of why it happened again.

I'm taking another case as a clue here...the case of adult avatars which has no relation to this one other than the fact that it was a policy which got lost somehow and then was recently resurrected after folks like me had already been unknowingly violating it.

Is this same problem of not having the site policies (all of them) clearly stated in place on the site where they are not just easy to find but hard to miss? I completely agree with usmc that an important one like the one regarding how abuser/victims are to use the forum should be a front page item, or at least be something not easily over looked, wherever it appears.

In looking through the list of alternative resources for abuser/victims, I noticed that there is no discussion board for abuser/victims, and that is sad. Something like that could be a huge help for everyone, but I being in early stages of recovery from my most recent assault can only wish someone else could do it. Never the less, I can clearly see the need for a policy on this site to protect all concerned from what has happened twice now.

It would be wonderful if we who are just survivors could all be at such a stage where we could forgive and welcome abuser/victims into our community here, but that just isn't realistic. I may be out of line here because of not knowing all the facts, but it just seems like this is something that could happen yet a third time unless something is changed.

I have read enough of usmc's posts to know that what he has been through makes my own abuse experiences look like a walk in the park and I can completely understand his reaction to his inadvertently stumbling on to a confession.

Is something going to change, or is this going to be a recurring problem due to important site policies being viewed as something to bring up as needed rather than something to put forth for all to see at all times?

.

There is a place for abuser/victims here -- it's called the "At Risk" forum. Of course you have to be a paid member to get to it, and even then it's invisible to only those accepted by Ken Singer. How new abuser/victims are supposed to know about it other than word of mouth is beyond me.

Will it take fights to let every new one hear about it? What about just a locked forum, unlocked just for said forum's members? Are we that fragile we couldn't handle that compromise?

EDIT: Nevermind, Jeff beat me to it. But I'll leave it for the other relevant info.

.

.

Hm. I wonder what you removed Andy. Hmm. A mystery is it.

Just a vent that I decided would not be helpful in the long run.

Oh. A vent toward who? me or others in general?

It's over now, don't worry about it...just was situational...not about you or any specific person.

Please allow me to clarify. At Risk is not for abusers. It will allow those who have done abusive behaviors in the past to talk about them but let me reassure the members here that we do not allow perpetrators here. The primary behaviors that people admitted to At Risk are those which are injurious to themselves, such as compulsive masturbation, cutting, sexual acting out with others, etc.

Lest there be a sense that MS is allowing perpetrators on the site, be assured that we don't. At Risk allows those who have self-injurious or other behaviors (including past acting out on others) to be able to talk about them so as not to continue the behaviors in the future.

Oh. I c.

Jeez it's dark in here. Anybody got a flashlight?... A candle?...A match?

? Hun?

Sorry, JustJeff. I was not replying to a particular person..my new sig line will now explain. It was a metaphor concerning the site in general. Light = needed information.

Kk