Totally agree that Owen was mainly meaning to say “the only person I will date in the immediate future is my wife” and think that’s a smart decision for him while he works on himself.
I think the part that came in the zone of unfairly associating polyamory with poor handling of power dynamics and persona/professional boundaries comes here:
“How could I have come to make these mistakes? I was leaning into my own view-at-the-time about what good conduct looked like, and interested in experimenting to find ways to build a better culture than society-at-large has. I was newly open to polyamory, and newly exposed to circling and saw something powerful and good about speaking truths even when they were uncomfortable.”
Here, Owen lists new openness/exposure to polyamory/circling almost as if they are reasons/explanations for his mistakes. Which to me simply isn’t the issue, plenty of people explore polyamory/circling without making such mistakes, because they come from a background of already having done work to understand their identities and social positions. To me the issue appears to be primarily a lack of a sufficiently formed critical lens for his own position of power (which could have clued him in to his actions being unacceptable). If I take at face value that he is being genuine in saying “Then when I found out that I’d made the person feel uncomfortable… I was horrified” then clearly the issue was also not of poor intentions, but really comes down to what he had not yet learned about gender/power dynamics.
Then the question becomes, why had he not yet learned these things?
As far as I can tell, this incident probably took place several years before being reported to Julia in 2021. So lets estimate 2016-2018? Owen has been married for 17 years, so I’d estimate his current age at close to 40. So if he was in his early/mid 30s when this happened, clearly he and/or his bubbles were not paying sufficient attention to gender/power dynamics (and probably DEI issues more broadly). The #metoo movement gained widespread attention in 2017. I’d definitely be curious to know if this incident happened before or after that. I think it’s important for us to all remember that even in the past 6 years, society has shifted in important ways towards improvements in handling gender/power/sexual dynamics. While we may seek to transcend the moral landscapes we are raised and embedded in, none of us are flawless or exempt.
I get the impression there is probably dramatic variation in how well members of the EA community or EA organizations have handled or currently handle the responsibility of educating themselves about social issues, identity, power dynamics, etc. But I hope that these sorts of posts and discussions help more people to see that understanding and shifting these dynamics is integral to EA’s mission.
I knew Owen at university. The circles he moved in regularly had conversations about: gendered dynamics, power imbalances in relationships, rape culture. Metoo did not invent these ideas, feminists have been talking about them for decades & longer.
He has no excuse not to have learnt minimal human decency when dealing with other people.
Totally agree that Owen was mainly meaning to say “the only person I will date in the immediate future is my wife” and think that’s a smart decision for him while he works on himself.
I think the part that came in the zone of unfairly associating polyamory with poor handling of power dynamics and persona/professional boundaries comes here:
“How could I have come to make these mistakes? I was leaning into my own view-at-the-time about what good conduct looked like, and interested in experimenting to find ways to build a better culture than society-at-large has. I was newly open to polyamory, and newly exposed to circling and saw something powerful and good about speaking truths even when they were uncomfortable.”
Here, Owen lists new openness/exposure to polyamory/circling almost as if they are reasons/explanations for his mistakes. Which to me simply isn’t the issue, plenty of people explore polyamory/circling without making such mistakes, because they come from a background of already having done work to understand their identities and social positions. To me the issue appears to be primarily a lack of a sufficiently formed critical lens for his own position of power (which could have clued him in to his actions being unacceptable). If I take at face value that he is being genuine in saying “Then when I found out that I’d made the person feel uncomfortable… I was horrified” then clearly the issue was also not of poor intentions, but really comes down to what he had not yet learned about gender/power dynamics.
Then the question becomes, why had he not yet learned these things?
As far as I can tell, this incident probably took place several years before being reported to Julia in 2021. So lets estimate 2016-2018? Owen has been married for 17 years, so I’d estimate his current age at close to 40. So if he was in his early/mid 30s when this happened, clearly he and/or his bubbles were not paying sufficient attention to gender/power dynamics (and probably DEI issues more broadly). The #metoo movement gained widespread attention in 2017. I’d definitely be curious to know if this incident happened before or after that. I think it’s important for us to all remember that even in the past 6 years, society has shifted in important ways towards improvements in handling gender/power/sexual dynamics. While we may seek to transcend the moral landscapes we are raised and embedded in, none of us are flawless or exempt.
I get the impression there is probably dramatic variation in how well members of the EA community or EA organizations have handled or currently handle the responsibility of educating themselves about social issues, identity, power dynamics, etc. But I hope that these sorts of posts and discussions help more people to see that understanding and shifting these dynamics is integral to EA’s mission.
I knew Owen at university. The circles he moved in regularly had conversations about: gendered dynamics, power imbalances in relationships, rape culture. Metoo did not invent these ideas, feminists have been talking about them for decades & longer.
He has no excuse not to have learnt minimal human decency when dealing with other people.