context: I’m relatively new to EA, mid 20s, and a polyamorous woman. Commenting anonymously because I am not yet totally “out” as polyamorous to everyone in my life.
I feel that this post risks conflating and/or unfairly associating polyamory with poor handling of power dynamics and personal/professional boundaries. Such issues can overlap with any relationship structure. Sexual misconduct exists throughout our society, and throughout both monogamous and non-monogamous spaces.
I’ve experienced a range of sexual misconduct prior to my involvement in EA, and so far have found my dating and professional interactions with men in EA to be high quality, relative to high personal standards. In particular, the openness to and active solicitation of feedback I’ve experienced is something I’ve never really experienced outside of polyamory within EA. Since I learned about EA thanks to polyamory (not the other way around), I think I have a pretty different experience than that shared by women in the Time article. Their experience is not a representation of what polyamory done well actually looks like.
Additionally, the Time article fosters skepticism about restorative justice approaches to repair following sexual misconduct, and fails to provide context on how broadly such approaches are being adopted in the Bay Area outside of polyamory/EA, due to severe limitations of the legal system (I first encountered the term restorative justice in a racial justice context, before I knew anything about EA). I support restorative practices that balance accountability with growth and forgiveness. Therefore, I appreciate that Owen has shared this publicly, which helps others grow. Our society at large still has lots of room for progress on healing sexual and gender dynamics. I think that both the people directly involved (Owen and the woman who reported the incident in the Time article), and those indirectly involved (such as Julia at CEA), deserve compassion and support in learning and growing from this.
Trust is a fragile and important thing in relationships and in communities. Trust in a community happens when its individuals and institutions are living in accordance with their shared values. Transparency helps foster trust, so I think being open about this was an important step towards strengthening that trust.
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.