Dear Friend and Reader:
I have bowed out of participating in the National Polyamory Leadership Summit today and tomorrow. After a lengthy group discussion of confidentiality taking up most of the first evening, I have politely resigned on the grounds of what I will call excess confidentiality. I will not go so far as to say that this is a secret proceeding; it’s too informal for that, and while recording devices have been banned, the meeting is being recorded officially for the Kinsey Institute library. It is also being broadcast to remote participants on the Internet, and every computer in the room is a recording device; so therefore any lack of taping is on the honor system (as it always is here on the digital planet).
My primary objection is this. Some individuals who consider themselves in positions of “national leadership” or even community leadership are doing so under pseudonyms and some feel they cannot reveal their real identities, even if that is off the record. To me this seems odd because the whole point of polyamory is transparency. Presumably that is the only thing that separates it from its cosmic counterpart, cheating.
I know personally nearly everyone in the room; there are a few exceptions. I know friends of most of them, who I trust to vouch for them. So it’s not like I think I’m sitting in a room full of spies. However, I feel passionately that if you are going to put yourself in a position of representing the public, we are all entitled to know who you are, and the things you say belong on the record
The work I do, the positions I take in life and the things that I reveal about myself create certain debilities that might prevent me from participating in certain things, and I don’t participate because either because I cannot, or because I don’t want to get in anyone’s way. I would love to be Barack Obama’s astrologer, but that is probably not a good idea for his sake. My investigative reporting pisses off plenty of people, but I sign my name to it. There are scientists who will not take me seriously as a science reporter because I am also an astrologer, Kepler notwithstanding. I don’t attempt to participate in these things by concealing my true identity or my beliefs