{"id":62175,"date":"2012-10-27T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=62175"},"modified":"2012-10-26T14:51:42","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T18:51:42","slug":"season-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/season-of-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Season of Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid I almost didn\u2019t write this. And I almost didn\u2019t write this week because I\u2019m afraid. <\/p>\n

\"Poly
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m afraid someone is going to shoot a photo of my 51-year-old white lady ass in yoga pants and post it to a Reddit page<\/a> with other photos of women in yoga pants. There are a half-dozen sites devoted to women in yoga pants alone, I understand, but I\u2019m afraid to look at them for fear some virus will take over my computer and I won\u2019t be able to get my work done. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid the poster will make chuckling comments about how he shot these photos of women in yoga pants and then went home and spanked it to them. And I\u2019m afraid all his little virtual friends will pile on, and I\u2019m afraid they\u2019ll all make crappy comments either saying they\u2019re going to spank it too, or that they\u2019ll make crappy comments about how bad my ass looks. I\u2019m afraid to make that last honest comment, because you\u2019re not supposed to be offended if a lot of trolls make fun of your ass. You\u2019re supposed to ignore the trolls. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that there are so many trolls<\/a>: so many people out there with this bizarre psychological twist that makes them so desperate for any kind of attention that they\u2019ll engage in any way they can; people so hurt, so tense, so crumpled and knotted that they\u2019re desperate even to make people angry, make people hate them; people so desperate to look strong, look smart, look superior to the rest of us, just to try to prove they\u2019re alive, that they exist, that they are here. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid of how single-minded they are, like sharks or jellyfish, just drifting, scanning, engulfing, biting, hissing: \u201cSee me, see me, see me, feed me, feed me, food, food, I eat your energy, I eat your fear, I eat your confusion.\u201d <\/p>\n

(I\u2019m not afraid of people spanking it, by the way. But I\u2019m afraid people will use against me the fact that I don\u2019t think spanking it is wrong.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that people will take the photos I\u2019ve put up on the internets, to show to friends, and do whatever they please with them. I\u2019m afraid that there are photos of my own daughter out there. I\u2019m afraid that some variation of what happened to Amanda Todd will happen to her. I\u2019m afraid to even talk about Amanda Todd, for fear that someone will stumble across this via a search engine and then decide to attack me or the ones I love. I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t protect them. I\u2019m afraid they\u2019ll smell my fear. I\u2019m afraid to reveal what I\u2019m afraid of, because they\u2019ll use my fear as a weapon against me somehow. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that I really don\u2019t care if some dweeb on Reddit is spanking it to pictures of my 51-year-old white lady ass, because really, how does that hurt me? I\u2019m afraid of my lack of concern that this should somehow be seen as a violation. I\u2019m afraid that it means I\u2019m not a real feminist or a real mom, because I can\u2019t see how someone else\u2019s illness could really hurt me. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t think someone taking a creeper photo of my ass means they\u2019ve stolen my soul. I\u2019m afraid that if I just find them pitiable, they\u2019ll turn meaner, looking for more attention feeding. I\u2019m afraid that the next person I look up to write about in the poly community is going to turn out to be sketchy as hell and have all kinds of skeletons. I\u2019m afraid that happened just this week, and I\u2019m afraid to look under any more rocks.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid of the way the trolls are protected and coddled by people who ignore them or defend them, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s their right,\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s free speech,\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s legal.\u201d I\u2019m afraid to clamp down on anyone\u2019s free speech for fear mine will be the next to go. I\u2019m afraid for the women who started this website<\/a>. I\u2019m afraid about everything I\u2019ve written online, everything I\u2019ve revealed, because there are people out there who will use it, who will grab my soul. I\u2019m afraid to just let it go and ignore the trolls, because I\u2019m afraid they\u2019ll escalate, escalate to real life assault and worse. I\u2019m afraid some of these trolls are running for elected office. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m living too much of my life online. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid to speak out about what happens to me anymore, afraid if I do I\u2019ll end up like this woman<\/a>, who has been undergoing a troll pile-on for months and months, who has been trolled by no less than Richard Dawkins. I\u2019m afraid if I comment I\u2019ll be taken down as a dumb ugly cunt who doesn\u2019t know her science and is just whining. I\u2019m afraid that someone who can\u2019t recognize the extent of their own privilege, who remains willfully ignorant of their privilege and their ignorance and their illnesses, will attack me by saying I\u2019m speaking out of privilege. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid of what I\u2019ll do if anyone ‘chastises’ me or tells me ‘bad form, young lady, bad form’ as they did to her. I\u2019m afraid of these virtual gangsters. I\u2019m afraid for my daughter, growing up around these virtual gangsters. I\u2019m afraid I helped cause all these problems by speaking out in the first place and trying to get a place at the table and pointing out the problems in these communities. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll get thrown out of the tribe for telling the chief he\u2019s heading down the wrong road. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid we\u2019ve gone too far and insulted and scared these guys too much through making these observations, through not being nice, through not being sweet, through refusing to just get a cup of coffee with them, for god\u2019s sake, these are nice guys who aren\u2019t asking that much, and how are they ever supposed to meet anyone or get with anyone if they\u2019re not allowed to just ask a woman if she wants to have a cup of fucking coffee, and besides, I\u2019m poly, so that means I sleep with everyone who asks, right? <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that they\u2019ve all gone ’round the bend and they\u2019ve all started seeking revenge now. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll end up living The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m not doing enough to help anyone at all, because I\u2019m afraid to stick my neck out and say what I\u2019m seeing and feeling here. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll be labeled hysterical. I\u2019m afraid someone will use what I do and say and write as an excuse to give me a lobotomy and take my child away and take my job and everything else I\u2019ve worked for. I\u2019m afraid they\u2019ll stalk me and harass me and bully me and they\u2019ll never, never give up, even when I\u2019m dead.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that by being honest about my fear I\u2019ve made myself a target. I\u2019m afraid that I gave bad advice when I told other people to express themselves, to put themselves out there, not to be afraid. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m just going to be misunderstood. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll be deliberately misunderstood because it suits someone\u2019s purposes not to listen, not to hear, not to try to understand but just to make their own point. I\u2019m afraid that everything I write will be twisted and jumped on. I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s all a waste of effort. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid even to imagine what that mother must feel. I\u2019m afraid even to imagine the fear that child must have felt. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid they\u2019re getting worse. I\u2019m afraid of becoming the ones I fear. And I\u2019m afraid of what I\u2019ll do if I ever meet a troll face to face.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m going silent. This is how it happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila I\u2019m afraid I almost didn\u2019t write this. And I almost didn\u2019t write this week because I\u2019m afraid. I\u2019m afraid someone is going to shoot a photo of my 51-year-old white lady ass in yoga pants and post it to a Reddit page with other photos of women in yoga pants. There are … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}