Danny,
I know you mean me when you speak of members here who have replied in anger to you, and that really is part of the problem. You simply will not or cannot take on board the possibility that what YOU have to say is inappropriate, misdirected, or just plain wrong. Rather than consider what others have to say, you dismiss them as angry. Well, okay, I think I have said enough to make it clear that that is not the case, so I will leave it at that.
You speak of the need to read the black, only the black, Danny, but that is not what you are doing yourself, and that is why there has been a fuss now. I am not trying to dump on you, but I just find it difficult to say this in any way other than directly: You are using a lot of rhetoric to assert points that would otherwise fail (because no argument really sustains them), and to evade responsibility for what you say and think.
Heres an example. You have repeatedly referred us back to your opening statement that:
I have absolutely NO DOUBTS WHATSOEVER about the good intentions of those who participate in this discussion
But that reassurance is falsified by a lot of what you go on to say Danny. What you do is inject into the discussion a lot of your own personal issues and fear and not much else. If anyone dares to even TALK about teens on the site, you see that as a FOCUS on them. Any talk ABOUT teenagers here immediately translates for you into the possibility of telephone calls, secret meetings and so on.
Heres an example. I ask the question:
How can we help a frightened teenager feel safe enough to begin his task of healing and start talking about it to people in his flesh-and-blood world?
And I challenge others to:
forget the stock answers out of the books
I think it is clear that what I mean is that while a teenager may benefit from speaking to us here, what he REALLY needs to do in order to begin to heal is to tell someone safe where he actually LIVES: parents, a teacher, a school counselor, a religious leader, whomever. It is only those people who can intervene to get him the direct support, therapy and legal assistance that he may need. This is why I say forget the stock answers out of the books. The standard works simply do not address this problem, and in fact I have seen nothing out there that addresses in a satisfactory way the issues that teen survivors face. The challenge thus seems to be this: How can we, as (mostly) adults on this site, get the teens to see that the real breakthrough for them will come only when they feel safe and confident enough to TELL someone back home what happened to them. How can we help them address the fears that keep them from breaking the silence? How can we help them to see that once the silence is broken everything else immediately becomes possible?
There is nothing in my original post to suggest that I am speaking about anything that would break the rules of this site, and if that was ambiguous in any way, you were the only one to read the worst-case scenario into the thread. In any case, I think I did clarify exactly what I meant in several places above.
But what do you continue to make of all this?
Roadrunner wrote in his original post:
Forget the stock answers out of the booksThe idea of 'forget(ting) the stock answers...' does not sound at all supportive of the official Discussion Board policy. It sounds to me like Hey let's think up new ways (besides the ones the Admin has selected) to deal with these teens.
There is nothing in my post to sustain that conclusion, Danny. The official policy of Male Survivor has to do with this web site, whereas I am talking about the available published literature, as I think is amply clear.
You go on to this:
The notion of talking about it to people in his flesh-and-blood world is a good one, but this is not the flesh-and-blood world here, this is the cyber world. And our relationships with teenagers must stay in this cyber world. It is strictly forbidden to meet in person with teenagers from this site.
Who here in this thread, or ANYWHERE on MS, is talking about meetings with teenagers? No one. I know, I know: this issue has arisen in the past. Fine, but that has nothing to do with this thread, and thats the problem with your comments. You are importing your personal suspicions and anxieties into the discussion.
It may be that you are not getting the point, Danny, but you are an intelligent and lucid guy, so I doubt that this is the case. I think we are back to your fear and suspicion of anything to do with teens on the site. Hence the following:
This sentence triggered me as a suggestion that meeting face to face "flesh and blood" (god, I hate that phrase!) might somehow be a good idea - which it definitely is not, at least for members of this site.
And similarly with this. You ask us to consider the possibility that:
perhaps my strong language and warnings might be addressed to others who may not be as trustworthy as you all
Well, thats patronizing so far as I can see, since you clearly dont think that someone is trustworthy here just by virtue of the fact that he sighs up and posts. Then you continue:
Can you maybe imagine how a predator trolling this web site might react upon seeing a thread in the public forum titled 'how to talk to teens'? Like , "Wow, cool, this is a place I can come and find some teens to 'talk' to.".
This isnt an argument Danny, its just a restatement of your distrust and suspicions. Of course its possible that predators would troll the site, but that possibility exists everywhere in cyberspace, and here it exists regardless of whether or not I (or someone else) starts a thread with the word teen in it. Thats one of the main reasons why this site is so heavily monitored and moderated.
But then you come back to the issue of personal meetings when you refer to Johns experiences working in South America. Again we see that your fear is that ANY discussion with or about teens raises the specter of pedophiles and abuse right under our noses here on MS.
Lastly, I want to address the question of people, especially me, distorting your words. I have read and honestly considered everything you have said, Danny, and no, I am not angry with you, and no, I dont hold personal feelings against you. I dont feel that I have distorted what you say and mean, and what I want to hold out to you as a concluding observation is that the meaning of what one says just DOESNT reside in the words alone. Its the way an argument is put, whether it works or reflects some other agenda, whether it actually refers to the rest of the discussion, and so on. When you say:
I welcome all survivors teenaged or other aged to MaleSurvivor and hope for them the priceless gift of recovery.
well, I find that difficult to believe I guess. You wish teenagers well, so long as no one talks to them, takes them seriously, or discusses ways to help them. Your wishes thus state good intentions, and I believe you mean them. But Danny, your attitude is what counts, and that attitude is one that would deny them many of the things they so desperately need, and which ARE on offer here with your blessing I assume to survivors of other ages.
I think this is one of the attitudes that has to change if teenagers are really going to be helped - here, but in fact anywhere - to make the hard decisions required to do what we all know needs to come first: breaking the silence.
Much love,
Larry
