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- Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!demon!cix.compulink.co.uk!cliveg
- Newsgroups: soc.bi
- From: cliveg@cix.compulink.co.uk (Clive Grace)
- Subject: Re: crackpots in the bi group
- Reply-To: cliveg@cix.compulink.co.uk
- Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 13:16:00 +0000
- Message-ID: <memo.762390@cix.compulink.co.uk>
- Sender: usenet@gate.demon.co.uk
- Lines: 55
-
- In-Reply-To: <1992Nov20.172408.7219@midway.uchicago.edu> h431@quads.uchicago.edu (heather e blair)
-
- S'funny you should mention that. There *are* people I have met at Bi
- groups who worry me a hell of a lot. Sometimes I worry that the Bi
- groups' high level of tolerance leaves them open to weirdos and
- strange people, but that's another issue. This often comes across as
- people who are too touchy-feely for me, people who do not respect my
- personal boundaries and who DON'T ASK before offering a hug. Or
- people who muscle in on a display of affection thinking because I
- want to get snuggly with one or two people, means I want to get
- snuggly with them all! There are currently only two UK soc.bi people
- I want to get snuggly with -- and when I want to increase that to
- three they only have to ask -- but they have to ask and be prepared
- to accept my answer -- even if it's a "no".
-
- The description of the person of indeterminate sex reminded me of
- someone I met at a conference. He/she had no respect for personal
- boundaries and seriously fucked me up -- so much so that one of my
- partners put a mention about him/her on the noticeboard in the
- women's space stating that a man had been sexually harassed. No
- names, and I won't mention them here either but those people who do
- know him/her will hopefully agree -- He/She was a pest but an
- interesting one in some respects. He/She was obviously in great pain
- his/herself and was seen in tears and in the arms of three different
- people at the conf.
-
- He/She was also seen groping various people (not all of whom were
- happy being touched in that way and also caused a hell of a furore at
- the end of a conference) -- which sort of put a bummer on the whole
- gig, but not much.
-
- I knew this person before they decided to do something about their
- gender and do you know what? They were *even worse* before. They were
- virtually ostracised from a science fiction group in another part of
- the country and whilst this "new" person is an improvement on the
- "old" in terms of being less harmful than before, he/she has a lot of
- re-educating in terms of why we need personal boundaries, why when
- someone says no, they had better respect it.
-
- Since then this person has been discussed about amongst certain key
- members of the Edinburgh Bi group. I dunno what (if any) outcome
- there will be, but at least giving my fears and misgivings a voice is
- enough for me.
-
- That was an extreme case. There are people that frighten me because
- they actively like stuff that I'm frightened of, but the tolerance
- and diversity of the Bi group makes them just background noise and
- fairly easy to deal with as a group. IMHO.
- --
- +-------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
- | When I grow up, I want to give up being |cliveg@cix.compulink.co.uk|
- | a Journalist and learn how to write... |cliveg@cix.compulink.uucp |
- +-------------------------------------------+--------------------------+
- | Bisexual knitter of quality and distinction since 1992. |
- +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
-