Reid’s New Commitments Moving Forward

I’ve been in an accountability process for approximately six and a half months. In this post I’m sharing a list of commitments and actions I’ll be making moving forward. This list was born out of what I am learning from this accountability process and will continue to learn. Much gratitude to both pods and my therapist for their feedback and support.

My accountability does not stop when the pods shift out of their roles. I commit to continue learning, unlearning, upgrading, and improving for the rest of my life. My hope is that this post and these commitments aid me along the journey of rebuilding trust with my community and those impacted.

My commitments may shift and will grow as I grow, yet, my values will not. My main intention around accountability is to more consciously interact with people such that I don’t replicate harms I’ve caused in the past. I intend to continue being accountable in ways that reflect my ethics and values to reduce harm and foster healthy, empowering, non-oppressive interactions.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute to this process. Thank you to everyone who’ve been reading and sharing these posts and the posts of the survivor support pod. If you are just arriving to this processes, I invite you to read these two posts to add more insight on the post you’re reading now: The Survivor Support Pod’s Story Collection Overview and Analysis and Where I’m at Currently in my Accountability Process.

My Commitments

• After this process comes to a close, I will work with a mentor or mentors whose intersections land them at a more marginalized location within our society than myself so I can continue to deepen my understandings of power, oppression, intersectionality and ethics. The purpose of those mentorships is to hold me accountable while I actively integrate better teaching and ethical practices into my behavior as an educator and a person.
• I will encourage the communities I am part of to educate themselves about restorative and/or transformative justice processes when seeking accountability and amends making to their communities and those they’ve harmed. I will, when appropriate, point people towards resources.
• I will not initiate flirting or sexual/erotic intimacy with any attendees of my workshops for at least six months after having met them.
• I will endeavor to create an accurate impression of myself when teaching by letting attendees know about this accountability process. I will direct attendees to a handout and resource link to the posts of both pods and a brief summary of this process.
• In the beginning of all my classes and programs, I will do my best to address the socialized expectations my attendees may have of me as a teacher. My objective is realistic, healthy expectations and perspectives of the teacher/student dynamic.
• I will keep business conversations to strictly business, endeavoring to create a clear boundary between work and sexual interactions.
• For the next six months, I will not initiate sexual play or inform people I don’t have an existing sexual connection with of my attraction towards them. At the end of this period, I will reevaluate to see if this commitment continues to serve my goals of healthy, mindful, consensual interactions and reducing harm.
• For the next six months (and perhaps longer), I will turn people down when they initiate sexual invitations outside of explicitly sexual containers (e.g. play parties). I cannot as of yet accurately assess how dynamics such as power differentials, privilege, social location, and my platform are influencing my social interactions. It is important to me to believe people when they express their agency, and I will be building trust in my assessments during this evaluation time.
• I will prioritize improving my abilities to track and honor non-verbal communication, subtle cues, and soft nos. With regards to verbal communication, I will be mindful of how language, especially around sex, can be loaded and improve my abilities to use language that decreases oppressive dynamics. When I fail I will assess the situation, apologize, make amends, and improve to the best of my abilities.
• For the next six months, inside of explicitly sexual containers, I will wait for others to initiate invitations to play. After six months, I will re-evaluate if and how I can improve this boundary to get me closer to my goals and values. I will prioritize non-verbal communication while applying my boundaries and conversation protocols to assess if exploring sexual connection makes good sense for all parties. This will include more conversation and deeper check-ins about power differentials and social capital and how these might be impacting consent in the interaction.
• I have a tendency to run people over with my enthusiasm and desire to discover where our interests and sexual self-expressions overlap. In an effort to unlearn this impulse, I will commit to listening more deeply to what others are communicating verbally and non-verbally and give them the time and the space to choose what relationship they want to have with me rather than jumping to offering them what relationships I have available. However, I also recognize that dumping all the responsibility on others to take the lead is also a way of putting the onus and risks on them. I will work on conscious and ethical ways I can share the responsibility and risks.
• I will be more aware of the optics and impact, I as a white, cis-man in a social position of power and authority, drinking or being drunk at professional events have even when after-hours at events. And I will be more mindful of how images of me that include alcohol on social media could give viewers the impression that I consume more alcohol than I do. Having had extensive conversations with my therapist and my Pod, I’ve resolved that I do not have a drinking problem and will not be attending AA meetings, and I appreciate my community’s concern and suggestions.
• Now that I’m aware that my drinking alcohol makes some people uncomfortable, when people seek me out for networking and/or request business advice when I’m already drinking or when I’m en route to social situations involving alcohol, I will be more thoughtful and thorough in checking in with them regarding the inclusion/continuation of alcohol consumption. I understand that trying to ensure everyone is comfortable 100% of the time is an impossible task; however, it is important to me to be considerate. I also recognize that some people use alcohol and other substances to celebrate and to manage social anxieties, and giving them the option to network and seek advice on their terms is also important.
• For the next six months, I will set a new boundary when asked for professional advice when I’m already drinking: I will notify the asker that I am not available for professional advice when I am drinking and invite them to ask at another time. After six months, I will re-evaluate if and how I can improve this boundary to get me closer to my goals and values.
• For the duration of my accountability process, my passive income URLs will remain forwarded to my home page that informs visitors that I am in an accountability process and has links to the Medium accountability channel posts. The URLs that I cannot easily forward will continue to state that I’m in an accountability process and link to the ReidAboutSex homepage for the duration of my accountability process.
• I have been shown by my pod and my therapist that there is no absolute way to prevent harm from happening and that in some interactions, no matter how hard I try to make the right choices I will fuck up. When this happens and I become aware of it, I will endeavor to make a concise, non-rushed and appropriate apology. I will reach out for appropriate support to ensure that I identify what I can take responsibility for and what I can make amends on, and take appropriate, thoughtful actions to do so. And I will continue to learn, unlearn and integrate so that I can do better and be better at being accountable moving forward. Learning the skills of accountability are a lifelong process that has no end-point. I can and will always seek to do better.
• I realize that reintegrating back into my community may be difficult for some and I will endeavor to be as kind and compassionate as I can while also being mindful of honoring my own self-care needs and boundaries.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for your time and effort. I appreciate you showing up.

If you have questions and have not read the valuable information shared by the survivor support pod, please do. Their posts, along with this channel’s posts should help shed light on this process, how it was formed, and how it continues to unfold.

The skills of reducing harm and being accountable cannot be learned in a vacuum. And I am extremely grateful for everyone who has had a hand in supporting those impacted and contributing to my growth.

Please share these posts with your loved ones, your communities, and where ever you think appropriate.