Why I Keep Crawling Back To You

So, my sexier other half, pocket-doll, wrote something that kept me up. She’s not wrong, read it if you haven’t! But I kept looking at the comments underneath it and it gave me hope, it gave me the fuzzies. The cummunity showed up. Men jumped in on toxic posts unprompted. When someone tried to attack me anonymously (called me a man, which, iconique) the cummunity challenged them. Not me. The cummunity.

That’s not an irreparable space. That’s a space worth protecting!!

Here’s the thing about this place: we made it by accident. Nobody planned it. And yet. So keeping it means making it on purpose now.

The cycle pocket described is real, and it’s exhausting to witness. But bad actors prevail when good people see it happening and say nothing. If we stay quiet we’re not neutral, we’re enabling it, and teaching everyone watching that this is what’s okay here.

So I say, take pride in our space, take responsibility for the behaviour WE allow! Call it out. Back each other up. Lead by example even when nobody’s reading the post.

And I want to be clear: YES, the cult has a blacklist, and there are women on it too. Not many, but they’re there. We protect our men. Because this isn’t about gender, it’s about behaviour. We err on the side of kindness and potential until proven otherwise, but we do not look away. This is our space. We curate it to what we want it to be, or we lose it to what we don’t.

So you tell me, is this space worth saving to you? And if so, what behaviour have you been enabling?

PS. The cult notices. We have eyes everywhere. And I want to thank clnc, TankosaurusRex, 723Dave, RaceCarBedDriver, capp99, JamesJBiJersey, Quaristice, TheoreticalChaos, and DiscoveryingP_C for being champions in the comments. Nothing is sexier than kindness and emotional intelligence.

PPS. And if you call something out and get it wrong? Apologise and course correct. We’re human. You’re not alone in this, and you won’t be left standing there by yourself when you do. The cult has your back.