I’m wandering back and forth between here and fetlife for this chain of thoughts. I’m never sure why I post stuff on fetlife at all, but once in a while I feel moved to. Ok.

I have a hard time with the very concept of goodness. What is goodness?

I keep thinking about this kid from southern Louisiana. I can’t remember his name. He was a kid who got in trouble a lot when he was young. When Hurricane Katrina hit this kid rescued a lot of people. He was black and he lived in a poor neighborhood that was not given a lot of help in evacuating. He saved a lot of lives. The news stories I read about him (quite some time ago) were all shocked that this young black guy would be so heroic… so good.

Fuck all y’all for being surprised.

The funny thing is I would trust juvenile delinquents to help and be resourceful in that kind of situation faster than I would trust most “high achievers” or obedient children. Why? Because in order to really be helpful in a crisis you probably need to be good at thinking outside the box and not following your standard way of behaving. You need something new and challenging.

In modern America that kind of personality gets sent to juvie on the regular.

I believe the only reason I didn’t end up in juvenile hall was because I moved so often I didn’t develop a sufficient pattern of behavior in a given community.

What does it mean to be good?

I’m rereading the Imriel books again. Kushiel series. Jacqueline Carey. The Phédra books are way less interesting to me this time. (I need something I can read 2 pages at a time and pick up and put down and not put real effort into learning a new thing.) I’m interested in the thought process behind being problematic from conception and trying to have your very existence not cause more problems in the world. I’m interested in what it means to try to be good when you have impulses that are not so good.

I’m thinking about monsters and intent.

Beauty and the Beast. The whole town comes out to kill the beast… why? Because they are afraid of him. Has he hurt someone? Enh, not really. He has imprisoned intruders… but that was not particularly a violent reaction at the time.

When I think of what goodness means I think of when I read the statistic (that might not be accurate) that 100% of Alaskan native women are raped. Usually by a family member. Are those rapists driven from families or communities? Of course not. They are members of the community and they are necessary for survival. They do good things.

I can say good things about pretty much everyone who raped me. Paul Nathan does an award winning comedy act. He’s great on stage. But I know I’m not the only woman he raped.

What does goodness mean?

There is a woman in my local community. She’s a god damn leather title holder. When I was a teenager she spent a lot of time actively trying to get me to sleep with a list of her friends because “They like it when I bring them fresh meat.”

What does goodness mean?

Most of the ‘big name’ presenters from coast to coast have mixed reputations. Everyone has fucked up. Most people have crossed some major line at some point. The victims tend to leave. The big names stick around and become fixtures who cannot be assailed because everyone knows them and they do so much good for the community. Communities cannot exist without tolerating abusers. Abusers do a lot of fucking work to carry communities forward and the community would cease to exist without them.

What does goodness mean?

I won’t work Dickens Fair because I can’t go face my rapist. But Dan’s been a dedicated member of Mad Sal’s for way over 10 years and he’s done  so much good for the show and the community.

I fear that over the summer when I discussed restorative justice with some folks… they really didn’t understand what I meant. I didn’t mean that “communities shouldn’t throw people away” I meant “if you don’t specifically center the needs of victims you will drive them out of your community and only keep the abusers”. I meant that it’s not just about getting over transgressions and letting folks who fuck up have a second chance. How do you help heal people from being hurt?

Shouldn’t communities care a lot more about the members who are wounded instead of the ones doing the wounding?

Naw. That shit is about work going out and communities need work going in. Victims are hard. Victims are annoying. Victims make people feel weak and vulnerable and bad.

Abusers are way better to keep around.

What does goodness mean?

“But I’m a good person”. I don’t give a shit about your inherent goodness. I care that your fucking behavior is abusive.

What is abusive?

When you make someone feel small and bad about themself and like they don’t deserve to have the feelings/thoughts/emotions they god damn have about their fucking experiences.

I do not know if I ever want to think of myself as good. I’m not sure I would want to be. I’m not nice either.

But I am kind. I am compassionate. I am thoughtful. I am giving. I am generous. I am helpful. I am a good listener. I am educated about how to help people process their emotions. I am a very good teacher–I don’t have to know something to teach it.

Maybe I don’t have to be good to teach it.

Maybe it doesn’t actually matter if I am good and instead it matters if I am actively engaged in improving myself and doing things that make the world better for others. Other people, other animals, other ways of existing.

What does goodness mean?