EPISODE 34 - with the hosts of fucking cancelled
SHOW NOTES:
Content Warning: sexual assault, child abuse, addiction, racism, and other heavy themes are discussed.
Host Shawna Potter talks to Clementine Morrigan and Jay Lesoleil, the hosts of Fucking Cancelled (two L’s because they’re Canadian), a podcast that examines all things related to cancel culture in lefty/progressive circles. In this episode, Shawna aims to learn more about their critiques and what influenced them. They talk about real life experiences with cancel culture, the effects it has on victims of violence, trauma-responses, how to best support survivors of rape, sexual assault, and abuse, and so much more. If you’re asking yourself, “What’s the big deal, aren’t call outs just a consequence of bad behavior?” you’re not alone - and they have an answer ready.
This episode does not cover every facet or nuance of responding to harm. It should be noted that most of the content centers on gender-based violence, and therefore might not sufficiently address racism and other forms of identity-based violence. There is no one right way to respond to your own abuse or assault. While public call-outs are one tool in the toolbox, the guests of this episode argue that it is an ineffective and overused one.
The official sponsors of this episode are First Defense Krav Maga, and Pupcakes and Pawstries, where you can use promo code waronwomen15 to get 15% off your next order.
Episode transcripts, important links, and ways to support Shawna and this podcast can be found at shawnapotter.com. Everything War On Women can be found at linktr.ee/waronwomen. For bonus episodes, behind the scenes content, and the chance to make special requests and get shoutouts on air, become a patron at patreon.com/shawnapotter.
Thanks to Brooks Harlan for chopping up War On Women’s song “Her?” to create the podcast theme song. Main podcast photo: Justin Borucki.
SPONSOR LINKS:
https://www.firstdefensekravmaga.com/
https://pupcakesandpawstries.com/
SHOW LINKS:
Clementinemorrigan.com
Jaylesoleil.com
Fucking Cancelled Podcast: https://www.fuckingcancelled.com/
We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown - https://www.akpress.org/we-will-not-cancel-us.html
How to Be Accountable: Take Responsibility to Change Your Behavior, Boundaries, and Relationships by Joe Biel Author and Dr. Faith G. Harper - https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/3295
Imperfect Victims Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism by Leigh Goodmark - https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520391123/imperfect-victims
Fumbling Towards Repair by Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan - https://www.akpress.org/fumbling-towards-repair.html
Creative Interventions Toolkit - https://www.creative-interventions.org/toolkit/
BUT HER LYRICS PRIMER EPISODES:
SkyDxddy “7 Years” - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/shawnapotter/episodes/7-Years-with-SkyDxddy---033-e2h08en
Palehound/TurnAround “Killer” - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/shawnapotter/episodes/Killer-with-Palehound--TurnAround---024-e1v190v/a-a9bejof
Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict is not Abuse - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/shawnapotter/episodes/Sarah-Schulman--author-of-Conflict-is-Not-Abuse---018-e1kkji9/a-a86hcid
Hannah Brancato (FORCE/The Monument Quilt) on War On Women’s “Say It” - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/shawnapotter/episodes/Say-It-with-Hannah-Brancato---017-e1h8q6t/a-a7ougv2
SHAWNA’S LINKS:
shawnapotter.com
Making Spaces Safer: https://www.akpress.org/making-spaces-safer-book.html
https://www.youtube.com/@shawnapotter
https://www.cameo.com/shawnapotterwow
SHOW SCRIPT:
Welcome to But Her Lyrics...the show where we delve into the political lyrics of songs I like, songs I wrote, or topics that I think should be a song. I’m Shawna Potter, singer and lyricist for War On Women - and your host.
This episode is about a topic that could be a song, but I think it’ll be years before anyone that isn’t a right-wing asshole takes a shot at it. Today I’m talking to Clementine and Jay, hosts of the podcast Fucking Cancelled, which aims to challenge the efficacy of cancel culture in order to “build an effective and organized Left based in solidarity.”
You’ll hear them talk about cancel culture’s effects on victims of sexual violence and other forms of harm, as well as the effects on those accused, and those close to both parties. Huge trigger warning for sexual violence, child abuse, and addiction, so get ready to use one of the grounding techniques we talked about in the last BHL episode with SkyDxddy, get your frozen orange out, and if you can, please keep an open mind. I know people have really strong feelings about CC. Myself included. But I promise this is not the same chat you’d have with your racist uncle or maga grandma. That’s not the conversation we’re having today.
What I care about most is finding, supporting, and participating in practices that help prevent sexual violence or help the victims of it in their journey to healing and justice. And I’m a fan of science - so if it turns out that something we have held as true and good could be improved - or is actually harmful, well, I want to hear about it. And sometimes that means listening to ideas that feel at odds with what is currently the norm. I am not tied to any specific way to get there, I just want to live in a less violent world. And I’m certainly not so egotistical to think we’ve figured everything out perfectly already - just like I am not trusting enough of our government to believe they’ll figure it out for us. We can do this, right? We keep us safe. But we have to have good faith conversations, even if they’re hard, and feel safe enough to do so in order to find those answers we’re looking for and to keep improving.
But maybe I’m not giving you enough credit. Maybe this long exposition isn’t necessary?! I think I’m over-explaining out of fear, fear that my intention will be willfully misunderstood or things we say will be taken out of context and used against me. We talk about that fear in this interview and I can’t wait for you to hear it, but if this is your first time listening to But Her Lyrics, wild choice, wild place to start, you might want to go back and listen to my interviews with survivors, SA prevention activists, people involved in direct victim services, even the writers of songs about revenge against their abusers. I’ll put links to relevant episodes in the show notes so you can find them easily, or - don’t, you know, hey, you do you.
PATREON
Before we get into it, I want to shout out our official sponsors, First Defense Krav Maga and Pupcakes and Pawstries. Links in the show notes, check them out. And big thanks to my Recruits Melissa and Ronni! (Ronnie has a cool, trans-affirming hair salon in Seattle, look up Navarro Hair Design. And to my Meatheads Stephan, Zacharie, Bob, Byron, Russell, and Isaias, and Hunters Mike, Andris, Lydia, Tim, Bessie, Zachary, Kevin, and Lauren. This podcast would not exist without you, you know that, and your support helps me do all my other work, including the band, so thank you. If you want a shout out, too, join my Patreon, where you’ll also get access to behind the scenes stuff, bonus content, and you can request random shit from me - I’m open minded, just message me!
INTERVIEW TIME
So CC is on my mind, because I see call outs and things related to it play out online a lot, obviously, but what I don’t see is what comes after. I sense a lot of fear around being called out, but I don’t see a lot of healing or justice. And frankly it just feels difficult to have a healthy, nuanced conversation about it. So I hope that’s what we achieved in this episode. If you want to hear my specific, and sometimes much darker thoughts around it, join my Patreon. But you’ll probably get more out of listening to this interview instead.
[INTERVIEW - please]
Clementine and Jay thank you so
5:30
much for joining me on but her lyrics please introduce yourself to everyone uh okay hi I'm Clementine
5:35
Morgan and I am a writer and um I have a podcast with Jay called
5:43
[ __ ] cancelled and I write a lot about I mean originally I wrote a lot about like
5:48
relationship sexuality and Trauma recovery were sort of like the main themes that my my work has been
5:54
organized around over the many years that I've been writing and then in the past several years years um I have
6:01
become known for my work on cancel culture um which is also the focus of the podcast that Jay and I have yeah my
6:08
name is Jay uh I am also a writer um an artist been a
6:15
musician um and have a background in anthropology um do my Masters on farri
6:23
studies uh and which is studying the far right not studying while being far right
6:29
I wondered to be clear and um I have spent the last uh several years working
6:36
in homeless shelters as an intervention worker um and yeah I'm also one half of
6:42
[ __ ] cancel um so let's start with the basics what is cancel culture to you cancel
6:49
culture exists across the political Spectrum but the focus that we have is cancel culture in like left Lefty
6:56
liberal social justice type spaces and the reason we focus on that is because we are inside those bases we are
7:01
leftists we are career people we are inside the social justice world and so
7:07
our focus is on cancel culture in that world but cancel culture also exists in a different form on the right and in
7:13
other places but that's not our Focus um and so cancel
7:20
culture is basically when a person has been accused of something um there is a
7:27
campaign in order to to deny that person's right to empathy and to human
7:34
belonging and so that person becomes marked as a Target as someone who is now
7:40
seen as bad um often this is framed as calls for accountability but in reality
7:46
accountability is like forever receding into the distance that it's actually seems to be impossible for people to be
7:52
accountable in a way that stops the cancellation um or allows them to
7:57
continue to have a life um when a person is cancelled every single person in their life from their friends
8:05
their partner to um people who follow them on social media or who are fans of
8:10
their work also receive social pressure to denounce and abandon the target
8:17
importantly there is absolutely no method through which accusations are
8:22
interrogated to find out if they are true and so um there's no process um to
8:29
actually find out if the accusations make any sense are based in reality um
8:34
or are uh justifying this level of response and so I understand cancel culture as
8:42
literally making it a social crime to be friends with someone care about them or have empathy for them um and so this
8:48
works to socially isolate people in a major way where they lose friends relationships also they can lose their
8:55
job they can lose job opportunities um and they can be banned from spaces and it also often but not
9:02
always has a large social media component in which accusations are being spread across the internet in a sort of
9:07
broken telephone style where people are repeating things and the accusations are like changing and no one is factchecking
9:13
because how could they um because many of the people who are involving themselves in this cancellation actually don't know the people involved and don't
9:20
actually know what happened or if anything happened um and there's also a
9:25
very like vague use of language where people are um conflating things right so we use the
9:31
word abuse very vaguely we don't actually say what it is that we mean when we're saying that someone is
9:37
abusive um similarly for other types of cancellations where someone is accused of being racist or accused of being
9:42
transphobic or other things like that those those types of accusations are often passed around without any actual
9:47
content about what it is that they're being accused of that makes them um an abuser a racist or transphobic just as
9:55
examples right so we aren't actually given the facts so people can't really assess whether or not this accusation
10:00
makes any sense and it's also under the logic of cancel culture considered a crime to ask questions about accusations
10:08
because the refrain believe survivors is always used um to to say
10:16
that we can never ever ask or question whether or not um accusations make sense
10:21
or are true um and so this has a huge impact on people's lives and a really
10:27
important thing to point out is is that when talking about cancel culture what often happens is that people always want
10:34
to focus on celebrities people always want to focus on famous rich people and
10:40
they want to talk about that and say well no one's really canceled because these people are super rich and they still continue to have careers I'm
10:45
thinking of Dave Chappelle you know being quote unquote cancelled for being transphobic but he keeps getting Netflix
10:51
specials and getting paid for them yes and so the thing is is that everybody wants to focus on celebrities but the
10:58
vast vast vast majority of people who are canceled are not celebrities the vast vast majority of people who are
11:03
canceled are just regular people who neither you nor I have actually heard of they are just regular people who like
11:09
maybe they have a band like a local band or maybe they run a vegan bakery or maybe they you know in some kind of way
11:16
were involved in like organizing in their city or something like that but they're not famous and they're definitely not rich they don't have PR
11:21
people they don't have lawyers and so they are not in the same position to actually protect themselves from the total social and material Annihilation
11:28
that cancel culture can unleash upon their lives do you want to add to that no that's pretty thorough um that
11:34
was pretty thorough not everyone agrees with y'all's point of view right I I
11:39
asked folks on my socials to submit questions um for this episode and one of the common ones was why don't we just
11:46
call it consequence culture because isn't that all it is I mean that sounds like something a
11:51
cop would say okay first of all as I said many of the
11:59
accusations are false and overstated so how can there be consequences for something that you didn't actually do
12:04
right and so even in the criminal justice system for all its problems there's still such a thing as a trial um
12:11
and the right to defend yourself right and so people are allowed to defend themselves there's the idea that you are
12:17
innocent and pro until proven guilty and that you have the right to like a lawyer and you have the right to State your side of things and you have the right to
12:24
be defended you have the right to know who your accuser is and also what the charges are against you as well EX and
12:29
so in cancel culture you know who is deciding who is deciding what the
12:35
consequences are and who are you to enforce consequences upon someone who is
12:40
saying that they did not do what they were accused of or that what they are accused of is not actually they haven't
12:46
actually done anything wrong right I think I think that people have this notion that there are these sort of like
12:53
um these organizations that must be in charge of all of this in some way you know there must be sort of like groups
12:58
or panels or you know um some kind of like people getting together to uh go
13:04
over the accusations and make sure that they're accurate and and you know coming up with reasonable consequences for
13:09
people you know and then uh relaying those to the person who is being accused or whatever but in reality uh the whole
13:15
process is like this kind of like mob fueled spectacle like no one's in charge
13:21
like almost always you know um and there is you know there are no checks and balances of any kind because it's not
13:27
institutional in in anyway right mostly It's Just Happening as this sort of diffus process on social media that
13:33
nobody's in charge of nobody's keeping track of um and so the idea that there could be just sort of these like reasonable consequences for someone um
13:40
is really gesturing at a like a a form of organization that doesn't exist you know and people maybe like wish that it
13:46
did or something but in in almost all cases that that we've seen there's no such thing and going directly to
13:53
consequences without first determining what happened and whether or not those consequences are appropriate is
13:59
literally like going to sentencing without having a trial um because how can you um how can you enforce
14:06
consequences on someone when there's multiple different understandings of what happened when there's disagreement
14:12
about what happened and when there hasn't actually been any kind of process to figure out if those consequences are
14:17
are relevant or make sense and you know for all of this talk of accountability who is holding the
14:23
councelor is accountable who is checking to make sure that the use of this
14:28
massive power this massive social power to control people's lives to enforce consequences on them that that is
14:34
actually being used in a responsible and just way and the reality is is nobody's holding the councellors accountable and
14:41
so they can obviously use this form of power in all sorts of irresponsible ways
14:46
I can imagine that some of my listeners hackles are going up hearing some of this stuff um do you mind you know
14:54
telling us a little bit about uh in in in the most polite way like
15:02
what what what's your expertise like what are what are like I know someone's listening going what gives you the right
15:08
to think this way um but what schools of thought then form this work well first I
15:14
think we we both are are of the opinion that anyone can think any way that they want you know um sure but yeah I mean I
15:22
think that our our um sort of intellectual backgrounds if you want to
15:29
say um that contribute to this is uh we both have a long history in the 12 Steps
15:35
um both of us have been in 12ep uh you know uh environments for like a decade
15:43
um and it contributed hugely to the way that we think about uh what it means to
15:49
actually sort of like be accountable with quotation marks around it um how do people get better you know if people
15:55
have like hurt others in their lives and have done things that they regret like what is the best way to sort of bring
16:01
them back to a place where they're no longer doing those things to a place where they can be responsible um and so we have you know some ideas about that
16:07
because we've seen it um work over and over and over again um in situations
16:13
that often are much more sort of dire than the ones that people are mad about in social justice World know um and so
16:21
we we know that people um can change their ways and can you know become become the kinds of people that they
16:27
would like to be um and and it happens through resourcing people and giving
16:32
them Community instead of taking it away um H so that's like one major uh part of
16:39
the way that we think so I mean I'm a Survivor of childhood sexual abuse I am
16:44
a survivor of domestic violence my entire life has been shaped through complex trauma and the amount of
16:50
physical and sexual violence that I have experienced in my life so I really like to say that because I really don't
16:56
appreciate the like way that people weaponize the identity of Survivor um or
17:02
flatten different survivors perspectives on all of this or assume that the only reason somebody could take the stance
17:08
that I'm taking is because they don't understand or they don't care about
17:13
survivors it's actually the exact opposite like I care about survivors more than I care about anything else
17:19
because that has been the entire you know shaping of my life I have you know a lot of recovery now but complex PTSD
17:25
fully shaped the trajectory of my life and so my understanding of all of this is deeply deeply rooted in the
17:32
experience of being a Survivor and one controversial opinion that I have is that I actually believe that cancel
17:38
culture appropriates from survivors language that is very serious and that
17:43
was initially like put forth by feminists to address very serious things like
17:49
domestic violence and child sexual abuse and then they use this language to
17:55
basically um have Petty drama and to to silence people who disagree with them or
18:01
to you know make sure that like people that they don't like can't enter into spaces and there's a lot of bad faith
18:08
use of this this lineage of of work to actually protect and Empower survivors
18:14
so that's like a big part of it also my understanding of trauma you know that's
18:20
that's me um acknowledging that a lot of people do this in bad faith and maliciously but on the other side is
18:25
that my understanding of trauma both through my own exper of it and the fact that I you know am basically like an
18:32
amateur scholar of trauma who has read every single book about trauma that exists um in order to understand my own
18:38
experience trauma is literally a disability under which you
18:44
have emotional and nervous system reactions appropriate to the past in the present right so survivors of child
18:51
abuse survivors of um you know formative experiences of trauma developmental
18:59
trauma are very likely in the future to feel that they are being abused when
19:05
they are not not because they're being malicious not because they're being intentionally dishonest but because due to their past
19:11
trauma they can feel extremely overwhelming emotions and also feel a lack of agency when they do in fact have
19:18
agency in the present and so I also believe that there can be um a genre of cancellations in which people are making
19:24
false accusations or overstated accusations but they're not being intentionally dishonest they actually
19:30
believe that they have less power than they do and they actually believe that that something was abusive when it
19:35
wasn't because the emotional and nervous system reactions that they're having are coming from abuse but they're coming
19:41
from earlier abuse and so I have had that experience um and I think that to
19:48
truly um support survivors especially survivors of Developmental trauma is not
19:53
enough to say believe survivors and leave it at that survivors deserve friends and Community who can help them
20:00
do the important work of discernment which is to actually look at what has happened the details of what has
20:06
happened not just the emotional response of the person but the details of the actual actions and to help them to
20:12
understand whether or not what has happened is abuse or whether or not it is an unhappy relationship conflict a
20:20
relationship that's not meeting their needs and due to their past trauma they have they have less understanding of
20:27
their own agency and their own ability to leave a situation that isn't meeting their needs you know and so I think that
20:33
cancel culture is actually really bad for survivors it is really trauma illiterate actually and doesn't provide
20:40
us with the necessary tools to discern between different kinds of situations and then use appropriate responses also
20:46
finally I think uh a socialist materialist um view of the world which
20:53
is one that Clementine and I share um uh calls on us to look for more like
20:59
structural um solutions to the problems that people are facing you know and I
21:05
think that cancel culture is very much part of a uh a hyperfocus on the
21:11
individual um as well as a hyper focus on identity which is like a whole other aspect of it but it it it allows people
21:18
to imagine that they can solve like very big intractable Problems by um picking a
21:25
person who has like you know caused some kind of problem and uh and punishing them right right um as though as though
21:32
that is going to change like the larger structure that is enabling these problems in the first place and uh
21:38
that's like a an understandable kind of natural human inclination but um I think
21:43
that if we're serious about wanting to you know like end like violence against women for example you know we need to be
21:50
um really like steadfastly looking at the structural elements that allow it to
21:56
flourish um the things that make women unsafe you know the things that make uh
22:01
make it so that they can't leave um uh partners that are violent like that kind of thing you know um and we need to be
22:08
pushing as much as we can to change those on on a much larger level than just picking like some [ __ ]
22:15
drummer and destroying his life you know oh man I'm I'm sorry to just go on and on
22:21
but I feel like I have just a couple other things to add to this I also want to say that like this division between
22:26
perpetrator and Survivor also really upsets me because survivors of child
22:32
abuse which honestly my allegiance and my solidarity is first and foremost with
22:37
child child abuse survivors right and the severe like developmental trauma that we develop as a result many
22:43
survivors of child abuse go on to have extremely chaotic Lives full of like you
22:48
know mental illness incarceration um and addiction and so
22:53
many people who had very severely traumatic childhoods go on to do things that are abusive and so this like false
22:59
binary between like an abuser and a Survivor does not allow us to actually see and understand that many of the
23:06
people who are being quite abusive are survivors of child abuse and like very serious things that have happened to
23:11
them and they also deserve compassion and resources and an understanding of their experience as a Survivor it
23:17
bothers me that we don't offer that compassion and then one one last thing
23:22
is that you know for as much as everyone's like this is about safety and this is about keeping people safe
23:29
I really wonder when people say things like that I'm like have you met super
23:34
violent abusive guys because the reality is like I'm a Survivor of domestic violence very serious domestic violence
23:40
and the reality is is that if I were to make a website about my ex and slander
23:46
him on the Internet or not even slander in this case cuz it's true but like talk [ __ ] on the internet like talk [ __ ] say what he did make websites demanding that
23:53
he's cancelled he would be so angry that he would attack me he would stalk me and attack me right so like it's just like
24:01
very like unrealistic in situations of like severe violence and like um physical and sexual
24:09
violence especially domestic violence that this would even be a realistically like helpful tool for survivors because
24:16
um when you when you do things like that abusers get angry and they and they tend to take that anger out on the target of
24:23
their Rage which is their partner or their ex- partner right so I just also think like pragmatically it's not very
24:28
useful tool because it's like if these people were as scary as you're saying that they are with these cancellation
24:34
campaigns they would probably lash out violently um in response to being canceled like this right so I just don't
24:40
see it as a realistic tool do you think that there are circumstances where a public call out or cancellation attempt
24:47
is warranted like it's sort of like what are we trying to achieve with it right
24:53
that's the question and what are we trying to achieve and is it going to achieve that people will say for example
24:59
that it's about warning people and so we need to make sure that people know so that this person isn't coming around so
25:04
that it can so that we can be safe right but the reality is is that unless you
25:10
kill someone which you shouldn't do or you lock them into solitary confinement which is also wrong that person is going
25:17
to continue to be around other human beings right so even if we constantly try to drive this person out of our
25:22
community for safety reasons where are they going to go they're going to go somewhere else and wherever they go
25:28
there's going to be other people and so I don't think that that's like a very effective way to end violence to just
25:34
make sure that you know we're warning everybody and we're not letting this person into spaces because eventually they're going to go somewhere else and
25:39
they're going to find another way to be in spaces because they are a human being that's what human beings do secondly I
25:45
think it creates a false a false idea about safety because we're like oh we know who the abusers are it's this guy
25:51
this guy and this guy so as long as those guys aren't in the space we don't have to worry it's a safer space now but the reality is is that there's many
25:57
other people who are abusive in the space who have not yet been cancelled um and so I think our our energy would be
26:04
better served in actually trying to address one why are people being abusive and how can we help them to not be
26:09
abusive and two how can we help people to actually build spaces that are more
26:15
literate to understanding when violence is going on and how we can best protect ourselves and each other right and like
26:21
one of the things that I've been doing since I was a teenager is is intervening on domestic violence situations that are
26:27
unfolding in public and I'm extremely good at it I know how to deescalate I'm a 5 foot one and I have
26:33
deescalate many violent situations successfully without anybody getting hurt and that's something that I'm good
26:40
at and that I know how to do but do all of these people who love making websites about other people and cancelling people know how to do that because I feel like
26:47
that type of skill if we actually spent our time building that skill set would be far more effective in in ending
26:53
violence than canceling people for someone like me who cares about violence
26:59
prevention and supporting victims of gender-based violence um throughout their journey of healing um where does
27:07
your analysis of cancel culture fit into that I think you're already touching on that but like what what do we do as the
27:14
friends uh or community of of victims uh what do we do well like weirdly you know
27:22
one thing about cancel culture like especially when it's uh when it's a cancellation that's revolving around
27:27
some kind of fact of like abuse or something like that um weirdly it focuses on the the accused rather than
27:34
the person who is like supposed to have been harmed you know um and I think that something that we uh definitely could do
27:41
is spend more time um and more energy taking care of people who are who have
27:46
gone through something really like painful and potentially like uh dangerous you know and potentially traumatizing and like I don't see very
27:54
much of that honestly you know I think I see a lot of people pouring a lot of energy into like punishing strangers on
27:59
the internet you know uh but it's like if you like if your friend if you
28:05
suspect that you're friend is like living through a dangerous relationship you know like you really should be
28:13
trying to find effective and safe ways to intervene on that um help that person
28:18
in concrete ways you know learn the necessary skills too because it's not necessarily as straightforward as people
28:23
might think um if you know that your friend has uh uh just recently exited a
28:31
relationship like that um they're going to need a lot of support too potentially like um potentially they might need to
28:36
be made physically SA
28:53
[Music]
28:58
yeah so like depending on as Jay is saying depending on where the Survivor is on the journey the type of support
29:05
that is necessary um changes right um and in every stage of that I actually
29:11
think that cancel culture is bad for survivors um but in the first stage when a person is in a domestic violence
29:17
relationship actually the worst thing that you could do is tell them that their partner is a piece of [ __ ] because what that does is it drives them closer
29:24
to the abuser because they are still wrapped up in that dynamic and if a if a person is starting to be
29:31
honest with you that there's some type of violence um or abuse going on in their relationship the best thing that
29:36
you can do is you do point out that the the behavior is wrong without dehumanizing
29:44
or like you know talking like that person is a piece of [ __ ] because the person the Survivor loves that person
29:50
right so if you say that person is garbage like you shouldn't be with them what they're going to do is stop telling
29:55
you what's going on they're going to isolate themselves from you um because they're not ready yet right and so the
30:02
the actual nuances of supporting a Survivor inside an abusive relationship is to highlight their own agency right
30:07
don't tell them what to do because the fact is is that they're already being told what to do constantly they need to be in their own power and you know you
30:14
do point out that that the behavior is concerning and that you are worried you know and you can be honest about that
30:19
because you you're like I love you and this behavior is worrying me you know you can be honest about that but you
30:24
need to let that person um make their own decisions and you need to allow for the complexity of that person's actual
30:31
experience which is that they love the person who's abusing them and if you if you if you deny them that then they are
30:38
going to stop talking to you and so you know one of the best things that you can do for a Survivor who's in a actively
30:44
abusive relationship is give them a key to your apartment and tell them that they can use it anytime that they need it um and that you are here to listen
30:52
and to be supportive but also that you're going to um Center their own agency in that process you know
30:58
there's there's a flip side to this too which is something that Clementine was sort of um mentioning earlier which is
31:05
that uh part of being a responsible friend um is also being able to discern
31:11
whether or not you know the person in question uh really is being abused you
31:16
know um because it is possible that they might believe that they are or they might say that they are without that
31:21
necessarily being accurate you know and you know um sometimes people might you
31:27
know know sort of make up stories for whatever various reasons but also sometimes and what Clementine was saying earlier I think this is really important
31:33
people might you know really feel like what they're going through uh is most
31:39
accurately called abuse um but you know when you get down to like the the fact
31:44
of what's actually happening it might not be like it might be conflict that they're experiencing in a really emotional way it might be um I mean
31:51
there's you know a lot of different reasons why somebody might feel so overwhelmed um that they feel like abuse
31:57
is the best way to describe it but if it isn't if that's not really what's going on like and this is like a scary thing
32:02
to do but it might be necessary to talk to that person about that and and see if you can help them come to a you know a more accurate understanding and one
32:09
which honestly like empowers them more right yeah and set as their own agency yeah uh Clementine in the past you have
32:16
written about how you falsely accused your ex of abuse and could you could you
32:22
speak about that and then also speak about like how how did you get out of
32:28
thinking that way how did you get out of having that false body response you know just to give a little background to the
32:34
story like as I've said I had an insanely [ __ ] up life right and so I'm Survivor and I have gone through
32:39
childhood sexual abuse years of alcoholism where I was like assaulted all the time by all sorts of people and
32:45
then very severe domestic violence that went through the courts right so I have
32:50
had a crazy life when I got sober when I was 25 and I started to have a less crazy life and I started to not
32:55
experience violence all the time I was still rittle with cptsd in such an insane way right like my cptsd was so
33:02
debilitating that I really did not have like the sense of empowerment and agency
33:08
um and I was constantly flooded with nervous system responses that were extremely overwhelming right so my first
33:14
serious relationship in sobriety was with a person who was also sober and we were together for three years that
33:21
relationship upon retrospect you know now many years later was a classic anxious avoidant dynamic in I was having
33:28
extreme um anxious preoccupied responses and my partner was super avoidant and was like not not meeting my emotional
33:35
needs and neither of us had any literacy about this right so we didn't understand what was going on and for anyone who
33:41
understands the anxious preoccupied um attachment style it's extremely flooding
33:46
right it's very very flooding and your your nervous system is constantly feeling like you're in a state of emergency and like you're going to die
33:52
um and that combined with my very intense complex PTSD meant that was
33:58
always in this extreme state of distress and yet I also felt like I needed this relationship and I couldn't lose it no
34:03
matter what you know um and so I stayed in it for years even though I was deeply unhappy and all of my attempts to sort
34:10
of try to address the unhappiness in the relationship were met with classic dismissal from my avoidant partner who
34:16
just was avoiding the situation and didn't really want to deal with it and didn't really know how to deal with it right um but there was no um there was
34:24
no coercive control there was no name calling there was no deg ration there was no humiliation there was no sexual
34:30
abuse there was no physical abuse there was just a really unhappy relationship
34:36
that my needs were not being met that I experienced as extremely emotionally disregulated right eventually I decided
34:43
to leave this relationship and doing so was absolutely devastating and I felt like completely undone like I was going
34:50
to therapy twice a week I was like crying all the time I was just completely debilitated by how much pain
34:56
I was in and whenever I would see my partner like around my ex partner around the city I would have like a panic
35:02
attack I would immediately my heart rate would go through the roof I would feel like I was going to throw up and then I would be like super depressed for the
35:07
rest of the day and where were you in your recovery your sober recovery like how long have you been sober I maybe
35:13
like I guess I I started the relationship when I was two years sober so I would have been like almost five
35:19
years sober by the time um this ended but like being a person who was still
35:25
[ __ ] poor and didn't have money the therapy that I was able to access at that time was not exactly appropriate
35:31
for the complex PTSD and developmental trauma that I had right so I was going to therapy and I was going to AA but
35:36
like I had really severe trauma that was not actually adequately being addressed
35:42
through like the poor people therapy that I was able to access at that stage of my life you know totally um and so
35:47
yeah I still had a long way to go and like complex PTSD is [ __ ] hard to recover from you know so I was really
35:54
disregulated and so I was inside this social Justice culture that's very cany
35:59
and that always like moves towards this Narrative of abuse right and so a
36:05
well-meaning friend talking to me about it was like your emotions are evidence of abuse she literally said that and she
36:11
was like this is an emotionally abusive relationship that's why you're responding this way and I was like huh
36:17
you know because first of all when I thought about it like that it was extremely regulating because I went from feeling
36:25
super powerless and panicked and out of control to feeling angry and that anger
36:31
was grounding like that anger made me feel like I had some power and some control and and a narrative that made
36:37
sense but I do remember questioning it because I was like look this relationship yes I was insanely unhappy
36:42
but it was nothing like my relationship when I was 23 you know where my partner frequently like called me a disgusting
36:47
[ __ ] and like physically abused me you know so I was like this is obviously not that but I was like well it seems like
36:54
people are saying that abuse looks lots of different ways and so maybe this is abuse you know I was extremely unhappy
37:00
and you know my needs weren't being met and why am I responding this way if it's not abuse and so I believed that it was
37:06
I took that narrative on and I was like abuse can look many different ways and this must be a certain kind of emotionally abusive relationship and so
37:12
I started to tell people that and I went through a couple years in which fortunately I did not do a giant public
37:18
cancellation campaign because I already had some sense of like that feeling wrong to me like in my own journey I was
37:25
aware that like I wasn't really into the calling out thing okay but I still was
37:31
in a I was sort of soft cancelling right my because you like wrote about it and stuff I wrote about it but I never named
37:37
them yeah I never named them but like anyone who knew would know and also I told people and so it was going through
37:43
the Great Vine and it was probably affecting my ex for sure you know and so
37:48
anyway a couple years later I was in therapy and I got a new therapist who's still my therapist to this day um and
37:54
she's great and so she had a sliding scale and I managed to get an actual ual uh trauma competent therapist for cheap
38:02
and so you know she knew my background she knew my history she knew about this
38:07
relationship and at a certain point I described it as emotionally abusive and she
38:12
said that was an unhappy relationship not an abusive one and as a Survivor it
38:18
is extremely important for you to be able to discern the difference and so the thing is is that under cancel
38:24
culture my therapist could be canceled for this um literally I could have gone on the internet and been like my
38:30
therapist you know and so actually many therapists because we talk to therapists you know about cancel culture and many
38:36
therapists are living in fear of actually being honest with their their clients because they're actually afraid
38:42
of being canceled you know so Props of my therapist because she did an appropriate trauma intervention there
38:47
she wasn't saying you know cuz like many types of abuse that I've experienced have been subtle you know but they you
38:53
can still discern the difference there's ways it's not an unknowable thing so we you talk about it there's ways of discerning is this humiliating is this
39:00
degrading is this controlling you know is there a pattern yeah like what is this and or is this a because there was
39:06
a pattern in this relationship too but it was a pattern of an anxious preoccupied avoidance cycle of you know
39:11
bids for attention and failure to meet those bids which is an unhappy relationship like it did suck you know
39:18
but the thing is is that if I didn't have cbsd and if I was more um like
39:24
grounded and had more um more sense of like who I was and safety in the world I
39:30
would have left that relationship like I would have been like this relationship isn't meeting my needs and I can leave it because there was nothing to keep me
39:36
there like except for the fact that I thought I would die if I left but why did I think that you know um and so
39:42
anyway like it was difficult at first for me to hear that but I trusted her
39:47
because she did not invalidate any of the abusive experiences in my life with like my parents or my childhood or my
39:53
other things I've been through she was like those are abusive this is not and so I was able to hear that and I was
39:59
like okay let me think about this and I came to understand that she was right and so you know in the time since I have
40:06
made amends to my ex um for slandering them um which they did take quite
40:12
graciously um and also like I have part of my amends in a living amend sense is
40:19
being honest about this and talking about it publicly that I did this and that this is something that I think actually happens more than we're willing
40:25
to admit so I like to try and leave people with something that they can do or
40:31
something hopeful what should people do when they see an online call out happening like what in your in your best
40:39
case scenario like what should people do when it comes up in their feed well I
40:44
mean I think that if you disagree with that kind of thing um you have the right to say so uh and I think that it's it's
40:50
good actually for people to just like simply be like I don't agree with this kind of thing and I don't particip in it
40:57
you know if you're being asked to participate in it you can say no it's scary though I feel like there's so much fear yes yeah from people though to to
41:05
they're more afraid of like um saying the wrong thing than doing the wrong thing you know yeah it is really scary
41:12
there's no doubt about it you know um but sometimes like doing the right thing is scary um and I think that you know I
41:20
I would I would invite listeners to be curious about that fear right because that fear is evidence that cancel
41:25
culture is a real thing like if we were only canceling the bad guys why is someone feeling fear about making a
41:32
comment on social media does that make you an abuser does that make you a terrible dangerous person why is why is
41:38
it so scary to do something like that why are you so afraid of stepping out of line because we do know that cancel
41:44
culture is absolutely not just directed at abusers in fact most of the people who are canceled are not abusers that I
41:51
believe is true because I talk to [ __ ] hundreds of cancel people you know and I think that you know the the
41:57
fact that we're afraid to stand up for something um even to make a comment that's like hey like I understand that
42:03
you guys are trying to like address something here but like you know the person on the receiving end of this is still a human being and I'm worried
42:09
about them like even that can get you into a lot of [ __ ] trouble people can start coming for you right and so that
42:16
is very concerning because the um impact that it has on on on everyone not just people who
42:23
are canceled but cancel culture is affecting everyone because it is making us [ __ ] hyper vigilantly afraid of
42:29
thinking critically being honest like doing things that feel in Integrity because we are so afraid of getting
42:35
marked and getting called out and possibly getting canceled you know um and so you know like the thing is is
42:43
that I think that it's important in this conversation that we spent a bunch of time talking about situations of serious
42:48
abuse and Trauma and like trying to discern this but the reality is that many many cancellations have nothing to
42:54
do with any of the stuff that we were just talking about and we need to be honest about that a huge number of cancellations are because someone is
43:00
accused of not posting about something political that they were supposed to have posted about or that they expressed a political opinion even a political
43:06
opinion that is firmly on the left but that was not following some sort of weird rule were immediately like okay
43:13
that person's a fascist you know like the way that we jump to extreme accusations when what is really going on
43:19
is political disagreements like minor conflict um interpersonal drama yeah and
43:26
again it's like you know know actually it goes back to one of your questions earlier where you were sort of like who are you to talk about this and it's like
43:32
I really didn't know any way to say it it didn't sound sassy sorry I tried my best I get it I get it but like part
43:38
part of this is that we have a podcast about it and therefore people talk to us you know and like literally as K said
43:43
like hundreds or at this point like probably like a thousand people have like have talked to us about their experiences and we we get like tons of
43:49
messages and and emails all the time and so we have like a huge like backlog of like case studies to go by you know what
43:55
I mean and we like meet people at our events like n no n and so we we can discern a pattern you know and the
44:01
pattern is that like yeah the huge majority of these people are like uh young queer non-binary like kids who
44:09
like said said something on the Internet that like some cruel uh like Frenemy of
44:14
theirs like had a problem with and and then they had their [ __ ] completely [ __ ] destroyed and now they are like
44:20
in a a room by themselves like bangging their head against the wall you know um and like it's really really really
44:25
really awful and people imagine that it's all these like super scary bad guys and plaid shirts who you know who did
44:32
something um really awful and are just experiencing consequences but like for the most part it's like nothing even remotely like that you know and so if
44:39
you see if you see this kind of [ __ ] going on I think that it's really important to just say like I don't like this I think that it's like cruel and
44:45
useless you know and it's also good to to reach out to people who are experiencing this kind of thing and and
44:51
let them know that you don't like it either because a huge part of this uh a huge part of why cancel culture like
44:56
even even works is that it it successfully creates this atmosphere where like nobody can sort of like say anything about it you know um and uh you
45:04
can you can sort of like pop that bubble by by just you know speaking up in a calm Manner and just being like this is
45:10
like [ __ ] so stupid yeah like the ven diagram of like cancel culture and abuse
45:16
is a ven diagram with actually minimal overlap and the vast majority of people who are abusers are not canceled and I
45:23
will never be canceled because they're not friends with like a bunch of hipsters who are canceling on the internet sorry like um like like like
45:31
the world that I was in when I was being abused was full like my my boyfriend was like in and out of jail like the people that I was hanging out with were like
45:37
smoking crack so like those types of people are not canceling people on the internet and a large number of people
45:42
who are being abused are living in poverty and are living in you know social worlds that will never meet our online social justice world and so
45:49
pretending that cancel culture is helping those people at all is an absolute fantasy the majority of abusers will never go anywhere near cancel
45:55
culture and then the majority of cancellations are not about abuse the majority of cancellations are about a whole bunch of other stuff in
46:01
interpersonal drama like conflicts political disagreements or just simply like literally people use un processed
46:07
[ __ ] yeah and people use cancel culture to take down like what they perceive as their competition in our insane in our
46:14
insane capitalist world where tons of people are trying to make a living doing some kind of like online like content
46:20
creation like creative job you know like when I was cancelled you know I when I
46:26
hit 10K followers on Instagram I started having regular panic attacks because I knew it was coming by the time I hit 50k
46:33
it came and I was cancelled for the most absurd nonsense in the entire world like I was literally cancelled for no [ __ ]
46:38
reason you know I was accused of not sharing about black lives matter I publicly in a call out post I I messaged
46:45
the person I was like hey I'm not sure why you're saying that because I have been sharing about it you can see it on my page and then I was demanded to
46:51
deplatform and when I just didn't reply to that message I was called a white supremacist on a national like an intern
46:57
scale and I lost all my friends and my housing you know and so pretending that that is has anything to do with Abuse
47:04
Prevention or has anything to do with politics or has anything to do with anything consequences it's absolutely absurd you know like I had a very very
47:11
insane cancellation and it was for no [ __ ] reason and so there's a lot of cancellations that are like that and the
47:16
the problem is is that when people heard my cancellation they didn't hear my side of it they heard Clementine has been
47:22
called out for racism and she is not taking accountability so when you hear that it sounds bad and so people who are like well I oppose racism I obviously
47:29
want to take this seriously but if what they if you actually hear the content of the accusation which is that I was
47:34
accused of not sharing about black lives matter and then I when it was pointed out that I had shared about it I was demanda to deplatform that sounds a lot
47:41
more absurd but that's not the message that's being passed around on the internet right and so yeah I mean I
47:47
think people I think a lot of people are really really scared to even think about this like it immediately sends them into
47:53
a nervous system disregulation thing because they are thinking the unthinkable thoughts they are thinking and and part of me is like guys why why
48:01
are there Unthinkable thoughts are you in a fundamentalist religion is this Ault because I'm like you should be able
48:07
to think freely about things you should be able to speak freely about things you should be able to ask questions and if you are so afraid to think freely and
48:14
ask questions because you are afraid that you're going to receive huge social consequences that is evidence that
48:19
cancel culture is absolutely real and it is also evidence that you're living in a dysfunctional social world where you are
48:24
expected to like submit and not think for yourself so unfortunately the only way out is out
48:30
right and like the only way you're going to find people who think that it's okay for you to think for yourself is to
48:35
start thinking for yourself and you will start to receive consequences like if
48:41
you're deep in that social world you will lose friends people will talk [ __ ] about you but you will find the people
48:46
who actually share the similar values and principles that you have where you believe that people should be able to
48:51
think about things and talk about things and so that will feel a lot better you know like the process of that world into
48:58
a social world that encourages you know just your autonomy your autonomy yeah
49:03
and your right to think for yourself is like it can be painful but it's so much better on the other
49:09
side tell people where to find you uh you can check out our podcast at [ __ ] cancel.com with two L's because we're
49:15
Canadian um and it's also on like all the regular places you find podcasts you know um Clementine's website is
49:23
Clementine morgan.com mine is j.com uh we both write on our websites and you
49:29
can catch our writing there um we're also both on Instagram with those names CL time organ Jay well thank you so much
49:36
for being on the show I really appreciate your time yeah thank you for having us thanks for your courage and um
49:42
being willing to have this conversation I do think I might get canceled for having you on the show which made me
49:48
think well then I should probably do it to get over that fear you know that's
49:53
real yeah totally thank [Music]
Thanks to Clementine and Jay for their time. I actually had 16 other questions that we didn’t even get close to answering, so apologies to any followers who submitted a question that didn’t get answered. Maybe if there is a demand for it, we can do a followup with them.
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The next episode of BHL will feature some awesome punk music, and on Patreon you can check out my bonus episode with SkyDxddy and a diary about getting arrested in DC. Til next time.