Intervention with Seattle kink, BDSM, and bondage educator Max Cameron: Seattle Relationship Anarchy Ethics Committee Summary and Timeline

This statement regards the Seattle Relationship Anarchy (RA) Ethics Committee (EC) intervention process with kink, BDSM, and bondage educator Max Cameron. The RA Ethics Committee initiated this intervention after a community member reported personal experiences with Max that raised concerns regarding the safety and ethicality of Max’s practices.

The purpose of this document is to summarize our process, to share our learning with the Relationship Anarchy community, and to invite accountability for our choices.

Summary (November 2016)

Ethics Committee Intervention Group participants: Drew Burlingame, Valerie Burlingame, Marty Dinn, Modessa Jacobs, Kellie Kawahara-Niimi, Preston Morgan, Sarah Schneider, Amanda Woodard.

In early 2016, the Relationship Anarchy Ethics Committee (EC) responded to a concern raised by a member of our community regarding Seattle bondage, kink, and BDSM educator Max ¹ Cameron. ²

Specifically, the reported concerns were:

Max picks up partners for private play from the students attending his classes,
Max has transgressed the boundaries of some of these play partners,
therefore Max’s advertising to the RA community may constitute a danger to RA community members.

Our hope was to offer a process of accountability ³ for all of the parties involved assuming that one such process could be consented on. To support privacy for the persons involved, the EC created a closed process container (the intervention group) such that: only the individuals present for the initial report continued to participate in future process regarding this issue. Each individual in the intervention group was responsible for holding a dynamic tension: that we each bring conflicting biases to a complex interpersonal issue, while also pursuing the greatest good both for the persons directly involved and for the community as a whole. In order to keep this tension present and acknowledged, the intervention group committed to recurringly share with each other our awareness of our own personal biases.

While it is not the function, goal, or intention of the intervention group to adjudicate the guilt or innocence of the persons involved, we agreed that it is important for RA members to be able to make informed decisions about their attendance at Max’s events and their decisions to play with Max in light of these concerns. We strongly believe that personal accountability and community accountability are best supported by practices that prioritize transparency. We have not advocated for anyone to take any particular actions condoning or shunning anyone involved in this situation. We continue to advocate for community members to compassionately support accountability for anyone involved in this situation. And we continue to advocate for community members to make the choices that are best for them; you know what is best for you.

As of now, we believe this intervention process has come to a natural close, albeit without the tidy outcomes we might have hoped for. Despite early indications of engagement, Max has not responded to invitations to participate with us in ongoing accountability since July, and pending further response from Max, the current Ethics Committee members are ending this process.

Outcomes & discoveries

While this intervention didn’t lead to a process of accountability, it brought to light the following issues and topics that we are grateful to acknowledge and wish to further consider as we move forward:

Balancing transparency & privacy:
- What processes do we use to respect the privacy of individuals involved in any form of ethics committee direct action?
- What practices support better community accountability by prioritizing transparency?
Educator ethics, privilege, and accountability
Community leader ethics, privilege, and accountability
Ethics and process for marketing via RA’s private communication channels
- Vetting those who wish to market via RA communication channels?
- Formal agreement to adhere to the Code of Ethics?

Timeline

December 2015

Marty received a report of concern from a member of the RA community regarding their past experiences with Max Cameron and how that might affect the safety of current RA members associating with Max.

January 2016

Seven members of the EC attend training offered by Seattle Restorative Justice.

February 2016

The Ethics Committee met with the person bringing the concern. In this preliminary conversation, we heard this person’s experience, asked questions, and discussed with them their desired outcomes from the process. In addition to this person’s individual experience, they also brought written testimonials from one named and two anonymous parties expressing similar concerning experiences with Max. The reporting party expressed that they were not interested in personal reconciliation with Max at that time, and that their motivation for bringing this information forward was to support members of the RA community in making well-informed decisions.

The crux of the intervention group’s concern was that the individuals reported behavior that transgressed RA’s community ethics; that they also reported that Max has a practice of picking up partners from the students in his classes; and that these events were regularly advertised by Max via the RA communication channels (Facebook group and email). At the time, Eri Kardos, a former RA co-organizer, was working collaboratively with Max on their “All the Demos” classes and also promoting these classes via the RA communication channels.

By the end of February meeting, the intervention group had reached consensus on the following actions:

We will ask Max to refrain from posting his classes and workshops to RA until we have reached greater clarity around what process we can undertake moving forward.
We will ask Eri to refrain from posting classes and workshops connected to Max until we have reached greater clarity around what process we can undertake moving forward.

Marty and Preston agreed to meet with Max to:

inform Max of the group’s decision to ask Max to refrain from posting classes and workshops to RA communication channels;
invite Max to share his perspective;
underscore our openness to Max bringing others that he thinks would help support his participation;
underscore our desire for Max to continue participating and attending RA discussions and events;
and inform Max that we were still determining what our process will be and who will be involved.

Valerie agreed to meet with Eri to share the request not to use RA channels to post events Eri was producing with Max.

We chose not to make a public announcement to the RA community of these requests; the requests were communicated directly to Max and Eri, who both agreed to comply.

March 2016

The EC intervention group reconvened to debrief Valerie’s conversations with Eri, and Marty and Preston’s conversation with Max.

Max came to speak with the intervention group. Max shared his experience, answered questions, and discussed desired outcomes. At Max’s request, an audio recording was made of this conversation, retained by Max and shared with the intervention group. At this point, Max expressed willingness to participate in an ongoing process with the intervention group.

In late March, Max informed the intervention group that the Foundation for Sex Positive Culture (FSPC) cancelled Max’s recurring classes through the end of 2016 based on the information shared with them by the same reporting party.

April 2016

The Intervention group invited Max and the reporting party to participate in a facilitated process, either alone or together, focused on personal and community accountability. The communicated intent of this process was:

to create a compassionate space held by the community safe enough for Max to hear the reporting party, hear how this has affected them, and hear how this has affected the community;
to create a compassionate space held by the community safe enough for the reporting party and for the community to hear Max’s response, and hear how this has affected him;
and to co-create an agreeable, actionable plan of accountability that allows Max, the reporting party, and the community to understand what measurable actions and changes will come out of this process.

The intervention group also asked Max and the reporting party to clarify their needs surrounding confidentiality. Underscoring our desire to support safety and privacy, the intervention group expressed our interest in working towards greater transparency to the larger EC, to the RA community at large, and to others outside of RA. It was our expressed hope that greater transparency in our process would better support personal and community accountability.

A few days following our communication to Max and the reporting party, several Seattle-based kink-positive or sex-positive organizations and communities convened to share information related to multiple reports of consent or boundary violations by Max. Members of the intervention group attended the first group meeting, but agreed to cease participation after discussion made it clear that RA and the larger group did not share compatible practices ⁴ of transparency and confidentiality.

Around this time, Max published a post to his FetLife network ⁵ acknowledging the recent allegations. He stated that he was “engaged with RA’s new Ethics Committee, and am committed to participating in their process and to helping them develop and refine the policies for their community.”

In follow-up communication to the intervention group, Max stated that he “would like the opportunity to engage directly with [the reporting party] in a mediated environment.” We communicated this to the reporting party who declined to participate because statements in Max’s FetLife post caused them to doubt the sincerity of Max’s interest in personal accountability.

After receiving clarification and consent from the reporting party, and in light of Max’s FetLife post and the knowledge shared within the cross-community workgroup, the intervention group chose to open our process once more to the wider Ethics Committee, with specific emails and documents to remain confidential to the intervention group. At the April RA Discussion events, Marty disclosed in opening announcements to the RA community at large that this process with Max was underway (without naming the reporting party).

May 2016 and beyond

On behalf of the intervention group, Marty has sent several communications to Max with invitations to continue participation. We still have received no further indication that Max is choosing to engage in the process of accountability we had offered.

In June 2016, the organizers of Suspended Animation, Tornus and Zang, published two open letters (Open Letter To @Max_BLC and Open Letter To Our Crew) summarizing their investigation and the outcomes of their investigation into allegations of consent transgressions by Max.

At this time (November 2016), the Ethics Committee has chosen to dissolve the intervention group and conclude the process it was supporting. If in the future Max approaches us to re-engage, we intend to be available for supporting whatever process of accountability might be possible at that time. We continue to welcome and invite Max to participate in person in RA discussion events. The Ethics Committee continues to uphold our request to Max to refrain from use of the RA communication channels to advertise classes, as well as our request to Eri to refrain from use these channels to promote classes she co-produces with Max.

The Ethics Committee welcomes any questions, concerns, or feedback regarding this matter (RAEthicsCommittee at gmail dot com).

normal_anarchy_heart

Endnotes:

On 11/5/2016, the RA EC intervention group emailed Max to inform him that our summary statement would soon be posted. Max responded on 11/7/2016. In his response, Max expressed concern that Marty had disclosed this process to the community at the April discussion events. His response also included the following:

“let me be explicit about this: you do not have my consent to name me in any statement you produce and/or publish, or to provide any details which could be used to identify me. I will view this as a profound ethical breach.”

After consideration, the EC intervention group chose to identify Max in our summary statement and timeline. Our reasons for that decision are clarified in our response, posted here so that our community may reflect back to us and hold us accountable for our actions.
Even in sex-positive and kink-positive circles, there are multiple people named “Max Cameron”. To avoid confusion, rumors, and misidentification, we want to clarify that the Max Cameron involved in our process is the following:
- Max Cameron’s website: bondagelessons.com/presenter/max
- Max Cameron’s twitter: twitter.com/MaxRCameron
- Max Cameron’s FetLife profile: Max_BLC – fetlife.com/users/72176
RA’s Ethics Committee models much of our personal and community accountability process in line with the ideas described by transformative justice, creative intervention, and restorative justice. A full list of the resources that continue to shape our community accountability practices can be seen here.
If you have any questions or would like more details, please contact Marty.
Because FetLife cannot be viewed without a FetLife account, the content of Max’s original post is copied here.