Following is the transcribed content of the RA Ethics Committee intervention group response email to kink, BDSM, and bondage educator Max Cameron dated 11/13/2016. This references the RA Ethics Committee intervention with Max Cameron summarized and outlined here. 

Hi Max, ¹

Thank you for sharing your concerns. We understand and empathize with how excruciating this process has been for you and for those who are close to you.

We don’t believe an email exchange is likely to produce increased understanding between us, so please understand that we may not address each of your concerns here. If you would like to further discuss this in person, we remain open to doing so. We understand you have concerns about meeting with us. While we can’t promise to meet all your needs, we will continue to do our best to create a safe enough space when possible.

We do feel a responsibility to address your concern about our disclosure of your name in connection with this process and your request that we not name you in our statement. Marty’s disclosure was made after your April 11 FetLife statement ² disclosed your work with us and connected you to allegations of consent violation. The RA discussion events were held April 12 and April 13. At those meetings, Marty shared nothing beyond what was explicitly consented to by the reporting parties or was already explicitly self-published by you. Since then, Suspended Animation has published two open letters ³ regarding their inquiries, you spoke publicly about the consent violation allegations in a June 2016 article in The Stranger ⁴ that included a half-page photograph of you, and marketing media for your classes links to a statement on FetLife regarding the allegations and RA’s process.

We appreciate that you addressed the concern you received from your April FetLife post. We are glad that it was a productive and healing experience for you. Our intention was never to offer or suggest that a stand-alone process of mediation can suitably broker what’s actually needed here.

We’re grateful that you’ve reminded us of the question you asked Marty and Preston before meeting with us in March: “Can [we] identify any possible positive outcome for [you] here?”

Yes: Accountability.

We offered you a process of accountability because a member of our community reported that harm was done to them by you. For us, accountability is not exoneration. It is not getting both parties to reach agreement. It is not an external process that happens to us, or for us. Accountability is a practice of taking ownership for your choices and for the intentional or unintentional consequences of those choices. It is a continuing commitment to acknowledge and change the underlying cause. Accountability is a necessary skill we all cultivate in order to have loving, equitable relationships and communities.

We understand you feel we failed to offer you a “level playing field”. What we offered was a compassionate space for your voice to be heard. We offered you support in taking ownership of the harm that resulted from your choices, and help in addressing the root cause. In this context, we believe what looks to you like a “level playing field” would be out of alignment with our ethics and practices because it leans away from accountability and leans in to misogyny and rape culture.

Any process that asks us to recognize and integrate something that contradicts our core identity is an existential threat to that core identity; more so when it conflicts with our values, our faith in our practices, and suggests we’re unaware of the harm we cause. It’s difficult to imagine how anyone could move through such a process without feeling unsafe. But neither is there another way to understand and take ownership for behavior patterns that conflict with our core identity. Defensiveness, denial, anger, deflection, and shifting the focus onto our own pain are all natural and predictable parts of the process. But that’s the path. That’s the practice and the work when the goal is sustainable change. This is also the path that we, the Ethics Committee, take as we invite accountability for our choices and internalize your concerns.

We will amend our statement to clarify that you wished to not be named and we will include our reasoning so that our community may reflect back to us and hold us accountable for that decision. Additionally, we would be happy to add some form of response from you, should you choose to provide one after reviewing our statement.

Our Code of Ethics states

The Code of Ethics is a set of values, principles, and standards that guide our decision making and our conduct. It does not provide a set of rules that prescribe how we should act in all situations. Neither does the code specify which values are the most important and ought to outweigh others in instances when they conflict. Reasonable differences of opinion can and do exist among individuals. Specific application must take into account the context in which it is being considered.

In this instance, at this time, and in consideration of what’s already made public by you and by others: we believe that creating greater transparency for our community and accountability for our process from our community outweigh your desire to remain unnamed. We understand that you believe your desire to remain unnamed is rooted in a need to feel safe and respected, but we feel it is now in direct conflict with what we believe consent-centric culture to be. We are choosing to prioritize the need for our community members to make informed decisions about their attendance at your events and their decisions to play with you in light of these concerns and the actions you have taken in this process.

Our overarching goal is to support accountability and change through compassion and connection. We openly invite our community to help us remain accountable for any part of our process if they believe it to be out of alignment with our ethics. We continue to advocate for community members to compassionately support accountability for anyone involved.

Regards,
RA Ethics Committee Intervention Cohort

Return to the RA Ethics Committee Intervention with Max Cameron Summary and Timeline.

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Endnotes:

1. 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

2. Posted at fetlife.com/users/72176/posts/3689611 and copied here.
3. Open Letter To @Max_BLC and Open Letter To Our Crew
4. The straight guy who teaches queer folks how to have wild sex. June 22 2016 edition of The Stranger, volume 23, number 43. Excerpted here.