TL;DR: Sometimes people who scream the loudest are the ones with something to hide.

Buckle up, this is long.

Shit's blowing up in my city. The local owner of the public playground has been outed for consent violations AGAIN. They're selling the playground. People coming out of the woodwork and their graves (like me!) to share their stories - some that are a decade or more old.

All of this is on that other cesspool of a platform that I TRULY can't stand.

The issues with said place aren't new. Any folks who have been around in my area for any amount of time KNEW the owner of this playground was a dirtbag. A lot (especially women) have shared their stories of SA (like me!) and consent violations (like me!), or their experience with this guy and his staff being run out off the public playground because they were "causing drama" by speaking up.

There's a lot of us, but we're just the ones that are saying something - I can't imagine how many folks had a bad experience there who just walked away and shut that part of their life down. Shoot - I'm pretty much one of those people since my experience there fucked me up so much that I can't engage in kink much because of the trauma associated with it.

But that's not what I'm posting about.

When I reactivated my account a few weeks ago - the local public seen was full of people I didn't know, as I expected. I only reactivated to let these new folks know "this isn't new behavior from this person or their friends." Keeping a revolving door of newbies while running the folks who catch-on to your abuse is a great way to extend the life of your hunting ground because no one is around to tell their stories.

However, I did see one couple from my time was still around...a couple that we, and many other folks, avoided like the plague because they are just toxic. The "D" (D stands for dickhead in this case) in the relationship beat one of his former girlfriends half to death and left them tied up to 'teach her a lesson'. The "D" in this relationship is a self-diagnosed sociopath. The "D" in this relationship can definitely be found in court records if you know what name to look for. The "D" in the relationship also posted in confession forums on how they understood PDF files, but wasn't one because they "hadn't acted on their desires yet".

Gross.

When this was brought to our attention, 10 or so years ago, we printed out their posts and gave them to the playground owner, naively thinking they would do the right thing. This person is dangerous, right? But we were new and earnestly didn't know better. Well, the playground owner let this person know what we did (including reporting it to the police because they were an educator at the time), allowing that person to go and delete any trace of their posts. Playground owner also said 'it didn't happen on the playground so I don't care' (essentially), and just looked the other way.

So the D made it part of their personality to slander us any chance they could - mostly by saying we were predatory, 'liked 'em young' and abusers ourselves. You know...projection. Since we were active in the public lifestyle, we just rolled our eyes and told folks they're looking for revenge for insert story of what we reported here. We had witnesses that also knew this person's violent history, saw the same posts, and who actively backed us up. So life went on.

But like I said, in the absence of people who have been around to keep telling the story, said D and their current S (someone we ALSO stayed clear way from) were able to get a foothold with much newer folks who joined the lifestyle - as more seasoned people threw up their hands after dealing with the local scene and walked away.

And we've, apparently, lived rent free in these two people's heads for TEN FUCKING YEARS. So when we both came out with our stories, these two chucklefucks started up on their slander again. Only this time, folks are listening to them - one of which owns a munch and is now on their OWN very public tirade about 'known dangers in the community', while talking about 'verifying accusations' out of the other side of their mouth.

Now - I truly don't care. At least I'm trying not to. Especially since I'm currently busy reliving all of the trauma related to that place I thought I had a handle on. (0/10 would not recommend btw) That place/community brought out the absolute worst in me, but I've put 8 years between who I was then, and who I am now.

But for some reason, the words of these people who TRULY DO NOT MATTER are really affecting me in a bad way. Monkey brain is completely logical about it and knows I'm a goddamned delight and it's not my loss if those folks want to side with an abuser (if they know it or not), but lizard brain is flipping out.

Which is part of the reason I'm posting here - just to get my side of the story off my chest. I don't feel comfy posting it on that other site (again - it's a cesspool and I've always felt it harms local communities more than it helps) and I'm aware /u/TeaAitch may delete it, and that's fine. I already feel lighter writing this up.

I guess my bigger takeaway in this is to be weary of who's screaming the loudest when there's a sudden power vacuum. The community - especially the public one - is built on social capital and is FULL of people who don't have that in a non-kink space. They will hold on to every bit they can in any way they can, and will take everyone with them to keep their status in the mud-puddle they've created.