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rrmoderator
dbvanhorn:

These criteria have nothing whatsover to do with churches.
This is a paper about LGATs.
That would be large group awareness training.
That is not a meaningful response to the paper.

Is this what you consider dialog or discussion on a message board?

The criteria given for being "dangerous" seem to apply to a lot more than just the groups in question. Many of the 13 points are rather vague, and subject to wide difference in interpretation.

Applying those "danger" criteria to organizations widely held not to be "dangerous", seems to me to be a reasonable test of their soundness.

dbvanhorn:

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but the opinion of a clinical psychologist in this area that has researched the subject is preferable.

I don't see the criteria as vague, but rather specific and viable.

When LGATs fit this list of features and points of concern they are potentially unsafe.

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dbvanhorn

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diashto
Now.. when people are stretched out on the floor, naked, and being instructed (and even urged) to kiss someone else's private parts.. tell me exactly which of those two it's related to?

#3, getting over your fears, if any, of touching and being touched in that way. In this setting, you know that the person you're working with is not going to progress past your boundaries, and all you'd have to do is simply stop, or otherwise signal "enough".

Okay.. and those boundaries are related to (gasp) sexual contact.

A common nudist creed is "Its not about sex!".. which okay, fine. But at a nudist camp, you're not doing any activities that are DIRECTLY ASSOCIATED with touching someone's genetalia, on purpoise. The penis/vulva does not become the center of your attention by someone else's direction. Sure.. accidents happen, the body reacts naturally, and the knowing smirk or giggle happens, but so far as I know, they dont have an "Inspection hour".

Honestly, if it were one-on-one, or even if you were only doing these sorts of activities with the person you were committed to, etc.. i wouldnt have issue with alot of the activities, and neither would most of the people that I know.

For me, the biggest problems are 1) You're being told what to do and when to do it 2) there always is the subtle peer pressure to continue, regardless if its past your boundaries, or if its too soon, or if the person just plain isnt interested in touching someone else.

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Phrasing it in the manner you did, made it more of a "have you stopped beating your wife, answer yes or no" sort of question.

.. is there a "sort of" answer to that question? You're either yes, beating your wife, or no, no longer hitting them. There's no middle ground. "Oh sure, i'm not actually swinging my fists anymore, but i still throw an occasional elbow and push her into doors and stuff".

Pushing those boundaries IS a good thing - however, not in a group setting, nor with someone whom you've (presumably) only spent a limited amount of time with.

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diashto
This may come as a shocker to ya, dave, but MOST of the time she doesnt want to hear about it, regardless of how comfortable you are talking about it. Especially the intricate details. We've had several discussions about that.

"We" in this case meaning you and her, I suppose, as "WE" have never spoken on the matter, and this really isn't the appropriate place for it.

And while reading this, I'm checking with her in IM, and although you make it seem like I've deliberately crossed her boundaries, she assures me I have not. She knows that she's responsible for expressing boundaries, as much as I am for not crossing them once they are expressed. From what she's telling me in IM, the statement above does not represent the situation.

I apoligize if this part seemed like a personal attack, it was not intended to be.

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diashto
My question to you.. if HAI is so gosh-darned wonderful... why arent we seeing "human interest" stories on the news programs every 6months or so.. or advertisements on things other than swinger's websites (granted, the links are placed there by the participants, not HAI, but still)?

Because HAI is absolutely abysmal at self-promotion?
If it's so awful, why are we not seeing "investigative journalism" expose' stories about it?
I can't think of an easier group to infiltrate.
Scientology for example, specifically runs a "sec-check" on people, using their "E-meter" (sort of a lie detector).

Well, aside from being naked precluding any hidden cameras, I wouldnt suspect that anyone thought of investigative journalism, or they werent willing to be "the source" of something like that, again for fear of reprocussions.

I won't try to suggest that HAI has as much footing as Scientology, however if i'm not mistaken, you can find details of most of the Scientology practices on the web or in print, as with any established religion - if only from disgruntled people who left.

Scientology also has some 6000 churchs, with (reportedly) 8 million "worshipers". According to HAI's website, "Over 75,000 people have experienced HAI", with approximately 7 locations.

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Now you've made it clear that HAI is definitely not for you.
Nobody's trying to change that. I'm not trying to convince you, nobody from HAI is calling you up trying to convince you... Why the animosity?

Honestly, i rather liked what I heard about Level1 until the bit where the clothes came off, then i was curious, then amused, then concerned, about why they came off. Then to find out that they come off much earlier at Level2, and presumably even earlier at Level3, raised a serious red-flag to me.

Its one thing to make someone feel better about themselves by showering them with compliments. Its another for trying to make them feel better about themselves by telling them to kiss a naked woman's vagina.

And no.. nobody is calling me trying to convince me to go anywhere. But i'm not the only one that gets calls here.

I'm not trying to be confrontational.. but i refuse to believe that there's nobody who hasnt seen the flipside of this coin.

If you believe that everyone who goes to HAI has pure intentions and just wants to help others feel better, you're fooling yourself. People go to "make connections", "Fall in love with an angel (or three)", etc. For those people, at the very, very base level, its sort of like a square-dance swingers club with a $400 cover. There's a person or people up at the front giving instructions, and the general floor following those instructions as best as they're able. I won't try and give numbers of how many of those there are.. but they are there. And most of the times you wont know who they are until its too late.

Some people don't want to give up their morals or their boundaries because it makes them who they are.

Some people may go do these kinds of things because their significant other asks or pleads with them to, to try and make their relationship better, then they feel they have to keep going because if they don't, then they're not worthy enough.

And sometimes, people do discover more about themselves, even things that they didnt want to know.

In my perfect world.. HAI would be able to do the fluff-bunny frou-frou thing.. but keep their clothes on. Then they'd be much easier to swallow, at least.

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diashto
Okay.. and those boundaries are related to (gasp) sexual contact.

Ok, it is a "love, intimacy and sexuality" workshop. Not much surprise in this.

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diashto
For me, the biggest problems are 1) You're being told what to do and when to do it 2) there always is the subtle peer pressure to continue, regardless if its past your boundaries, or if its too soon, or if the person just plain isnt interested in touching someone else.

Being told what to do, well.. It IS a workshop. They are guiding you through an exercise. Maybe you've been everywhere and done everything, and this is all old hat and pointless to you, but it's not to us.

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diashto

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Phrasing it in the manner you did, made it more of a "have you stopped beating your wife, answer yes or no" sort of question.

.. is there a "sort of" answer to that question? You're either yes, beating your wife, or no, no longer hitting them. There's no middle ground. "Oh sure, i'm not actually swinging my fists anymore, but i still throw an occasional elbow and push her into doors and stuff".

But by design, it precludes the "no, I never did" response.

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diashto
Pushing those boundaries IS a good thing - however, not in a group setting, nor with someone whom you've (presumably) only spent a limited amount of time with.

What if you have too many fears with your SO and you're too nervous to try this stuff with them first? The group actually affords some protection as well. As I said before, a loud NO would bring all the help you could need.

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diashto
I apoligize if this part seemed like a personal attack, it was not intended to be.

It did seem that way, and this isn't the place for clearing that misunderstanding.

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diashto
Well, aside from being naked precluding any hidden cameras, I wouldnt suspect that anyone thought of investigative journalism, or they werent willing to be "the source" of something like that, again for fear of reprocussions.

Journalists used to work for a living. They used to write things down, and use memory. They've also taken on some very nasty folk.
Maybe the reason there isn't much negative out there, is because there isn't much negative? Occam's razor?

I know not everyone is there for the best reasons, but even they teach you something.

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diashto
Scientology also has some 6000 churchs, with (reportedly) 8 million "worshipers". According to HAI's website, "Over 75,000 people have experienced HAI", with approximately 7 locations.

They've been quoting that number for over 12 years, and also that they are "the worlds fastest growing religion". Seems like a flat point on the curve eh? :) Look up the handling for supressive persons, and R2-45 procedures, and the "sea org". There's a very real threat there, that has been used against critics. And STILL they can't keep bad news from spreading. All it takes is ONE person to be pissed off and say something, you know that.

Hell, I got microsoft to change how they handle SCSI LUNs. In '95 they totally discarded LUN support, even though it's part of the SCSI spec. I wrote up a page on this, and pointed out that an ANSI spec isn't a chinese menu, you implement ALL of it, or it's not compliant. They called me and demanded that I pull the page, and I said fine, right after you fix the problem.. Pretty soon, problem fixed. One voice can make things known, one voice can make a change.

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diashto
Honestly, i rather liked what I heard about Level1 until the bit where the clothes came off, then i was curious, then amused, then concerned, about why they came off. Then to find out that they come off much earlier at Level2, and presumably even earlier at Level3, raised a serious red-flag to me.

It dosen't get much earlier than it was at L2, but again it's totally your choice.
I think you're looking hard to find "subtle pressure" and if you want it to be there bad enough, then you'll see it, even when what was said or done wasn't done with that intention.

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diashto
I'm not trying to be confrontational.. but i refuse to believe that there's nobody who hasnt seen the flipside of this coin.

I will point out that you've only been to an intro, and it sounds to me, like you'd already made up your mind before going.

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diashto
If you believe that everyone who goes to HAI has pure intentions and just wants to help others feel better, you're fooling yourself.

I don't believe that about hai, the boy scouts, or my church either.
People are people. But if you never open yourself up to anyone, never take that risk, then you'll lead a very lonely life. When you start to open up, you realise that there's a lot more opportunities for happiness out there than you'd ever imagined.

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diashto
People go to "make connections", "Fall in love with an angel (or three)", etc. For those people, at the very, very base level, its sort of like a square-dance swingers club with a $400 cover.

And as long as that's done honestly and up front, what's the problem?
Besides, you don't need to attend the workshop to hook up, just email to the list and ask. Nothing wrong with honestly asking for what you want, as long as the party asked can say "no" without penalty.

If swing is what you want, far less expensive and less emotional involvement, to just look up a NASCA club in your area.

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diashto
Some people don't want to give up their morals or their boundaries because it makes them who they are.

You don't HAVE to. But we do have a lot of morals that sort of came in there by default rather than concious choice, and boundaries based on groundless fears. It's nice to get rid of those, and not have them in my way. I had fear issues of other men, that was causing me problems at work. I didn't see WHY it was happening at the time, but L2 got me past that, and I am able to be a lot more effective in working to compromise now. There's a boundary of trust that I had, that was not serving me, and was getting in my way, now gone.

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diashto
And sometimes, people do discover more about themselves, even things that they didnt want to know.

Ok. sometimes the truth hurts. Been there, done that, at L1.
But I'm better for having done that, and so's my wife.
IMHO it's a good place to discover something painful. Lots of caring support, and probably someone around who has been through it too.

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diashto
In my perfect world.. HAI would be able to do the fluff-bunny frou-frou thing.. but keep their clothes on. Then they'd be much easier to swallow, at least.

Honestly, I think you've misinterpreted "come on in, the water's fine" into "subtle pressure to conform".

I’ve been to nudist camps several times in the past, and the one I visited was a family resort – infants to old people. It’s true that in such an environment, you tend to forget that people are naked, simply because just about everyone is. It’s not about sex at all. And nudity doesn’t have to BE about sex, either. We all know that.

I have been the woman who has seen a penis used as a weapon. I’ve talked to other women in HAI who have experienced the same thing. Inspecting the genitals of a person of the other gender, I can see that as a good thing. Healthy curiosity, taking away the mystery. I was surprised that I only looked at a certain motorcycle-riding intern, and a certain participant who later betrayed my trust. For some reason, I was only comfortable looking at them in particular – and even then, I was reserved about it. I scampered back to the other side of the room, to the safety of an intern, quite quickly.

Getting over my fears of looking/touching, etc. is something I’ve worked on for a long time. However, it takes a heck of a lot of trust for me to be comfortable enough to do that. At a HAI workshop, it just felt wrong to me. I participated to a point, but it wasn’t something I WANTED to do. I deliberately pushed my comfort zone, but it wasn’t a positive experience for me. It turned each and every person there into merely a body, not a person. I’m interested in a person’s thoughts, feelings, intelligence, wit, and character. His penis being wider or darker or more/less [fill in the blank] than someone else’s doesn’t matter to me, particularly if I’m not going to be having sex with him.

As for the swingers and other sexual “kink” (for lack of a better term) that seems so prevalent in HAI… well, I’m not exactly comfortable with it as you both (dbvanhorn and diashto) already know. I’ve known intellectually that swingers clubs etc. exist. However, knowing it exists doesn’t make it something I want to know details about. Telling me “we went to the swing club on Friday” is one thing, but “my wife was getting a sensual massage from Girl A, while sucking face with Girl B, and Girl C was watching” is entirely TMI. Yes, I do have my kinky streak that comes out on occasion. Yes, I’m finding that there are some things that I like that I never thought I would. However, it’s with ONE person and will remain with that one person.

In all honesty, I’ve considered contacting some of the local news stations about HAI. However, I don’t think a reporter would be able to attend a workshop and get the “full experience.” If the reporter were a well known personality, then everyone else there would be suspicious and behave accordingly. Then there is the risk of the reporter participating in the workshop and actually being sucked in and swallowing every word spoken like it’s gospel truth. Impartiality out the window.

I have been receiving calls and emails about the upcoming Level 3 workshop. I know everyone has been, but I’ve received personal emails as well – probably because they need women for gender balance. I am not going to go. Even if someone paid the entire $495 fee AND paid the extra $60 for me to have the private room, paid for the gas money to/from the workshop AND paid for the possible therapy afterward, I STILL wouldn’t go. Granted, part of the reason is that I wouldn’t feel safe at a workshop that a certain man will be attending (and we know he’d be there). But most of it is, quite simply, I don’t want to buy the stuff they are selling. I’m all for the self-discovery, the emotional self-examination, the validation of feelings, etc. But I think that can be done in a private setting with someone I KNOW cares for me, not just a group of people who SAY they do, while expecting us all to be nude and stroke each other to music.

Like DayDreamer, I've been to plenty of nudist/naturist resorts, and the atmosphere at those places is definitely nonsexual, whereas at HAI, they CLAIM it is nonsexual, but that's b.s., basically.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am trying to deal with the loss of my lover, who I feel was lured away by HAI and now has an ADDICTIVE relationship with that group. I've been seeing a therapist whose specialty is dealing with folks in POLY relationships, because--even though I feel monogamous--I knew my partner through the poly community and he always had other partners the entire time we were together.

I've gotten some interesting insights through this therapy process:

Number 1:In this therapist's opinion, engaging in multiple encounters is not itself being poly--true poly relationships have a lot more respect, committment, and communication than what I experienced with my ex-partner.

Number 2: What this therapist is helping me to see is that I was involved with a man who was essentially "addicted to the chase." As long as he was pursuing me, he was satisfied, but when I finally committed to moving 800 miles to be with him, then he suddenly lost interest and preferred to seek out other women at HAI.

So what does all of this have to do with the HAI organization itself? Well, I would observe that my lover's addiction to HAI was a fulfillment of his addition to the chase. HAI IS AN ABSOLUTE PARADISE FOR MEN ADDICTED TO THE CHASE OR TO SEX ITSELF and frankly, I know of plenty of other men in HAI who behave as my ex-partner has--sounds as if DayDreamer has run into plenty of them, too.

AND--returning to the topic of my original post in April--the fact that these guys who may not have the most relationship-healthy psychology are allowed to be HAI intern/assistant (counselors) and then are given permission by the HAI organization to approach women they may have led in workshop activities and ask them for sex as soon as three months after meeting IS A HELLUVA BAD IDEA!!!

Thus, I think that while many who have posted, such as dbvanhorn, feel that there's nothing wrong with HAI itself (I disagree, obviously), even so, HAI's message and practices are quite attractive to men who have unhealthy attitudes towards relationships. This is one big reason that women need to be wary of the HAI community.

Honestly, I don't think that just women need to be wary of HAI. I think men get sucked into it just as much.

Right now, the midwest group is putting together a Level 3 for July. I've been receiving a lot of emails asking for women to attend for gender balance. That shows me that a lot of MEN are signed up.

In all honesty, I sorta wonder if at the higher levels, people are actually encouraged to have sex as part of an exercise. It wouldn't surprise me. All the earlier levels concentrating on getting everyone comfortable with their bodies and everyone else's bodies, getting comfortable with the ideas of swinging, polyamory and group sex as "acceptable choices", getting comfortable with touching the bodies of other people, including genitalia... it makes me wonder if the ultimate goal is a sexual free for all at a Level 7 or something.... where we think it's perfectly normal and acceptable, because our healthy boundaries have been gradually challenged.

Sorry for the spam, folks...

DayDreamer,

I would really like to have individual contact with you and diashto regarding HAI, because I think we see things similarly. However, I am prevented from sending you a private message through this Web site until I have had 10 approved posts.

If you wish to make contact with me, you can write me at:

cirruella@netscape.net (Note the extra r and l in the name)

Thank you,

Ciruela

No problem, email sent :)


I have noticed something else interesting. Now that my dissatisfaction with HAI is a bit more well known, the intern I used to talk to regularly no longer calls. He used to call to find out how I was doing, listen to my concerns and try to help, etc. He hasn't called in weeks.

Coincidence? I don't think so :)

Oh, yes--I'm quite sure that there a HAI devotees lurking on this Web site, which (as you now know) is why I wanted to communicate privately with DayDreamer and Diashto. Thanks for emailing me! :)

My former boyfriend knows about this site and that I am "Ciruela." He wrote me to tell me how wrong I was about everything to do with our breakup, but I stand by every word I posted here. I think he has probably put HAI Northeast folks onto this site so they can monitor what's being said.

Speaking of interns who call, follow up, and seem oh, so concerned about you--here's the part of my breakup story I didn't tell before. When I was in Level 1, my small group leader was a woman I knew vaguely through my boyfriend, and I knew he really thought she was hot. I got in her group specifically because I wanted to deal with the feelings of jealousy I had towards her, and I told her this at our first check-in.

This woman told me that she was absolutely not interested in a physical realtionship with my boyfriend--that she wasn't attracted to him. "Not happening," was the way she put it at the time. Over the months after the workshop, this woman called me to check in periodically and encouraged me to talk about the things that were bugging me. I told her about my love for my boyfriend and about how I had trouble dealing with his desire to be polyamourous. She was very sweet, kind, and understanding on the phone and always presented herself to me as a friend. I felt that she was someone I could TRUST.

Well, to make a long story short, this woman and my boyfriend both traveled to California in January to be installed as HAI interns (a step up from being an assistant). After my boyfriend returned, our relationship quickly soured--he seemed uninterested in spending time with me and when we were together, he was pushing me to get involved in group sex activities or swinging and getting angry with me when I pulled back.

I wasn't sure why things were suddenly going wrong--I had just moved 800 miles (at his encouragement) to be with him. Then, he ANNOUNCES to me (not asking not negotiating) that in five days he would be going to another HAI workshop to intern and going a day early to consummate a sexual relationship with this woman. It took me a few more day to find out what had happened--while they were at Harbin together, SHE (the one who claimed she wasn't interested) had propositioned him!!!

I've never felt so screwed over in my life. I had trusted and respected this woman and when I confronted her about her duplicity, all she could say was that she "couldn't grok what I was upset about."

So much for developing "loving relationships" and "creating a world where everybody wins."

I truly despise these people.