[ SECRET POST #1984 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1984 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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13.
[Little Shop of Horrors]


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14.
[Sherlock BBC]


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15. http://i.imgur.com/Jxlnf.png
[sort of porny and possible underage; photomanip, Snape/Hermione]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]












16. [SPOILER WARNING for Arrested Development]
[TRIGGER WARNING for incest]



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17. [TRIGGER WARNING for rape]



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18. [TRIGGER WARNING for abuse, suicide]



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19. [TRIGGER WARNING for sexual violence, rape, coercion, cult like mentalities, and violence]



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20. [TRIGGER WARNING for pedophilia]

[Let the Right One In/Låt den rätte komma in]


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21. [TRIGGER WARNING for body horror, gore]

[Parasyte]


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22. [TRIGGER WARNING for abuse]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #283.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

We're going to have to agree to disagree, because your objection to the use of the word "cult" seems like it would be entirely appropriate in an academic discussion, and entirely inappropriate in this discussion, where OP is trying to explain what happened to her and why she's afraid it might happen to other people and you're trying to police whether she's using terminology in accordance with academic definitions.

Is "a circle of abusive friends" just as descriptive and just as bad as "cult," making "cult" an unnecessary word to use in this context? I don't think so. Here is the key element that "a circle of abusive friends" lacks that's crucial in the context of OP's story: loyalty is theoretically not to the group, but to the ideals/ideas around which the group is supposedly centered. What difference does that make? A huge difference. If you turn your back on a circle of abusive friends, you are turning your back on people. If you turn your back on a group that has convinced you that only they know the real will of God / the real truth of the astral plane / the secrets of complete inner peace / etc. you are turning your back on something much, much more than just a small circle of people.

Even if I accepted fully your claims as to the stringent requirements that must be met before a group can qualify as a "cult" in the academic sense, I would be opposing your attempt to censor OP's descriptions of her own experience. As it happens, I don't accept your definition, for multiple reasons, not least of which is that it makes the faulty assumption that only religious groups can be cults, pointlessly excluding numerous political cults, therapy cults, and pseudoscience cults. It does not read like a definition that was produced for the benefit of social scientists trying to understand a spectrum of group dynamics which finds Jonestown at its farthest end; it reads like a definition produced for the benefit of groups who find themselves on that spectrum and want to convince others that no, there is some important if vague factor which makes them really, really different from Jonestown, not comparable at all. "Why, sure, we tell everyone who joins our group that our therapy is the only thing which can possibly salvage their damaged psyches, psyches that we explain at length just how damaged they are, and we tell them that if they abandon the group, they will without question go insane and destroy everything they ever loved in their insanity - but, our teachings don't have a religious basis and we don't physically isolate people, so of course we're not a cult!" Even if I didn't know that the very restrictive definition you cite is hardly uncontentious within the academic community, I would still view it as completely wrong-headed to say that OP's group not meeting all elements of that description means there is no meaningful similarity and she should only think of them as "abusive friends."