Recently, there have been a few instances of public outing on a popular social media site. Some instances have involved one provider outing another, and others have involved the client being outed by a provider. I’m just curious what people think the line is. To me, public outing is like the nuclear option and should only be used if the safety of the community is at risk. If a client is dangerous or threatening in some way for example. To publicly out someone for lesser offenses is excessive in my opinion. One recent situation involved a NCNS by a client. At last check, I saw no negative reaction by the SW community or the clients to the client being outed (one poster who is not sw spoke up). I suspect the SW community would have been pretty vocal (with good reason) if a client outed a lady’s personal information for a NCNS. To be clear, I don’t defend what he did. It is wrong and disrespectful to NCNS. That should never happen. That being said, to me, it doesn’t feel like the punishment fit the crime in that case.
I also think that seeing someone get outed for lesser offenses may make clients less comfortable providing their real life information as part of screening. The argument has always been that it is required as a safety measure. While I am not comfortable with giving out that information myself, I can see the point. It has to be scary on several levels to allow a stranger to show up for these types of encounters. If having the client’s personal info helps the provider feel safer, then she is entitled to require it. I respect the choice that the ladies make and if I am not comfortable with how they choose to screen I just move on.
I am curious to hear from the clients and the providers on this. We need to be respectful of each other in order to make this a safe and positive experience for both sides of the encounter. Understanding the different viewpoints is a start.