Content warning: Explicit descriptions of sexual abuse, violent behaviours and emotional manipulation.
After a member alleged they were sexually assaulted, the Dunedin Fire and Circus Club published a preliminary report on internal sexual and emotional abuse, and proposed changes within the community.
The allegations of sexual assault and “numerous instances of abusive and violent relationship behaviour” were first made to a member of the Club’s Executive. Brin Ryder, Club Treasurer, was tasked by the Club Exec with conducting a survey following the recommendation of an external consultant.
On 1 July, Brin published the results of that survey in a 26-page report titled “Preliminary Findings: Abusive and predatory behaviour by members of the Dunedin Fire & Circus Club”. The report revealed the absence of “processes for identifying, addressing and preventing exploitation of members of the Club and community”, solutions to change that, and detailed accounts of alleged sexual and emotional abuse within the Club. The report also claimed that “threats and experiences of misogyny, assault, abuse and predatory behaviour occur without redress [throughout] the Ōtepoti flow arts community”.
“Complaints also note a culture where it is expected that survivors’ experiences will not be well-received or believed by Club members in positions of authority,” the report later stated.
“[The report was] really just a way of pulling the fire alarm,” Brin said. The evening the report was released, the Club had a meeting to discuss the preliminary findings and ways to move forward. Brin said that the public attitude to the report from club members has been “universally positive”, but he is aware of claims that people have been privately threatened for speaking up about abuse, although these claims have not been verified.
Because the report contained anonymised complaints, Critic was unable to verify the specific claims made, some of which are set out below. Current and former Club members who spoke to Critic acknowledged that there were “dodgy things going on” and people who would take advantage of others within the club. Brin told Critic that there were situations where “[people who were] young, impressionable, from a background where they were done a lot of harm, [were] given family and direction and instruction. And in exchange for that they were sort of encouraged to indulge in really negative behaviors, which have hurt people.”
During consultation on the problem of sexual abuse in the Club, the Ōtepoti Collective Against Sexual Abuse recommended that the Club conduct a survey of club members and members of their broader community about their experiences with sexual and emotional abuse. The report published and anonymised the results of that survey, which at the time of the report’s release had 32 responses. The report noted potential biases and flaws in the survey methodology that limited how much the data could be generalised, but stated that the results offered a “brief glimpse” into experiences in the Club.
There were seven comments on the survey questions asking whether the respondents had themselves experienced or witnessed “abusive (emotional/sexual) or predatory behaviour”. The comments described alleged sexual assaults and physical assaults.
“[An individual] used his status in the club to take advantage of me and preyed on me in my weakest times,” claimed one commenter in the survey. “I didn't want to have sex with him and told him so … he still pushed me constantly to have sex with him and made me afraid to say no through manipulating me by showing his physical strength (pinning me to the ground etc) and saying (and demonstrating) how emotionally unstable he was that I felt completely trapped by him.”
“I was sexually assaulted by [an individual],” claimed another commenter in the survey. “I pretended it never happened because so few people believed and supported [another survivor] so why would they believe me.”
Another commenter stated that their partner was sexually assaulted at one of the Club’s events. “We had complete trust in [the individual] and were 100% blindsided by this event. Young and naive.”
Claims of drug use combined with sexually inappropriate behaviour was a repeated theme in the survey comments. “Been at a party and woke up with cum on me and a particular male member passed out next to me,” one commenter wrote. “Unsure of what happened and what I was actually given drug wise.”
Another commenter described that their ex-partner physically assaulted them and ignored consent boundaries. The couple broke up, but following one of the Club’s parties the commenter claims that the abuse continued. “[She] tried to grope me again and again as if it was a game to her, I still continued to politely ask her to leave, to which she eventually did,” the commenter wrote. “During this whole experience I was tripping on acid and she was heavily intoxicated on ketamine.”
One commenter claimed that there was a culture of “[p]roviding drugs to women who are vulnerable” and “[p]aying extra attention to vulnerable women, especially ones who are new to the community.”
25% of people who responded to the survey had personally experienced “abusive (emotional/sexual) or predatory behaviour” in the Club. About 47% of respondents knew somebody who had experienced such behaviour.
“I have witnessed more abusive behavior than I can aptly summarise here,” said one survey comment when asked about whether they had witnessed abusive behaviour in the Club. 87.51% of survey respondents had either heard about or directly witnessed “abusive (emotional/sexual) or predatory behaviour” within the club. Just four people who responded were unaware of abusive behaviour in the club.
“I found DFCC to be the least safe community I've ever been in,” wrote one commenter. The
“community doesnt do consent very well / are pro-touching and pro-sex to an extreme where it can easily be nonconsensual,” they claimed in the survey.
Just one survey respondent believed that they may have carried out abusive or predatory behaviour in the Club. 59% of respondents had not carried out abusive behaviour but knew somebody who had. “I have not caused direct harm to my knowledge but have been complicit in allowing this behaviour to continue,” wrote one commenter.
The Club did not have processes in place to deal with complaints of sexual and emotional abuse. “[E]ffective and sensitive handling of this recent matter, and of other historic incidents of abuse and violence, have been hampered by the lack of process for addressing and preventing such occurrences,” the report stated.
Brin said “there’s been a twelve plus year history of these sorts of behaviour happening and then being addressed in a very individual sort of way without any kind of processes put in place for the whole club before for the whole community.” Brin believed that the Club meets the otherwise “unmet need for community and purpose” in Dunedin “for both young men and young women, which tends to reward some exploitative environments and behaviours”.
When asked how these behaviours emerged in the Club, Brin said simply, “it was allowed”.
“There will always be people who want to exploit opportunities for purposes, good or bad, and you have to have something in place that tilts that scale towards good. Otherwise, it will tend towards bad.”
That doesn’t mean that the community is split between vulnerable or exploitative people. “I’m not even saying that it’s a case of goodies and baddies sort of thing,” Brin said. “It’s more [like] evil being a relay sport.”
A club member alleged to Critic that just as young women were groomed sexually, young men were groomed for leadership positions. When asked if he agreed with this claim, Brin nodded. When asked if he felt he had been groomed to be a leader, he said, “yeah, I would say so”.
The Club has been described by its members as a club built on respect and freedom, open to anyone, student and non-student alike. According to Brin, this openness, on top of a lack of formal club processes, leaves members vulnerable to exploitation. He said that the students and “hippies” who lead the club and run the events embrace a culture of “deconstructing formal process, and letting people's goodness and creativity shine through to fill gaps, which for the most part does work, but, unfortunately, it does leave open opportunity for people to exploit that environment.”
Brin told Critic that there are some people who are unhappy with sexual abuse being aired out openly with the report and the meeting. “To some degree, I say good,” he said. But to some degree he is just as sympathetic to the alleged perpetrators as he is the alleged victims.
“Everyone has been done a disservice here,” he said in reference to sharing this report widely in the fire spinning community. He is concerned that the report might have been the wrong way to address abuse in the club.
Brin said it “comes back to what people are allowed to do in pursuit of popularity and self-expression… there developed a culture within the club of doing whatever was cool or made a good time rather than what was safe and sustainable.”
He and others are disappointed in how the Club has evolved. Brin said that, in a perfect world, this community is perfect for people who don’t have a sense of community or purpose. “There's a lot of people who need a sense of purpose and direction. [So when] opportunities are given to them ... that has the power to turn good people with good values into people who do some really bad things.”
Brin also had a word of warning for the broader Dunedin community. “I recommend that people be careful of who they follow and who they invite into their spaces because these people are still going around Dunedin, using their talents to draw crowds to put themselves in the middle of people. And that's it, there's just too much popularity and excitement and good time[s] to be had that people are still really eager to invite these people into spaces and that's something that we need to address.”
Brin’s report included suggestions for reform too. He said that the Club’s Exec “will not allow [the Club] to exist in a way that continues to be unsafe. Safety has to come first.” Options included in the report such as sober guardians at future club events were popular, with 93.75% of survey respondents in favour. About 72% of survey respondents were in favour of proposals to have mandatory training on preventing abusive behaviour for the Club’s Executive and to form a Code of Conduct for the Club.
Brin was asked if he thought that complainants should come forward to the media or police: “I would suggest they come forward in a way that they feel safe first and then heard second. I strongly support the creation of ways for people to do that.”
Student or non-student, if you feel comfortable, share your DFCC experiences with Critic at news@critic.co.nz. Your emails will be secure.