Performance Scening

Performance Scening

Performance is a dramatic representation or exhibition of an action, role, or character presented to, toward, and for an audience. Designed and delivered, a performance expresses the desire or will to cause an effect or response to those external to the performer, director, or delivery vehicle of the performance.

Performance or exhibition ART is often used as a shock medium to present unpleasant or provocative material, justified by 'artistic license.' These performances frequently draw on aspects or portrayals of alternative lifestyle communities, especially when the performer believes this will maximize audience reaction or attention for the creator.

Performance scening within the S/m community is growing, as public presentations that engage audiences have led to a new form of scening. This development has introduced public performance 'stars' into the community.

Within the community, there is a level of craft or recognition of skill that is held in the admiration of others. However, the ability to perform techniques or skills should not be used as a measure of the quality of the individual. A Dominant who performs in public may be scening to or for the audience and not to or for his/her submissive. Public scening adds edges to a scene and can easily accelerate the pace or intensity of a scene. If a Dominant's orientation is to receive accolades, admiration, attention, and even applause from the audience or those they wish to impress in some manner, then the focus of that Dominant is not 'with' their submissive. A submissive who performs in public may also experience a similar detached state or heightened awareness of the audience and a removal of highly focused attention on the Dominant they are scening with. A performance may be a natural expression of the individual, or it may be the acted presentation of what that performer wishes to deliver to the audience. For the person in the dominant role within such a public scene, the submissive they scene with may become merely a prop or object on which to display their skill or talent. The 'stage' becomes a canvas on which to display their performance or 'art'. The audience becomes the goal. In a sense, the Dominant shifts from scening the submissive to scening the audience. If the Dominant can 'draw' the audience's attention and energy on a more personally persuasive level, then that Dominant can be seduced by the flow of energy from the audience toward him/herself, away from the more intimate energy of the submissive they are supposed to be scening.

As performance scening becomes more popular, there is a growing trend or concept that those 'not' performing or participating within the public viewpoint of others 'within' the community are suspect as being not 'real' in some manner. In addition, the idea that these performances are representative of the nature of a BDSM relationship is growing, especially among newcomers who are discovering this community through the Internet. There is a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment that can be experienced by attending a lifestyle-specific function, event, or munch, including the fetishistic voyeuristic pleasures of observing people actively participating or experimenting in techniques and skills that are intriguing and exciting to the viewer. The permissive and accepting quality of these types of events can welcome the newcomer and invite new friendships and associations. However, scenes created FOR display bear little resemblance to lifestyle interactions and personal private scenes between partners.

The vast majority of people enjoying alternative lifestyles do so privately. The existing potentials for damage to reputation, career, family, and friends restrain most people from active or open participation in events, which may place the participants at risk of recognition by persons outside or disapproving of the lifestyle. In addition, a vast majority of people 'actively' living the D/s lifestyle have children. Exposure of their lifestyle choices may place the disposition of those children or custody of those children at great risk.

There are no identifiable guidelines to how a person, Dominant, submissive, or switch, should be; the only guidelines that truly exist are those within the core of the inner self of each individual. The desire to artificially impose such guidelines reflects a level of insecurity about the very open definitions of the variant roles that do exist. Finding fixed 'roles' makes identification or labeling easier, makes the community as a whole easier to get a handle on, easier to control, and to understand. Yet, each time we accept a new label, role, or limitation, we reduce our ability to express the vastness of our innate diversity. Our diversity is our strength; it is an expression of freedom to be exactly who you are, outside the box and inside the soul.

long text

Archivist Note: Email links (steeibtrfl@aol.com, steelbfl@sonic.net) are no longer valid and have been omitted from this archive. The bookstore link was for a heritage site that is no longer active and has been omitted from this archive. OP's works were not found on the successor live site. Also, the discussion group on Yahoo Groups is no longer available and was not found on archive.org.

To purchase books by the OP, please search your preferred bookseller by title or by the OP's noms de plume: "Mistress Steel" and "F.R.R. Mallory".

Retrieved April 2026 https://web.archive.org/web/20120127132635/http://www.steel-door.com/performancescening.htm.
Also found May 2026 https://web.archive.org/web/20001207083600/http://www.steel-door.com/performancescening.htm