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Unity
Sometimes it is in the feelings and responses of others that we learn or relearn simple lessons. In this, I have been both perpetrator and victim.
BDSM is a non-conventional lifestyle. It is comprised of people who have fallen outside the boundaries of conventional society. Each of us, in our own way, has struggled with the labeling, the disdain, the misunderstanding, the very real threat of legal action, among a myriad of other issues. To survive, we reach out to others who share our compelling needs, and to be understood, we reach out to each other. Our Community!
The Internet and its associated technologies have created phenomenal changes. For the first time, there is an easily accessible venue or path to link our common interests together. This has created some peculiar things. Among those things, it has created elitist classes within the community itself. With the massive influx of people into the community (at least online), a whole plethora of rules and regulations have appeared. The D/s online law, according to whoever is speaking at the moment.
I turn around and see the makeshift construction of traps, new labels, new rules, and new boundaries to keep. The language has shifted; there appears to be an effort to PC the community primarily from and by the influence of those now entering it. I have found one thing to be true in my life regarding this. Labels, boundaries, rules, and judgment are creations of others to make categorizing people easier. Labels are seldom valid or accurate; they tend to limit growth, creativity, and exploration. Boundaries are fences or walls to keep the "weird" inside, safely away from the "normal" people. Rules are for the comfort of the person creating them. Judgment is always subjective. So, we are becoming victims of internal judges.
Who is real? Who is a wannabe? You must be this to be a Dominant! You must do that to be a submissive! Thou Shalt not enter a S/m room without a profile. Thou Shalt conform to the new standards of acceptable behavior or kink. Your kink is bad - only my kink is acceptable. Fetishers should be shunned or driven from the rooms of the new elite! Go find others of your kind, you are not my kink, so you are banished! Anyone outside of your personal cliché, your comfort group, should be treated badly, their opinions challenged or ridiculed.
How very vanilla!!! The very things we complain about we re-create. When they are done to us, they are bad...when we are the perpetrators, there are good reasons... WRONG!!!
The community became pan-sexual or unified for a reason, a very good reason. Unity is power. Segregation, splintering, divisions, polarity, and isolation create misunderstandings, fear, and even hatred. Many aspects of BDSM are illegal, and most aspects are considered abominable by society. It is appalling to watch people within this community turn on each other.
I am not now nor will ever BE Politically Correct. I will not toe the line of new rules designed to limit, trap, or exclude. I don't fit the labels really well, nor do I care that this may make some uneasy. Their lack of ease is an issue within themselves. I seek only to be myself in the fullness of my personal truth. It is an exercise and challenge not to step upon others to elevate myself. I don't require or expect everyone to see things, feel things, or know things in the same manner that I do. Their choices, styles, ideas can and should be theirs alone...unique. I indeed judge severely non-consensual usage (children). It is within me a forbidden beyond any justification. Beyond that, I try to give others the respect of their choices.
Of course, I have an opinion. Yes, I am vocal about those opinions. However, these are my opinions. In this season, it is important to remember that each of us must live by our personal ideals. When we drive people away, diminish them, label them, in truth, we diminish ourselves. It is not required that we share anyone else's kink, merely that we respect and show respect to each other. If we want respect for ourselves, then we must show and give that same respect to others.
I, for my part in this, will endeavor not to summarily denigrate those wandering in (online) without a profile.
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