I feel like that a community that's like that is just a bad community, because that's not the spirit of good, safe BDSM. It's something I wouldn't get mixed up in. You find stuff like that online and such, but the people who actually know what they're doing don't act like that- you wouldn't find stuff like that in, for example, mainstream kink conferences. This really just isn't the seventies, and a community like that is not to be taken as representative.
That's a conflation of two different things on S/M and consent, there. I am a masochist because I do have a need to get hurt- if not a need, then a very deep-seated want. That's not something I consented to as such; it's just a fact of my life. I like sadists because they get it; they understand that I really don't want them to stop. Never have I felt like I was pushed to hook up with a sadist just because I'm a masochist- my top is a sadist, but that was mostly a happy accident, and I've played with people who weren't sadists but were willing to hurt me. Every time I play with someone, I specifically give my consent, and if I wasn't able to or didn't, someone would stop the scene. This is true in an community that's worth being in.
Consent is absolutely the linchpin of the larger BDSM community as it stands now. The old essentialist view isn't just bullshit; it's also really old bullshit. It is sadly attractive to some people, I won't deny that, but that's a danger of private play now, not the lifestyle.
I will qualify this by saying that no two scenes are alike. There are ALWAYS sketchy house parties and people fucking around in back rooms at swingers' clubs. But the tendency to accept that as what the BDSM community does is its own kind of essentialism, one that is extremely harmful towards people who are actually trying to live right and be acknowledged by the vanilla world. If vanilla people are never going to get over the idea that we're all a bunch of freaks, then we're not going to get anywhere.
I'm pretty much never going to write the "dom fucks up" fic, because it just makes me really sad- not like good, tear your heart out and stomp on it so you can get a good cry in sad, like hurts in the pit of my stomach sad. It's very similar to the prospect of "Mom forgot to pick me up after practice so I waited until dark and then had to walk home in the rain." I got no kinda interest in telling that story- just because it's instructive is no reason for me to write it..
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Date: 2012-04-10 04:44 am (UTC)That's a conflation of two different things on S/M and consent, there. I am a masochist because I do have a need to get hurt- if not a need, then a very deep-seated want. That's not something I consented to as such; it's just a fact of my life. I like sadists because they get it; they understand that I really don't want them to stop. Never have I felt like I was pushed to hook up with a sadist just because I'm a masochist- my top is a sadist, but that was mostly a happy accident, and I've played with people who weren't sadists but were willing to hurt me. Every time I play with someone, I specifically give my consent, and if I wasn't able to or didn't, someone would stop the scene. This is true in an community that's worth being in.
Consent is absolutely the linchpin of the larger BDSM community as it stands now. The old essentialist view isn't just bullshit; it's also really old bullshit. It is sadly attractive to some people, I won't deny that, but that's a danger of private play now, not the lifestyle.
I will qualify this by saying that no two scenes are alike. There are ALWAYS sketchy house parties and people fucking around in back rooms at swingers' clubs. But the tendency to accept that as what the BDSM community does is its own kind of essentialism, one that is extremely harmful towards people who are actually trying to live right and be acknowledged by the vanilla world. If vanilla people are never going to get over the idea that we're all a bunch of freaks, then we're not going to get anywhere.
I'm pretty much never going to write the "dom fucks up" fic, because it just makes me really sad- not like good, tear your heart out and stomp on it so you can get a good cry in sad, like hurts in the pit of my stomach sad. It's very similar to the prospect of "Mom forgot to pick me up after practice so I waited until dark and then had to walk home in the rain." I got no kinda interest in telling that story- just because it's instructive is no reason for me to write it..