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| tiggerGlasgow |
on Mon 10 May 10, 5:19 PM to tiggerGlasgow's blog.
The myth about the BDSM Community is that it actually exists as anything other than a collection of people with vaguely related interests.
After reading more and more of late about the values of this community, what one symbol or another means to "us as a community" I find I am compelled to dispel this myth. We are a scene, not a society. A random collection of groups of friends, circles of acquaintances and places to congregate.
There are few, if any agreed "rules" or codes of conduct. There are no common ceremonies, no absolute truths of how "it" (whatever that "it" may be) is done. There are also no hard and fast rights and wrongs of how we choose to play, or not to play.
Now if this seems like I'm decrying the scene and it's eclectic nature in some way, then your wrong. It's fabulous, all the more so, or at least that's my belief, because of it's diversity of beliefs, attitudes and practices. The scene as a whole attracts people who are, in some way or other, alternative. To think that, in anything other than some small groups, you can gain a consensus is either astonishing optimism or astonishing arrogance.
I resent being told what I'm supposed to think, feel, do or believe based on what "the community" thinks I should. I resent being told that my choices are wrong as the go against the traditions of "the community", most especially when the only place I've ever heard about these traditions is on a web-site created two months ago. I resent people taking an attitude of superiority based on how closely they hold to the values of the "community". In other words, I resent self-aggrandising bullshit which has only one function, to enable the person spouting it forth to take on an air of smugness and claim to be more "real" than the rest of us mere mortals.
OK, that's not to say that there isn't shared territory. Most of us believe in consent, be that consent given at the outset with no option to withdraw it, consensual non-consent. conditional consent, situational consent or other situation where consent is given. Other shared territory includes things like safety, oh hang on, it doesn't does it.
So really when you look at things, the only shared territory is consent, be it explicit or implicit, piecemeal and blanket. We can't even agree on exactly who needs to consent to what, especially in relation to playing in public (by public I mean not at a club or a party).
You cannot call a group of people who's only singular agreement is on consent a community. You can't call a disparate group of people separated by significant distances or by social and cultural divides a community. But it doesn't stop it being fun, important or worthwhile.
Edited for clarity.
Edited Mon 10 May 10, 5:36 PM by tiggerGlasgow
| 10 May 10, 6:26 PM Jezzebelle UK, 10 yrs |
Applause... Well said! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezzebelle/ | |
| 10 May 10, 7:36 PM Souci_X UK(BA), 5 yrs |
The problem is always going to be words, what you mean by consent, what you mean by community, people don't agree on these terms and never will, so to me it matters not what people call it or don't call it. As twue as words spoken under interrogation. | |
| 10 May 10, 8:15 PM Swishy UK(BD), 7 yrs |
Nice blog. It would be good to have a 'like' button attached to weblogs a bit like er, another rather loose community. | |
| 10 May 10, 11:34 PM Grownup_Frankie UK, 4 yrs |
I agree, you can't call a common interest group a 'community'. Its like the word 'friends'; you can't call aquiantances 'friends' - and knowing the difference is vital. There IS 'community' within this lifestyle - there are those who live in a spirit of co-operation with and acceptance of others, who respect others and genuinely ceelbrate other's good tidings, and likewise offer valuable support when the tidings are not so good. We all need community, mostly, most of us, at some point in our lives, we place a value on it, we miss it if its not there, it helps, in smal ways and sometimes in big ways - it exists. It may be fragile, however. I wont deny that. 'Community' comes across in your blog as a negative word, implying judgementalism and dogma; the strictures of 'tradition', an oppressive, controlling force. But don't judge the word too harshly, not the word itself, or its potential for good. One might say its a word that has been abused enough already, and misused enough by some, who have given it its bad reputation. You have to believe in the spirit of community to call yourself a community, and all too often people don't beleive in that spirit of fellowship. But its there, like hope and faith and other things equally as hard to draw on the map.
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| 11 May 10, 8:20 AM tiggerGlasgow UK(EH), 6 yrs |
I believe in the spirit of fellowship that transcends other boundaries, just not in the "community". I believe in faith and hope. I recognise that there are those who fight for causes which would benefit most of those into BDSM. I just don;t believe that the word community is applicable. Yes I see community as having negative connotations, but that's because those shouting loudest about the mythical BDSM community are usually trying to convince people that their way of doing things is superior to others and the right way of doing things. I don't see tradition as a bad thing but I don't see it as a good thing either. Tradition is something people have to make their minds up on. What I do see as a bad thing is people using the word tradition to try and convince others that one particular way or set of rules are the right ones, despite evidence that nobody had heard of it until somebody invented the idea and put it on a website, sort of like the "European Houses" and "Oriental Houses" you can send your "slave" to for training, pure fiction. I don't deny that there are pockets of community spirit, or that there are genuinely good people out there who support their fellow human being just because they are simply that, a fellow human being. What I do deny is that it makes us a community. Intersecting circles of friends acquaintances and spheres of influence in the scene at large (though they're more polygons of influence really) are not a community and more that the Angling Trust's members and member groups form a community. We are a collection of disparate individuals, a collection with rather more in common with a University Social Society than many of us would like to think. There are some of us who have many overlapping interests and beliefs, there are others for whom one single aspect of our shared interest is all we have in common. But as I said before not being a community doesn't stop there being good and great things about being part of the BDSM (insert collective noun of your choice). It doesn't stop wonderful things happening in human terms within this gaggle of people. It doesn't stop their being love, support, friendship and other values that make being human worthwhile from being not just present but expressed. Thus I stand by my assertion, the BDSM community is a myth, and the reality of the situation is much more interesting. "A life without pain has no meaning" Athrur Schopenhauer | |
| 11 May 10, 9:46 AM Grownup_Frankie UK, 4 yrs |
You continue to present a good argument. If you think about the common usage of words, like 'community', or indeed 'family', they are words that encapulate so much that is hopeful and good, but that also can be turned bad. There is a different tone, a different 'feeling' attached to the sentence 'I value community' and the sentence 'some communities are oppresssive', to 'Family is important to me' and 'A lot of families are disfunctional'. I suppose the difference is to do with concept and practice, and the gap in between??? Personally I see 'tradition' as a thing thats often turned against people, I believe in flexibility and evolution within community, (conceptually) (if I have yet to see it in widespread practice). Perhaps...perhaps...we have 'moments' of community. But I'm interested - as you say there is something vibrant and good that you have found in your travels, that is, for you, distinct form community. Does it have a name yet? How would you place it on the map? Thank you, you've got parts of my brain working that have been dormant dusty corners for years. Pity the poor mice that had made their nests there.
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| 11 May 10, 11:45 AM tiggerGlasgow UK(EH), 6 yrs |
I think you are right in your postulation about the word community stems from the difference between concept and practice. There is too wide a gap between the two for any mid-point between them to be a comfortable place and it is most probable the my dislike for the word stems from this. I would say we have moments of communion rather than of community. We have moments where our affinity for one another and our humanity shines through the miasma of discord. I don't think the the moments of communion and affinity create anything other than bonds between distinct individuals rather than what some would like to call the community as a whole. The thing that I have found I would call a network or amalgam. Community gives a image of a group of people who all know each other, if not intimately, at least reasonably well. Network gives a much looser image, one of intersecting lines, tight groupings and large gaps. Network. A linking of one thing through another and another. A network is not reliant on shared values, nor is it reliant on any agreement, cohesion of principles or sense of identity. Yet a network can, and does provide support, friendship, a sense of place or belonging and a platform to share ideas even if these ideas are not held in common with the rest of the network. A network does not need to know all of it's members to function, in fact it relies on addition of new members rather than their exclusion for it's continued existence. Thank you for challenging my concepts. In defending my position it's allowed me to better understand it and to assimilate it more fully into me ever evolving sense of self. "A life without pain has no meaning" Athrur Schopenhauer | |
| 11 May 10, 7:45 PM ocimum_sanctum UK(EH), 2 yrs |
If I was being pedantic - me, pedantic, never  - I'd probably say that folk that use IC and go to munches/clubs do form a community.Using one of those free online dictionaries I'm never sure one should have confidence in it would appear you can shoe-horn it into the definition.
We do form a social group, and there is definitely a delineation between the 'kink' community and 'vanilla' life. If there wasn't, there wouldn't be need for this website, munches or clubs. However, what you were saying about people attempting to tell others how to think based on that premise seems to be quite prevalent. Communities always tend to have the same up-sides and down-sides, they provide support and some collective safety at the cost of detrimenting the individual's freedom. P.S. Congrats on the start of this weblog being your 1,000th post (if I'm counting right).
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| 11 May 10, 9:52 PM Grownup_Frankie UK, 4 yrs |
You paint that very well. I see where you are coming from, and - in the same Aha! moment of insight - I see where I am coming from too. Because I saw how much I liked your line about moments of communion - well, that word, 'communion', I liked, then when I read further I felt I was seeing what you were saying in my mind's eye but wondering where the spirit was within that view. And thats when the penny dropped that I'm an old, (old, old) romantic, a stubborn believer in magic, karma, in signs and portents, in transformation and transcendence. And so that is what I seek. And therefore that is what I think I find - in the same material where you find something else - equally as potent and celebratory, but differently designed. Its the SEEKER who defines (interprets) what they find???? (ps; when I say I wondered 'where is the spirit' in the mental picture I got from your description of a network I don't mean to imply that you do not include it, or that it is not there for you. I mean simply that I do not recognise it, because for me it is a far less subtle ingredient in what I seek/project onto the external world). And, of course, I am in no way suggesting mine is the superior or correct view. I'm suggesting that it all boils down to subjectivity in the end... Subjective-'ness'??? Subjectiv-ism????? It all boils down to one of those three, anyway. *smile*
Edited 11 May 10, 10:53 PM by Grownup_Frankie |
