We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Martin Luther King, Jr.
And nowhere can I see this more clearly than in the community of kinksters.
OK, if you simply live out your kink between yourself and your significant other in your own bedroom and never communicate with anyone else about it, I suppose this doesn't apply. But if you are even reading this, my guess is that's not the case.
Anyone who spends any time getting out into the kinky community starts seeing the web of relationships that develop. I remember as a new person at munches being introduced around. "This is Dom Z.. he is married to sub Y, and sub X also serves him, but she only sees him on weekends as she is bisexual and also married to her female partner sub W-- occasionally they also include sub Q in their play. Sub Q is currently single but she used to belong to Mistress L, who recently has come out as a switch and is playing with Dom V and Dom R, but she is also now mentoring Sub G who also used to play with to Dom Z before sub Y came into the picture." ....WHOOOOAAAA! Confusing isn't it.
At this point, your eyes sort of glaze over and you give up trying to figure it out. The point is, not who is with who. There is nothing wrong with the above scenario. There is lots of love and fun to be spread around and in the scene one of the attractions is the ability to explore that. Who is with who is ultimately people's personal business in the end.
The point I am making is simply exactly what Dr. King was saying. We are VERY interwoven in this community. That while there are quite a few of us, it does tend to be a small, intimate kinky little world. What does affect one of us really does many times affect more than one and in the bigger picture, it can affect many.
We are all responsible, both submissives and dominants to play responsibly. Because we are a community in the minority and one that is misunderstood by pretty much everyone outside of the community, we have a responsibility to represent ourselves in such a way that does not put the whole community or others we play with in a bad light.
Think about it. You might not think that your actions are scrutinized that closely, but they can be. It is not just how we act in public, but our private actions also. Because it is such a small community, and because intimate groupings do fluctuate frequently (as in the example above), people do talk and share things that happened to them previously. So there is no guarantee that things that happened in private stay that way. Some do kiss and tell. Sometimes this is unfortunate, but sometimes, when someones actions in private are dangerous and harmful, this is actually a good thing, so that others might know to be careful in the future.
In other cases, if you are known to be kinky by vanilla friends, you could be the only one that a non-lifestyle person knows. How you act can be representative of the entire bdsm community for that person. You could be the one who shows them by your actions that it is a wonderful lifestyle or leaves them with a bad taste in their mouth. When I was much younger and religious there was a saying 'you may be the only bible someone reads' -- it fits here.
How we conduct ourselves, how we represent the community and how we treat others within it - hopefully always with honor, responsibility and respect -- will say much about who we are and will ultimately help to shape the community around us. It will make the difference between a thriving community with all members pulling together or a community where there is strife and discord.
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