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DrJohnSea41 -> RE: RANT RE: The term "Old guard" (4/14/2004 11:12:32 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SherriA
The Old Guard is a myth. The was NO "old guard". There was no cohesive, organized association with standardized protocols and beliefs. What existed, according to all my research, were a variety of individual groups, each with their own rituals and rules. So then, which set of beliefs was The Old Guard ? And how was that determined?
The Old Guard is a legend made up by younger generations. Why? I don't know. Perhaps they wanted something to strive for. Perhaps they were trying to legitimize their beliefs. Or perhaps they just had too much time on their hands and vivid imaginations. IMX, those who claim to be part of The Old Guard are simply trying to beef up a suspect resume of experience.
I completely agree. "Old Guard" is generally just a term used to puff up someone's claims to be experienced. There is (and was) no such thing in any formal sense outside of those occasional groups of people who play together and choose to refer to their own experiences as "Old Guard." This would be similar to calling oneself a "ninja" because you and your friends agree among themselves what a "ninja" is -- NOT because there is any objective, formal or professional organization or society that has decided what constitutes a "ninja" and recognizes members as such.
When used innocently, the term was often an attempt to describe a degree of seriousness towards the lifestyle such that rituals were fairly rigidly defined and heirarchies were established (such as what LanceLake refers to), but such labels are confined to the small groups that chose them and no large-scale, uniform set of rules and rituals exists and there is ZERO evidence that any singular organization has ever existed to enforce them.
You might think of the distinction as similar to thinking of a collar in the same light as a wedding ring versus it being nothing more than a play toy. There are certainly lifestylers that take the collar very seriously and treat the process with a high degree of formality and ritual. Naturally, the form of those rituals is highly individual and no standard set of rituals exists or is likely to. For the majority of people who identify with the lifestyle, we all know how often people offer or accept collaring only to toss the supposed commitment aside a month later and in the same sense the term "Old Guard" can be as equally without depth behind it. This isn't to say people who use the term are automatically insincere, but I would suggest a high degree of skepticism towards anyone who uses the term, especially a Dom who cannot himself explicitly define EXACTLY what the term means.
Again let me reiterate that there is NO evidence a formal, large-scale organization has EVER existed that the term may refer to -- its only legitimate use is as a term that some people label their own experiences within a small group of like-minded people such as what some other posters here have experienced. It has no meaning outside of the lifestyles of those people who choose to label their individual experiences as such.
John
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