Rover
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Joined: 6/28/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Arpig
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To begin, if it's not organized then what is being passed down from generation to generation and from where was it learned in the first place? We're not talking about an old family recipe for soup here.
Well then, just where did those wonderful people who first "organized" BDSM learn it? Maybe they made it up as they went along? Maybe they read any number of anonymous victorian smut-novels (A Man With A Maid comes to mind).
Ok, perhaps you're the one in a million that had a developed version of BDSM prior to your discovery of it. But I'm guessing not, though it's always possible that you were masturbating to Victorian smut, just as the Victorians did. Not sure what that taught you, though... masturbation IS something that most people take to intuitively.
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Second, I ask where any of us would be without the benefit of organization and history. Had any of us not beneftitted from the organized lifestyle and it's history, we wouldn't know our floggers from a hole in the ground. Some still don't.
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This is baloney. I have in no way benefitted from any "organization" and the history I refer to far outdates 2-3 generations. When you sayorganized, I assume you are refering to the infamous and semi-legendary "Old Guard". While they did make up some nifty rules and protocols, they never were the be-all and end-all of the lifestyle, they were just one small group who liked to have strict protocols in place. Straights and lesbians have been whacking eachother on the ass as long as gays have, it is simply ridiculous to assume that BDSM started in the 50s...like I said before it has always been with us.
There is NO organized BDSM, there are only small groups who have organized out of a mutual desire for formal structure, there are any number of these groups each practicing their kink according to their own rules, and then there are even more people who have nothing to do with any organization, who simply live the lifestyle the way they see fit.
Actually, it's not baloney nor any other lunchmeat. Even if your BDSM education is nothing more than reading online websites such as this, what you're learning is firmly founded in organized BDSM and it's history. No one here, least of all you (or me), is making this up out of thin air.
The "history" you cite is not history, because it's not recorded. If a kinky person lives and dies and makes no lasting mark upon the next kinky person, they've added nothing to the sum knowledge and history of kink. They've simply vanished into obscurity. Have kinky people been around since the dawn of man? Absolutely. So show me the history of those kinky people. You can't because it doesn't exist. They came and went without anyone having known who they are or what they learned. And the next person (say... you) will have to learn it all over on their own, if they learn it at all.
As for your rendition of "Old Guard" history, you're correct in noting that it is semi-legendary, particularly online. But they are historical, and historically accurate documentation exists. You are not correct in stating that they're "one small group" (they were, in fact, many widely dispersed groups) or that they had "strict protocols in place" (some did, some didn't, but there was little in the way of uniformity from group to group beyond being exclusively gay men with a shared interest in S/M within a rigid armed-forces style heirarchy). The term itself was coined as a derogatory reference to a people in time, much as one may refer to "medieval", rather than any specific protocols, beliefs or practices.
As for your usage of the term "organized", you're incorrect to portray it as some sort of unified governing body for all of BDSM. BDSM is organized in online communities, local munches, regional and national groups such as The Eulenspiegal Society, The Society of Janus, the Leather Archives & Museum, etc. And as a result, there is a record and method of passing information along from one person to the next, such that what is learned is not lost to posterity but becomes the informational foundation for everyone that "discovers" BDSM. To say that it's not organized is to ignore what is readily apparent.
Even those that eschew organized BDSM learn from it. It's impossible for them not to, presuming they are not in utter isolation with no knowledge that BDSM even exists.
I think you're having difficulty appreciating that there's a meaningful and fundamental difference between people "whacking away at one another", and learning about BDSM from one another via the organized dissemination of information and history.
John
< Message edited by Rover -- 7/7/2007 10:48:32 PM >
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"Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions."
Sri da Avabhas
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