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ShaktiSama -> RE: Master and pet banned from the bus (3/8/2008 10:11:16 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Aswad
Others can put up with a collar and leash; we'll just have to disagree on this point.
Yep. My point is not about what others can "put up" with or not. Or what should be permissable in my private life. My point was about public courtesy, which is what the majority of the Leash Uber Alles crowd can't seem to grasp.
However, since my worldview is not grounded in permanent adolescence and its attendent moral narcissism, and I actually do participate on all levels in society--including producing the children that people like you dislike--I'm afraid that we will never agree. I do not want my children to see men or women leashed on the street, any more than I want them to see people beaten on the street or verbally degraded in other ways that some dom/sub teams find amusing; that stuff is dandy at the club later that night, it's just repugnant on the bus.
For the record, I also don't want the kids to see prostitutes working with their clients in an alley, or gay men having sex in broad daylight at the public park. I consider that sort of thing tacky. It is my opinion that expressions of adult sexuality are best reserved for adult company. That opinion will never change.
It is also my opinion that private BDSM pleasures are just that--private pleasures. If they are depicted in art for adults, discussed and enjoyed by adults, and guaranteed as rights of the pursuit of happiness for adults--wonderful. But public busses and parks are "all ages" venues, and as such I believe they require a higher standard of sexual restraint than environments that are set aside for adult behavior.
As for using this issue as a platform for BDSM rights and legitimacy--I'm afraid my views on this are also more traditional. I have found that people who actually want equality and respect from others tend to earn it as much by practicing politeness and recognizing a few basic social norms as by forcing pointless confrontation. Gay men and lesbians seem to earn more respect by being responsible and contributing members of society than by confronting "hets" with graphic sexual behavior in public. It is far easier for people to accept "whatever you want to do in the privacy of your own home" if you have the sense and maturity to do it in the privacy of your own home.
Regardless, reading through some of the replies I can see that there are some interesting counterpoints. I thought the smoking analogy is interesting, for example. I am not a smoker, and I do not allow smoking indoors in my house; I was especially adamant about it when the children were growing, because the health effects of having smokers in the home are proven.
I do not hate smokers or think they have no moral right to smoke in their own homes or cars, and I am used to smoking being allowed in some sections of restaurants and most bars, given where I live at present. In Vancouver, however, smoking was by definition an outdoor activity--it was illegal indoors in a public place, on buses, etc.. A much-resented imposition on a perceived right to smoke, of course, but in Vancouver it was a worker's rights issue--men and women who worked in these "high-smoke" environments were suffering significantly increased risks of cancer and emphysema, regardless of whether they smoked themselves.
Anyhoo, there is obviously a boundary between individual rights and the rights of the general public that has to be drawn somewhere. I would agree with those of you who say that BDSM expression should not be legally forbidden in public. *shrug* Whether we choose to exercise some self-restraint is up to us, obviously.
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