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CallaFirestormBW -> RE: Public BDSM - should we tolerate it? (7/12/2009 9:09:18 AM)
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quote:
# Partner on leash
# Playful but firm spanking
# Gagged
# Partner following behind in an obvious submissive posture
# Putting a well written and tasteful flyer next to another in a store window
# Pro Dom leaving a business card with others
*Ok, the first one I have no problem with. I don't see a point where walking your lover on a leash ever becomes commonplace, but not being arrested for it is a worthy goal in my mind.
* A playful swat on the tush already happens, and as long as it's only happening between people who have already agreed that that's allowed in their relationship, who cares. Anything -beyond- a playful swat, to me, devolves into that "private" category where, even if it isn't outlawed, is in the same category as making out in public (regardless of gender). It's that point at which I feel the appropriate comment is "get a room".
*Again, the whole partner following in an obvious submissive posture -- well heck, who gets to decide what an "obvious" submissive posture is? Some cultures (like Hasedic Judaism and some Muslim and Orthodox Christian sects) already practice this in public. People still look at it askance, and they always will, because regardless of whether it becomes more commonplace to see in the general population, there will still be, IMO, a large percentage of individuals who are -very- uncomfortable with the idea that life (and some relationships) are not egalitarian.
*Again, the brochure thing already happens in a lot of larger cities, and even happened somewhat in the smaller cities that I lived in when in NC and NM. Tasteful makes the difference in many cases, and if something isn't crass or pushy, most people for whom it isn't aimed will ignore it rather than making a huge issue. Of course, there are -always- going to be 'morality police' who think it's their job to keep people from doing what they enjoy because it conflicts with some moral code that they want to have universally imposed, but in general, I think that tasteful advertising would probably not raise the radar, much less the ire, of the general population.
*In general, I'd say that where one left a business card would depend on whether one thought that the individuals would be receptive to the service offered. The shop my daughter works in has occasional flyers for fetish clubs and cards from local pros in display holders at the register, but the shop she works in caters to people who might enjoy that. It doesn't make any sense to put cards from a pro dominant individual in, say, a gourmet food store. Putting them in things like lingerie or leather stores already happens in many cities.
The fact that peoples' bigotry is going to happen doesn't justify that bigotry, but I think that it is unrealistic to think that it will ever go completely away, and so part of my decision about how I present myself is based on the reality that there are going to be some people who are going to judge me on these presentations, and who are going to judge me harshly, and that that is probably never going to change. If I can't handle that, then I need to arrange my life accordingly, even for the parts of my life that are technically 'legal' or 'accepted', because some folks aren't going to 'accept' no matter -how- legal it is or how 'accepted' it is by the common community.
Much of the discussion about "when will it be ok to..... in public" will be relatively irrelevant in small towns. In places with small, insular populations, unless there is a large, familiar, local population of fetish individuals, it will -never- be commonplace, and is likely to -always- raise eyebrows. Heck, even now there are places where it is difficult to be gay, or transgendered, or anything that isn't Caucasian, with 2.5 kids, a dog, and a white picket fence, and I don't see that changing no matter -how- open the 'mainstream' becomes to alternative expressions of sex, gender, religion, etc. There will always be that shock of the unusual in places where the unusual is just that... unusual. Hopefully, we'll stop feeling that it's ok to KILL people for being unusual, but even then, I suspect that there will always be people who think they have that right to judge someone else's choices and destroy or end the life of the unusual person, and no matter how 'commonplace' something becomes, those kinds of people are probably not going to go away.
Dame Calla
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