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What Cost Knowledge? - 5/28/2006 10:41:12 PM   
Padriag


Posts: 2633
Joined: 3/30/2005
Status: offline 		I’ve had a question on my mind lately.  It is simply this, should knowledge regarding techniques and methods in this lifestyle have a cost, should they be earned, and if so how?
 
In mulling this question over I’ve looked at it from two sides.  On the one side is the idea that no, the knowledge should be free and freely accessible to any who seek it.  On the other side is the idea that such knowledge should come at the cost of being earned, access should be in some way limited.  Each argument has its merits.
 
Keep it Free
 
On the premise that knowledge should be free, one could argue that all knowledge regarding techniques in BDSM play, slave training, managing power exchange relationships, poly relationships, etc. should be freely and openly available to all.  The case can be made that by making such knowledge freely available that people can be safer, make fewer mistakes, have better relationships, etc.  There is truth to that.  Certainly by knowing how to safely do bondage sessions for example, people are able to be safer in their play.  Books like SM101 help with this by providing some of the basics on a variety of play forms.  Likewise, information about managing various styles of relationships could help people go on to have better and more successful relationships.  Information on slave training techniques and methods would be very useful to owners facing problems or new owners still learning how to train.  By putting all such information in a public venue, the information can be examined, discussed and vetted so that we all learn what is and is not genuinely useful.
 
Earn It
 
Knowledge is power (potentially), and power should not be simply handed to just anyone.  An individual should be required to earn such knowledge as way of limiting access to those willing to devote the time and energy to gaining it.  While it won’t prevent those intent on abusing such knowledge, it will limit it from being casually abused by a 14 year old with a computer.  We also tend to appreciate most those things we had to earn, and thus if we have to earn such knowledge we’ll better appreciate what we have.  Third, by having to earn knowledge over time, it gives the individual time to more fully understand what they are learning and the potential of that knowledge (and presumably if the person is ethical they will use it with greater care).  In short, it can be argued that limiting knowledge can also make things safer.  This seems more true with the basics, and less true with some more advanced concepts.  For example, if written instructions on fire play or electrical play were widely available it might encourage more to try them.  But these forms of play are dangerous, especially without instruction, and such written instructions could create a false sense of security (well, I read the literature… I don’t understand what went wrong.. what do you mean I was supposed to use ethanol… you mean I can’t use Jim Bean?).
 
So here are the questions for discussion.  Should knowledge regarding techniques and methods be freely available or restricted to those who earn it in some way?  Should some forms of knowledge be freely available and others not, if so, what would you put in each group?  If you think some or all knowledge should be restricted, by whom and how is it earned?  Should knowledge simply be left to those who can acquire it on their own, meaning no one really shares their knowledge and everyone is on their own to figure things out?  What about published books which present such knowledge at a monetary price, how do you feel about that?
 
I look forward to the discussion.

_____________________________

Padriag

A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel so that it may be very kind - Edmund Spencer
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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/28/2006 11:10:10 PM   
Petruchio


Posts: 1615
Joined: 2/6/2005
Status: offline 		Perhaps both:

  • The basic should be free to all doms, in particular matters dealing with safety, respect, and care of subs.
  • Then, perhaps, the more advanced techniques (electral, chemical, fire play, etc.) could be earned once the basics appear responsibly in place.

(in reply to Padriag)
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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/28/2006 11:12:37 PM   
BitaTruble


Posts: 9779
Joined: 1/12/2006
From: Texas
Status: offline 		I'm a strong advocate of education both in and out of BDSM. Critical thinking and the capacity to learn are excellent life skills for damn near anyone to possess. To limit access to knowledge rather than expose one to diversity would mean that each individual would only learn limited skill sets within a small group. If, within that group, there was no one who possessed the knowledge to teach a given skill, then individuals would either do without the skill.. or worse, not even become aware that some things exist at all. Figging comes immediately to mind. I had never heard of it until 10 years ago when I met Himself. There are many activities that may never have seen the light of day but for the few who were willing to share their knowledge on subjects. Two heads are better than one.. ten are better than two and so forth. If you ask 100 people to list and describe their favorite BDSM activities, you have a much better chance of learning something new than if you ask just 10 people.

I do not put a price on knowledge because I believe that it's priceless. I recognize that others do, and that's fine by me. If one publishes a book, they are certainly entitled to be compensated for the time and energy they put in to their work and I would never begrudge them their livelihood. That said, publishers make a hell of a lot more money off the sale of books than do authors and ultimately, even a published nonfiction work is, at least as far as BDSM,  still the opinion of one person.. or sometimes a few more in the case of collaborations.*

Celeste

*Nonfiction scientific studies excepted - I.E. fact based rather than opinion based

< Message edited by BitaTruble -- 5/28/2006 11:14:36 PM >

_____________________________

"Oh, so it's just like
Rock, paper, scissors."

He laughed. "You are the wisest woman I know."


(in reply to Padriag)
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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 12:28:44 AM   
Petruchio


Posts: 1615
Joined: 2/6/2005
Status: offline 		Hey Bita! (wink) How ya doin'?

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 12:51:44 AM   
Wulfchyld


Posts: 2618
Joined: 12/7/2005
Status: offline 		It is hard so sustain life on generosity. Writing a book takes a great deal of time and effort, then comes edits and re-writes, then the cost of submitting the work, and then all the other hassles, so if your lucky in a few years all your work may buy a happy meal. In writing BDSM you do not have a gi-normous audience to buy your books so hitting the 1,000,000 copies sold mark takes a very long time. When you look at the cover price, the author is only getting pennies of that. So all his/her time and effort invested in the book may or may not one day buy lunch. Publication is a tuff adventure and the biggest trick is getting a publisher to read your work and see where you are coming from. E-Publish, sometimes, feeds a writer better but with e-piracy in the long run you lose money. Just like when a book becomes a movie, most the time the author isn’t making a nickel off the movie, you often have to give up a lot of rights to get published. So that nifty little publisher may be lining their pockets heavily on your labor. Then the agents.... WHEW!!!! Some people have good ones and some people have a sweet talking vampire that is sucking the life out of you. But this is just scratching the surface. I am sure John can come in and tell you much more.

_____________________________

Loki, forum god of Mischief

Submission is not a gift... it is plunder!
Where there is a whip, there is a way!
Dom/mes of a feather, beat the f*ck out of slaves together


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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 12:54:21 AM   
Lordandmaster


Posts: 10943
Joined: 6/22/2004
Status: offline 		I begin with one corner; if a student cannot return with the other three corners, I do not repeat myself.

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 2:23:56 AM   
fullofgrace


Posts: 395
Joined: 3/24/2006
From: fl, usa
Status: offline 		i have a hard time charging for sharing of any sort of knowledge. hell, i still have moral qualms with charging for reading tarot for people and they're freely offering the money. i love to learn and i love to share knowledge; the only thing that would make me charge money for it is if i were overextending myself financially or temporally to provide it, to the point that it was causing harm to my mental/physical health or my lifestyle. as far as other methods of payment, there are certain levels of trust i have to have with people to share certain kinds of knowledge, and other types of compensation i may ask for, but on the whole, i tend to be more giving than is probably healthy in most things, especially sharing knowledge.

as for freely distributing information on fire play, etc., and saying that it encourages more to try it - that, to me, is like saying making condoms freely available will encourage more people to have sex. if someone wants to use fire or electrical play and is really bent on trying it, they may try to learn all they can but still go at it untrained if they can't get the information they need. to me, publishing material on it simply lessens the chance of mishaps for the foolish ones who go at it untrained except for a pamphlet, though within published material i think there should definitely be warnings about the necessity of training by an actual human being instead of just a book.

i don't know. this seems like an odd sort of discussion to be having because, really, bdsm is a very unstructured animal, and so there's no way to institute groupwide restrictions on anything. people are still going to try stupid things they don't have training for and there's no way to structure who gets what kind of training and when and in what time periods. in a perfect world, some of the ideas you present in the section on earning knowledge would work really well. but unfortunately i don't see how we're centralized enough for all that. anyone can go and call themselves a dominant and claim to have experience in electrical play and no one would know the difference until they go and shock the hell out of some poor sub. i think it speaks well of those who seek training that they do seek it instead of automatically assuming they can learn everything from books or experience, so were i in the position of trainer i would be hard-pressed to turn someone away, precisely for that reason.


_____________________________

i have the kind of beauty that moves...

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 3:30:27 AM   
MsMacComb


Posts: 808
Joined: 3/30/2005
From: My Mothers womb.
Status: offline 		Couldn't the same argument be made for knowledge of anything and everything? Free schools, trade schools, college, on the job training (at skilled employee pay rate) etc. I would also mention that "knowledge" to some is fiction, false and/or bullshit to others or in some cases to everyone but the self proclaimed "expert" that is offering/selling it.

_____________________________

Not looking for anyone for anything, any time.

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 5:34:25 AM   
JohnWarren


Posts: 3807
Joined: 3/18/2005
From: Delray Beach, FL
Status: offline 		I did spend a bit of time thinking about this while I was writing The Loving Dominant.  It wasn't so much the "giving away the secrets" thing, but a concern that it might allow someone to "talk the talk" when they were "incapable of walking the walk" and so deceive a partner into believing they were either more skilled or more compatable than they really were.  Remember at that time, there were no widely distributed BDSM how-to's for the heterosexual community.

Finally, after remembering how hard it had been in the years when there was no information available, I decided the risk was worth taking. 

_____________________________

www.lovingdominant.org

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 5:42:12 AM   
JohnWarren


Posts: 3807
Joined: 3/18/2005
From: Delray Beach, FL
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Wulfchyld

It is hard so sustain life on generosity. Writing a book takes a great deal of time and effort, then comes edits and re-writes, then the cost of submitting the work, and then all the other hassles, so if your lucky in a few years all your work may buy a happy meal. In writing BDSM you do not have a gi-normous audience to buy your books so hitting the 1,000,000 copies sold mark takes a very long time. When you look at the cover price, the author is only getting pennies of that. So all his/her time and effort invested in the book may or may not one day buy lunch. Publication is a tuff adventure and the biggest trick is getting a publisher to read your work and see where you are coming from. E-Publish, sometimes, feeds a writer better but with e-piracy in the long run you lose money. Just like when a book becomes a movie, most the time the author isn’t making a nickel off the movie, you often have to give up a lot of rights to get published. So that nifty little publisher may be lining their pockets heavily on your labor. Then the agents.... WHEW!!!! Some people have good ones and some people have a sweet talking vampire that is sucking the life out of you. But this is just scratching the surface. I am sure John can come in and tell you much more.


Actually, I suspect there are relatively few BDSM books that even approach a tenth of the circulation you mention.

Yup, it's no fun.  At least, now there is a recognized market so authors have a fighting chance.  Back in 1992, I had to go though almost 20 publishers until I found one, a porn publisher, who was willing on taking a chance with a nonfiction BDSM book.  I'm much happier with Greenery now, but then I (and most of the world) didn't know it existed.   (The relationship of an author to most publishers is the same relationship Prometheus had with the eagle.)

Standard royalties are 7-8 percent of cover for paperbacks; about 10 percent for hard covers.

_____________________________

www.lovingdominant.org

(in reply to Wulfchyld)
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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 6:17:22 AM   
sublizzie


Posts: 1252
Joined: 5/26/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Petruchio

Perhaps both:
  • The basic should be free to all doms, in particular matters dealing with safety, respect, and care of subs.
  • Then, perhaps, the more advanced techniques (electral, chemical, fire play, etc.) could be earned once the basics appear responsibly in place.




But wouldn't I, as a sub, be much safer if I understood the basics, particularly the safety aspects? If I knew enough to know that what was happening was unsafe so I could safe-word out of a potentially dangerous situation? Hopefully that wouldn't happen with someone I knew well, but it could with someone I was just getting to know, especially if it were not in the context of a play-party with a DM close by.

'Course if the subs knew a lot about how to safely be involved in various kinds of play then the Dom/mes who had no clue would have a much more difficult time trying to palm themselves off as being an uber-Dom/me.

(in reply to Petruchio)
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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 6:28:49 AM   
mistoferin


Posts: 8284
Joined: 10/27/2004
Status: offline 		Padriag I love it when you post, you always make me think.

This thread has me re-thinking my use of the terms information, knowledge and wisdom.

I believe that when we share things like instructions on various techniques, whether it be by writing a book, posting on a message board, doing a demo or in private conversation...what we are sharing is not knowledge...it's information.

Knowledge comes when the person who has received the information applies that information in real time.

Wisdom is what comes when you assess the results of your applications...sometimes over a period of time. It is something that can only be acquired by trial and error.

I think it is the responsibility of those of us with wisdom to pass on information to those seeking. With that information, I believe that we also have the responsibility to pass along the possible pitfalls of the application of that information and make recommendations regarding safety. I also believe that we bear the responsibility to differentiate what information can be relatively safely applied on their own and what information should be supervised or demonstrated until they require the necessary skill level to solo. Equally important, if not moreso, is the need to make them aware that there is personal responsibility attached to the having and the application of that information.

< Message edited by mistoferin -- 5/29/2006 6:35:08 AM >

_____________________________

Peace and light,
~erin~

There are no victims here...only volunteers.

When you make a habit of playing on the tracks, you thereby forfeit the right to bitch when you get hit by a train.

"I did it! I admit it and I'm gonna do it again!"

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 7:19:44 AM   
CrappyDom


Posts: 1883
Joined: 4/11/2006
From: Sacramento
Status: offline 		I think the "cost" the OP is referring to isn't so much financial as one of earning, like earning a degree has all sorts of "costs" associated with it that are not financial.

So, I have decided I will be the arbiter of who does and does not qualify for "advanced knowledge."   So first I am going to exclude all Gorians 'cause we know they are all idiots.  I don't really believe that women can be dominant, but I might teach some of the hot young ones, especially if they submit to me on the side.  While I don't mind other dominants getting access to the "good stuff" I sure don't want as many in my area and certainly not if they are younger or better looking or if they make me feel threatened in any way.

The best defense against idiots is to provide the information freely so that people can educate themselves.  Things cannot be made idiotproof, restrict the knowledge and they try it anyway in the dark.  Look at how many idiots play in chatrooms, never having attended a local group, never having read a single non fiction S&M book, who seem to glory in their ignorance.  Nope, freedom works not because it is foolproof but in spite of fools.

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 2:22:27 PM   
Padriag


Posts: 2633
Joined: 3/30/2005
Status: offline 		Congrats John, please move to the head of the class.  

Mist, that was an excellent point about the difference between information, knowledge and wisdom.  Part of my question is really about whether information should be handed out without some requirement of wisdom (on either the part of the reciever or the giver).

Crappy, you're correct, I wasn't really referring to monetary cost (except in regards to published books).  The "cost" I referred to was indeed time spent learning, comprehending and understanding the information... with the hope that during that time the person would acquire not just knowledge but also wisdom.

This isn't a new argument really, its been hashed out over whether or not information which could be used to make bombs should be online or in public libraries.... and whether or not one country should share information on nuclear physics with another country... even whether or not kids should be taught gun safety.  For various reasons, it has been on my mind lately about this lifestyle.  As John pointed out, there is a lot more information available now than there was just 10 years ago.  There are entire online archives devoted to this lifestyle and information about it.  Discussion groups and message boards abound.  I suppose part of my question is... with all this additional information are we really learning anything more, is it really beneficial or are we just assuming that it is? 

Part of the reason I wonder is because I did learn largely on my own with almost no one to help me, I did have to reinvent the wheel.  But looking back I realize that by having to do that I gained more than just knowledge, I picked up a lot of wisdom.  It took time, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  I wonder now as a new generation of dominants comes up with access to so much information available... will they have the knowledge but lack the wisdom... or will they gain that wisdom some other way (and at what cost)?  I don't know... don't have the answer to that one.  Which is probably why I started a discussion on it.

_____________________________

Padriag

A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel so that it may be very kind - Edmund Spencer

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 6:00:50 PM   
KnightofMists


Posts: 7149
Joined: 7/29/2005
Status: offline 		If there is a cost... Who judges what the cost will be.... the person with the knowledge to sell? ... or the person that is buying?

If there is no cost.... Where is the value in knowledge?

_____________________________

Knight of Mists

An Optimal relationship is achieved when the individuals do what is best for themselves and their relationship.

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/29/2006 8:32:37 PM   
Sensualips


Posts: 1013
Joined: 10/8/2005
Status: offline 		I am looking at this question from a broader perspective, and then applying it to wiitwd.  I have spent the majority of my professional adult life in positions where the primary purpose was "enhancing access" or "removing barriers" to information or knowledge.

When you start discussing limiting access, particularly based on a mysterious set of criteria that determines this access has been earned,  my feeling is you are really just discussing censorship.  As a liberal-tarian free speech purist, I can not support this in any way. Essentially you have "someone" determining what is good information and what is bad information and who gets to know what. Censorship and suppression frequently come wrapped up pretty as "protection." I make choices regarding accessing information for myself and for my minor children.  I do not need or desire protection from this by any individual or organization. I support affordability and equity of access.

Ideas can be dangerous but freedom is a dangerous way of life. 





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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/30/2006 7:03:50 AM   
LuckyAlbatross


Posts: 19224
Joined: 10/25/2005
Status: offline
quote:

this, should knowledge regarding techniques and methods in this lifestyle have a cost, should they be earned, and if so how?

They already do.

It takes time and discipline.  And it takes gas money, connections, ability to travel and other things.

Keep knowledge free, in fact spread it as much as possible.  To do anything else will only beed dissent and superiority, and we already have more than enough of that.

Actual knowledge and understanding ALWAYS comes with a price- we don't need to impose it. 

We believe above all in informed consent.  To take away knowledge would be to go against that basic necessary principle.

_____________________________

Find stable partners, not a stable of partners.

"Sometimes my whore logic gets all fuzzy"- Californication

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RE: What Cost Knowledge? - 5/30/2006 12:36:36 PM   
OedipusRexIt


Posts: 634
Joined: 11/15/2005
Status: offline 		Knowledge is free.  Educations can be costly.  Experience...... priceless.

We only take American Express!  No Visa or MC

_____________________________

"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die..."

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