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Proprietrix -> RE: Is Political Correctness now affecting the bdsm community? (6/9/2006 12:20:31 PM)
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(Fast reply)
Oh man. The more of this thread I read, the more confused I’m getting about what the topic at hand is.
I see where TwiceHappy and Shifted Jewel are coming from.
However, I absolutely do not see this as a PC issue.
I see it as an issue of language.
As long as we are each individually walking around making up meanings to words, instead of sticking to universally understood definitions, we are going to continue to have miscommunication.
I see a LOT of people on here who want to waltz around the semantic ballroom with their self-written dictionary, citing sources of other lone dancers with their self-written dictionaries, justifying this and that for themselves because it feels good.
I dared to say on here once that if a person is fucking both women and men, they are bisexual. I was met with precisely this semantic ballroom dictionary dancing, about how sexual service this and obedience to one’s master that, and sex isn’t sex, it’s actually submission, and sucking someone’s genitals isn’t a sexual act, it’s an act of compliance, and on and on. I expected Monica and Bill to pop up any second and tell me it depended on what my definition of the word "is" is.
It didn’t change my perspective of bisexual one little bit. It also didn’t change the fact that most of society defines someone who has sex with both men and women as bisexuals. Just because they personally don’t conform to generally understood definitions, it didn’t change those generally understood definitions. All it really did is make those particular bisexual people appear as if they didn’t understand the majority definition of bisexuality. It made them appear as if they were in denial.
Really, collarme forums are much different than most BDSM communities I’ve seen. Until stepping into the realm of collarme, I never saw people tearing apart the language we use and accept on a daily basis. Everyone else out there "gets it" that most definitions of words are generally understood. Most groups outside of collarchat, have a general understanding of Master, Mistress, Dominant, submissive, slave, Top, bottom, heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, service, S&M, ownership, property, kinky, sex, and every other word we use in conversation. This is the only place I’ve spent time where I see people making up their own definitions for words and expecting everyone to do the same and have mutual respect for each person’s self-proclaimed definition.
It makes communication extremely difficult when we don’t share a common language. Part of sharing a common language is that we share an understanding of what words mean. I can’t talk about my brown cat if everyone I’m talking to has their own definitions of the words I’m using. Some people say brown means red, or brown means sofa, or brown means coffee, or brown means polish. And some people say cat means child, or cat means hair brush, or cat means camera. And some say that "brown cat" is stereotyping animals. How can I possibly talk about my brown cat when everyone is making up self-satisfying definitions about something that used to be a universally understood concept?
It’s no different when I want to talk about a "submissive" instead of a "brown cat". I simply can’t have a conversation about something if 30 different people are making up 30 different self-satisfying definitions of the subject that used to be a universally understood concept.
In reality, once I log off collarme, that universal understanding is still in place and very much as firm as it was. I can log on a different BDSM website, and generally, people understand what I’m talking about when I use the terms that were oh-so-confusing here on collarme. I can go to damn near any munch group within a day’s drive and everybody has a general understanding of the terms we use in this lifestyle. There are no semantical debates. There is no dictionary fetching. There is no tearing apart the language to make up definitions that work for the individual.
When I see someone doing the political two-step with dictionary.com and quoting someone who quoted someone who once said in a book they happened to publish that statistics show that .001% of people who "fuck" aren’t really "fucking" at all….
I really begin to wonder about people’s ability to comprehend simple language.
Most of the time I walk away from collarme thinking "Damn. Those folks really live in a different universe than the rest of us."
They have a word for that. It’s not political correctness. It’s schizophrenia.
You can dance with your dictionary all day long to justify what you think reality might be. It doesn’t change what reality is to the majority around you. You can call your car green all day long, but so long as the rest of us see a red car, we’re not going to buy into your personal definition of the word green. Reality, according to the majority, is that the car is red. You can make up your self-satisfying definitions of color all day long and it won’t change the facts.
The rest of the world simply takes you as they see you. You’re fucking someone, therefore you’re having sex. You’re a man giving another man a blowjob, therefore you’re either gay or bi.
The rest of the world doesn’t care what you call it.
Reality defined by the majority trumps individually imposed definitions.
Um… except on collarme.
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