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njlauren -> RE: BDSM: Cultural Shift (6/17/2013 11:38:56 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist
Charles,
I agree, how can a newbie "figure out who they are" if there is so much misinformation on the internet? Collarchat can be useful resource despite the instant communication of the internet allows a free flowing stream of errant information. When our vanguard is on their feet the truth and/or reasonable perspectives and information usually floats to the top in the long run.
There are other problems like when a relatively trusted source like Wikipedia has an errant entry that says the four letter acronym BDSM has six meanings? Since when did the DS in BDSM stand for D/s dominance submission??? They have rewritten history and a newbie that can't "figure out who they are" also can't learn where we have been or what the damn BDSM acronym stands for. Our history is pretty damn short, it shouldn't be that hard to get it and the acronym right.
You point out, "there was a time when being so open, wasn't the smartest thing to do" and mention the "old days" and how you had to go out of the way to meet your fellow leather enthusiast. Most of the clubs back in the 70s Detroit were backdoor clubs. They had parking in the rear and the front door was shut, some clubs had no sign out front or it was unlit. You had to know where they were and you had to walk through a Detroit back ally to get there. So not only did we have to go out of our way, but there was often some risk involved. I was never fond of parking my classic 1965 convertible Lincoln Continental in a Detroit back alley. My girl, liked one club so much she went there on her own with a gay friend of ours. Unfortunately he was a skinny little effeminate thing and didn't have the imposing stature I do. She was kidnapped from the ally and gang raped by two guys at gun point. Also, gay bashing in a Detroit back alley wasn't very pretty either.
Even though I was underage, I could get into the bars, clubs and parties because my 30 yo lover was the owner/editor of the swingers magazine that they advertised in it. The first public BDSM scene I witnessed was a gay boy tied to a cross in a bar. His Master pierced his ball sack with a sharp pointed steel tube like needle the size of a drinking straw and inflated his balls. My first question was, "where can I get one of those". I recently attended Beyond Leather and the Florida Bash, great leather events full of real live old school people doing what we always did. There was some TNG around but in real life it didn't feel like BDSM got watered down, polished up, painted over with 50 shades of grey, sung about in over produced pop songs and dished out to John Q Public in a Safe Sane Consensual manner. The leather folk still had their heart, 50 Shades was running joke and we expect Hollywood will step in soon and whitewash out all the leathermen, the edge players and produce a nice marketable movie of the leather lifestyle full of happy hetros playing slap & tickle in posh discotheques where Eyes Wide Shut and 50 Shades of Grey to converge in a love story where SSC will triumph over the evil doers.
I don't know if there is "loss of a community" or if BDSM is "losing it's identity" in real life like what is happening on the internet. But yes, it seems BDSM is getting a make over in the online world. If that is what it cost to change the DSM-V, it may be worth the price . . . let SSC and prudish non sense BDSM rule the net where everything is so ethereal there is no meaning to the words or acronyms and the meaning of anything is unfathomable, debatable and usually escapes words. Please God, keep all those asshats on the net and out of our events and clubs. 66 pages of "are Findom's legit" in a thread . . . LMAO. Hundreds and hundreds of leather folk in real life at two events never mentioned the word FinDom. There were no workshops about FinDomism. Sure, there were some pro Dommes there, but Findoms . . . nah. I tell ya', sometimes people take the net a little too seriously when they don't have real life exposure to counter balance the impressions they get.
Speaking of real life exposure, I'd like to point out that some people here at Collarchat (and FetLife) have an awful lot of posts yet have never been to an event. Some have never even experienced BDSM in person and only have online experience, yet they are prolific posters dishing advice like they know what it's all about . . . and they don't even know what the BDSM acronym really stands for. With that thought in mind I say, to figure out who you are and what BDSM is all about, step away from your computer, go to a leather event. Not a local munch because it takes no commitment to do a munch. Go to an event that has the authors of the books we read giving workshops and people committed enough to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to congregate with our fellow leather lisfestylers. There is where you will find the leather heart of BDSM beating strongly and the people there actually know what BDSM stands for.
Thank you for your reply.
Best wishes,
Kalon Eric
quote:
ORIGINAL: Charles6682
You do make some excellent points here RS. While I am glad that BDSM has become more acceptable in society over the past 10 years, I do not think it should be at the cost of the BDSM community losing it's identity. Times have changed but I have also had a thing for history. It really does help explain where we are at as people.
I can certainly thank those before me for helping to "pave" the way. A lot of things in life have changed quite a bit over the past 50 years. I am sure most people in the "South" can vouch for that. Sometimes, change is for the better but it does leave unintended actions. It leaves the impression of a "loss of a community".
I do like that S&M has been mostly removed from the DSM. With all these recent studies lately, people who are into BDSM are no more insane or sane than the rest of society.
1 benefit I could see from the "old days", is that someone who was really into this "Lifestyle", probably really had to go out of their way to meet like minded people. I am grateful for the internet and sites like Collarme here but it does seem these days, anyone who has read "50 shades of Grey" or seen Rihanna's "S&M" music video and now they are "pros" on the "Lifestyle". I do think it takes more than a book,song or movie to grasp this.
That all said, times have changed and I see a lot of it as an improvement. I don't think the past should be forgotten because there was a time when being so open, wasn't the smartest thing to do.
So, who carries the "torch" now? Without those who walked this path before, how can any "newbie" ever learn who they are. I come on Collarchat for the advice mostly. I don't even use Collarme except here and there. See if there's any new face's in my area. But beyond that, I come here in Collarchat for "lessons" taught in here. Even if I don't always agree with everybody, I do have enough respect to hear all points of views. That's the only way I can ever truly "learn". I learn from those with experience. The newbie is still trying to figure out who they are.
I think that your description of the old days is tinged with what my son calls 'the rolling the eyes' factor about how good things were back then and so forth, how back then 'things had an edge', 'it was different' and so forth, he rolls his eyes when I talk about how homogenized and clean NYC has become these days, where bohemians means a bunch of 20 somethings living in Williamsburg and pretending to be bohemian while living on mom and dad's money to do it, and so forth, where Times Square has become the haven of bloated tourists coming off tour buses to go to the tourist traps in the area and so forth (I used to love coming out of trans support groups in the west village and having tours of these midwest tourist types seeing us go into a restaurant as they queued up to go to get cupcakes at Magnolia bakery because it was on "Sex and the City" *lol*)...so I understand it, it was a crazy time, but as you point out, it also wasn't great, gays (not totally without cause) resented straights coming into 'their world', dykes and gays didn't get along great (back then, a dyke walking into a gay bar would be probably thrown out, same the other way around, and even when I started transition, there were dyke bars that would not make me feel very at home), plus to be honest a lot of those clubs were like Stonewall was, dirty, overpriced, often backed by the mob for protection, and often full of less than stellar behavior.....and yeah, it is easy to get resentful of those who didn't have to make the effort, and I appreciate those who went before because of it, but I also think in some ways, even with it becoming popularized and washed out in some cases, people have a lot more choices now then they did back then. Back not many years ago, to do needle play I had to find a contact at a place willing to look the other way on laws about selling needless, today, you can order what you want on Amazon. Want a Tens unit? Back then they were expensive, today you can get them on Amazon......it is so much easier.
I agree totally about getting out there and doing things, theory on the net is a fucking bore *lol*. Getting involved is a neat thing, and while you don't necessarily have to be someone who goes to leather conventions, even going ocassionally to a local S/M group, or maybe even visiting a public play party to watch and talk to people, is not a bad thing. I don't personally give a rat's tail about the term BD/SM or what it means (or doesn't mean), it was a made up name someone came up with to replace S/M, in part because of the negative connotations of S/M, and whatever it means it is a label..and maybe in the new order of things, labels won't mean much, which I think is a good thing, maybe it will allow avoiding some of the bullshit of whether a TPE is the only 'real' Master/slave relationship, or whether subs have to follow the 5 basic positions someone dreamed up or something (RS, not aiming my comments on BD/SM at you, I understand where you are coming from, I am talking labels in general). I think that has happened to a certain extent, I haven't seen too many leather people (I mean people like Lady P on here) in recent years telling others they know the only way, that you have to follow protocols and such, which was common in the early days. I was lucky, when I got into this lifestyle I generally met through TES and other places people who were seriously into this, but also stressed that the neat part about all this is, you live it as you want to and that is what it is all about, and those people lived it as strongly as anyone, so it made me finding my way pretty easy.
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