RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what

RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (Full Version)

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ForgetToRemember -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 12:32:15 AM)
Unlike homosexuality, we do not NEED to let other people know we are into BDSM because we CAN hide it. It's pretty hard to hide that you love another person of the same sex, and want to spend as much time together with them as possible, or marry, move in, adopt, have a myriad of legal rights...etc. Besides not NEEDING to let anyone else know, I think the risk of being out is an unnecessary one. How much of your public life do you have to change or hide due to being into D/s or BDSM? Probably nothing. The only thing that might apply is not being comfortable dominating or submitting in public, but I would think of that as PDA anyways and wouldn't want to make other people around me uncomfortable. People stay hidden because there is no NEED to be out, consideration of others, and potential risks involved (social shunning, or even losing your job, friends or family).

InHisHeart -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 6:45:37 AM)
I don't hide it so to speak but I don't broadcast it either. There are a few people (close friends) who know we're in a D/s-bdsm relationship, many people who don't know. I don't feel the need to talk about any part of my life that is private.

njlauren -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 8:19:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesFIP It depends how you define lifestyle. If you're pushing your sexuality into other people's faces, then that's sexual harassment and causing a hostile work environment. And if it isn't germane to your job, then it's inappropriate and you deserve to get fired by causing problems in the workspace. If you define lifestyle as telling your friends that you have to check with your spouse to see if it's okay for you to go out with them, then that's being a good spouse, making sure that what you do won't cause unintended problems for them. When people have hassled me about needing to check in with him I don't state that I'm his slave. I just ask them how they can define being selfish as being loving. My gay friends come to dinner hand in hand but they don't go around having sex on the dinner table. My straight friends, the same. Yet I have heard the same argument from gay haters (and I am not saying you are one), that why do gays have to 'flaunt' their relationships, why do 'they' have to make their sexual preferences a 'public' spectacle, how 'straight' people don't 'flaunt' their sexuality, so there are nuances there. Straight people do flaunt their sexuality, their lifestyle, women make a big display of wedding rings, people talk about their wives and families, they talk about what they do, and sex talk is not exactly unknown among people at work, group of women from work go out and they bitch and moan about their lack of sex, etc, men talk about it among themselves.....so it depends on what you mean about 'flaunting it'. Talking in detail about sex lives at the office is a no no, in the sense of telling everyone your intimate details, especially if the other person said they are uncomfortable. A gay person talking about their partner is not flaunting it, a gay person talking about what they did saturday night in the bedroom is, same thing with a straight woman or man. But for example, if a oerson mentions that he and his wife are dominants and they have a live in sub, is that harassment? Any more than a married couple talking about having kids? Married couples talk about going to 'couples' resorts like Hedonism (or whatever exists these days), if a BD/SM couple went to a leather convention and mentioned it casually, without the details, would that be harassment? If my wife is my domme, and instead of my wife I call her my domme, should that be harassment? The crux of the matter is that with BD/SM, it is seen much as being gay was for many years, which is something taboo, deviant, not normal, to the point that simply talking about the nature of the relationship is 'dirty', is 'forcing their lifestyle' on others, when straights doing the same thing are simply 'talking about their family/relationship'. If I said "myself and my wife are going to a resort' no one would bat an eye, if I said "my domme and I are going to a resort", they would probably freak out.... The reason it is still private is because of bad associations, and to a certain extent the LGBT world is a parallel to it. Look at the anti gay attitudes still out there, especially among religious conservatives, and what do you see? Portrayals of serial promiscuity, diseases, lack of solid moral fiber (whatever the hell that is), how 'they" want to 'bring us all down' and so forth.....then think of BD/SM, and what is the common image? Weirdos, with a man hating bitch tearing the flesh off of some wimp of a man, some guy tying up a girl and raping her, people who adore giving others pain any way they can, you name it....even among people who are pretty liberal, and even among those who champion 'sexual freedom' the image isn't very good, and these you would figure would be allies. There are plenty of so called feminists (and I say so called to differentiate them from the real deal) who see S/M as abuse, as men 'recreating the patriarchy' and call S/M 'license to rape' and worse (forgetting of course that many such couplings are fem dom/sub male); there are a lot of people in the LGBT world who still are uncomfortable with it, was involved with a charity event to raise funds to prevent child abuse where there was serious debate (when there should have been none IMO) about lesbian and gay male leather groups being co-sponsors....... One of the prime reasons it needs to be kept secret is that as a society we still haven't come to grips with sex, besides the religious moronic types who still hype that sex is between a man and a woman to make babies and create all these bizarre rules about anything that is sex for emotional or other reasons, it also is an area where it is still okay to be prejudiced and bigoted and no one will shut you up. Comedian makes a joke about gays or lesbians that is derogatory they will get called on the carpet, make a joke about S/M it will get laughs. On TV shows, S/M is generally associated with deviance and often with crimes (the first episode of CSI had an S/M theme, though Grissom, one of my favorite characters ever on TV and a fictional character I would absolutely love to know (not to mention go to bed with!) is really cool about it), it is now one of the few areas you can use to control other people. Being into S/M can and is used for grounds of gaining custody of kids in a divorce, in all 50 states you can be fired from your job if your boss finds out and doesn't like it, it can keep you from getting a job. Even in liberal NYC, there was a big outcry not long ago (not surprisingly, led by the NY Post, another organ of the so called "libertarian' GOP), where an attorney for the state or city (can't remember which) was outed that she was a dominant, who may or may not have been doing it professionally , which is legal in NY State, and I believe she was forced to resign. And why was it a big deal in the first place? I am one of the first people to say that I don't like sex thrown in people's faces, I don't like over the top PDA's by any kind of couple, and I don't like it when D/s couples have a thing about doing it publicly (like having a slave wear a collar and leash in non S/M settings, or things like having the slave sit on the floor at a public restaurant and so forth) that some like to do, to me it is non consensual, but I also don't think someone should be fired or have their kids taken away because they went to a leather convention, either.

njlauren -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 8:25:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kinkyyorky We don't. We just have to show the same respect for others that everyone else does. Which means confining discussion of your private life to friends who are comfortable talking about it. Easier said than done. Using your example, you have friends you talk to about it, and one of them, either out of malice or just being innocent, tells someone else who is a die hard (Catholic, Fundamentalist Christian, or other nutjob), who gossips to others, word gets back to your boss, and you get fired, or worse, someone from DYFS or the cops gets wind of it, and your kids get taken away. Talk to anyone at NCSF (I know one of the founders), and they will tell you that people who don't flaunt it, who don't talk about it with others, have faced all kinds of hassles and legal recrimination because something got out, no matter how innocuous. I don't think it is appropriate for people to put their sexuality in other people's faces in a gross way, any more than I talk about my vanilla sex life to anyone, but I also don't think that people should live in fear or have to hide everything about their lives because of fear, either. One is about appropriate conversation or behavior in general, one is about bigotry and stupidity and having to live in fear, as gays did (and still do, unfortunately, in many places) as someone finding out you have any interest in a 'weird' form of sex.

njlauren -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 8:31:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FriendlyMuppet The problem I perceive is that there are a lot of people out there who feel they have to be morally superior to others, and as a result will do everything they can to come down on people who are different than they are. We all know this is wrong and shouldn't be that way, but I can't tell you how many times I've had a job where some higher up has shown some tendency to discriminate against anyone who doesn't fit into some moral or Biblical paradigm of some sorts. I had a recent supervisor who was given the position after a previous supervisor was let go, and she was massively Bible-belt, to the point that she expected it from her other employees, even to the point of where she'd give choice assignments to those who complied, and bad ones to those she suspected of not complying. You couldn't ever call her on it, nor could you even prove it. Finally, I just left as the atmosphere was becoming very uncomfortable. The point is: These people are all over the place, and even if they're not very "good" people themselves, they hold others to a standard that they will never live up to themselves. Years back, I used to be extremely out in the world about my submissive lifestyle. At the time, I was a college professor. One semester, two female students found out about my lifestyle (back in the early days of the Internet when they started to discover all of my previous writings) and decided to make it an issue at the university. In the end, my administration stood behind me, but things were never the same after that. I've done everything since then to separate my lifestyle from my persona that people observe in my vanilla career. I've even had to split my writing career into a vanilla side and a bdsm side, which, knowing my history, bothers me more than anything, as I used to be one of the advocates of being proud of being a lifestyle submissive. And now I have to hide it. Exactly the problem, it isn't that you were flaunting it, it is that people can use something you were perfectly appropriate with against you. Not really directly related, but it reminds me of a story Isaac Asimov told, that when he was still teaching at a college his first novel was coming out (science fiction), and he wanted to publish it under his own name, and expected a fight, because science fiction at the time was looked at as a 'lowly' form of writing, for pulp magazines, and he was shocked when all the head of the department asked was "is the novel any good, I am looking for new things to read" lol> Seriously, as a society we need to grow up and stop acting like 9 year old's who are ashamed of everything. It isn' that I think sex should be discussed in detail in public, but rather that if someone is acting in an appropriate way that they shouldn't be in fear of someone finding out, we need to get rid of the hangups around sexuality and relationships that the churches especially have spent so many years creating, and admit that everyone has their own interests.

njlauren -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 8:45:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kinkyyorky quote: ORIGINAL: FriendlyMuppet The problem I perceive is that there are a lot of people out there who feel they have to be morally superior to others, and as a result will do everything they can to come down on people who are different than they are. We all know this is wrong and shouldn't be that way, but I can't tell you how many times I've had a job where some higher up has shown some tendency to discriminate against anyone who doesn't fit into some moral or Biblical paradigm of some sorts. I had a recent supervisor who was given the position after a previous supervisor was let go, and she was massively Bible-belt, to the point that she expected it from her other employees, even to the point of where she'd give choice assignments to those who complied, and bad ones to those she suspected of not complying. You couldn't ever call her on it, nor could you even prove it. Finally, I just left as the atmosphere was becoming very uncomfortable. The point is: These people are all over the place, and even if they're not very "good" people themselves, they hold others to a standard that they will never live up to themselves. Years back, I used to be extremely out in the world about my submissive lifestyle. At the time, I was a college professor. One semester, two female students found out about my lifestyle (back in the early days of the Internet when they started to discover all of my previous writings) and decided to make it an issue at the university. In the end, my administration stood behind me, but things were never the same after that. I've done everything since then to separate my lifestyle from my persona that people observe in my vanilla career. I've even had to split my writing career into a vanilla side and a bdsm side, which, knowing my history, bothers me more than anything, as I used to be one of the advocates of being proud of being a lifestyle submissive. And now I have to hide it. I feel for you being 'outed' and glad your employers stood by you. For me the important ability is to keep the private in the private sphere whether its kink of religion or whatever and let everyone get on with their job. Our private lives should be that and religion/kink/whatever should be left at the door. I would agree, but the problem isn't that people are putting their private lives out there, it is that the outside world intrudes in our private lives. You are assuming that the kind of thing we are talking about is people who come to work wearing a slave collar, or talk about their wife and call her "his mistress", or saying "oh, my mistress spent saturday night flogging me"....what we are talking about is someone in their private life went to an S/m club, someone saw them there, and told it to the guy's boss, who is some born again Christian jerkoff, and the guy gets fired. I'll give you a direct analogy, a couple of years ago a guy, a truckdriver for some supermarket chain down in the bible belt, was fired after working for the company for 20 years because it was found out he was a private crossdresser (someone who he trusted ratted him out), and there was nothing he could do.It simply was the wrong person found out somehow, and ratted them out. In another case, a couple who were into BD/SM play had a friend who knew, and said friend got mad at them about something, and ratted them out, and they went through hell, lost their kids, their jobs, you name it. The problem with your statement is it assumes that the people who get into trouble over BD/SM broadcast it, flaunt it, and that isn't the case. I don't think people should be flaunting anything, including religious beliefs or whatever, but in the outside world things do intersect, and people shouldn't live in fear of people finding out about private aspects of their lives, either. It is one of the reasons that young people don't like the GOP, because what they see of the GOP is a religious reich (exact term I have heard used), where not even your private life is your own and while they proclaim 'individual freedom' it doesn't extend to whom you are with or what you do in the bedroom. Someone's job shouldn't be based on whether you are gay or straight, whether you are Christian or atheist, whether you are vanilla or kinky, it should be based on how you do your job, and anything from your private life (read, private life) that is legal should have no bearing on a job, or how you are treated by law enforcement or anyone else, while I think people's private lives should be private, they shouldn't have to be in fear of a knock on the door or a call to a bosses office because of what they enjoy privately, and that is the problem with BD/SM, it is like being gay was (and still sadly is), living in fear of being found out, and it shouldn't be, and the burden should be on respecting people's private lives, and having societal and legal protections for what the Declaration of Independance said, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (which the GOP, of course, when people cite this with gay marriage and so forth, say "the founders were talking about the right to have property and possessions and money, not those kind of things" gag)

njlauren -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 8:51:08 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ForgetToRemember Unlike homosexuality, we do not NEED to let other people know we are into BDSM because we CAN hide it. It's pretty hard to hide that you love another person of the same sex, and want to spend as much time together with them as possible, or marry, move in, adopt, have a myriad of legal rights...etc. Besides not NEEDING to let anyone else know, I think the risk of being out is an unnecessary one. How much of your public life do you have to change or hide due to being into D/s or BDSM? Probably nothing. The only thing that might apply is not being comfortable dominating or submitting in public, but I would think of that as PDA anyways and wouldn't want to make other people around me uncomfortable. People stay hidden because there is no NEED to be out, consideration of others, and potential risks involved (social shunning, or even losing your job, friends or family). The answer to that one is why should people have that fear in the first place? You assume this is about people letting other people know, but what you leave out is even private people having to fear this coming out. Are you saying that in your view people should keep this in the bedroom, with the door locked, and if they go to an S/M club or party they should be afraid? That if they belong to a leather group, and someone in that group decides to be an asshole and publish names (which almost happened with TES in NYC a while ago), that they should be in fear of losing their jobs or having their kids taken away? The problem with what you are saying is you assume that if you are into S/M, if it gets out somehow, well, that is your fault, now take the consequences? I am not advocating for people going out in leash and collar or other things, I am not saying we should talk about our kinks to anyone who asks, but what I am saying is that people shouldn't live with BD/SM and feel in terror of it getting out either, that DYFS shouldn't be able to take away kids, or some asshole with a bible shoved up his ass be able to arrest a spouse for abuse with consensual S/m play because someone suspected they were doing it, nor should an employer be able to fire someone for something that has nothing to do with the job because he/she is a 'Christian" who thinks sex is having it once a month with the lights out to make babies....

piopio1949 -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 10:21:18 AM)
Quite frankly, I have very little qualms about letting people know that I'm into kink. I can't just say that I'm into the lifestyle at the time but, hey, perhaps in due time... ;) Anyway, my closest friends already know that I'm into kink, to a greater or lesser degree, but I wouldn't be worried about people finding out about my tastes. As I said somewhere else, I would simply expect them to keep their mouth shut and act as if they hadn't seen anything, since I don't know any of my friends to be bigots. Besides, as a Spaniard living in Germany, for me it is unconceivable to be fired from my job or to have any kind of legal issues because I'm into this kind of stuff. I sympathize with the people who might have been exposed to persecution but, quite frankly, I would like to believe that at least in the part of the world where I live, pervs are not (metaphorically) hunted down for the sake of it.

ForgetToRemember -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/11/2014 8:28:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: njlauren quote: ORIGINAL: ForgetToRemember Unlike homosexuality, we do not NEED to let other people know we are into BDSM because we CAN hide it. It's pretty hard to hide that you love another person of the same sex, and want to spend as much time together with them as possible, or marry, move in, adopt, have a myriad of legal rights...etc. Besides not NEEDING to let anyone else know, I think the risk of being out is an unnecessary one. How much of your public life do you have to change or hide due to being into D/s or BDSM? Probably nothing. The only thing that might apply is not being comfortable dominating or submitting in public, but I would think of that as PDA anyways and wouldn't want to make other people around me uncomfortable. People stay hidden because there is no NEED to be out, consideration of others, and potential risks involved (social shunning, or even losing your job, friends or family). The answer to that one is why should people have that fear in the first place? You assume this is about people letting other people know, but what you leave out is even private people having to fear this coming out. Are you saying that in your view people should keep this in the bedroom, with the door locked, and if they go to an S/M club or party they should be afraid? That if they belong to a leather group, and someone in that group decides to be an asshole and publish names (which almost happened with TES in NYC a while ago), that they should be in fear of losing their jobs or having their kids taken away? The problem with what you are saying is you assume that if you are into S/M, if it gets out somehow, well, that is your fault, now take the consequences? I am not advocating for people going out in leash and collar or other things, I am not saying we should talk about our kinks to anyone who asks, but what I am saying is that people shouldn't live with BD/SM and feel in terror of it getting out either, that DYFS shouldn't be able to take away kids, or some asshole with a bible shoved up his ass be able to arrest a spouse for abuse with consensual S/m play because someone suspected they were doing it, nor should an employer be able to fire someone for something that has nothing to do with the job because he/she is a 'Christian" who thinks sex is having it once a month with the lights out to make babies.... I agree that we shouldn't have to be afraid, and there are instances where you can be outed without necessarily doing anything yourself. That is part of the risk involved and part of why people stay hidden. There are good reasons for these fears though - because people are intolerant and ignorant. Not everyone, but it wouldn't take much time with Google to find examples of people losing their job, losing friends or family or even their freedom (for example Judges or juries not believing in consent with some BDSM activities). Also, we take for granted a lot of basic freedoms in the USA and we aren't even considering what people in very conservative and religious countries would have to face if they got outed. Until we've reached the tipping point for a paradigm shift, it is perfectly fine to stay in the closet with your lifestyle.

Masterthemoment -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/12/2014 8:09:40 AM)
Light BDSM has become all the rage with the publication of 50 Shades of Grey, but the fashions of the moment may be out of fashion just as quickly. We are more interconnected than at any time in history and before you're hired for a job, they'll probably do a background check and social media search. Outing yourself as a BDSM participant limits your options. For life. Are you prepared for that? Because I'm not.

kinkyyorky -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/12/2014 11:24:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: njlauren quote: ORIGINAL: kinkyyorky We don't. We just have to show the same respect for others that everyone else does. Which means confining discussion of your private life to friends who are comfortable talking about it. Easier said than done. Using your example, you have friends you talk to about it, and one of them, either out of malice or just being innocent, tells someone else who is a die hard (Catholic, Fundamentalist Christian, or other nutjob), who gossips to others, word gets back to your boss, and you get fired, or worse, someone from DYFS or the cops gets wind of it, and your kids get taken away. Talk to anyone at NCSF (I know one of the founders), and they will tell you that people who don't flaunt it, who don't talk about it with others, have faced all kinds of hassles and legal recrimination because something got out, no matter how innocuous. I don't think it is appropriate for people to put their sexuality in other people's faces in a gross way, any more than I talk about my vanilla sex life to anyone, but I also don't think that people should live in fear or have to hide everything about their lives because of fear, either. One is about appropriate conversation or behavior in general, one is about bigotry and stupidity and having to live in fear, as gays did (and still do, unfortunately, in many places) as someone finding out you have any interest in a 'weird' form of sex. I'm coming from a UK perspective I guess. As the boss I know if I wanted to fire someone for their interest in kink (which obviously i wouldn't) all it would achieve is transferring a load of my cash to the individual concerned. An employee coming to me saying x is into xyz sex has the same relevance as saying x supports xyz football team or likes xyz food. Its irrelevant to the job in hand and cannot be used to fire someone (unless you want an employment tribunal to fine you big time). Didn't realise the US was so backwards with regard to protecting employees

SailingBum -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/12/2014 1:11:17 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: HEADASSASSIN My question is why do we have to keep our life style choice hidden from the real world when so many other lifestyles can be so open One of the main reasons the LGBT are "out" is so they can gain benefits, like SS, spouses retirement, health bennies those types of things. So it's mostly about money. That is not a factor in a BDSM relationship. My sex life is private as I don't want to explain to anyone why I like certain sexual acts. Nor do I want to hear about anyone else's bedroom exploits. BadOne

Bucephalus -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/12/2014 8:26:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SailingBum One of the main reasons the LGBT are "out" is so they can gain benefits, like SS, spouses retirement, health bennies those types of things. So it's mostly about money. That is not a factor in a BDSM relationship. My sex life is private as I don't want to explain to anyone why I like certain sexual acts. Nor do I want to hear about anyone else's bedroom exploits. BadOne Perhaps to some, but no. There is something to it more deeply rooted than money. It's about equality. The right to be seen and treat as human. Yes money is a factor, but, it's a factor in hetero relationships as well. Anyone would be a full to think otherwise. But the core of the LGBTQ fight is to be treated as human beings, not freaks of nature deserving blind contempt.

EnticingYourMind -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/13/2014 5:14:49 AM)
Your initial post sounds kinda whiny actually. Its not a question about keeping the lifestyle in the closet or not, its about how you do that and how you conduct yourself, where you work or live. And timing. If you work for a conservative financial institution than youre not going to show up wearing leather head to toe, but you can express yourself at a Holloweeen or New Years party in some of your fav getups. Its only smart to leave sexuality out of the workplace or education. Now, how you go about your everyday business is all your own. you want to go to the grocery store in latex knock yourself out. Better and more common sense would say save that dress up until you visit your adult store - make friends there if you can. Or save it all for your regular lifestyle party. But no one should walk around 24/7 expressing any sexual lifestyle choices if they want to be taken seriously, professionally, maturely. Use common sense. Dont whine about, just use your head

sexhistory -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/15/2014 10:19:38 PM)
I thinks it has a lot to go with the history of BDSM pathology. I recently wrote a paper for a class on the history of BDSM, and its amazing what some of the early psychological theories said about BDSM etiologically. I think some of this is still present today, however, I think online communities have decreased stigma and increased openness.

piopio1949 -> RE: The reason the life style needs to be keep hidden is what (5/16/2014 1:44:38 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: sexhistory I thinks it has a lot to go with the history of BDSM pathology. I recently wrote a paper for a class on the history of BDSM, and its amazing what some of the early psychological theories said about BDSM etiologically. I think some of this is still present today, however, I think online communities have decreased stigma and increased openness. That is possible but I believe it is the other way around. I don't think psychological theories about BDSM are precisely widespread amongst the population, because BDSM has usually been a relatively uncommon practice and so it was prone to prejudice. Therefore, it's probably more about prejudice impacting the first hypotheses.

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