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Amaros -> RE: Watered down BDSM (9/20/2006 8:23:16 AM)
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Thought about this some more, and I guess I see the OP as an organizational question, which perhaps might have been a misinterpretation on my part: i.e., there is a BDSM community, which other kinks don't neccessarily have, with the possible exceptions of lesbian/homosexual community with some overlap, but why we gotta get lumped in with those freaks?
The rest are more or less closet kinks, and don't really fit, technically, under either umbrella, BDSM or gender bending. Many of them do seem to 'fit' better somehow under the BDSM umbrella, even when they're more concerned with gender bending, mostly due to surface similarities - you may not make the distinction between wearing leathers and wearing a dress, but they're both a sort of cosplay in the broadest sense. Otherwise, of course, they don't have much in common, they're both ways of exploring gender identity, but in distinctly divergent ways: one to reinforce, the other to blur the line.
Still, I think BDSM functions well as an umbrella community, and I'll tell you why: there is an explicit code of ethics and conduct, safe, sane, consensual, and established modes of behavior, sort of informal rules reflecting the code when it comes to socializing and playing: negotiation of limits, safe words, and recognition and mediation of bottom drop to deal with the gel factor, psychological imbalance, etc. - all very reasonable and sensible rules which I, for one, feel obligated to observe and uphold - these things really make the difference between play - however extreme or freaky it might get - and what might well be termed criminal abuse - and often is, outside this ethical code. It may be a fine line, but it is a clear one.
The gender bending community really has no such explicit code, they have informal codes, to be sure, but for all that they're organized, have their own magazines, etc., it's a pretty anarchic community.
Not so with BDSM, the code evolved from stressors, legal challenges, and specifically, heading them off - a disassociation with some of the less defensible practices, pedophillia, outright kidnapping and rape, etc., which even if they weren't practiced, the practice of BDSM itself seemed to imply permissions for.
Consensual is not just a good idea, it's a point of law: if one ignores the safe word, at which point consent is withdrawn, technically, the act becomes assault, and probobly battery or rape - and is prosecutable under law.
Thus, the community begins evolving into the institution - if you've been following along, then you might guess that this is where I start to get suspicious: institutions tend to, over time, forget their raison d'être - why they were formed - and merely become obsessed with perpetuating themselves as vehicles for personal ambition.
Can't really say I see that happening in any big way, but I'm a suspicious bastard and I notice the occasional little swirls and eddies, and feel obligated to seek clarification. The community is anarchic enough, I believe, to resist institutionalization, but somebody is always trying, the noble sons of Gor, etc.
Having an ethical code is a glorious and noble thing, one of mankinds great achievements: this one is simple, easy to remember and apply, and covers virtually all the bases without creating undue restraint, and in the great and ancient tradition of justice and rule of law, it reminds everybody that they still put their pants on one leg at a time - it's real, made for real people, not just some grand, Byzantine dominance or revenge fantasy.
And so, that is what I try to keep in mind, and what I think of when I think of BDSM as a community - I like it as a community, I love it - I'm not sure I'd like it at all as an institution, and I believe that as a community, sharing this ethical code among other closet kinks is the right thing to do, doesn't cost anything, it serves us all by easing certian legal ambiguities, and it doesn't mean you have to consider them the same thing.
So, bitch away if you want, it's your privilage, but try to remember that in many ways, on some level, we're all in this together - that's my take.
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