Noah
Posts: 1660
Joined: 7/5/2005
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: DominaSmartass
Yes, exactly. So many people (ahem, dom males in particular) are incapable of fathoming this distinction. I have found that Leather lifestyle people are a bit more open to people having fluid traits, being both dominant and sadistic and masochistic all at the same time - as opposed to BDSMers who want to (in my experience) label people pretty concretely.
So based on what you are busy doing in this paragraph we could conclude that you are most likely a BDSMer rather than a Leather Lifestyler, I guess (not that I'm terribly comfortable with labelling strangers that way; nor do I identify myself as "Leather (anything)".
I found the rest of your post really worthwhile, by the way. Top notch. Thank you.
The contribution I would like to make to the overall conversation is some attention to a distinction between honesty and openess. Some people seem to feel that it is less than honest not to include every fact about oneself in the first sentence spoken to each new acquaintance, more or less. On the contrary, I think we each have a right to our privacy and should share intimacies at our own pace.
In my experience, the same thorough disclosure of relevant facts about me can result in a given person either being attracted, even fascinated (and not necessarily as a partner but just as a person) or repelled, depending upon the order in which and the pace at which the facts are shared.
In particular I think the pacing should not be driven alone by an agenda of mine. Rather it should take into account the other person's apparent level of interest in this or that, and their need or desire for time to process and integrate information at a pace comfortable to them.
For me, a blurting-out-of-everything would not present as accurate a picture as would a more measured disclosure of the same facts, given that I happen to be the measured disclosure type. Here the blurting kind of "honesty" would actually cloud the picture, making it a less rather than a more accurate portrayal of me. That kind of "honesty" would from me be tantamount to a lie.
A larger notion of honesty which embodies more concern for myself and the other as people rather than databanks to be filled and emptied, and perhaps less concern for encyclopedic fact-exposure--this is what seems to me to be called for.
Sometimes the method, rather than the medium, is the message. And the honesty of that message must be accounted for as well as anything else.
If what someone else offers and values is instantaneous blurting of everything under the sun, well, good for them. Maybe they see things in quasi-economic terms and value Relationship Efficiency above all. Yech. I like my grapes peeled. But that I happen to be repelled by the Efficiency people probably shouldn't bother them at all. Someone else will surely be attracted and that's great.
For my part I do tend to be repelled with the presentation of a person who seems stricken with a sort of emotional diarrhea, even if the particulars shared in this way are inoffensive or even interesting and potentially attractive in themselves. I enjoy the process of getting to know someone too much to want to have it short-circuited by having him or her tell me about their childhood traumas, criminal record and sexual peccadillos, all the while displaying the results of recent hemmorhoid surgery, even as the poor waitress stands waiting patiently for our first shared coffee order.
You see even with full command of the facts about you I don't feel that I would know you very well at all until I gained access to what can only be shown about a person, and not listed on a fact sheet. This showing inevitably takes time. If I decide to invest that time in you, I'm also willing to let you decide for yourself, in our specific context, at what point you may wish to share this or that fact about your personality or past.
A month later I may come to a perception of you that inspires me to disengage. I don't count any time as wasted. If I was in each moment for what the moment had to offer then I could not possibly have been shortchanged. If I was spending time with you on any other basis (like an auctioneer evaluating cattle, say) then I believe I similarly got everything I deserved.
I think honesty tempered with tenderness is a wonderful thing. I don't think a firm intention to communicate honestly from the start of a friendship has to entail an abdication of personal privacy rights on the first date or at any time thereafter.
I think that the above talk about shattering someone's stereotypical view offered a good illustration. And of course we may choose to do this. In some cases we may even choose to do this to ensure alienation. That can be fine in given case. One other option would be--with no dishonesty whatever--to try to note whether such limiting stereotypes exist and if so to assist someone in a stepwise process of evolving beyond such a stereotypical view. This may involve carefully presenting oneself as a sort of object lesson in the deficiency of the stereotype.
It can be a lovely way of bringing someone with a vanilla history to an appreciation of what may be some under-appreciated kinky tendencies they're carrying around, for instance.
Honesty? Yes. Necessarily subjecting every potential partner to the withering fire of an intense and thorough psycho-sexual disclosure? Sure, if that happens to be your thing. But there are other ways to winnow the candidates, too.
|
RE: SadoMaso Dom/mes - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread