PonyGroom
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Joined: 2/26/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MastaMale
Damn this is turning into an arguement about BDSM is a lifestyle and isnt but anyways. more info about the use of lifestyle.
The term "lifestyle" first appeared in 1939. Alvin Toffler predicted an explosion of lifestyles ("subcults") as diversity increases in post-industrial societies. Pre-modern societies did not require a term approaching sub-culture or "lifestyle", as different ways of living were expressed as entirely different cultures, religions, ethnicities or by an oppressed minority racial group. As such the minority culture was always seen as alien or other. "Lifestyles", by comparison, are accepted or partially accepted differences within the majority culture or group. This tolerance of differentiation within a majority culture seems to be associated with modernity and capitalism.
Some examples hippie lifestyle, millionair lifestyle, middle class lifestyle, playboy lifestyle, rural lifestyle, nomadic lifestyle, traditional lifestyle, and etc. The later lifestyle are just a generalized. A rural lifestyle doesnt have to be farmers. A nomadic lifestyle can be used to describe gypsies, early native americans, homeless, and etc. It can be just as diverse.
Oh excellent! You want answers in Toffler's frame of reference.
It is straight on point to say that there is no such thing as "the bdsm lifestyle" if we use the term as he defined it.
There are thousands of people who have more than one friendship based around a common understanding of one or more non-mainstream sexual practices. Perhaps it would be fair to generalize and say that they have a style of life in common. But it would not be fair to say they have in common a set of values, ethic, political orientation... and this observation about the huge diversity out there has been covered in forms like this ad nauseum.
I was a hippie. I lived in a commune for a while. I was part of a tribe. We were focused on sex and music, but not drugs. Normally when you think "hippie", you think "sex, drugs and rock and roll". So we had our own version, our own subset, of what it generally meant to be a hippie. Our tribe numbered about 125. We shared some values, some time together, some wine, some naked dancing, and a lot of anti-establishment fervor. We lived a lifestyle, even though it might be fair to say there were as many differences as there were similarities among us.
In the same sense, today, there are dozens of lifestyles that might use the term bdsm to describe themselves in whole or in part. Many of these are incompatible with each other. For example, the men who participate in Ladies Tea Society type meetings are not usually going to be found on the handle side of a flogger, but even that has it's exceptions. If you got your question out there to a wide enough audience, you would find a huge number who are focused on spanking, but not so much any other form of pain play, and if you asked them if they practice "the bdsm lifestyle", they wouldn't know what you are talking about. They spank. If you asked them if they practice "the spanking lifestyle", they would try to define a subset of behaviors perhaps, and then you might be able to communicate with them.
Did Toffler try to predict this kind of subsetting and fragmentation? I can't remember, it has been too long since I read his work.
Instead of using Toffler's lense, try Ted Nelson: "everything is deeply intertwingled". The "intertwingled" concept is very helpful in understanding what is really going on sociologically.
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RE: When is the Start of the BDSM lifestyle? - 
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