Let me preface this post by saying I don’t expect
everyone to like it, nor agree with what I have to say. This may well
be more rant than essay by the time I’m done.
There’s a distinct line of demarcation in BDSM. It’s not the line of tops and bottoms, or slaves and masters, nor even pain and pleasure. Sure, those lines do exist but to a much lower degree than what I am discussing. Every day there are people that switch roles or sides of the slash that they want to try out or experiment with. But this line I’m talking about is something that many only feel comfortable on one side or the other, and if and when they DO cross. . . things are never the same.
The line I’m talking about is the internet. When someone steps across the line from reading and typing about something online and actually doing it in real life they’ve crossed the line.
It honestly shocks me whenever I read or hear about someone saying they have years of experience in BDSM but only tack on “online” when prompted or pushed. As if there’s not a difference between reading something and DOING something. You cannot learn how to throw a flogger by reading about it, you cannot understand how to cane someone by watching a video, you cannot take part in a knife scene by typing “I take out my knife”.
Now I’m fully aware that I am of that weird age right now where I grew up without the internet at my fingertips. I didn’t have three computers, a few laptops, a smartphone and a computer lab at school at all times. When I needed to research something I didn’t just “wiki” it, I actually had to REASEARCH it. That being said though, I built my first computer when I was 12 years old and followed the development of the internet with avid interest.
What scares the living fuck out of me is where the internet has brought BDSM. I’m not talking about the chat rooms or the forums. I’m talking about a subspecies of the BDSM practitioners.
The “webmasters”.
These people have little to no real world experience yet demand titles and rights, virtually of course, from all they happen to run across on the ‘net. They’ve “been in the scene” from anywhere from birth to age 15 and will list out any number of “skills” they possess. Needless to say they won’t tell you that they’ve never held a crop in their hand in their life.
These people are dangerous.
Not in the “cool and sexy” way dangerous, but more like the “I need therapy and a restraining order” dangerous.
Many times these webmasters spend no effort in learning about what BDSM is and can be, they are either basing their ideas on stories they may have read or just porn they’ve fapped to. They don’t understand the basics of kink like aftercare, negotiation, respect and they sure as hell don’t get the more intricate aspects like timing, limits, pushing and experience. All they know is that they can live out the fantasies in their mind by typing or speaking. They don’t REALLY have to worry about the person on the other end of the ‘net. . . I mean they WANT this right?
I want to be clear here. I’m not talking about people that are in a kinky long distance relationship (LDR). There is a significant difference between an LDR between two people that are making an effort to be together despite the distance and someone that’s abusive to people they barely know via the internet.
Now I don’t care if there are claims of “But I don’t want to be part of the community” or “The local scene is stupid” or even “There aren’t any kinksters near me”. NONE of that matters when it comes to how you present yourself and how you treat others in a virtual community.
So let me piss off a whole bunch of people here: Online “experience” doesn’t count for shit.
Seriously, if you’ve never had a scene in real life, never topped or bottomed in a scene YOU DO NOT HAVE EXPERIENCE. What you have is random knowledge. More than likely misinformed and piecemeal knowledge that can cause dangerous situations when applied in either a virtual “scene” or your first real world scene.
But let me get practical here. Who cares what these random assholes claim or do? I do, and you should as well. These are the people that lurk on the forums and on the dating websites. Looking for new people that don’t know any better than to ask the right questions. These webmasters will PM or message someone with grandiose claims with demands of obedience or servitude and the new person, not knowing any better, will fall for it. Their first foray into BDSM will be with someone that doesn’t know what the fuck they are doing yet claim to be a “master” with 167 years experience. So now when this webmaster commands this new person to do unhealthy and dangerous things since they’ve “done this hundreds of times before” the new person, who WOULD have been a wonderful addition to the BDSM scene, is harmed, shamed and disgusted with the very idea of kink. All because some jackass wanted to get their rocks off.
I have personally talked to people that have been physically, mentally, emotionally and intellectually abused and damaged by people just like this. They’ve been people on BOTH sides of the slash. I’ve talked to bottoms that were literally scarred by what was done to them in the name of “learning”. I’ve talked to tops that ended up in therapy due to bottoms that were too demanding.
It may be true that the internet is a safer place than it was 20 years ago, but there are still places where the dangers are a real thing. BDSM is one of those places. Kink is one of those things that many people want and desire a level of anonymity when starting out and for some throughout their entire kinky career. Yet anonymity can hide a multitude of faults.
Time after time I read here about people asking questions, which is AWESOME by the way, about how to get started in kink. But I also read a disturbing amount of topics about how people dismiss communities and “real world” activities for various reasons. So many times I cringe while reading those types of posts since I am then forced to wonder. . . where did they get their experience?
I’m not saying that anyone not involved in a real world community is dangerous, although I’ve stated before it’s a red flag for me, nor that those people should be shunned. I’m saying that these “webmasters” are a danger to everyone. Not just new people, but to those of us that are established as well. They are the ones that end up in newspapers under headlines reading “Sex Play Has Tragic Consequences” or “Abuse Victim Met Attacker Online”. These webmasters don’t just give BDSM a bad name they are taking people out of kink altogether. They are making our kinky world smaller with ever badly type command and typo ridden PM.
Why should they care after all? There will always be someone else logging on for the first time. There will always be someone else that doesn’t know enough to ask questions. There will always be those that want to believe and to belong. So who cares that they’ve damaged and harmed some random person on the ‘net. They just need to wait and try again with the next fresh face.
------------------------------------
Please feel free to send any comments or questions to darr_syn@curvysaftermidnight.com
Until next time kinksters, stay safe and have fun!
DS
There’s a distinct line of demarcation in BDSM. It’s not the line of tops and bottoms, or slaves and masters, nor even pain and pleasure. Sure, those lines do exist but to a much lower degree than what I am discussing. Every day there are people that switch roles or sides of the slash that they want to try out or experiment with. But this line I’m talking about is something that many only feel comfortable on one side or the other, and if and when they DO cross. . . things are never the same.
The line I’m talking about is the internet. When someone steps across the line from reading and typing about something online and actually doing it in real life they’ve crossed the line.
It honestly shocks me whenever I read or hear about someone saying they have years of experience in BDSM but only tack on “online” when prompted or pushed. As if there’s not a difference between reading something and DOING something. You cannot learn how to throw a flogger by reading about it, you cannot understand how to cane someone by watching a video, you cannot take part in a knife scene by typing “I take out my knife”.
Now I’m fully aware that I am of that weird age right now where I grew up without the internet at my fingertips. I didn’t have three computers, a few laptops, a smartphone and a computer lab at school at all times. When I needed to research something I didn’t just “wiki” it, I actually had to REASEARCH it. That being said though, I built my first computer when I was 12 years old and followed the development of the internet with avid interest.
What scares the living fuck out of me is where the internet has brought BDSM. I’m not talking about the chat rooms or the forums. I’m talking about a subspecies of the BDSM practitioners.
The “webmasters”.
These people have little to no real world experience yet demand titles and rights, virtually of course, from all they happen to run across on the ‘net. They’ve “been in the scene” from anywhere from birth to age 15 and will list out any number of “skills” they possess. Needless to say they won’t tell you that they’ve never held a crop in their hand in their life.
These people are dangerous.
Not in the “cool and sexy” way dangerous, but more like the “I need therapy and a restraining order” dangerous.
Many times these webmasters spend no effort in learning about what BDSM is and can be, they are either basing their ideas on stories they may have read or just porn they’ve fapped to. They don’t understand the basics of kink like aftercare, negotiation, respect and they sure as hell don’t get the more intricate aspects like timing, limits, pushing and experience. All they know is that they can live out the fantasies in their mind by typing or speaking. They don’t REALLY have to worry about the person on the other end of the ‘net. . . I mean they WANT this right?
I want to be clear here. I’m not talking about people that are in a kinky long distance relationship (LDR). There is a significant difference between an LDR between two people that are making an effort to be together despite the distance and someone that’s abusive to people they barely know via the internet.
Now I don’t care if there are claims of “But I don’t want to be part of the community” or “The local scene is stupid” or even “There aren’t any kinksters near me”. NONE of that matters when it comes to how you present yourself and how you treat others in a virtual community.
So let me piss off a whole bunch of people here: Online “experience” doesn’t count for shit.
Seriously, if you’ve never had a scene in real life, never topped or bottomed in a scene YOU DO NOT HAVE EXPERIENCE. What you have is random knowledge. More than likely misinformed and piecemeal knowledge that can cause dangerous situations when applied in either a virtual “scene” or your first real world scene.
But let me get practical here. Who cares what these random assholes claim or do? I do, and you should as well. These are the people that lurk on the forums and on the dating websites. Looking for new people that don’t know any better than to ask the right questions. These webmasters will PM or message someone with grandiose claims with demands of obedience or servitude and the new person, not knowing any better, will fall for it. Their first foray into BDSM will be with someone that doesn’t know what the fuck they are doing yet claim to be a “master” with 167 years experience. So now when this webmaster commands this new person to do unhealthy and dangerous things since they’ve “done this hundreds of times before” the new person, who WOULD have been a wonderful addition to the BDSM scene, is harmed, shamed and disgusted with the very idea of kink. All because some jackass wanted to get their rocks off.
I have personally talked to people that have been physically, mentally, emotionally and intellectually abused and damaged by people just like this. They’ve been people on BOTH sides of the slash. I’ve talked to bottoms that were literally scarred by what was done to them in the name of “learning”. I’ve talked to tops that ended up in therapy due to bottoms that were too demanding.
It may be true that the internet is a safer place than it was 20 years ago, but there are still places where the dangers are a real thing. BDSM is one of those places. Kink is one of those things that many people want and desire a level of anonymity when starting out and for some throughout their entire kinky career. Yet anonymity can hide a multitude of faults.
Time after time I read here about people asking questions, which is AWESOME by the way, about how to get started in kink. But I also read a disturbing amount of topics about how people dismiss communities and “real world” activities for various reasons. So many times I cringe while reading those types of posts since I am then forced to wonder. . . where did they get their experience?
I’m not saying that anyone not involved in a real world community is dangerous, although I’ve stated before it’s a red flag for me, nor that those people should be shunned. I’m saying that these “webmasters” are a danger to everyone. Not just new people, but to those of us that are established as well. They are the ones that end up in newspapers under headlines reading “Sex Play Has Tragic Consequences” or “Abuse Victim Met Attacker Online”. These webmasters don’t just give BDSM a bad name they are taking people out of kink altogether. They are making our kinky world smaller with ever badly type command and typo ridden PM.
Why should they care after all? There will always be someone else logging on for the first time. There will always be someone else that doesn’t know enough to ask questions. There will always be those that want to believe and to belong. So who cares that they’ve damaged and harmed some random person on the ‘net. They just need to wait and try again with the next fresh face.
------------------------------------
Please feel free to send any comments or questions to darr_syn@curvysaftermidnight.com
Until next time kinksters, stay safe and have fun!
DS
No comments:
Post a Comment