When Enough is Enough

 

There are rules of engagement between practitioners of the BDSM lifestyle.  Outside of the world of BDSM, however, to break these rules comes with insufficient outrage.  Often I have wondered privately if people sought out 'The Lifestyle' as a way of ensuring they stand a chance of dealing with someone who understands basic human decency:

- ask permission

- offer respect and honorifics where required

- make amends, offer restitution after transgressing a boundary, stated limits, negotiated terms

- negotiate terms in good faith

- engage with those who wish to be engaged with and not with others who have demonstrated no interest or -- worse still -- who demonstrate aversion

- regroup and re-cover all the areas in an abundance of caution to make sure everybody acts with enthusiastic consent

- understand that non-negotiated 'duress' is illegal and -- worse still -- immoral; conduct unbefitting a member of society

- offer community safe spaces where the vulnerable may gather and express feelings, ideas, pains, pleasures, conflicts, dilemmas... without judgment or fear. The idea being, we share and we learn and we are ready for when it comes for us, someday.  

- offer communal support places that determine whether a member of this society is fit for further interaction with this society.  There are consequences for violating boundaries; there are consequences for willfully causing distress.  The different communities that I have spoken with over the years have taken some pride in keeping serial rapists out of positions of power.

And here we find ourselves on the precipice of a real problem.  A global problem.  A serial rapist is going to take unchecked power over one of the most powerful nations in the world, on January 20.  A convicted felon; an abuser of women and food and power and children; whose best friend for twenty years was someone who was also such an abuser; one of the worst men in the history of men, and America voted overhwhelmingly to put this criminal in charge instead of the prosecutor that challenged him.  He didn't just get 'enough' votes, he got 'more than enough' votes.  And the excuses for this are lame and all mask the shame of "Anybody But A Woman" in charge of the White House.  For the second time in a row. We won't cover that bullshit here.

As an aside, I once long ago wondered why the LGBTQ2S+ communities aligned so powerfully with the BDSM communities, and I stopped wondering that in 2016.  It was plain as day to me, in 2016. In 2016 it became so obvious to me that I'm embarrassed to say it took me so long.  And it's plain as day to me today, in 2024, a little over two months from the time when allies and safe spaces and tight community will be essential to the survival -- both emotional and literal -- of so many people in the world.  

Shame is a real problem in the world; it makes people do stupid things. It makes people do stupid things to other people.  It makes people do stupid things with lasting permanent damage, to other people. And the whole reason, I think, that there even IS a BDSM community at all... the whole reason that there even is a LGBTQ2S+ community at all... is because there is too much shame to simply call them 'Human'.  That sex is simply too shameful to talk about in most circles; so separate circles form that offer safe spaces to these separate 'species' of Human.  That even Sex-Positive Asexuals (like me!  Enjoy your sex, have your sex, make your sex the way you like it, and I'll support you from over here while I read my books and play on the computer and emotionally experience the most profound and fulfilling intimacy with You know who...)  have to overcome certain shames in their own journeys along the Path of Many Gazes.  

Shame is a real problem in the world.  It feels like, to me, the wrong people have it.  The wrong people wield it as a violence.  The wrong people enjoy the power of it.  And by all accounts the wrong man doesn't feel an ounce of it.  As a nation, the United States should be ashamed of themselves for electing the criminal instead of the prosecutor that was -- once again -- more than qualified and experienced for the job.  And its president elect should be ashamed for all the wrong he has done in his awful life.  And personally I have had enough of all of it.  My heroes are heroes because of times like these; not because of easy living.  And here we are, once again, in times like these.  My heroes will be those who carve out the safe spaces for the people who need them, emotionally and physically.  The best we can do is to look for those heroes, and if we can't see any in the immediate vicinity, to be one.  And then, as people have done for hundreds of thousands of years, light after light after light will emerge and glow along the shore, well into the horizon and beyond, showing the path to Civilization.