Safety, Safe Haven

Everybody has her idea of a safe haven, right?  The place where one goes and there is no threat of anything "wrong."

There are many versions of the safe haven in Second Life.  The Journey to Domination and Submission sim is one of those safe havens, a beautiful and natural setting with plenty of outdoor space and indoor shelter.  Pictures, art, reading, discussion areas, or a simple bench to occupy while listening to the radio and fishing in the pond.

I was thinking this week how grateful I am that such a place as J2D exists in the world.  Everybody needs a safe haven, even if they didn't realize it until they get there.

I spent time this week also making sure that I had my own house in order, my own safe haven, a retreat I share with Tasdron whenever he needs a safe retreat.  Cleaned, landscaped, tidied and organized.  It is a mental exercise to put my house in order and to see to the wee details, all the corners dusted, all the walls steamed and breathing right.  This is a nod to my history with Tasdron: the early, early days of 2007 when my job was to make sure his house was prepared nicely.  It is an act of submission on my part: I do not throw down objects in a room and call it "decorated," but, rather, each piece is carefully placed and coordinated with as much "realism" as I can orchestrate.  I take time.  I look at it from all angles.  I want it to look as though every inch of it was meant to be that way.  I want there to be no evidence of the effort that I put into it: as though the placement, the value, the functionality of everything are self-evident and their own form of perfection.  The least-adorned wooden stool has the value of perfection if it is in the right place, performing the right function.  Perfection is only ever that.

It is the same with my photographs: the picture is the truth of what I see, and the effort that goes into depicting the image must never be obvious.  That is, at least, what I strive for.  That all the elements were born to be that way, just so.  That the colour and texture and perspective and focus and distance-from, etc... were all meant to be that way, just so.  As though there could never be another way to see this story, and I have submitted my senses to show the nature of this thing as it was meant to be.

And the effort that I put into creating a haven safe from the abuse-of-power that runs rampant through the world; the effort that I put into erecting, defending, and adorning the boundaries; this is effort that I submit myself to and that I enjoy.  It is work that I do to gratify my own nerves, of course, but it is also in the service of Tasdron.  In the walled garden behind the house, there is a patio with flowers and refreshment.  The walled garden does not keep out the sound of birds and crickets; but it keeps out prying eyes and negative voices.  Only goodness, encouragement, and hope may thrive in the sturdy old house surrounded by fragrant flowers.  This is my submission to Tasdron, one of many petals in the blossoming flower.

I remember reading The Story of O, and the Fifty Shades trilogy, and seeing a few movies including The Secretary and also O:  the homes are decorated beautifully.  With discipline.  With care and thought for the proper placement of everything.  The homes are not littered with ball-gags and chains and crops and blindfolds.  A candle whose wick has already been lit several times before may be the only clue that "something else" happens when the lights go down.  To any casual observer, the furnishings are tasteful and functional, full of consideration and care.  The basic needs of human comfort and rest, of feeding the body optimal nourishment, of cleaning and hydrating the body, of adorning and warming the body are all tended to.  To any casual visitor, this is a comfortable place, a safe place.  Only when the lights go down, only when consent is established, will the place become more than what meets the eye.

And because consent is established first, the place -- one's favourite place in all the world -- one's safe haven is never tarnished with the abuse of power.  One's safe haven thrives as it comforts.

Violence and Safety

There is a newspaper article that talks about ten things to end the rape culture -- a culture that we, as a human species, take as granted.  This is a topic that is important to keep top of mind when discussing BDSM and, even more, the fantasy of force.  Often, BDSM and "force fantasy" and "Gorean fantasy" are all conflated in the online gaming community, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the three ideas when such a sexually-charged atmosphere governs each one without apology.

Indeed, often a new submissive will stroll into the community, freshly-decked in 'the right clothes' to attract 'like-minded kinksters' and, as surely as a brand new uniform identifies the young and impressionable in any population, 'She' becomes precisely the target 'He' has been waiting for.  "She wears leather and studs, and she shows a lot of leg and cleavage.  Surely, she must want to be captured, humiliated, and raped," says the unscrupulous predator to himself, and he springs into action.

It is regrettable, actually, that the acronym "BDSM" contributes to this kind of thinking: it is, otherwise, such a handy acronym.  Unfortunately, guilt-by-association:  the B and the D and the S and M are so close together that people conveniently assume consent-for-one means consent-for-all.  In fact, that is not true at all: simply because a person is interested in the B, it does not follow that the person is also interested in the S/m.  And, simply because a person might be interested in some light  or strict or exploratory or conditional S/m, it does not follow that she is interested also in the idea of humiliation -- something not even represented in the acronym at all but, for some reason, people just inflict at will.  (A person can explore masochism without feeling humiliated.  It is faulty thinking to assume one equals the other.)  And, simply because a person might be interested in humiliation, it does not follow that she is necessarily interested in ROPE bondage as opposed to, say, cages or chains or cupcakes.  And ultimately, it is a bad assumption to make about a woman definitely wanting a punishing rape because of what she's wearing that day.  Bad, bad assumption.  Brain-damaged assumption.

Force-fantasy, slavery, humiliation... these are ideas that a very specific few people cherish appropriately, relegated as they may be to the darker side of sexual exploration.  These are ideas that, until one has enthusiastically consented to them (not just an absence of "no" but, rather, an enthusiastic and resounding "Yes, I am positively sure!") there is no consent.  And if there is no consent, there is no earthly reason to practice these things.  There is no right.

I wondered, when I began my journey over a year ago, why "consent" was such a big deal for the BDSM community -- and thank God, it is a big deal.  It was so unlike Gor to require the consent of another person before inflicting dark fantasy upon her.  Gor is, after all, a gender-based force-fantasy: women are weaker and submissive because of their gender, goes the argument.  There is no reason to seek consent from someone naturally weaker and naturally available to rape, goes the thinking.  They do not ask the cow its consent before slaughtering it for food: why ask the woman her consent before violating her?

The reason, I have long since discovered, consent is such a big deal in the BDSM community is because we live in a rape-culture that we take as granted.  We naturally assume it will be dangerous for women to walk alone at night, and that women do not enjoy the safety in public as they do in their own home (we hope, anyway, that a woman's home is a safe haven).  We also know that there are women in the world for whom violence and force are fantasies, and that there are partners in the world for whom indulging such fantasies is pleasurable.  And these people, when they are allowed to come together in safety, sanity, and consent, may live out their fantasies (a permission that all intelligent, free-minded people ought to enjoy) without inflicting trauma as a consequence.