Tag Archives: community

Scraping the bottom of the spoon drawer

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Well fuck everything. The last two ish weeks have been absolutely horrid. I mean, there’s all the things (*wave arms in the direction of the whole world*) and then my body is being a real nightmare. My PMDD symptoms this month have been utterly unreal. My pain levels have been sky high. My mood is in the toilet. (Or rather in the scalpel drawer–not that I did anything. But I thought about it. Hell I don’t even own a scalpel at this point.)

And then when I did start my period my mood got worse and the pain got worse and I passed some clumps that were the size of golf balls and that’s just not fucking ok.

I’m watching two very different communities go through growing pains. I’m learning a lot about myself as I watch them process. I’m thinking about Sobonfu. I will never find a community; I have to make it. What are my values?

I’m more than a little bit of a dick. So my line can’t be that people can’t be dicks. I can be a bully so that can’t be the line either. Ah shit.

I try so hard to lift people up but right this minute all I can see are my failures.

“Only cowards ghost.”

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Someone said that recently in a conversation I was part of. They weren’t trying to talk to me or about me. But I was in the conversation and it was a generalized statement that applied to me so I took issue. Then they told me that I was taking things out of context and I was just triggered.

Ghosting.

I got involved with a dude when I was 19. He was 19 years older than me. We were lovers and play partners and friends until I was 33. During that time period anytime I wanted to set a boundary he didn’t like (marrying someone other than him, wanting to have kids with someone other than him, all kinds of shit) he would tell me why my reasons weren’t valid. He was adamantly pro relationship anarchy poly and he didn’t think I should be artificially limiting our relationship. I argued for a long time. After a while I think I had a lot of sunk cost fallacy in the relationship and I didn’t want to give up on him. Also he liked to say that anytime someone did him dirty they were discriminating against him for being autistic.

Then in a short period of time we had several interactions. First he told me that I needed to “make my children be submissive to him” because he is an adult and they are children so they need to know that they have to obey him. I told him he clearly understands nothing about child psychology and no I am definitely not doing that. Then the Elliot Rodger shooting happened. He said that he totally understood why any autistic man would do that if he were denied sex. (By the way he had spent the previous several years buying guns and going shooting a lot.) Then we had a weird conversation and I said, “Do I need to specifically say that my children are never ever potential sexual partners for you? Do you understand that?” (I mean, he held them within a week of them being born. He was an “uncle”.) He smirked at me and said “We’ll see what they say when they are 18.”

I cut him off. I blocked him on all social media. I blocked him on my phone. I blocked him on email. He was dead to me from that moment further and no I don’t feel like he fucking deserved an explanation.

At a different time, years before that, I went on one date with a dude. He totally ghosted me after that date. I shrugged and went on with my life. A couple of years later he ended up engaged to one of my close friends. During the engagement period before the wedding he took me aside at an event. He told me that he ghosted me because he had just gotten out of a bad relationship and I had a few personality traits like his ex (to be fair, I knew the woman and we do have a lot of surface traits in common) and he was afraid I was going to be crazy and fuck over his life too. So he ran. He said that the way I conducted myself in social situations after that (I gave him space and didn’t try to corner him and demand an explanation) made him realize that he was wrong about me and he was sorry he had treated me that way. We hugged and wished each other all the best and I’ve been sending him and his spouse Christmas cards for over 10 years now. When we see each other we are perfectly cordial.

People ghost for a lot of reasons. I don’t think that any blanket statement can be made for those reasons. If you find yourself in a situation where person after person after person is ghosting you… maybe do some self reflection on your own behavior. I am welcome in the homes of 95% of my ex’s. The vast majority of my ex’s are people that I would welcome into my home for a holiday if they were in a rough spot and needed to be loved that year.

I’m totally comfortable with the fact that I have needed to ghost people. It was a need and I don’t feel bad. It took a lot of years of working on my self respect before I recognized that I don’t owe every fucking guy endless explanations just because he wants them. I owe myself integrity.

I could list all of the reasons it is utterly laughable to say that I am a coward. But frankly, that’s a waste of my time.

I think it is entitled and toxic to demand that everyone explain their feelings and boundaries to you on your time table. And I no longer have time to play games with toxic people.

Goodness, monsters, and shame

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I know that other people view monsters in a solely negative light but I’ve never been good at doing that. Monsters are always creatures with a different point of view. A friend pointed out that perhaps “alien” might be an easier word to use, but I feel like alien and monster are interchangeable. A monster is a creature who is different from you who seems scary. Many monsters don’t hurt anyone at all… but they are scary anyway.

I can’t begin to count how many people have told me that I am scary.

I am amused to read that it is a common thing for autistic people to feel like they “come from a different planet” which fits more in with the word alien than the word monster. (I mention this because I have been diagnosed as autistic not because I am trying to talk about “those people”. I’m reflecting on the similar language used by folks who have the same diagnosis as me.) Only I’ve seen every Aliens movie and I can tell you with authority that those things are monsters.

Are they evil? I don’t think so. They are creatures who are trying to survive and we look like food. That’s not more evil than the bacon I had in my soup tonight.

Before you tell me I should be vegan let me tell you that many health professionals have told me that I absolutely need meat for optimal health given my constellations of issues. Veganism may work great for lots of folks… but not everyone.

Anyway.

So I’ve reached a point in the evolution of my brain where I just can’t see monsters as inherently evil. I see them as creatures with too much strength and too much ability to hurt other creatures without necessarily intending to.

Intent doesn’t matter.

I wrote yesterday that I haven’t done a major boundary violation in many years. By that I mean that I haven’t had someone say “Don’t do x to me” and then I do it. I have broken rules. I have broken agreements about what I might go do with other people. I have hurt people by accidentally doing something that would have been a boundary if we had negotiated. (I’m a clumsy bastard and I absolutely do things unintentionally sometimes.)

If intent doesn’t matter, how do I justify calling some things mistakes and other things violations?

We are all hypocritical bastards.

What I mean is that when I was young I had a few times when someone told me “Don’t do x” and I went and did x as fast as possible. I stopped doing that. It helps me sleep better at night.

But I struggle with whether I ever have the right to decide that my “softer” fuck ups are mistakes instead of monstrous violations that are evidence that I should be shunned from society for the good of people.

I look around the bdsm community and I see a lot of people who have been perceived as dangerous/bad/evil/worthy of shunning. Many of these people are monsters.

Are they worse than me? Are they better than me? What metrics are being used to judge? Why are we being judged–what’s the end goal?

The only part that matters to me in the long run is whether I find a self that is worthy to be a model for my children.

I really don’t give a shit if you like or approve of me. And yet you are my community and I love and value you so much. Many of you have contributed words of wisdom to my inside voice that I replay on a regular basis. So many of you have taught me that just because I’m a monster that doesn’t mean I have to damage people on accident. I can learn to have my damage be inflicted rarely and only with great purpose.

This community is a lot of where I learned to value the darkest and hardest parts of myself. It’s ok that I want to cut people open and lick their blood. There are folks who think that is hotter than the sun. It’s ok that I want to hit people and make them cry. There are folks who have something deep inside them made whole by such a process.

It’s not wrong to be a monster.

But can a monster be good? Do I have to be good to teach my children to do good? Do I want to teach them that they must be good?

Oh bdsm community. Do we want our teachers to be a certain level of good? What is that level? What level of goodness is demanded/expected/required of “community leaders” or educators or presenters?

We talk a lot about consent here. But how much information must be given in advance to qualify as informed consent and how much responsibility do we all bear for our fuck ups?

It’s kind of funny that in the long run of my life, the bdsm fuck ups where someone blatantly hurt me or violated my consent are not the things that weigh me down. (I say this from the hubris of having my biggest injury as a bottom be a broken bone. Broken bones heal.) I worry more about when I damaged someone else. Being a victim is not as big of a driving force to change my behavior as knowing that I have used my strength to do someone else damage.

How do we learn to be powerful and strong and monstrous and good enough?

I know I shouldn’t let the word good be taken away by assholes who want to define it as passive… but this shit is complicated.

Would it really be so bad to be a monster if one can do it without shame and without hurting people extra? Hurting people sometimes is life. But maybe just hold back on the extra?

How much hurting people is tolerable? How much is abuse?

I don’t think you have the answers either. I’m thinking that I’m still at the stage where asking the question is all I can do. The answers will come long after I need them. Like all the most important parts of life.

Monsters and good people.

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I had my first therapy session in a while. I haven’t been driving for health reasons and this session was via technology. Yay technology.

Most of the session centered around something having to do with my kids but it has to do with my identity in this community too. One of my children is struggling to deal with shame. Ah shame, my old nemesis.

My therapist told me that until I view myself as a good person who makes mistakes instead of as a monster who sometimes does the right thing… I can’t help my kid.

Given the stuff I’ve been reading on fetlife lately about redemption and making up for mistakes and when are you allowed back into the fold and to do which behaviors… this all feels connected in my head.

I’ve done wrong and I’ve hurt people in my life. I have done everything in my power to make amends. I’ve tried to help my victims and I’ve tried to help the victims of other people. I’ve tried to not hurt more people, with varying degrees of success. I haven’t had a big flagrant boundary violation in well over a decade, approaching two decades. I did learn from my mistakes.

But at what point do the mistakes of the past no longer define you? How many fuck ups are necessary to make you a monster forever?

What kind of fuck ups can be waved away as “just a mistake”?

I don’t know.

The right point of entry

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I think it is funny how strong everyone’s opinion is about when is the “right time” to enter the bdsm community. Yet another One Twue Way.

To me this is just like a conversation I have with my kids all the time. They tell me they “can’t” do something and I interrupt and say “yet” every time. Maybe you can’t do that yet, but it doesn’t mean you will never do it. Set the stage in your brain for the idea that maybe things will change.

Maybe you entered the scene at the Exact Right Time… for you.

Maybe that is good enough. It doesn’t have to be the universal right time for life. Maybe there isn’t a universal right time.

I’ve heard arguments for why it is better to wait until you are older and more mature. In my head I think “Ahhh because it is better for 30-something, 40-something, 50-something year old people to make the same stupid mistakes I made at 19? Ok. Sure. Whatever.”

Because when you get into the scene… it doesn’t matter how old you are… folks make some mistakes. The size of mistake varies… and the age of the person is not a big factor in that. I’ve seen older people make some really foolish mistakes because they were new and trying their best and they didn’t understand.

I don’t tell them it is because they are old and foolish the way people tell me that my mistakes were because I was young and foolish. But whatever.

I arrived in the scene before I was 19. I’ve had… rather a lot of 30-something year old women go off on me extensively about how I should have waited until my 30’s to enter the scene.

Err, can you please stop projecting your life path onto other people? I am in my 30’s now and I frankly have other things to do with my time than hang out in the bdsm community the way I did in college. I’m busy. I don’t have spare time. I have a lot of responsibility and not a lot of support and there is no way I could have made that life story work out the way it has worked for other people. That doesn’t mean I think it is wrong for people to be on the life curve they are on…

But I’m grateful I spent my college years in the scene learning about boundaries instead of spending them interacting with other college kids who didn’t know shit and who had very little to teach me.

Some of us are maximizing the lessons we can get out of life and that means we want to accelerate the rate at which we learn some lessons.

I will have more spare time in about 10 years. So much for the window of my 30’s.

I’m glad for the people who feel they spent their 20’s maturing and they are “ready” for more when they are in their 30’s or later and they view bdsm as an upgrade. Sure, whatever works for you.

I’m glad for the people who show up at 18 because they need to learn the lessons they are here to learn. The bdsm community has a lot to teach if you get lucky and find the right people. Fantastically who the “right people” are varies tremendously so not everyone is competing for the attention of the same two people. Yay everyone wins.

What I learned in the bdsm community made me a better teacher, a better neighbor, and a better parent. If I had not learned these skills in my late teens or early 20’s I would not be as good of a person as I am now.

I’m glad I said fuck off to all the people who told me to leave the scene and not benefit from these lessons. I would not be where I am and I like the progress I’ve made.

I’m not saying you should have been in the scene at 18 or you are lesser somehow. That’s bullshit. You were on your path and that’s ok. Just stop acting like your path is better, m’kay?

Things shift so much.

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I don’t come on this website very often because I don’t feel like I am “kinky enough” anymore. I have changed a lot over the almost 20 years since I found the bdsm community. Some of the shifts have just been in myself and some of them have been about my relationship changing.

At some point over the last 20 years I recognized that a lot of what drove me to actively ask for the specific kinds of play I wanted was… really a problem. The need I had to be treated as a worthless whore… that came very directly from being told by my father from toddlerhood that… that’s all I was. I guess I spent my 20’s still trying to be a good girl for my father.

It’s funny how I associate being abused in public with being kinky. The fact that I’ve been under M/s contract for a while and we do a lot of Daddy/daughter play during sex… in private… for some reason that feels a lot less kinky to me now. I have some strong programming that “being part of the public scene” is what makes you kinky.

For some reason “enjoying being hit” isn’t enough in my head?

I don’t come to parties in large part because I go to bed at 8pm every night. Driving hurts my body in ways that make it hard to socialize or enjoy being hit. I have kids and no child care.

So that means I’m not kinky any more, right?

But I miss you all. I think about you. I think about the lessons I have learned. The funny thing is… I don’t think I would be a very good parent if I hadn’t had the experiences I had in the bdsm community. I owe y’all an eternal debt of gratitude for helping to shape the person I am.

I know that there are people out there who believe it is bad for 18/19/20 year olds to get into the community… those folks believe you shouldn’t try this hobby till your 30’s or so because you will “mature”. I really disagree with that point of view. I think that people need what they need when they need it and there isn’t a timeline. I needed the structure of the bdsm community when I was 18. I needed to start hearing adult women talk about consent.

I needed to go find the glorious, beautiful sex workers who told me that I had the right to say no to anything I didn’t want to do. I will never finish repaying my debt to those women for what they taught me about my boundaries.

I try to take the lessons you beautiful people taught me and bring them to the children in my life, not just my own children. I don’t talk about it in terms of sex or bdsm. I talk to them about consent. I talk to them about negotiating for what feels ok for them in a game. I talk about how boundaries allow people to be kind and loving to you.

I learned all this from you. Thank you. I needed you so very much. I am so glad you were there for me when I needed you.

Suicidality x-post

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This is a big hot button for me. I’ve been suicidal for most of my life. Given that the rapes started before I was 2 and I was cutting by 7 that isn’t surprising.

I have been somewhere “around” the bdsm community for going on 16 years. I go away and do other things sometimes but then I come back and my friends are still here.

Sometimes I see people I respect post things about how suicidal people don’t belong in play spaces. That’s why I used to not tell people about my problems very much. Because if I told people how dysregulated and distressed I was… I would be told to leave.

I would be told that I am too broken to deserve connection.

So mostly I lied for a long time. I didn’t tell people how much I hated myself. I didn’t tell people that often going to a dungeon or picking up random sex was what I did as harm reduction instead of killing myself.

It really isn’t the worst coping method.

I say all this from the strange security of not feeling suicidal. I’m 34. My life has finally progressed to the point where I feel more joy than pain.

I got here partially because a whole lot of weird people took me in even though I was a flailing, obnoxious, difficult child. Thank you.

Thank you for tolerating me through my mental illness, boundary issues, and attempts to grow up. I’m at a point where I now believe it is possible that I will finish growing up someday even though I’m not there yet.

I feel hope.

I no longer ask for beatings because I want to get through tonight. I ask for beatings because the week or two afterwards are so awesome. I want the chemical journey not the momentary distraction.

That feels significant.