i think people aren't getting the point of it. One article in particular has been annoying me.
"Ostensibly created to instil some sense of responsibility in the wild hordes of callous, bloodthirsty wannabe dominants."
i don't think it was made for that at all. To me it's more of personal guidelines by those who choose to ascribe to it. It's 'obviously' vague. There is room for interpretation because there is supposed to be. Because it's never effective to tell people
what they can and cannot do. Because the law doesn't account for circumstances such as this.
The guy goes on about how it's a failure because it hasn't changed anything or reformed anyone because the only people who will listen to it are those who already agree with the fundamentals of SSC. i think it's effects are a lot more subtle. Obviously we can't change the stupid and unfortunately dangerous people out there. But we can change whether we accept them into our lives or not. And to a submissive, being able to ask 'do i consider it safe to be hanging by my wrists from the ceiling fan all day?' and 'do i consider it mentally stable and sane to lock myself in a closet everyday' and 'do i want to do all of this or am i doing out of insecurity or fear or lack of self worth?'... those questions can make the difference in those situations... Without SSC being thrown around all over
the Scene, she may not have thought of those questions until it was too late to do much about it.
Doms probably have less to worry about as far as personal safety, but those questions can still be asked from their viewpoint, as personal guidelines of what they find acceptable from themselves. It's not going to change people who are intentionally harmful and inherently inconsiderate, but it makes a difference with people who 'want' to be safe, but might not have thought of all the details without having SSC drilled into them from the beginning. i'm sure some people are just naturally inclined to make sure of the technicalities, but others need that reminder in the back of their heads that makes them ensure that everything follows the guidelines they set for themselves.
"In a similar fashion, those among our non-BDSM surroundings who hate us enough to actively persecute us,
don�t listen to anything that comes out of the BDSM community anyway."
Again, the point is not to make vanillas accept that we really are safe, sane and consensual. People always talk about making BDSM more acceptable to the masses before wondering if that's a good thing. Countercultures like the gay movement and the women's rights movement seem to be in fashion right now. Which is fine, but mainstreaming any culture is going to make some changes. People complain about teens running around in collars and vanillas wearing leather and latex and people dressing up in boots and fishnets and thinking handcuffs are cool. People complain about all of that but they still say things like "hopefully bondage will become more acceptable." Newsflash: it IS becoming more acceptable. Vanillas playing with fluffy handcuffs is where it's going.
Just because being 'gay' is more acceptable
doesn't mean that people understand it any better. Maybe a little bit, but not enough to make gay people feel like they're understood for who they are. More of just 'yay we wont get beaten to death as much'. So just because people become more aware of kinky things, doesn't mean they'll be better able to handle it and understand it.
BDSM is a subculture, not a counterculture. Perhaps if it ever became a counterculture and eventually was 'understood and accepted by the majority' things would be peachy, but the path getting there probably wouldn't be worth the trouble. It's not like it's difficult to find people who are into it. With the gay movement, it was more understandable because gay bars really didn't offer much besides one night stands. But BDSM clubs and munches and events are huge. Even small towns have events. Stuart Florida where i used to live is absolutely tiny and
mostly populated by elderly retirees and ditzy or redneck teenagers. But they have a munch once a month in the mall food court. my point is that there's no need to make a counterculture out of this. Yes it would be nice to not have to worry about safety precautions as much, but that will never go away whether BDSM is widely accepted or widely unheard of.
People talk about how vanillas have a bad image of the lifestyle because of abuse cases pertaining to BDSM activities... they immediately think we should solve that by making people more aware of the world that's going on under their noses. But i don't think that would make anyone more accepting. It would make some people aware and indifferent, and a lot of people angry and ready to riot and picket against such a psychologically abusive world. i would have people handing me pamphlets on the street telling me i could get help and i
didn't have to serve anyone and that i could be an independent woman. Who wants to deal with all of that for such little benefit?
And if people want to improve vanillas' image about the lifestyle, the way to do it is to change the lifestyle... if abuse cases and BDSM related accidents/deaths are the cause of society's bad image, why not do something about the cause? A more tight knit BDSM community would help to eliminate abuse cases and promote caution within the lifestyle. Obviously abuse and injury can't be magically done away with entirely, but it can be helped. And sometimes no news is good news... BDSM related abuse cases not showing up on the news may not make people 'for' BDSM but they'll be a nice shade of apathetic towards it. i think most places do a pretty decent job of that. There's almost always support groups for Doms and subs as well as classes and demonstrations
so that people don't go buy a flogger from the internet and start beating away at someone. So instead of reaching out to the vanilla community, people who want to make BDSM more acceptable should reach out to their own community.
Back to my original point, RACK might be accurate, but it's not something to live by. It's a lot more effective to ask oneself 'do i consider this to be safe enough for me?' rather than 'am i aware that this might really suck?' It's good to be aware, but it's better to set guidelines for what is personally acceptable for both Doms and subs. Yes they're vague and completely open to personal interpretation and opinion. But that's the point isn't it? It's my life and therefore i will decide and follow what 'i' consider to be safe, not what someone else considers to be safe.
i talked to some girl online the other day who told what she thought was an
entertaining story about being chained to her bed overnight when the fire alarm went off and a friend walked in on her while her Dom was busy trying to unlock and/or untie her from her restraints. She thought it was funny, i thought it was dangerous. If i wake up in the middle of the night and my apartment is burning down, i don't want to have to wait 5-10 minutes while my Dom figures out how to set me free. And while it may be unlikely that anything would happen to me, i still don't define that as safe. There should always be a fast and easy way to get out of bondage in case of emergency. In my opinion at least. And then again there are things that i consider safe that others might not consider safe, like verbal humiliation.
"If something isn't safe 'according to their standards', they think it cannot be consensual."
So yeah, basically what i just said refutes that. Not
everyone is adamant about impressing their interpretation of SSC on others, and the people that are? What's new? That's life. There's always plenty of people who think that what they're doing is 'right' and that everyone else should agree with them because that's the only way to live. Then again i guess we're all a bit guilty of that. i'd say getting your arm amputated for your partner's pleasure isn't sane, but so long as it was medically safe they could argue that there's nothing wrong with it and i'm shoving my views down their throat or judging them and their kinks.
The point is that people need to learn that nothing is concrete. RACK isn't even concrete because i doubt that most people take the time to make themselves completely aware of every single tiny risk involved in their play. We do what we can. Nothing in life is ever 100% safe including walking out your front door,
but we do it everyday anyway because everyday we weigh the pros and cons and the risks versus the gains. i don't see why people have to get snobby about the technicalities when everything is personal interpretation in the end regardless.
That and there's one writer in particular who keeps writing about things like this... same one who fueled my rant about whether or not submission is a gift. She's a decent writer from a technical standpoint, but her views always seemed to be based on minute assumptions that i just want to start a debate with her and point out the flaws in what she said. That and she's just so negative about it. It makes it difficult to agree with some of what she says when it's all presented in such a negative connotation.
The 'disclaimer' of sorts on her webpage says:
"I've been accused of being too hard on the "romantic hearts-n-flowers BDSM
crowd".
Be warned. I deal in reality.
If you don't, you may want to take your leave.
Submission is not a gift. Pain hurts. You do have limits. -You are- ultimately responsible for yourself."
i agree that pain hurts, everyone has limits, and everyone is ultimately responsible for themselves, but i don't think of any of those as being bad. But when she says it like that it makes everything sound like shit. i guess i'm just torn because a lot of her essays make sense and i agree with them for the most part, but others are just complete shit and it's like she thinks she's too badass for romance. i try to take it all with a grain of salt. It's like she's bipolar. Half of what she says is great and charming and realistic, and the other half looks like she woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Which may be the case.
