Simple isn't it? You would think so, but four is not necessarily the answer in the BDM Community today. You are much more likely instead to find that the answer is "whatever you want it to be" I suppose that's a convenient answer, but is that what we need, convenient stock answers that are self affirming rather than educational?

Its complicatedly simple, if there is no definitive answer to a question, then how do people learn anything? Why should they even try? If there is no correct answer to the way we approach things in the BDSM/Leather/Fetish/Kink (we can't even come up with one name, although BDSM is a pretty good umbrella term) community, then to what level of responsibility can anyone be held accountable?

If we continue to let the majority of people get their "education" off of the `Net, and they have no clue as to what to compare it to, no definitive answers to their questions, can we really be surprised that people are somewhat clueless when they leave the `Net and get into real time activities? Which is of greater concern to you, that the guy you have been talking to does not turn out to be the Fabio of your dreams or that the single tail in his hand arrived via UPS yesterday? But hey.... he has years of cyber experience on it and he does proclaim himself to be SSC.

Would we like our public school systems to teach our elementary kids strictly through the `Net with no one monitoring their progress? How about if we decided that "A", "E", "I", "O" and "U" were vowels only if each person wanted to use them as such? Would our ability to communicate be better, or just politically correct? Maybe we should teach people that driving on either side of the road is fine depending on what their mood is at that moment. I guess we would keep the traffic lights.......of course what "red" meant might vary depending on the driver.

Whether we made a deliberate decision to do so or not, by accepting that each individual person is able to define and proclaim their definitions as "credible" we have lowered the bar to the point that if we are lucky we occasionally skin our shins on it. What's more interesting to me, is that we seem happy about it.

We seem to be pretty much okay with the likes of a " slavemaster" being able to kill people and stick then in barrels, over the course of several years. Yes, I know, these are extreme and silly examples right? OK then, define submissive for me. Now for 10 extra bonus points define slave. Dominant? Top? Bottom? Safe? Sane? Thank God we are together on consensual. By the way, is oral sex really sex? Wait, we can disregard that one, as our former president took it upon himself to answer it for us with a resounding "NO". Funny ain't it that there states in which oral sex is illegal? Oh wait, that's right, its not sex, but its still illegal. So that would make anal sex Ok, right? After all its enjoyed by more wholesome heterosexual couples than would ever dare admit it. Ooops! I almost forgot that homosexuals do it too and we have a state supreme court justice in Alabama calling for the execution of gays and lesbians to "protect" the children.

What the hell is a Protocol anyway? Define "pan sexual" for me please. Now tell me how many groups, events, yadayadayadayadayada are truly pan sexual?
Why do you think so? Where do switches fit in? Before you answer that, define "switch". For a Ph.D. mailed to the address of your choice please recount the history of the Old Guard and list 10 of the definitive Old Guard Protocols. Please make sure that you apply your definition of "protocol" from above. Where did the term "SSC" come from? Who coined the phrase and in what year? Is it important that we at least know the history of our Golden Rule, or just that we follow it? Apply the the universal definition of "SSC" to the following: Needle play, cuttings, water sports, vampirism.
Which leads me to ask, please, define "edge play". Maybe we should ask our mentors about this sort of thing, Define "mentor" please. Ooops. It's not always easy when everyone is right and everyone else is wrong.

It makes me wonder if a large part of our problem is the fact that we are not willing to stand for what we believe, to do so might require some work. So we don't believe in anything and if we do, its certainly not worth standing for in a voting booth, or sending an email, or God forbid, a letter or phone call to our congressional representatives to let them know how we feel Which brings me to one final question: Do we even care?

Copyright Justin Medlin © March 2001
Reproduced by permission of Justin.
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