It is a week since the international BDSM day and exactly a week ago I made a decision to celebrate it together with kinky friends in a park where we had a kinky picnic. The organiser of the picnic had sent out a “press release” to local newspaper and an invitation that they were more than welcome to join us.
One journalist showed up and I made a decision to out myself, or at least my scene name, as the world has yet to become ready for my grand and public entrance when I reveal who I really am.
Most of my fellow kinksters in the park had their kinky gear on and you could almost smell the latex and the leather a mile away. The journalist was asking questions and basically didn’t know anything about BDSM and was admitting to it, kudos Mr journalist. Me and a couple of other people tried explaining to him how the relationships within BDSM actually works. I explained consent, the deep trust and why I prefer BDSM based relationships before ordinary ones which are lacking the brute honesty that has to exist within in BDSM in order to make it work.
The journalist were eagerly listening and took notes. I deliberately talked about the relationship aspects before going in to explanations about how you put a submissive into subspace and that everyone is not into pain and whipping. I also brought out my box of goodies, which is my BDSM toolbox, and showed him the different tools I use – And yes, I don’t use the word toys as I prefer tools to reflect the seriousness of what I am doing even tho I can be in a playful mood.
He took pictures and he asked if he could quote me, which was fine as long as he only used a part of my scene name, Sinatra.
I waited patiently for the article to show up on the web as well as in the newspaper the next day – And it did. I read through it and got more than a little disappointed. There was nothing in particular about the emotional or relational aspects within BDSM. There was nothing mentioned about the deep trust and so forth. The article was mentioning the whips, electroplay, latex and flogging and the centerpiece was the headline “Whipping picnic in the park”. But hey, at least I got quoted correctly so I guess I shouldn’t be too disappointed.
All this made me think about explaining BDSM to other people, especially people that are not really too curious or even touched the edges of it in a playful manner – It is basically a lot to take in and process. That’s why people notice the visual and external significants. It’s easy to understand what flogger is used for and it so easy to understand what pain is, or is it?
Let me do a comparison; can anyone with ease explain the concept of love? Think about it for a little while and you will probably find out that it is not that easy. We have all the external significants that announces the love to our surroundings, the wedding rings, pictures of our beloved ones in our wallets and we hold hands to tell everyone “We are in love”. People, who are not into BDSM, are not always able to understand “our” external significants and how they should be interpreted and that is why I usually tell people that everything that they interpret to be a negative thing can actually be the other way around within BDSM. Just relate to how the word “Slut” is used and interpreted in an ordinary context, then compare it to how it is used within BDSM – Where it is mostly a term of endearment.
There are also certain things within BDSM that are just like love – Hard to explain unless you have experienced them. Subspace is one example and it is really hard to the majority of people that have an initial negative opinion to BDSM to actually understand what it really means and how certain pains can be a pleasure. It is equally hard to explain to people that BDSM is a part of your sexuality, but doesn’t necessarily mean that all BDSM related activities should or will lead to sex.
To a lot of people BDSM gives a sense of belonging, to a lot of people BDSM is adding a deeper feeling of trust and honesty in their relationships based on the level of communication that is a must in order to get a good relationship with your partner.
To me BDSM has been an eye-opener, mostly into my own personality and also an insight to what you can have if you just let go – And it took me about 30 years to reach that point.
The journalist didn’t put all that in the paper, but it doesn’t matter as I understand how much it is to take in and these are things that we with in the BDSM community take for granted, they are all natural to us.
And perhaps I overestimated the ability of the journalist as well when it came to his ability to understand things in 20 minutes, something that took me 30 years to realise. Maybe I also overestimated my ability to try to keep him out of explaining BDSM as something sensational and weird.
Aside from perhaps under-estimating the reporter’s ability to understand in 20 minutes what took you decades, perhaps you over-estimate his interest in anything beyond easily-sold sensationalism, his interest in journalism, or his courage for writing something of real value which might have divulged his own interests in kink. In other words, he might have been stupid, shallow, or scared, as well as attracted (or I doubt he would have been there in the first place). What a shame that he (or his editors) were content for fluffy surface level coverage. Journalists can shape the world, but make a virtue of pretending they merely observe it. Still at least they covered it, even if pathetically. And maybe Mr. Reporter will gird his loins and explore further, as he sounds… curious.
I particularly enjoyed your statement “It is equally hard to explain to people that BDSM is a part of your sexuality, but doesn’t necessarily mean that all BDSM related activities should or will lead to sex.”
I agree with Cloud, even if a journalist understands the nature of BDSM relationships, they want sensationalism and shock. People outside of BDSM may not want to think of us as having real relationships, or having love and trust with the partners that we hurt/hurt us.
It is the same thing with most stories on alternative sexuality. LGBT, polyamory, other fetishes, etc. The recent poly story from Newsweek is making the rounds, simply because almost every other story is about the fucking. The one story that got it kinda right is being hailed.
i think Stoltz Sinatra hawe make an sucsessfull sim ..an eloge to him .