So I'm willing to bet it's the pandemic and my own baggage but I feel a bit isolated from the community. To be fair I often have not quite known how or where to jump in. And when We move and get to a better place both geographically and in life for us I plan to fix that. (plague pending of course.) But It got me thinking. I can pin where my own hang-ups have slowed my kink/BDSM progress. But I also see conversations or articles or even memes making fun of people trying to practice kink. And I'm not talking about your average kinksters in the community but the younger folks or inexperienced folks who take their girlfriend to the mall and walk them on a leash. And I'll fess up I judge and will laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. But at the same time a lot of these folks see or experience the kink community and decide it looks fun without taking time to understand it fully.
I want to pause here before I go on and clarify. I do understand that some of those folks are minors and I am NOT in any way advocating for minors to be brought in and shown the ropes as it were. They have their own shit to deal with and I've known one too many folks like that who were preyed upon under the guise of mentorship. I'm not sure how that should be handled but it should not be the way I'm talking about here. Let someone wiser deal with helping them out.
But there's also a lot of adults out there. And Often it is younger folks who get the idea from media or exploring on their own and decided to give it a try without realizing that those in the mall/library/public space also would have to consent. And there in my experience doesn't seem to be a lot of an attempt to educate them. It seems like, and I may be projecting here, we're quick to judge and shame them. But I think sometimes just being like hey. That's not really a great image for BDSM and would you like to be involved in the community? I mean sure some of them are probably just assholes but I'd be willing to be a good number are really just alright folks who don't know any better. And the best way to combat that is with education and a community willing to help. I mean luke would still be a whiny little punk on Tatooine without Obi-wan and Where would Nightwing/Tim/Damion be without the guidance of batman? at least two would-be serial killers.
And I'm not necessarily saying do this on an individual basis. Although if you do that would be awesome. One of my dearest friends still talks to their particular obi-wan despite living half a country away. But more as a community. I know we do conventions. One of the things I really want to do when I head back home is going to Thunder in the Mountains. But outside of that and the munches back in undergrad I didn't really know how to connect with folks and to be honest I still really don't. Again that's my baggage and my hesitancy around social media. So I fully admit maybe there is something I'm missing here. I've made some mistakes on my inroads into the community and even some of my earlier blog posts I question. But I think the community is great and has a lot to offer folks in a safe way. It may just need to be made a little more accessible sometimes. And I need to be able to offer a little more grace to folks and give a little more benefit of the doubt.
