Fighting the Current

"Wow Salmon, you're back after 2 days? How long until you get tired and go move on to some other niche corner of the Internet?"

So quick rundown of my whole saga right? 24yr old guy who finds pornography way to early in life. Gets addicted and fucks himself up a bit until he tries to do No Nut November back in 2023. Realizes not viewing explicit material makes him happy. Tries nofap for a little. Likes it and sees some benefit, but realizes a lot of that is just a ton of neurotic far-right men who struggle with their sexuality. Leaves it and now has to do the hard thing and come to terms with his libidinal urges and eccentric sexual tastes.

Are we all on the same page now?

Cool, so kink is a weird thing sometimes and while I've never been active until now, the community has been in my periphery for a while and I got to say I have become the enlightened centrist and think most people have this shit all wrong. On one hand we have the trads and conservatives with their appeals to tradition, God, and normalcy and on the other we have the progs (because "progressive" is too long even though Ive probably wrote way more trying to explain it than if I had stuck to proper spelling) who believe in full sexual liberation that moves towards a socially libertarian society free of all forms of sexual prejudice - these are all things we probably all know well and of course everyone sides with each side to varying degrees. So in this landscape how does one actually figure out how what is cool and good for the individual and for society? Well let's first start with the issues...

It was one man on Twitter that once said "man I hate all furfags, queers, degenerates, (slur), (slur), (yadda yadda you get it.)" Where does prejudice towards deviance come from? While some might just chalk it up to fear and hate I think they do a very big disservice to prejudice's role in a society. From a completely steel-maned position, prejudice is a sort of immune system towards society. It is useful to an extent because it serves to prevent detrimental changes. For the most part things in the past have worked well enough. After all, how would the present day exist if it didn't? Given this knowledge it can be seen as a reasonable assumption that any change is much more likely to leave things worse off than if one were to remain in the status quo. This is where your trads and hard-line conservatives lie. "Kink, homosexuality, ect. is degeneracy. It negatively impacts the social fabric and must be destroyed. We have gotten to where we are today without it. And we might not get to tomorrow with it."

The problem with this line of reasoning is that the conditions of yesterday are not the same as today, and things are not right only because they are traditional. As our understanding of human nature has changed we can understand the roots of certain behaviors more clearly (a great example is homosexuality. Once seen as devilish sodomy by the Christian West, it has now been understood as a natural deviation in sexual desire) and a societal apparatus can be constructed to account for such changes (civil partnerships, gay marriage, normalization of the LG and B.) To the prog this is sure evidence that all that crap in the past must be done for. Since "look at the suffering from our predecessors! If only we let go of our archaic ways we can reach a more equitable society." And for a lot of what has happened they are right, but that is not to say the progressive way will always be correct.

I should clarify by what I mean by prog. I do not mean in some political micro sense of this issue or that issue. I mean in the broad philosophical view - that the flattening of hierarchies and increasing of social allowances is required for a better society. This is a view many radicals have (look up "radqueers" if you really wanna see gay strawmen come to life in horrific fashion) and it's implementation has had disastrous effects. Let's see some of the proponents of this ideology. Famous Queer theorist Michel Foucault believed in and pushed for the elimination of age of consent laws. The founder of Queer Theory Gayle Reuben in her paper "Thinking Sex" advocates for Boy-Lovers (read: pedophiles). And many a radical queer today have pushed for early porn introduction a.k.a. EPI. (Think Gigglygoonclown's grooming discord or fwucky and the pedo-punk zine)

This might sound like fear mongering and straw-maning but despite my joke in my first post I do believe you should do your own research. Gayle's paper is easily found online and it's less than 20 pages. Foucault's entire political positions are also very public. Clearly this is not the way forward either. So where does one turn?

Id like to suggest a personal favorite of mine. The Ecologist and Anarchist Derrick Jensen. His philosophy is a synthesis of the progressive temperament contained by a concept not really talked about in sex communities: secondary effects. What is a secondary effect? Well it's an effect that is usually unintentional and does not come from a direct interaction with the initial cause. A secondary effect of me trying to get to work is air pollution from my motorized transport. A secondary effect of me wanting to look hot is a lowered risk of injury from more developed muscles. I hope you get the idea. Outside of its initial reaction everything has secondary effects. Many even have more - tertiary, quadrary, quintary (I just wanted an excuse to use those words sorry) and so on.

Sex has many secondary effects. In the completely reproductive hetero sense sex increases the need for baby shoes. Gay sex probably decreases the proportional need for marital aids from unfortunate queers not being able to stick it in their wives. So what about kink? Well kink can be seen as a sort of escalation of sexual acts. It is an addition to the intimacy and the acts. This in itself has some repercussions. For one decreased sensitivity to traditional sexual stimuli. For instance I can see a man whose naked and keep it in my pants. But have that guy caged and with a pup mask and fuck it I'd be diamonds hard in an instant. Now on a personal level that might not be that terrible since it's just me and whatever I'm just a guy. But extend that out to a whole society. If everyone was like that then we might have a problem on our hands. The world's supply of leather an neoprene gets used up for hoods and every other person has mad ball chaffing from improperly fitting cock cages. Arguably most importantly, an entire society now needs a whole lot more just to get it on. While I don't know what that would mean, Id wager it would provide some new issues we luckily don't have to deal with today. This is a dramatic example but it shows that somewhere from only me having this desire and everyone having this desire some issues would emerge.

If the whole of society was one big folsom street fair you'd see the problem. Kink isn't some categorical imperative that will only bring good things if everyone embodies it, and honestly does it have to be? It's like a loaded gun. I think it's cool. I have one and I know others that have one too. To have one you better have your shit in order and give it the respect it deserves or you might hurt yourself or others. It's usually best not to flaunt it if you have it and you should only take it out on special occasions at certain places. And for the love of God I kinda don't like the idea of everyone having it.

Keep swimming upstream, or something to that effect.

- SalmonMoed

I'm not sure how much academic rigor I should put into a post on a bdsm site. After all, you will come to understand I take all of this for what it is and that means not taking it too seriously. Best is for you to just trust me and never look things up on your own. It's easier for both of us that way, lol.

I'm what you call a young-in. One of those Zillenials that grew up with just a taste of the era before. Back when screens were of the CRT variety and social media didn't exist. I still remember when my father got his first smartphone - the iPhone 3G and how he would boast day and night about all of its features. Back then and up until I got to college I was one hell of a techno-optimist, but this highly connected society we now have is not all it's cracked up to be. Cases of traditional neuroses have become endemic whereas before you might know one or two people with depression or anxiety. Borderline and schizo-typal behavior are also on the rise. The data shows that such disorders really popped off during the late 'oughts when phone screens and social media became ubiquitous in western industrial society. If you are cool (read: well read and agree with me) you will have already known this to be true. Many in my generation have been disillusioned by the spectre of mass digital media despite still being in it's not so SSC clutches. But I want to take a step back in time and broaden the scope of this trend. And get to a question I've been meaning to answer: does this effect the kink community?

It was around the turn of the century that Robert Putnam came out with his book "Bowling Alone" a dense, exhaustive, and exhausting look at the breakdown of American civil society from its post-war boom in the 50s until modern day (which at the time of publishing was the late 90s/2000s) The trend? The public's engagement with clubs, restaurants, neighbors - society as a whole had been decreasing since the 60s. The culprit? Television and Computer use. If Putnam was here today he wouldn't be surprised with how bad it has gotten. Society has only dissolved more as each of us are more and more atomized. This is where I go into some speculation about the kink community since the same surveying apparatus does not exist here, but I wager a similar thing has happened here. One thing that doesn't get brought up in Putnam's work but is very true is that people today are having less sex than ever before. Young adults go to less parties and consume less alcohol. They go to clubs and bars less. I could see this trend also applying to bdsm clubs and kink communities. But I'm not quite sure so here's a question for you: have you ever gone to an actual kink event? I'm not saying it has to be the Folsom Street Festival but what about meetups? What about workshops? Have you ever met someone through this site or any like it? I ask these genuinely since if you look at my join date it was very recent. My guess is it's a fair bit less than one should expect.

And I'd expect it to be much less than other forms of engagement. There is this sort of rush that comes with partaking in the taboo (it's part of why it's fun) but it takes balls to get out there with others. Add to that the availability of online pornography and any joe-shmoe with a bondage fetish can just as easily get his kicks from a quick Google search. Before there had to be work done to find such communities and a requirement to partake in acts to be admitted. This is no longer the case.

"But Salmon, what about the Internet connecting more like minded people? Surely there is more in the community now than ever before." Yes, most likely. But of those people the rate of actual engagement is probably less. While one might assume that entry into the community requires nothing more than to have the kinks themselves. If that rarely gets exercise with others than what difference does it make? That might be a hot take for someone so new, but one thing that transcends communities is the fact that ideas are nothing without action.

My suggestion to you - get off your phone or computer and go do something. You'll thank yourself for it.

If you thought this was enjoyable to read stay tuned as I share more topics that interest me. This was off the cuff when I was caffeinated so expect better writing on even more touchy subjects in the future.

Keep swimming upstream or whatever

- SalmonMoed