Judging the New

Bear with me, readers. I am fighting off an angry brat called depression. Sometimes I'm able to bury it under the blankets, and sometimes it rears its ugly head to stick its tongue out at me. For the most part, I am fine; I go on with my days getting my shit done, housecleaning, laundry, cooking, tidying up... but now and then I can't help but notice that big lump under my covers, giggling, laughing at me. Its taunting laughter is quite grating on the nerves.

I went to a BDSM discussion group last week, one which I had debated attending. I was in a crappy mood. Most of the time, when I'm in a crappy mood, I don't like to engage other people. I don't want my crappy mood affecting them. It's rude. But this time, I thought, I would show up to the meeting, and if I didn't have anything good to say, or if I thought I'd be a sourpuss for everyone else, I'd just keep my mouth shut.

Well, it turned out to be a very good discussion. I was enlightened on a few points, and managed to enlighten others on a few points. I got to see people I don't often see, and I let others see me, in more ways than one.

What was interesting about this meeting was that we had a new guy show up, someone absolutely no one knew, who was not just new to the discussion group, but new to the entire scene. Now, this in and of itself would not be that big of a deal; new people sometimes decide to attend these things last minute. It's like jumping off the kinky cliff into dark mysterious pools; new swimmers often have to stand there a long time before they finally jump. Who knows how long, or what synapsis finally went off in their brains to make them take the plunge.
I'll tell you one thing, though, they often make quite the splash.
I speak from experience.

Anyway, this new guy showed up, and what was confusing to us at first was that he had not even found our group from Fetlife or any other kinkster calendar. No, he had learned of our group from another site entirely, one which I will not mention by name--but I will say it is not a site specifically for kinksters. It is a site for random people to meet and hook up.

This sent us all red flags. But we welcomed the new guy, motioned him to have a seat, and took inventory.
He was relatively young, relatively good looking, and had a thick accent. He told us he had been to one other meeting before, with poly people, and this was his second foray into the kinky scene.
More red flags.

Here's the thing: since Fifty Shades of Gray came out, there have been a lot of people checking out the kinky scene and BDSM in general, not because they think it's something they might enjoy, but because they think by associating with kinky people, they are more likely to get laid.
This is especially true for men who haven't had a lot of luck with women in the vanilla world. They think if they start reading up on floggers and whips and calling themselves a "dominant," they'll have an easier time finding a submissive woman who'll fuck them. Which may or may not be true, I don't know. But that's their assumption.

Which is just obnoxious. Because the number one concern for these people is not finding a community where they fit in, so they can grow as a person, and learn to love themselves for who they are; no, their number one concern is doing and saying whatever it takes to have sex.
If they need to be a sadist, they'll be a sadist; if they need to act all strong and macho, they'll act all strong and macho.
But it's an act. They don't know what the fuck they're doing, they have no interest in learning a craft beyond looking good to impress the females, and their fulfillment ends at filling pussy. They are not doing this to pacify something within themselves, a darker force they cannot deny; they are following a script, playing the part, willing to become whatever the opposite sex wants, as long as they'll put out.
This is not being a dominant. This is anti-dominant.

Unfortunately, once in a while, you have someone come into the kink community who is not there for the right reasons. From what I gather, sometimes they find their footing, and sometimes they do not. Sometimes epiphanies are made, and these people go on to become well-regarded community members. But often, they fade away. Like an old-timer friend told me, "people in the kink community have a short half-life."

I'll tell you one thing: you may or may not get laid more often being a member of the kink community... but your chances of finding a stable, long-term relationship are no better in the BDSM world than they are in vanilla land. In fact, some would argue, they are worse. Having a D/s M/s O/p relationship is hard.

So we went on with the meeting, talking about things the way we normally would, and this guy sat at the back of the table, quietly assessing us much the same way we were assessing him. Which is fine; everyone was polite, help was offered when needed, and the meeting was a success.
But I wonder if I'll ever see this man again. I wonder if he walked into our meeting with certain assumptions, and if we burst his bubble; or maybe I'm the one making faulty assumptions about him, and he'll surprise me.

Guest Post from...Myself

So of all the people in the world, guess which one of my blog readers was the one who got me to come out of hiding and write again?
My sister.
Yes, my sister reads my blog, apparently religiously, and has been waiting for a new post.

So here is what happened:
I wrote a post entry for Fetlife, put it up on Fetlife, and put it up on my tumblr account, as well. On tumblr, it only got, like, five notes. But on Fetlife, it took off, garnering over 2,000 likes, over 500 comments, and ending on Kinky&Popular.

I'm still trying to understand how different medias get different attention. If I had never posted that entry on Fetlife, but added it to my tumblr account only, I probably would have thought it's a dud. But it became the focus of a rather heated discussion on Fetlife. Likewise, sometimes I post stuff on Fetlife, and it gets practically zero attention, while I post it here and get amazing comments from people here, and on twitter.
I don't understand how different things appeal to different people on different sites. One thing I do know: this is why they tell people to be as "out there" as possible. Because you never know from where people are going to find you.
This is assuming, of course, you want to be found.

Anyway... after the post became so popular on Fetlife, I forgot about putting the post on here on my blog, and focused on responding to the comments there. But things have calmed down now, and as my sister reminded me, it's been a while since I posted here, so...here's the entry that caused such a stir:

The Notion of Polyamory from Someone Monogamous

You know what? I am so sick of these wackadoodle “polyamory” people telling me how oppressed they are because they are polyamorous, how monogamy is nothing but a religiously imposed construct, a yoke of society, a shackle of misogyny, an imaginative institution of hierarchy, a fabrication of the perfect lifestyle; that only they can see it for what it really is, but we should all aspire to see the ruse of it so we can throw it off like a moth-eaten coat; that a person like me can’t really understand polyamory, because I am not polyamorous myself.

Sorry, muchacho, but polyamory is not that hard to understand. It is hard to engage in, hard to live by, hard to get right, but it is not that hard to understand.
And for a lot of these fucksters, I get the feeling I, the monogamous one, understand it a lot better than they do.

Polyamory means having a loving relationship with more than one person. It means being romantic with more than one person. To go back to the word itself, it means investing amorous emotions in more than one person.

You know what it doesn’t mean? Fucking everything on two feet—or at least, anyone on two feet who turns you on.

Here’s what I see all the time: people—a vast, VAST majority of whom are men—trying to get into the mouth and cunt of every woman who strikes their fancy. They do not want a relationship with these women. They might never want to see them again after the first date. But they want to fuck.
This is not polyamory. This is NSA (no strings attached) sex.

Here’s another thing I see: couples trying to find other couples to “switch.” They will want to talk to the other couple a bit, to keep things friendly, and to make sure they’re not engaging with someone who’s violent or insane. But they’re not looking for a long-term friendship beyond the fucking aspect. They don’t want to go to the movies together. All they want is to make sure it’s safe and civil to fuck.
This is not polyamory. This is swinging.

Here’s another thing I see: men looking for a woman to fuck on the side, without their wife’s/significant other’s approval or knowledge. “I’m polyamorous, she’s not,” he’ll say. “It’s kinder I don’t tell her about my sexual exploits.”
This is not polyamory. This is cheating.

I have also seen polyamory work. In fact, I am often jealous of the polyamory relationships I see when it is done right.
That means everyone knows what the other people are doing, who they are seeing, who they are sleeping with, and who they are hoping to sleep with sometime down the road; nobody is engaging in NSA sex, everyone knows their sexual partners well enough to hope their particular relationship will continue at least for a while, and will be based on more than just casual sex; everyone respects what the other is doing, and there is mutual sensitivity towards everyone’s feelings.

In other words, it is not about just sex.
It is about love.

So when I hear someone say they would jump at the chance to fuck a woman whose name they don’t even know, who then turns around and tells me I’m somehow not “as kinky as them” because I’m monogamous and therefore I just don’t get it—
Dude, I get it. You’re a horny fucker, and you’re hung like a mule.
But no amount of sweet-smelling mints in your mouth will stop you from sounding like an ass.