Dunno yet, waiting on the answers to a couple questions:
1) Is it safe to run a blog like this?
2) Is it ethical to run a blog like this?
3) Is my outer going to keep sharing the URL to this blog with people who know me personally?
4) Do I even want to run a blog like this?
My relationship to my art is changing quite rapidly at the moment. I used to think my art would sit, quiet and obedient, speaking only to the people I wanted, saying only what I told it to say. Art does none of those things. Art's unpredictable disobedience makes this enterprise quite risky, professionally, personally, legally, ethically.
If I do decide to continue, I'll have to do it differently. I originally thought the blog would be noticed only by members of a specific BDSM community, for whom the border between fantasy and reality is as meaningful and unignorable as the boundary between sidewalk and street. I now know better.
I'm sure other outings will occur if I continue, and in any case, individual pictures here are 100% likely to eventually leak outside of the scene. That means I would need to make this blog in anticipation of those who know me professionally and personally, those who might take legal action against me, and those (including myself, I suppose) whose unethical tendencies may be bolstered by the ideas within.
If I decide to continue, I will need to make this a place of education and safety, as well as a home for unconventional masturbation fodder.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
THERE USED TO BE A BLOG HERE
There used to be a blog here. This blog contained rather graphic images of my own creation. This blog was intended for use by a specific audience, a community of BDSM and kink enthusiasts. I took the blog down because I was 'outed,' meaning that someone notified people from my 'vanilla' (or non-kink) life about my participation in this community, and about this blog.
This community, my community, and the various classes, parties, conventions, and social events we create occupy the majority of my social life. For those of us who are most invested, the community is very important to our lives--it contains close friends, romantic and sexual partners, allies, mentors, teachers, and role models. It is surprisingly large and universal, and contains an immense variety of people. It is also the most open-minded, tolerant, and supportive group of people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.
The scene has some other functions, too. One thing it does is provide a safe way to do dangerous things. The things we do are risky, but this community provides education and assistance in doing these risky things. The things we do often simulate deeply immoral actions, and this community provides a framework to play these games in a moral way. In particular, the community vigorously enforces the use of negotiation and safewords, helping to ensure our activities occur only when everyone involved is enthusiastically consenting, aware of the risks, and as safe as they can be.
Most people don't know this about our community, though, and so being outed can be very costly. I've heard plenty of horror stories of people being arrested, fired, or losing custody of their children as a result of outing. Even if these extreme scenarios don't occur, outing can alter or damage the relationships we care about most, sometimes destroying our relationships with our best friends and our families.
Like most kinky people, I dream of a day when we can do what we do without fear of being outed, but for the time being, the misconceptions about BDSM are too widespread and too egregious for us to be in the open.
For this reason, the BDSM community takes outing seriously, and looks down upon those who do it. The person who outed me is, or maybe was, a member of my community, and that person really should have known better. I hope that person never does anything like it ever again.
If you are one of those people to whom I have been outed, someone who knows me personally but not through the scene, I urge you to talk to me rather than make assumptions. I'm happy to answer questions. I would also like to impress upon you that, whatever you may have learned here, I'm still the same person you knew before.
I'd also encourage reading this good primer on the basics of the BDSM lifestyle.
Thanks for reading, and I hope something good comes of all this.
______________________________________________________
This community, my community, and the various classes, parties, conventions, and social events we create occupy the majority of my social life. For those of us who are most invested, the community is very important to our lives--it contains close friends, romantic and sexual partners, allies, mentors, teachers, and role models. It is surprisingly large and universal, and contains an immense variety of people. It is also the most open-minded, tolerant, and supportive group of people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.
The scene has some other functions, too. One thing it does is provide a safe way to do dangerous things. The things we do are risky, but this community provides education and assistance in doing these risky things. The things we do often simulate deeply immoral actions, and this community provides a framework to play these games in a moral way. In particular, the community vigorously enforces the use of negotiation and safewords, helping to ensure our activities occur only when everyone involved is enthusiastically consenting, aware of the risks, and as safe as they can be.
Most people don't know this about our community, though, and so being outed can be very costly. I've heard plenty of horror stories of people being arrested, fired, or losing custody of their children as a result of outing. Even if these extreme scenarios don't occur, outing can alter or damage the relationships we care about most, sometimes destroying our relationships with our best friends and our families.
Like most kinky people, I dream of a day when we can do what we do without fear of being outed, but for the time being, the misconceptions about BDSM are too widespread and too egregious for us to be in the open.
For this reason, the BDSM community takes outing seriously, and looks down upon those who do it. The person who outed me is, or maybe was, a member of my community, and that person really should have known better. I hope that person never does anything like it ever again.
If you are one of those people to whom I have been outed, someone who knows me personally but not through the scene, I urge you to talk to me rather than make assumptions. I'm happy to answer questions. I would also like to impress upon you that, whatever you may have learned here, I'm still the same person you knew before.
I'd also encourage reading this good primer on the basics of the BDSM lifestyle.
Thanks for reading, and I hope something good comes of all this.
______________________________________________________
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