Community

We often wish for more opportunities to socialize with others with whom we could be open about who we are (our life and lifestyle choices). We bemoan the lack of "community" here in our area, and by that we mean very specifically a BDSM-friendly community -- a kink community. It isn't that there aren't kinky people in the area. There are. There are groups within an hour or two of us in several directions. There are even a few people right here in the immediate area that we might hook onto if we were inclined to do that.

So, our isolation is not a function of there being NO local kinky people. It is related to decisions and choices that we make, and that is in spite of a deep longing to be connected to others who would share some of our interests and understandings -- who are "like" us. So, knowing that there are linkages that we could make, we remain unconnected and isolated.

There are, of course, reasons; examined, and otherwise.

Part of the problem is defining exactly what it is that we mean when we talk about community. In the sociological sense, a community is really just a group of people linked together and sharing some common interest or goal, and small or local enough to provide a sense of intimacy, safety, or belonging. Really, communities should provide both security and freedom, and so encourage individuals to want to invest in them and share of themselves.

Theoretically, a community can form up around almost anything that a set of folks share in common. In my childhood, it was common for neighborhoods to become communities as people came to know one another and children roamed from house to house and schools and churches formed the gathering centers for everyone in the area. That sort of physical definition isn't as typical anymore and so communities don't seem to form up around geographical locales as readily as they did when I was young. I know some people who use their bowling leagues or bridge clubs or Red Hat Ladies Groups as the focal points to make up their community. Those kinds of "interest" related groups can work if that is your thing I guess. Probably, that would be the nature of the community that we would be looking for when we go looking for "kinky" people to create community with for ourselves.

Except that there are a few challenges to the whole business of creating a community that is wrapped around an interest like "kink."

The first one that we run into all the time is that "kink" isn't easily definable and describable. Our kink is not the same as your kink, and just because you are kinky and we are kinky doesn't mean that you and we will necessarily like the same things or each other. Not at all. Once we get past the "we are all into something kinky" part of things, the odds that we are anywhere even remotely on the same page become almost astronomical. Then the odds that we will have anything much in common, and/or enough to spend more than about 15-20 minutes in anything even remotely approaching a conversation becomes just about laughable.

Then there's that "safety" thing. We need to feel safe and secure. Chances are, if we decide that there is something that warrants us all spending a bit of time together, we are all going to want to talk. That implies contact. Real, live, honest to goodness, human contact. Contact means that there are levels of risk. We will need to talk and/or meet eventually. For us, and for you, there are risks associated with that. We tend to take the chance on a regular basis, but we know each and everytime we do it, we are putting ourselves on the line. We know that the people we meet and talk to are doing the same. It is the cost of having to live undercover -- coming out into the open, even a little bit, becomes scary and threatening. Doesn't matter whether we meet in a restaurant, or make a phone call, or invite you to our home for a meal -- we all still lay it on the line each time we reach out and say, "hello -- nice to meet you."

The other problem with getting "into" the community is dealing with the created structure of it all. We come together artificially, in secret, often with assumed identities, for stolen bits of time, in borrowed venues. We cannot risk being fully who we are or being seen or recognized. We lose our identies from "outside" and come, stripped of our reality, into a world we create from whole cloth. That fact requires us to make up whole new structures and new hierarchies. And we do: new leadership and new rankings and new status levels. Just as it was in Junior High School, there is jostling for power and prestige, and inevitably, there is an "in-group" and an "out-group" image and connection become everything. Being part of the right circle becomes part of the game.

One local group that we are sort of loosely attached to is pretty well "run" by one couple. They recently announce on the group list that they would be attending a showing of a particular movie at a specific theater. Soon, the list was flooded with answering "me/us too's." Since we knew nothing at all about the particular movie, we went to check and saw little or no connection to the lifestyle, or any real reason for everyone to be flocking to see it all together. Clearly, it was a case of wanting to be seen in the company of the "cool kids." Ewwwww.

We want company. We want friends. We want to be able to socialize and spend time with others that "get" who and what we are about. That would be simply a given if our lifestyle were part of the mainstream. Clearly it isn't. We aren't interested in running naked theough the local pizza restaurant, or creating a scene at the local mall. Isolation feels like a factor in forcing us into weirdly contorted relating styles with our peers and would-be friends. And around and around it goes.

How does a person create simple friendships with others IF one is kinky? That's the dilemma. Our lives are not one dimmensional. On the other hand, they are kinky; they are different; they are not "vanilla." We know, that we cannot bring our work asociates, our unsuspecting social acquaintances home. They would not understand. We know that we cannot bring all of us to company dinners and school functions and the like. It is too complicated to explain. We know that our "vanilla" life and our "kinky" life must be kept radically separated in very definitive ways or there will be real and cataclysmic consequences.

It is interesting. Effective banishment. Shunned, and we cooperate and collaborate. We can choose a community that is difficult to connect with, prickly and strange and cliquish. Or we can remain in lifelong isolation. What a tangle.

swan