There Be Dragons Here -- Reprise

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."- J.R.R. Tolkein

For a great many people who are connected through the circle of bloggers that write about BDSM, kaya and Scott have been mainstays of daily reading for a very long time. If you read there, then by now, you've surely read this post that details major changes in their relationship and their lives. It is very hard to know that people I've come to care about through this medium are struggling at such a deep and personal level.

Kaya first appeared, at least as far as I know, on Live Journal on April 6, 2005. She has posted daily, or almost daily, ever since -- although she did move from Live Journal to the current site (hosted by Laughing Squid) along the way. She and I were "born" into the public journal universe within just a very few months of one another, and we've journeyed as companions for a good long while now.

I feel for the pain that is part of the current transition between these two people. At a very personal level, there are parts of the story that kaya (now, once again, Tess) can tell about her life and her family that are very resonant with my own experience. I really do hope that all of it can work out for them all in some way that is good -- and I know that it is likely that a long and difficult path is ahead of them.

In the last few days, as all of this has started to unfold for us to see, I've pondered what there was to say, not about this family, but about how our lifestyle community does this business of forming and then dissolving relationships. Somewhere, in my mind and in my heart, I have the sense that there must be some sort of "support" that could be offered in the beginning passages of a relationship forming, that might reduce the risks of it all ending badly for all concerned. For me, this ending is less about the inability of these two people to "make a go of it" than it is about some essential missing piece of lifestyle knowledge or "wisdom" that we ought to have some sense of as a community. I can feel a persistent, questioning "why?" in my mind, and it just will not quiet down. Somehow, it feels like WE missed something with kaya and Scott, and a myriad of others who have set sail into the lifestyle with high hopes -- only to run aground in uncharted waters.

The truth is that we know all kinds of things about getting together and setting out on a BDSM path with a new partner. We spend hours talking about and educating people on things like safewords, and safe calls, and scene negotiations, and limits, and all the rest of it. We are experts at so much of the nitty gritty of getting into a lifestyle relationship. The Internet makes it ridiculously easy for us to find one another and connect across whatever distances might separate us geographically. Except that we have no mechanism that I'm aware of for guiding people through the maze of personal needs, wants, committments, and issues that must be dealt with if they intend to make a life together. Whatever our drives, desires, dreams, hopes, and fantasies, we all come to the BDSM arena with connections and obligations and expectations and assumptions. All of that really ought to be talked about in the beginning days, even as we are discussing our interests in whips and ropes and needles and hot wax.

How to do that? This is what I've been wondering.

It seems to me that one process might be something similar to one used by the Quakers (with whom I spent a good number of years). It is a process used to help an individual discern what to do when faced with a dilemma or a challenge or a major life decision. Friends refer to it as the "clearness" process, and it works inside a small committee of people who come together with the purpose and intent of helping that person reach personal clarity.

Theologically, Friends assume that each of us has an Inner Teacher who can guide us and therefore that the answers sought are within the person seeking clearness. Whether or not that particular bit of "mumbo jumbo" does it for you, there is something to be said for believing that a group of caring friends can serve as channels in drawing on our own interior wisdom.

Quaker clearness committee members don't give advice or attmpt to "fix" the situation; they are there to listen without prejudice or judgment, to help clarify alternatives, to help communication if necessary, and to provide emotional support as an individual seeks to find the right course of action. The process is always initiated by the person seeking clearness.

A clearness meeting usually begins with a period of centering silence. When the focus person is ready, s/he begins with a brief summary of the question or concern. The role of committee members is very simple: members may not speak in any way except to ask the focus person a question, an honest question. That means no presenting solutions, no advice, no “Why don't you...?”, no “My uncle had the same problem and he....”, no “I know a good book/diet/therapist that would help you a lot.” Nothing is allowed except honest, probing, caring, challenging, open, unloaded questions! And it is crucial that these questions be asked not for the sake of the questioner's curiosity but for the sake of the focus person's clarity. Caring, not curiosity, is the rule for questioners. It is usual for such a gathering to last several hours.

What if? What if, in the beginning days or weeks of a new BDSM, power-based relationship, we could find ourselves in the midst of a set of knowledgeable, grounded, lifestyle-savvy friends who could help us find our way to clarity about the nature of the dynamic we were trying to create? What if we could spend time with people who would ask us about the existing marriage that doesn't accommodate our desires, the children still growing up under our roofs, the nature of our connections to our families of origin, our financial obligations and the implications of all of that, our ability to maintain employment opportunities, our health issues and concerns, the complications of combining households and property and bank accounts, our plans for eventualities like death and aging and chronic illness, things like wills and guardianships and medical powers of attorney, etc.?

Why is it that we spend hours figuring out how to signal a partner that we are in distress while gagged and bound, but never seek guidance or clarity about what to do when a "family" level challenge intrudes upon our lusty fantasies?

I believe that the impediment to that sort of community based mentoring of one another is our almost universal "hiddenness." With the exception of the "A" list lifestylers who make their livelihoods by being kinky, most of the rest of us have to report to regular jobs and earn a regular paycheck. We have kids and families and connections throughout our communities. The vast majority of us need to remain discreet about our lifestyle choices. I hope and believe that, if you met me, out in my day-to-day life, you would never guess about the nature of my lifestyle. I sometimes wonder about people I meet -- when I suspect that they might be "one of ours," but I am clear that I can't pick out the kinky folk from the vanilla ones when I walk down the street. How can we connect and ask for what we might need in the earliest days of a new relationship coming into being, when we can't see one another?

We are locked away from one another, and that isolation sets us up for potential disaster. Each and all of us are on our own, mostly. There's no place for most of us to go for the kind of one-to-one conversations that any "regular" set of folks can call up out of the group of friends and associates that people their everyday world.

It is a sure bet that the vanilla world doesn't care about any of us or our relationships. For them, we are simply a bunch of sick fucks who haven't got any right to exist. There's a conviction that when things go south for us, we somehow had it coming.

I've watched too many friends crash and burn -- struggling to make it work, all alone in the face of huge challenges, unable to ask for or find the kind of help that might give them a shot at surviving the inevitable hurdles that come to us all. It just isn't good enough to circle the wagons after it all goes down the tubes, and express our sympathy and support. I believe that we need to figure out how to reach out with help and guidance and support before things come to the point of being irretrievable. I believe that we must figure out how to ask for that help and guidance from those who would know and understand what it is to live as we all choose to live.

For Tess, for Scott, for all those others whose friendship I've valued and who have walked the path they are walking now, I am tired of offering impotent sympathy. I want somehow for the future to be different and better and more hopeful for our kinds of families.

swan