Building Community

Master and I had a short but intense conversation yesterday morning that was sparked by a piece put up by Polyamorous Percolations about a variety of issues that have been identified within the poly community. In general, the article points to a phenomenon that is becoming ubiquitous within the various segments of the alternative lifestyle universe.  It seems that there are segments of our alternative lifestyle community that find themselves feeling uncomfortable in the usual gatherings that are so often part of the "scene."  We've experienced that ourselves.

To be clear, the article focuses on the polyamory community, and is specifically concerned with the reactions of young adults as they encounter the "older" parts of the poly world.  As has happened in the BDSM community, young polyamorists in many locales have created TNG (The Next Generation) special interest groups.  It makes sense, on the surface.  If you are interested in creating intimate relationships, it may very well be that it feels most comfortable to limit the range of people a person might come in contatct with to those "categories" that we feel most aligned with.  But the TNG phenomenon is complicated and not always easy to sustain.

Actually, I have mixed feelings about all the special interest groups that pop up within our ranks.  I wonder about the value of groups for men only or women only or subs only or tops only or switches only or pagans only or spankos only or ...  Years ago when Thunder in the Mountains first began setting up multiple dungeon play spaces that were designated for one or another of various identified groups, I wondered "why?"  What does it say about us when we cannot even "play" in proximity to one another?

Master's take on it was that it seems very similar to experiences we have had with making connections in our local BDSM and local poly communities.  When we have occasion to meet up with others like ourselves, we tend to come away feeling as if we just don't fit in anywhere, and we are often uncomfortable enough in these kinds of gatherings that we embody that "show up once" phenomenon that seems to be the common mode for young people coming in contact with the older segment of the poly world.  We humans are social animals, but we are also skittish, and so the dilemma repeats itself over and over in different contexts.

So...

The questions that we might ask about creating community within the context of our various alternative lifestyles boil down to definitions and directions:

What is community?
Why is it important to us?
What is it made of?
Who is included and (maybe) welcome in our communities?
How do we reach out to those people?
How do we connect to all the various segments of the community?
Do we create larger ombudsmen groups, or are special interest groups better?
Either or both?

I'm not sure how I ever survived in the days before Google (and all those other search engine tools).  A very simple Internet search yielded up a wealth of information including this Building Community website that lays out a very succinct set of principles for creating "community."  It is all based on and aimed at those who work in the marketing industry, but looking at it, I see plenty of applicability to our poly and BDSM communities, so what follows here is an adaptation of that material to make it applicable to those of us who live alternative lifestyles...

The Seven Principles --
1) Do not try to control the message: Command and control is dead (Oh!  Really?  Would someone please inform the Dominants?  LOL!). We live in a world that is driven by and absorbed in various kinds of social media.  The old view of "the way things should be" or "the way things have always been" is simply not valid or applicable to the environment within which we currently exist.  We need to learn to listen to one another with less impulse to make everyone conform, with less need to cause others to embrace "our" truth, with way more tolerance for difference than we have in years past.  When we move to define the "way things are done" for others in our communities, and particularly when we try to do that with the younger members of our community, we are most likely to be met with anger, distrust, and either rebellion or deaf ears.

2) Honesty, ethics and transparencies are musts: We cannot have a relationship with one person or many if we don't behave well.  Foundationaly, we are about basic human relations, and creating a strong foundation for long-term, two-way mutually beneficial relationship. The great benefit that we have all garnered from our ability to connect widely via the Internet, also creates the potential for relationship destroying dishonesty and lack of compassion and courtesy.  Creating community will require us to behave in ways that allow us to trust one another.  Think about the golden rule here.

3) Participation within the community is necessary.  If we are interested in building community with one another, we have to "get out there," and spend time with one another.  It takes work and the willingness to be exposed to differences as we interact and contribute to larger community groups and social networks. Our family struggles with this; while enjoying the opportunity to be who we are without pretense, we often find that making social connections is difficult, stressful, and frustrating.  Unless we are completely unique (and I doubt that is the case, however special we seem to me), there must surely be others who struggle with all the same sorts of issues, discomforts and concerns.

In short, we cannot become respected by the community unless we are actually part of the community.

4) Communication to audiences is an out-dated 20th century concept.  Audiences receive one-way communications — movies, radio broadcasts, speeches, etc. In today's social media drenched environment, the audience talks back, forcing us to address them in a conversational, two-way manner.  Building community, especially with the youngest segments of our poly and BDSM worlds requires us to converse and not simply perform or present.

5) Build value for the community: This is a strategic principle. When we seek to connect to various sub-groups within our lifestyle community, we have to identify what it is that "we" can offer that is of value.  What is it that any person gains through association with the lot of us?  If we can't answer that quesiton, our communities will age out and eventually die.

6) Inspire your community with real, exciting information, and vibrant relatedness instead of tired old "this is how we've always done it" knee-jerk platitudes.  If we expect to nurture and build a strong, healthy, lively BESM or polyamorous community, we need to address the needs, solve the problems, chart the course, and generate the sense of unity and empowerment that will keep us strong for the coming battle. 

7) Intelligently manage your media forms to build a stronger, loyal community.  We have an important role in intelligently creating content to build a community.  To do that, we need to make it easy for community members to find us, meet us, intereact with us, and come back a second, third, and fourth time. We need to have real conversations, meet face to face with one another whenever it is possible to do that, write good solid content that engenders serious and lively conversations.

If we can learn the skills that make for good marketing in the business environment, we may be able to build strong and healthy communities.  If we can learn all the appropriate skills, we'll attract and hold onto interesting, lively, diverse people who will enrich and strengthen our communities.  In the end, we'll gain more from them than we will ever give then along the way.

swan