41%

I'd like you to make a list before you read this post.  Take a few minutes, and list 100 people that you know.  They don't have to be good friends, but see if you can come up with 100 names of adults that you know.  Try neighbors and relatives; co-workers and old college chums; acquaintances from church and the PTA; clerks and hair dressers and mail carriers and the pizza delivery guy...  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Ready?  OK.  Here's the story for today:  We were out walking last evening, and He told me that He'd seen a video piece on SPIKE TV reporting that about 41% of adults in the U.S. admit to having some interest or involvement in spanking (the number is much lower around the world).  Wow!  That's a pretty impressive segment of the population.  Take a look at your list and draw a circle around the names of the 41 people there that you think are "into" spanking.  Have fun!

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SPIKE.com

If that 41% number is accurate, then those of us who feel like our sexual/erotic orientation toward SM might find that we are actually not as much in the minority as we have thought.  There might just be a whole lot of us out there walking around looking just like the regular people that most of us think WE are.  That might mean that, over time, our kind of sexual and erotic choices might be treated more even-handedly in the marketplace and the media.  Perhaps, someday, we might even see the laws change to de-stigmatize our lifestyle choices.

As I contemplated that, it occured to me that perhaps there's an explanation wrapped up in that 41% number for some of the interpersonal dynamics that I notice more and more frequently, both here on this blog, and at other social networking fora where one encounters the larger kink "community."  I think that it is likely that if there really are significantly larger numbers of adults finding their way into adult spanking at whatever level, then some significant portion of those people are probably coming into the "lifestyle" with very little information, and almost no relevant real time exposure to members of the community.  That number means there are probably lots and lots of people busily spanking away with wooden spoons and paint stirrers -- completely isolated from anyone else who might share their orientation. That's unfortunate.

Out here, in the lifestyle community, we learn from each other, and we share a culture that is uniquely ours.  To learn about a culture takes time and it also takes deep immersion with the members of that culure.  I was lucky.  I opened up to my sadomasochistic nature at a point in time where there were ways to connect with others online, but before it was really reasonable or effective to try and learn and grow in the lifestyle by remaining entirely inside the privacy of my own home -- or within the confines of my own ordinary, and familiar life.  I had to reach out into the community around me, and find other people who were doing this in real time -- and then I had to put myself into a position to be able to learn from their experience and expertise.  Face to face with others who shared my kink, I learned the techniques and the details and the precautions of the lifestyle.  I also learned about the norms of protocol and etiquette that community members shared. 

There are all sorts of rules and expectations within our lifestyle.  We come out of a rich tradition, and at our best, we behave within very clearly defined expectations for good manners, gallantry, and civility.  Many of those expectations have to do with respecting other's space and property and privacy.  It is also the norm, within our community, that we respect and honor other people's personal choices -- even when we perhaps do not understand or approve. 

When I was new and wide-eyed and untutored, I was lucky to encounter those more experienced community members who taught me to hold my tongue when I encountered things that I didn't understand, or didn't like, or didn't want to participate in, or felt scared by, or didn't approve of.  I was taught that, if I was concerned by something I saw or experienced, that I was free to walk away, but I was not to ever, ever, ever impose my judgement on anyone else.  I learned that there were sometimes going to be situations that might cause me to be uncomfortable enough that the best thing I could do would be to simply take myself out of the situation.  I've done that.  More than once -- physically in realtime dungeons, and figuratively in the reading I've done around the cyber neighborhood we share.  I've walked away from things that made me uncomfortable and frightened me and sometimes even disgusted me.  I've honored those adults who chose to participate in things I didn't understand by assuming that it was their option and their choice to act as they might choose.  In my experience, and within the context of what I've been taught, that is behavior that is simply polite. 

I think that there are lots of people who are engaging in this thing that we do who have never had anyone to tell them what it is that we really belive in as a community.  No one has ever told them how absolutely essential it is to respect other people and their choices and proclivities.  They've never been taught that, as social outsiders, it is important to make a safe space inside our community for those with whom we share this lifestyle choice.  It is that lack of community-based groundedness that allows some people to engage in vicious personal attacks -- that sort of mean-spirited "gotcha" mentality that is so pervasive at sites like Fetlife.  There is no gallantry, no gentleness, no withholding of personal judgement, no reticence.  These new ones, untrained and untutored, display that lack of understanding of appropriate boundaries that causes them to know that when they are uncomfortable that is their reaction and their response and their responsibility.  The "old" ones would have told them to turn around and walk away.

swan