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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 6:28:30 PM

ChatteParfaitt

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quote:

I admit to being highly biased against cyber only relationships. I admit my mind cannot wrap itself around someone who claims to love a person and be there Master/slave or Dom/sub or whatever, and yet has no intention of ever meeting that person. There is a personal disconnct there I don't get, and that I believe results in much loss of values. You don't really *have* to be responsible for your sub if it's all just online, right? When you don't have to worry about physical responsibility, I think you can easily forget emotional responsibility. And that concerns me greatly.

That's what I said about online ONLY relationships. Most people meet online first these days, kinky or not.

Since then many women have told me how incestuous their local scene is. I think cm is a great place for real life people to find romance, dorky as that might sound, and the local communities dont offer that so much. ~RedMagic

I agree totally. I don't suggest people go to their munch to find romance, I suggest they go to find friends in the life.

However, I am firmly in the camp of "until we meet we are just friends, we are not sex partners, we are not dom/sub. I will not meet someone unless they understand I do not jump into sex or a dom/sub relationship with someone I hardly know."

How much time does that take? That depends on how close they are, how often they can travel to meet, and how much time they have to devote to the getting to know stage. If someone looks like a "keeper" the people I know make it a priority.

< Message edited by ChatteParfaitt -- 5/2/2011 6:48:34 PM >

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 6:54:00 PM

Hippiekinkster

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

I'm also certain this has happened before, when the Old Guard, well became the Old Guard.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Interesting question, let's attempt to define Old Guard.

http://www.evilmonk.org/A/grubin.cfm

I think the old and the new both have a great deal of value. One of the challenges encountered by young adults entering BDSM these days is the glut of (often conflicting) information. I imagine it takes a while to find your feet in such a sea of information.

I took a LOOOONG walk on the wild side starting way back around 74 or so, when I did some acid and had a few beers and went streaking in Richmond VA one summer night. I was observed by a guy who was a professor of Theater at VCU. After I got dressed and came down on the front porch he came across the street and introduced himself. I was pretty loaded and up for anything. It was a wild night, and that was my intro into the "leather" scene, so to speak. I moved to ATL in 75 and led a double life. There were a couple leather bars and a bathhouse on 4th street (still there, actually), and I hung with a small circle of "leathermen" (we didn't think of ourselves like that back then). The bathhouse was a fabulous space. Eucalyptus steam room, indoor/outdoor pool with the city skyline as a backdrop, big whirlpool, an intense orgy room (this was pre-AIDS), lots of private rooms, the air was mostly amyl nitrite, and so on... Then there was the back room at Marys on Ponce de Leon. My friend David played piano at a bar in one of the downtown hotels, listened to opera, drank girly drinks, and had some really intense leather parties in his flat opposite Piedmont Park.

For me, back then it was rebellious, dark, dangerous...
Today, the whole scene seems like one big fashion statement. I guess I'm too fucking old and jaded; I hardly think kink anymore. I don't even have any poppers or crisco.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 7:26:29 PM

ChatteParfaitt

Posts: 6562
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster

I took a LOOOONG walk on the wild side starting way back around 74 or so, when I did some acid and had a few beers and went streaking in Richmond VA one summer night. I was observed by a guy who was a professor of Theater at VCU. After I got dressed and came down on the front porch he came across the street and introduced himself. I was pretty loaded and up for anything. It was a wild night, and that was my intro into the "leather" scene, so to speak. I moved to ATL in 75 and led a double life. There were a couple leather bars and a bathhouse on 4th street (still there, actually), and I hung with a small circle of "leathermen" (we didn't think of ourselves like that back then). The bathhouse was a fabulous space. Eucalyptus steam room, indoor/outdoor pool with the city skyline as a backdrop, big whirlpool, an intense orgy room (this was pre-AIDS), lots of private rooms, the air was mostly amyl nitrite, and so on... Then there was the back room at Marys on Ponce de Leon. My friend David played piano at a bar in one of the downtown hotels, listened to opera, drank girly drinks, and had some really intense leather parties in his flat opposite Piedmont Park.

For me, back then it was rebellious, dark, dangerous...
Today, the whole scene seems like one big fashion statement. I guess I'm too fucking old and jaded; I hardly think kink anymore. I don't even have any poppers or crisco.

*chuckles* I got into about 75 or 76, I was in NO at the time, the French Quarter. Anyone who's been there knows it's a small place. The man I was with at the time was bi, so we were into the gay scene, which in NO at the time meant the orgy scene, the swingers scene and the S&M scene. Small place, small scene. There used to be a bar in the FQ called the Dungeon.

I'm not sure if some of the younger people understand what things were like in those days, it was not until the early 70s that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. You could still get arrested for being gay until 1987 (I think, around then). So it wasn't just the S&M people in the closet.

And yes it was wild, lots of drugs, lots of sexual freedom. An interesting intro to kink, I admit I have never since experienced anything like that total love and acceptance for anyone and everyone. Great times. But as you say, pre-AIDs, we were all so young and innocent then.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 8:15:39 PM

peppermint

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quote:

Is easier access a good thing?

Yes it is!!!!!! A thousand times YES!!!!!

You were sooooo lucky to have friends into all this. I was not. If it were not for the internet I'd still be wondering why I wanted different things than the women I knew wanted. I'd still be......empty.

The internet and a trivia game led me to BDSM. I have never looked back since I found what I'd unknowingly wanted my whole life.

Oh yes, some will say BDSM is diluted since the internet. They have this idea that they were part of something special. They still want to feel the exclusiveness of what they found. In fact, they were just lucky to know someone who was in the scene.

The internet led me to an event which was only 100 miles away from where I lived. The internet led Gary to an event that was 600 miles from where he lived. The internet let me meet Gary, and us to realize that we were meant to be together.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 8:25:02 PM

NocturnalStalker

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Oh, so a lot of you used to experiment with drugs.

This explains a lot.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 9:42:04 PM

0ldhen

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Sorry folks.....my apologies Marvelous and patient Mods and VA's......I have to do this.

Fetlife.....THHHHPPPPPTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!

Don't like it, never did, never will.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/2/2011 9:43:09 PM

0ldhen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: NocturnalStalker

Oh, so a lot of you used to experiment with drugs.

This explains a lot.

Dude, you missed the 60's. I'm just saying man.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/3/2011 12:00:19 AM

MarcEsadrian

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quote:

ORIGINAL: sheisreeds
Is easier access a good thing?

That would depend on what you're getting access to, I'd say. Is it a quality environment? Does it nurture and expand the mind and spirit? If so, yes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: sheisreeds
Is bigger better?

Not even half the time. Bigger is the contemporary western way. Big malls, big shopping plazas, big box stores, big houses, tvs, credit lines, cars and so on. Only in recent years are some caring to consider the wisdom of a certain economy to things—the intimacy of less. Big tends to mean more inclusive, and with that comes inevitable dilution and the cross pollinating of mainstream attitudes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: sheisreeds
What is there to make of people who actually have no interest in kink but think it's cool to look kinky?

I don't think anything about it at this point. The mainstream has suitably consumed the naughty image of fetish so much as to make it cliché. I can still appreciate people dressed provocatively (when it's done right), but the "kinky image" itself means nothing to me. I personally blame Kumimonster and Masuimi Max, among others. As for people who'd rather look than be the part, that's business as usual for most earthlings and the "industry" of fetish at large. Then again, is the look appropriate to what "it" is anyway? Not for me, given that M/s is more my speed, not recreating characters from Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

< / cynicism >

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/3/2011 4:26:26 PM

sheisreeds

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@All: I do have a lot of negative energy right now, I've been riding on burn out. I appreciate hearing other and often more positive opinions. The fetlife issue has been really prevalent in my area. It has it's pros and cons. The TNG happy hour went from like 25 people to over 100 in like 2 years. A majority of the new folks found us through fetlife.

I'm trying to address my burn out and start working towards some solutions. The primary problem has been one of education, and the local groups are starting to address that, though honestly they are fairly overwhelmed. My partner and I had a brief running skillshare out of our home though it was just too much to manage, and honestly there wasn't enough space!

@juliaoceania if you skipped a lot of words, and imagined some things maybe my post would read that way. Thanks for turning a really nice discussion into a personal attack.

Hippiekinkster:

quote:

"Today, the whole scene seems like one big fashion statement. I guess I'm too fucking old and jaded; I hardly think kink anymore. I don't even have any poppers or crisco."

LOL, never been into the crisco, but the fashion statement bit I really relate too. After the spring invasion those folks tend to fade away thankfully. However, I do love fashion in general ;)

peppermint

quote:

"You were sooooo lucky to have friends into all this. I was not. If it were not for the internet I'd still be wondering why I wanted different things than the women I knew wanted. I'd still be......empty. "

I didn't really at first! While my 2 friends took me to the club, we had a fairly big falling out a year later (and they had a big divorce). After they were gone I was left with no one. I thought I was some crazy freak half the time. Ended up in a vanilla marriage with nobody to tell me I should know better. After the separation I had kinky friends, and they helped me stay on course and find a kinky partner. Which I have in spades.

I think it's a a lot of what makes me so bitter. While I'm young, and no one was getting locked up for being gay. I had threats on my life when I was in high school and was almost expelled for starting a gay straight alliance. I'm in some bitter years where I am too young to think the generation below me is cute. I'm also too young to really fit in with groups w/ older folk.

MarcEsadrian

quote:

That would depend on what you're getting access to, I'd say. Is it a quality environment? Does it nurture and expand the mind and spirit? If so, yes.

That is so the question, next chance I get I'm going to ask the steering committee just that. That motivates me to get some workshops started up again.

@ChatteParfaitt

quote:

I don't think it's expansion itself that has caused some loss of safety, but how we have expanded, which is via the internet.

Yes, in a lot of ways, however the internet is also flowing into the real world. Especially w/ fetlife. It's like some crazy sci-fi where the monster comes out of the TV.

quote:

The young adults just coming into BDSM these days in *real time* settings have universally great values and are keen to make it clear early on that they monitor the group for inappropriate behavior.

I wish this was true for everybody. Sadly, not always.

quote:

In my opinion as a virtual and non virtual community we have become less insular, more open and accepting, at the same time we have lost some of our early identity (that being the one true Old Guard way.) Although I think it's marvelous the one true way has expanded to encompass many one true ways, it must make it very difficult for the newbie person trying to acquire information with such a surplus of choices.

I agree, especially when the group is largely comprised of newbies. Sadly in my home group many of us are viewed as "experts" and looked up to, and we've only been doing this for a few years. Everybody else it's a few months.

However, I agree in terms of there being multiple ways now, and it being less insular. A leather community would have given me the boot (not in the good way) for my insubordinate behavior. Even some of the longer standing communities freak out when they see my partner and I play. Though there is a heart to this that sometimes gets lost inbetween all the choices, all the people, and all the places. It's nothing we can point to anymore and say "this is BDSM, you made it!" it's an intangible connection to the way we do things, what it means to us and to our relationships. It's a piece that is so hard to give to someone coming in the door, and one that is so important.

@BurntKitty

quote:

I think you may be referring to the big Fetish Factory parties. I steer clear of them since they're at clubs with bars & alcohol is served. My personal rule is not to play after having a drink or two. Same goes for a play partner.

Oh I wish, I wish. I'm talking private parties within the BDSM community, with vetting, membership cards, etc etc. Most allow alcohol BYOB though most people do not get drunk. It amazes me when people pay $30, get vetted, and go through all the hoops just to stand around, but they do!

Not at all though, a couple weeks ago in one of the smaller dungeon rooms there were over 8 scenes harmoniously going on at the same time. It was lovely.

Redmagic

quote:

Since then many women have told me how incestuous their local scene is. I think cm is a great place for real life people to find romance, dorky as that might sound, and the local communities dont offer that so much.

Totally, and not to mention the local scene is drama central! Seriously, you could write a soap opera just based on the many sordid relationship statuses on fetlife. That being said there are solid couples, actually thinking of starting a couples night a the house.

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RE: Fetlife, and the expanding BDSM scene. - 5/4/2011 6:24:24 PM

Hippiekinkster

Posts: 5512
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From: Liechtenstein
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quote:

ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster

I took a LOOOONG walk on the wild side starting way back around 74 or so, when I did some acid and had a few beers and went streaking in Richmond VA one summer night. I was observed by a guy who was a professor of Theater at VCU. After I got dressed and came down on the front porch he came across the street and introduced himself. I was pretty loaded and up for anything. It was a wild night, and that was my intro into the "leather" scene, so to speak. I moved to ATL in 75 and led a double life. There were a couple leather bars and a bathhouse on 4th street (still there, actually), and I hung with a small circle of "leathermen" (we didn't think of ourselves like that back then). The bathhouse was a fabulous space. Eucalyptus steam room, indoor/outdoor pool with the city skyline as a backdrop, big whirlpool, an intense orgy room (this was pre-AIDS), lots of private rooms, the air was mostly amyl nitrite, and so on... Then there was the back room at Marys on Ponce de Leon. My friend David played piano at a bar in one of the downtown hotels, listened to opera, drank girly drinks, and had some really intense leather parties in his flat opposite Piedmont Park.

For me, back then it was rebellious, dark, dangerous...
Today, the whole scene seems like one big fashion statement. I guess I'm too fucking old and jaded; I hardly think kink anymore. I don't even have any poppers or crisco.

*chuckles* I got into about 75 or 76, I was in NO at the time, the French Quarter. Anyone who's been there knows it's a small place. The man I was with at the time was bi, so we were into the gay scene, which in NO at the time meant the orgy scene, the swingers scene and the S&M scene. Small place, small scene. There used to be a bar in the FQ called the Dungeon.

I'm not sure if some of the younger people understand what things were like in those days, it was not until the early 70s that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. You could still get arrested for being gay until 1987 (I think, around then). So it wasn't just the S&M people in the closet.

And yes it was wild, lots of drugs, lots of sexual freedom. An interesting intro to kink, I admit I have never since experienced anything like that total love and acceptance for anyone and everyone. Great times. But as you say, pre-AIDs, we were all so young and innocent then.

Yeah, it's all different now. Everything was illegal back then. I found out about the bathhouse scene by word of mouth. Very discreet, as the pigs liked to harass/assault/bust people who weren't missionary position hets. I was basically bi, but that was something one didn't cop to, if one wanted to explore the more "intense" leather scene. There were some heavy players, and if one was a little to casual about discretion, or the "unwritten rules" of the group, one got blackballed. And that was that. There weren't any munches or clubs for newbs, or internet. I took what I learned from the Leatherdudes and used it in my het relationships (or not, depending on what I wanted out of the relationship).

Us older folk should get a thread going to reminisce about stuff. I avoid the forums here, and the vast majority of the groups on FL, mostly because I just don't "get" "online domination" or some fembottom having multiple tops, or 25 year old "masters" (note the LACK of capitalization of that word). And I'm real sorry, and I don't mean to offend, but I regard "Gor" as the Scientology of BDSM (and even the term "BDSM" os a relatively recent invention, albeit a useful one).

I helped manage the night shift for a combo adult theater/bookstore/massage parlor back around 77 or so on Houston St. in downtown ATL. There was hardly any S&M material available there; it was pretty much "mainstream" porn. A friend had a copy of "The Leather Handbook" which was about the only "informational" literature out there (I had encountered some seriously underground gay porn waaay back when I was about 16 or so; I'll leave it at that). Even that, while quite useful, was still only one guy's opinion. There weren't any "slave contracts" or similar "affectations" back in the Leather Scene I hung around on the periphery of. The whole idea would have been laughed off. That's where I get most of my ideas from. I was heavily influenced by the Leathermen I knew, just like I'm influenced by the drumming of Kieth Moon, and John Bonham, and Joe Morello, and Vinnie Colaiuta, and Ringo, among others (and I'm fixin' to go down to the local bar's Open Mic night and play, so I'll be ending this post).

I think it would be cool to have a nostalgia thread. Peace, Sistah!

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