Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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ORIGINAL: starshineowned
Sorry but Jeffrey Dalmer was very sick and twisted, and fed off of highly intoxicating sexual frenzys to commit his acts. Had his partners agreed to such heinous tortures of death..well then so be it but just the allowance of such trains of thought to be included instead of shunned is exactly why the constant need for fear from the main stream society and monitoring from the FBI must persist over the BDSM communitys.
I don't think he was talking about Jeffrey Dalmer, but rather Armin Meiwes. And if you look at the cases, there is a rather distinct difference in what was going on inside the head of Dalmer and what was going on inside the head of Meiwes.
Just a thought ... could it be that, conversely, shunning and monitoring from mainstream society is what causes the BDSM community to have some measure of "in-the-same-boat" thinking? I mean, there are several distinct subcultures here, and not all of them are getting along very well with each other. If the bulk of the BDSM community was accepted into mainstream society, I expect it would disperse into a number of smaller subcultures.
Also, the community isn't exactly being monitored that much. Have a look at the case of Hans Reiser. While he's involved in a custody battle with his estranged wife, Dr. Nina Reiser, disappears. Some convenient circumstantial evidence is found, purchased via a credit card that Nina had access to, and the kids get kidnapped back to Russia by Nina's mum. Obviously, Hans gets locked up. Now, what doesn't get considered in this fine mess, is the fact that she cheated on Hans with a guy who reportedly used drugs in the context of D/s-related brainwashing, that this guy tried to ruin Hans in the past, and that he was apparently known in the local BDSM community.
Imagine their surprise when, a few days before the trial, this ex-lover (and ex-Master) of Nina confesses to 8-9 murders. Yes, I mean 8-9, as in "oh, I don't know, eight, nine maybe, I wasn't counting" ...
I'm no fan of Hans myself, having had professional disputes with him and his associates in the past where I felt him to be behaving irrationally and going for an inferior approach. But, to me, I'd say there's more than reasonable doubt that he did it, given the possibility that (a) Nina could have made off to Russia with the kids to avoid years of court battles about the custody of the kids, and (b) her ex admits to being a freakin' serial killer and having means, motive and opportunity.
I wouldn't say the BDSM community is being singled out in any way...
Anyway, I don't get the vibe that the BDSM community in general is particularly accepting of people whose practices go beyond what the bulk of the community would consider acceptable.
I don't think the BDSM community, as a whole, is going to take a stance for the right of individuals to do with their lives as they see fit.
It's just like freedom of speech; to most people, it's just an argument to defend what one wants to say, and doesn't apply if one doesn't like what someone else is saying.
Similarly, many people in the community frequently use the argument that people should be allowed to live as they please, but once someone wants to live (or die) in a way that this person disapproves of, that argument is quite invariably found lying in a ditch somewhere along the road and pronounced "dead on utterance".
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We can't even let the likes of Dr. Kilvorkian be accepted, and this man had all the documentation, and consent from the partys involved well beyond a begging of a collar.
Sorry, but I disagree. The man provided terminally ill patients with a means by which they themselves could reliably commit suicide, with the notable exception of one case where the person involved could not reasonably have been expected to be physically capable of doing it himself, due to the nature of his illness. I'm not generally one to go defending widespread availability of voluntary euthanasia, but Kevorkian operated in what I'd consider a much more reasonable manner than what is generally the case for the doctors who are pro-euthanasia that I've spoken to (most of which will off-record admit to having compromised the standards of informed consent).
Taking a political stance on an unrelated matter, or even acting on that stance, doesn't affect a person's right to choosing their own way of life, and finding the life partner that will offer them mutual happiness.
Hiding in the darkness and lurking in the shadows isn't what got LGBT people the rights and recognitions they reserve, nor what brought about Women's Suffrage. Neither will it bring about the rights and recognitions the BDSM community deserves, or help to raise the debate about the extent to which free will should be respected.
Let's have it all out in the open, rather than providing background noise for the psychos to hide in. You can't block them out, or society itself would have done that already. It is not helping anyone that we don't have the same (legally secured) right to happiness as the rest of the people in this world.
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There are just some things in life that no matter how or what angle you attempt to view them from..as a human race will not be accepted as "safe or sane". This however, doesn't mean that they are automatic qualifers of BDSM.
I would agree that the human race cannot be accepted as "safe", nor "sane", but I doubt that is what you really meant to say. 
There are certainly things that will not improve with regards to humans in the sense that we currently know them. Fortunately, humans in that sense are currently racing toward the cliff of self-eradication, while at the same time engineering their own obsolescence. I just hope they don't take the planet with them when they go. I'd really like for some to stay behind and transcend this dead-end stage of our evolution.
But that has little bearing on the topic at hand, given the time-scale, so I'll take off my "transhumanist cynic having a bad day" hat now. 
There are many things people have argued that humanity would not accept. Racial equality, freedom of religion, democracy, LGBT rights and Women's Suffrage are certainly some of the more salient examples.
To grossly paraphrase M. L. King:
"I have a dream that we will one day live in a world where we will not be judged by how we express our relationships, but by the depth of our expression."
The man has several that apply unmodified, however, and I find it striking that some of his words, meant to describe the problems between "blacks" and "whites" in the day, describe the same problems between "BDSM" and "vanilla" today, although the means by which people express their disapproval is certainly milder by an order of magnitude.
One unmodified quote that I'd like to submit, in the context of pursuing one's convictions, rather than compromising them to "fit in" or comply with legislation is thus:
"One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
Obviously, the reason I'm quoting and paraphrasing is that I couldn't have said it better. Few could, the things he said. Which is a pity, because we could use a spokesperson to advocate individual rights and the freedom to engage in relationships of any form that involves the informed consent of all parties, whether poly, LGBT, D/s, M/s, S/M, fetish, or any of the unpopular ones as well. The limit to human relationships should, IMO, be informed consent and the competence to give it.
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Additionally to that..I see a huge difference in "sane" versus "sanity".
Of course. I certainly agree (whee, we agree on something), and I don't have a problem with people dropping "sane", as long as "sanity" describes their mental health at the time when they make that decision.
Basically, like many others I'd spoken to before coming here, I'd always regarded the two S'es of safe/sane/consensual to be optional, that the term was mostly coined to serve as an initial guide to beginners. "Training wheels" if you will. For those that can do without the training wheels at some point, I see no reason for them to stay on. People need to leave the nest at some point, and take responsibility for themselves and their actions ... and, in so doing, take the freedom that comes with that responsibility.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Question about a no limit slave - 
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