Re: [UUPoly-L] Report from PNWD AGM

["Laura Stewart" <mathlaura@gmail.com>]

I think I would find it personally distasteful, and I think it also
walks a fine line for me, but I can't really come up with a logical
reason for it to not be OK, so I would have to go on the side of not
having a problem with it.

While having a slave on a collar may be an expression of sexuality in
a way, it's not people having sex in public.  If I kiss my girlfriend
and my boyfriend in public and we snuggle, it's a declaration in some
ways of what it is that we do in bed.  A person on a collar is more of
a declaration of what the people are doing in bed than an explicit
showcase of sexuality.

I admit, I have a very poor understanding of 24/7 BDSM relationships.
I admit even that I find the idea personally horrifying.  (This is not
intended as a moral judgement or a statement that people should not do
whatever makes them happy.)  *I* cannot imagine consensual D/S in a
non-sexually-titilating circumstance.  I don't understand how people
take the pleasure of it outside of the bedroom.  (Of course, I also
have a poor intellectual understanding of why kinks of any kind get
people hot and bothered, but I have a perfectly acceptable emotional
understanding of it, so it doesn't confuse me in the same way.)
However, if people indeed do engage in this relationship and behavior
outside of the bedroom, I don't see that it's necessarily fair to
think of it as public sexuality any more than non-overtly-sexual
displays of one's relationship status (such as poly canoodling) are
public sexuality.

Emotionally, I don't like it.  But thinking that "I don't like this
thing, because it's different from what I like, and it makes me
uncomfortable to think that other people do it!" is an acceptable
reason to ban something is the foundation of bigotry and oppression of
all kinds.  Unless I can think of a very logical thing that seperates
a d/s relationship from being public from a homosexual or a poly
relationship being public, I'm going to go with being OK with it.

-Laura

On 3/1/07, Keith Brown <keithb@nfnc.org> wrote:
> Another Tangent... re: 24/7 D/s scene...
>
> I'm ok with folks having their own private 24/7 D/s scene going on...
> and maybe ok in some public settings, where there is a least tacit
> consent to public displays of sexuality... and completely ok with it at
> places designated for such activities (like play clubs, Beltanes, poly
> camps, Lifestyle events, various adult summer camps).
>
> But in what you've written, the 24/7 scene where one brings ones slave
> to church on a leash, and it is explicitly a sexual experience for
> them... I'm left wondering if that's not very "Welcoming" to most
> community members.  :)
>
> I mean, I'd think it pretty inappropriate to be fornicating at church,
> so why would this expression of sexuality be ok.
>
> And I'm distinguishing this from other forms of common PDA, since it's
> declared as a sexual experience.
>
> I don't know, it walks a fine line for me.  I'd feel like I was in the
> wrong place, the wrong group of folks.  Not my style... kind of like a
> hippy at a goth event.
>
> -Keith
> --
> When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you
> begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any
> resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to
> discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.
> -/Pema Chodron/
>
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