"So humanly, humanly..."

Renegade Evolution, weighing in on the current blogthrash:

As the latest bit of the BDSM wars seem to wind down to the inevitable stand off, as they always do, and I continue to try to pick through the rubble seeing if anything even remotely useful or educational or insightful has come about from this latest skirmish there is one thing I’ve really noted this time.

Sure, I’ve seen it before, I am sure I will see it again, but it is really, really standing out this time. That thing? The outcry- sometimes made with reason, sometimes with an attempt to appeal to empathy, sometimes made with resounding rage- on the part of BDSM participants to be seen as…

Human.

Not deluded, not programmed, not victims, or trapped, or insane or stupid, not pathetic, not wicked, not weak, but human.

Like everyone else.

And you know what? Humans? All of us? We’re flawed creatures. Every last one of us. Kinky people are no more or no less flawed than any other human being walking the face of the earth. They are no less imperfect. What they do in the bedroom does not make them any more (or any less) broken or messed up or duped than any other person out there. They are humans, like everyone else, flaws and all, and what they want, what they demand, and what they deserve is to be treated as such.

How hard is that to grasp? That kinky people merely want the same consideration and treatment that is accorded to other people? Flaws and all? Their sex lives make them no more or less so. But it is due to their sex lives they are so often treated subhuman, lesser than, as if they are alien or other…and of course, far more flawed.

....We all have our issues and less than charming quirks and battle scars and bullshit. Each and every one of us. We are all humans- but damn, we are all very, very different. And I do not understand why that is such a hard thing to recognize, to realize, to accept as perhaps the one actual universal truth out there- and thus, we are all going to like or be into different things. And whatever those things might be? Well, there is no guarantee, no promise, that the reasons we are into whatever has anything to do with being flawed, or whatever flaws we have. There is no way to say, without doubt or question, that the reason a person is (or is not) kinky is because…woo, they are messed up!

And even if it is- that is no reason to treat them in some way less human than thou. There is no promise that those kinky people are any less intelligent, self-aware, self-realized, thoughtful, stable, or anything else than thou. And the vibe that gets sent out that somehow, because they are kinky, they are? That crap needs to stop, it is infuriating, it is dehumanizing, and further more, it is entirely possible it is bullshit. Pure and simple. There is no promise of any of those things, and further more, no reason.

There is also no reason that I can see for such a need for all of us to be the same. That, a world where we are all the same, uniform in thought and desire and whatnot? Fuck, if that does not sound like a horrible, dreary, boring place to me. It sounds like a nightmare worse than any one I’ve ever actually had. Short version- I find it incredibly, bone chillingly terrifying. That idea is so alien, so horrible to me that I get queasy just thinking about it- and all that goes with it. It creeps me out, and I am pretty dang creepy. That’s saying something. I would rather have us all being here, our flawed, diverse selves, than be in a world where everyone and everything are the same.

But I would like us all be able to see each other as humans, worthy of basic human respect, and all marked by flaws and differences and strengths and what have you, and see a bit…okay…a lot more tolerance of those sorts of things. I’d never force someone to be kinky against their will, suggest they need some sort of reeducation or whatever to make them how I am, make them like the things I like…I don’t understand why other people think doing the reverse is such a grand idea. Or, that it is even something that is wanted or needed. I by nature am real uncomfortable of doing things for other peoples own good, the whole I am my brothers (or sisters) keeper thing… eww, just, eww. And you know, it is not as if myself, or other kinky people, have not examined, do not examine, are incapable of examining because we’re blinded by our selfish, selfish orgasms or whatever…we have in fact done those things. And we’ve come to our own conclusions. Those conclusions make us no less human.

Thanks, Ren.