I used to be highly active in the local BDSM scene, but in recent months I have realized that it honestly isn’t worth my time or energy. Why do I feel this way? Several reasons, really, but from my experiences that I will tell you about I have realized that I do not fit in with a community that is supposed to be open minded and accepting. After all, the things that we do and enjoy are not generally accepted by society and we tend to be shunned for what we enjoy and referred to as “freaks”. I find there to be more cliques and lack of acceptance for those who are different within the community of BDSM than outside of it.
I began my journey in the community, actively, at a coffee gathering a little over a year ago. I was known on the internet and had been seen around online, but I had never really met any of the people involved locally. They welcomed me with open arms and I became rather popular with the group. People would text, call, email, and talk to me whenever they got the chance. I enjoyed it and found myself readily accepted by people who were just like me. I identified solely as submissive and would play as a bottom in every scene that I participated in at the club we all attended. I began to shift roles a few months after when my relationship with my dominant at the time ended. That’s when things began to change and my world began to shift in the community.
I began to identify as a switch and found myself more and more curious about topping others more so than bottoming. Apparently that is not allowed by most people in the community. According to them and their mentality I was not allowed to be anything other than what I had stated I was to begin with. Failure to do so deemed me to not be “real”. This was never written and was solely the opinion of the people around me. I began to feel a different vibe from people, but I shrugged it off. It was probably me feeling odd and just taking things the wrong way. I came to find out later that I was correct in the way I felt as people did change their opinion of me as I began to evolve into a different, more comfortable role within myself.
I had a confrontation not long after that when I was in a relationship that was not only polyamorous but had a dynamic of dominant and submissive as well. This one person decided to dislike me over a simple message that I thought could be responded to at a later time. And then the rumors and loose lips spread around the club, people stopped talking to me that associated with this person completely, and I had had enough of it. I left the club that night for the last time and vowed never to set foot in it again. I have not, to this day, gone back nor have I had the desire to expose myself to such nonsense.
I learned how to stand up for myself in this whole mess and ordeal. I learned that I should surround myself with people who accept me for who I am and not who they want me to be. A lot of people in the community here, I find, take themselves far too seriously and get extremely carried away with this life we live. Yes, it’s nice to have families and little sub-groups, but when you begin to act as a supreme overlord master of all that is BDSM, that tends to piss me off a bit and turn me off of the scene completely. Unfortunately there is a lot of that when you get a group of people who just want to play and have an understanding of what they do, and their experiences only, to go off of. It’s easy for those people to preach to the inexperienced and have a bit of a power trip in regard to knowledge of BDSM. That arrogance and blatant ignorance turns me off of being involved completely.
I also found my opinions to be disregarded and such in different aspects. The group I used to belong to held meetings every month where the members could have their voices heard. I stopped attending those meetings long before I decided to no longer participate with the group. I was talked down to, told I was not smart enough and did not have the mental capacity to help with finances, though I was pursing accounting at the time, and I was laughed at for most of my suggestions and ideas to bring to the group. I was not going to be made a fool of and that’s all that was happening at those meetings.
I witnessed members banned for no apparent reason with any apparent cause whatsoever. No one was safe from the chopping block it seemed and I was threatened on more than one occasion of being banned because I dared to speak my mind about different situations to those in power. It was not “my place” to do so when I was a paying member of this organization and community.
I am an independent woman, though I have submissive tendencies, and I strive to not be walked all over and let others take advantage of me. At first I didn’t see this with the group I belonged to. I did not see the disrespect and the shunning of those who were different, who had bodily issues, who were not their definition of “dominant” or “submissive”. I was able to ignore it because I was accepted, at the time, and only fell victim to the discrimination when I began to evolve and grow into who I am today and who I am going to be in the future.
No group is ever worth staying with, BDSM or not, if you are not going to be accepted for who you are and who you become as you grow older and gain more life experiences. No one is ever worth conceding yourself for. I have learned these lessons through experience. They are hard lessons, but good ones to learn and carry through as I continue to grow, evolve, and fluctuate in this thing called life.