Not a Real ... (LJ Idol -- week 7)
When I was young, I learned the "rules" for meeting people. If I'm seated, I rise if the person is older or higher rank than me (and at 11, who wasn't?) or if the person I was meeting was female. When in doubt, rise. Then came situations where women didn't want to have this "special" status. Not all women felt this way and the rules were different on opening doors and standing. It got confusing.
There were also special situations -- like airplanes with seat belts. Then you just hope for a good tone to get you by.
In the habit of young boys, we were often critical of each other for not following the rules. Now to be accurate, almost no one under the age of 50 or so cared about these rules.
Once, I'd failed to rise and just held out my hand and later my father explained the rules to me, assuming I didn't know them. He wasn't critical as such, just letting me know a rule, like not spitting into the wind. He didn't explain it the way that boys my own age explained a breach of the rules. Dad wanted me to know the rule. The boys wanted to lord my lack of appropriateness over me. "You don't act like a real gentleman," was one of the kinder things they'd say.
Later, I entered the fringes of the BDSM world. I found there were rules.
These rules had many variations. Some made sense, like the hanky code. While I've never learned it, If you were attempting to employ it and got the colors wrong it could become awkward. Looking for someone to beat you doesn't work if the person who tries to pick you up thinks you want to beat them. Awkward.
At least there it's clear. It gets dicey when you get to things like collars; the difference between being a bottom and a submissive; between being a cross dressing top and a sissy. You also come across many combinations.
"We're open to other women joining us, but for oral only and never overnight."
Every person and every couple had different desires and needs and they try and express them. Everything stated as an absolute is probably wrong. "Dominants don't ..." or "Slaves always ..." are inherently wrong. Somewhere there's someone who identifies as a dominant or as a slave who does just that.
That's when we enter the realm of "No True Scottsman."
Example: A couple in a play space and she's wearing a corset and 6" in. heels. They are both sitting on a couch. Someone says, "Well she's not a real slave or she'd be kneeling at his feet." Later she gets up with his help from the couch and then she helps him up and he uses a cane help him walk out.
What often happens is that a self described dominant demands some behavior from a self described submissive and doesn't get it. "She's not real," is his reaction to this interaction instead of, "Gee, I guess I'm not what she wanted."
To be fair, you hear this more on-line than face to face. Like by a factor of 20 to 1.
Here I must relay a tale that happened to me.
I worked for a small company for 8 years. I had a reputation for filling hard to fill slots. We had a contract we wanted to bid, but it was in Florida and we were a Washington, DC based company. I'd run into a woman on the west coast in a bdsm talker where she used the name WS. She'd mentioned that her job in L.A. was ending in about 6 weeks. She also mentioned that she was from Florida and had family there. I asked her if she was interested in re-locating back to Florida and she was. She had the right degree for the job and liked the outline of the job. I called her up and did a formal interview and offered her the job if we got the contract.
A few weeks later we won the contract and I told her she had a job when she came out to the East Coast. We even had a job in DC to fill the 2 months until the job started. My rep in the office came through again. WS was thrilled to have a job close to her parents.
She started to get everything packed for her trip.
So, I logged onto the commons space on the talker where WS and I normally talked.
A guy popped up. He asked me if I had been talking to WS and I allowed as I had. He told me she wasn't a real submissive, that she was a "bitch." Just then WS logged on and I sent he a private note asking what the deal with this guy was.
She told me that he's appeared and started giving her orders and she'd told him to take a flying leap.
She then said in open that she couldn't stay long because she was packing for her trip from California to DC ... which she was making to become my live in slave.
I started laughing, but not on-line. The young man who'd appeared was dumbstruck for a bit accepting that this was why she was moving. WS never brought up a job.
The only down side was it took me months to convince him that I wasn't looking for an apprentice.
There were also special situations -- like airplanes with seat belts. Then you just hope for a good tone to get you by.
In the habit of young boys, we were often critical of each other for not following the rules. Now to be accurate, almost no one under the age of 50 or so cared about these rules.
Once, I'd failed to rise and just held out my hand and later my father explained the rules to me, assuming I didn't know them. He wasn't critical as such, just letting me know a rule, like not spitting into the wind. He didn't explain it the way that boys my own age explained a breach of the rules. Dad wanted me to know the rule. The boys wanted to lord my lack of appropriateness over me. "You don't act like a real gentleman," was one of the kinder things they'd say.
Later, I entered the fringes of the BDSM world. I found there were rules.
These rules had many variations. Some made sense, like the hanky code. While I've never learned it, If you were attempting to employ it and got the colors wrong it could become awkward. Looking for someone to beat you doesn't work if the person who tries to pick you up thinks you want to beat them. Awkward.
At least there it's clear. It gets dicey when you get to things like collars; the difference between being a bottom and a submissive; between being a cross dressing top and a sissy. You also come across many combinations.
"We're open to other women joining us, but for oral only and never overnight."
Every person and every couple had different desires and needs and they try and express them. Everything stated as an absolute is probably wrong. "Dominants don't ..." or "Slaves always ..." are inherently wrong. Somewhere there's someone who identifies as a dominant or as a slave who does just that.
That's when we enter the realm of "No True Scottsman."
Example: A couple in a play space and she's wearing a corset and 6" in. heels. They are both sitting on a couch. Someone says, "Well she's not a real slave or she'd be kneeling at his feet." Later she gets up with his help from the couch and then she helps him up and he uses a cane help him walk out.
What often happens is that a self described dominant demands some behavior from a self described submissive and doesn't get it. "She's not real," is his reaction to this interaction instead of, "Gee, I guess I'm not what she wanted."
To be fair, you hear this more on-line than face to face. Like by a factor of 20 to 1.
Here I must relay a tale that happened to me.
I worked for a small company for 8 years. I had a reputation for filling hard to fill slots. We had a contract we wanted to bid, but it was in Florida and we were a Washington, DC based company. I'd run into a woman on the west coast in a bdsm talker where she used the name WS. She'd mentioned that her job in L.A. was ending in about 6 weeks. She also mentioned that she was from Florida and had family there. I asked her if she was interested in re-locating back to Florida and she was. She had the right degree for the job and liked the outline of the job. I called her up and did a formal interview and offered her the job if we got the contract.
A few weeks later we won the contract and I told her she had a job when she came out to the East Coast. We even had a job in DC to fill the 2 months until the job started. My rep in the office came through again. WS was thrilled to have a job close to her parents.
She started to get everything packed for her trip.
So, I logged onto the commons space on the talker where WS and I normally talked.
A guy popped up. He asked me if I had been talking to WS and I allowed as I had. He told me she wasn't a real submissive, that she was a "bitch." Just then WS logged on and I sent he a private note asking what the deal with this guy was.
She told me that he's appeared and started giving her orders and she'd told him to take a flying leap.
She then said in open that she couldn't stay long because she was packing for her trip from California to DC ... which she was making to become my live in slave.
I started laughing, but not on-line. The young man who'd appeared was dumbstruck for a bit accepting that this was why she was moving. WS never brought up a job.
The only down side was it took me months to convince him that I wasn't looking for an apprentice.