In Service

How is it that some people feel that it is completely acceptable to wholly take leave of their senses?

What is it about D/s that breeds megalomaniac insanity? All right, I understand that being on the left side of the slash makes you feel powerful, but must that be at the expense of everyone around you?

There are a few things that I never really understood about D/s and the lifestyle in general. First, I don’t understand why some D-types feel the need to stress their D-ness on every single s-type around them, treating them like chattel, and yet expecting to be treated with the utmost respect and worship. Second, and it generally involves the same people, I don’t understand the idiot practice of “Dom-topping”.

Let’s descend into it for a bit, shall we?

So, you’ve decided to take the step into the BDSM lifestyle. You’ve decided that your lot in this world is to exist on the left side, and thus Your Name becomes synonymous with God Herself. The birds sing your praises, the hordes of the unwashed all bow and worship the ground upon which you walk, and all of those that exist in the Lifestyle that aren’t on the left side alongside Yourself are to be used as slaves and treated as though they are meaningless.

Wrong.

This lifestyle is full of all kinds of people. There are some that truly enjoy being broken down and used and abused, people that love being treated like trash, spoken down to, insulted... by the people that they love and respect. You, regardless of how many years you’ve been putting on your leather chaps and boots, are a veritable stranger. Even if you have a huge reputation, dozens of leather titles, bondage awards, headline appearances, you do not have the right to just go around treating them like they are worthless.

Even though there are some people that love being treated like they are worthless, that doesn’t give you the right to treat ALL people like they are worthless. Whatever happened to respect and being polite? So what, you have a title. I respect that you worked hard and got a covering, or your tireless work and dedication has earned you the reputation as one of the great Nawashi, or your photography is some of the best in the fetish world, that does not give you the right to stomp on everyone around you.

Over and over again I see people, big names and small, treat all the non D-types in a room like they’re nothing. Casually giving orders like some sort of miniature potentate, bossing everyone around, treating people with the casual disrespect of the imminently self-absorbed. It’s tremendously disrespectful, and it drives me up the wall.

I have been guilty of this as well.

I know what it is like to walk into a room full of people that know who I am, that respect my work and my knowledge, that fall all over themselves to provide whatever I want. It’s a heady drug, powerful, intoxicating, addicting. I’ve looked back over my reaction to this with horror. I have no right to chastise anyone for this behavior, because I have engaged in it myself. It is wrong, and abhorrent, and stupid. It lessens me as a man, even if my behavior is accepted, understood, expected.

Treat everyone with respect. Behave in a way that is above reproach. All are deserving of basic forms of courtesy, regardless of some sort of supposed “rank”. I have disregarded this too many times, for even once is too many, and I am utterly disgusted with it.

I strive towards service.

In all my exalted D-type ness, I strive to serve the community, the lifestyle that has sheltered and helped me. This is my life, the blood of my essence, the thing that lets me sleep at night knowing that when I wake up, I’ll still be a member of a group of people that will accept me for me, and not just because I can do cool shit with a camera or a length of braided grass.

When I travel, I am in service to the Event that I am traveling to. I take it as a personal goal of mine to help, to answer questions, to be accessible. If I can help only one person to find a deeper understanding of this whole kink thing we’re involved in, I will consider the trip a success. If one person can take something I share and can bring it into practice in their own life, then I will know that my service was a success.

In the end, I want to be known as a kink/lifestyle educator. Not as a photographer, not as a mad scientist of sadism, or even as a rope top. I love this world, I’ve given up more than you will ever know to remain a part of it, because I cannot simply cut it out of my heart and soul. And as you have given to me, I will give of myself until there is nothing left to share.

But, even this, does not grant me some sort of freakish “betterness”. I am just like you. A person first, a kinkster second. It doesn’t grant me magical powers. It doesn’t make me greater or lesser than anyone else. It doesn’t give me license to treat anyone like shit, in fact it should force me to treat everyone with respect, whether I believe that they deserve it or not. You are people. You are family. I should always treat you as such.

Unless you consent to otherwise. Then I will piss on your soul and shatter your beautiful little world.