Once upon a time I was sitting in my living room, pondering things as I do, and realized that we as a bdsm/kink/leather community don't have any kind of coexist emblem. Religious/spiritual people have theirs, and geeks have theirs, but nothing for us.
Sure, we don't really need one, or so many would say, but I disagree. In a time where there are more fetishes than you can shake a stick at, and a growing number of communities to support them, where blockbuster movies feature kink and soccer moms whisper about their dark desires in book club, one would assume that our communities have more support than ever. As I've traveled around and seen how we interact together, the more I see that we don't. The rope group does their thing, the heavy s&m folk do theirs. High protocol enthusiasts steer clear of newbies, and you can almost see the generational divisions like chalk on the floor. We've recited "your kink is not my kink and that's okay" until we're blue in the face and in turn it's made us simply tolerant of each other. We accept that there's going to be noise in the dungeon, and rope scenes causing walls of onlookers. We roll our eyes and recite our phrase any time someone does something we just don't get. The kinky coexist campaign isn't just some logo or design for people to get behind because it's cool. It was designed to remind each other that we exist together, all of us. The sensualists and the sadists, the leatherfolks and the kinksters, the old and the new. Instead of simply tolerating each other, we should be fighting for each others' rights to do what we do. Not "your kink is not my kink and that's okay," but "your kink is not my kink and I'll still stand up for you regardless!" We may not be at a point where people are being killed for their fetishes anymore, but the division is killing our communities. We've got to stop making excuses for the broken stairs while claiming that we "police our own." Stop talking about "old guard" vs "new guard," newbie vs master, and so on. Stop just existing and start coexisting.
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AuthorIgnixia is an international kink and alternative sexuality educator. The following blog entries range from educational information and resources from her classes to daily musings had on things occurring in the world. Archives
March 2020
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