Leather Ethics: Civility and Incivility in the Scene

by Chris M

Of all the pieces I've written, none has prompted more visceral reaction than the one you are about to read. My piece on civility and incivility in the scene, first published in the Black Rose Petal and Thorn in the spring of 1998, has drawn both the most praise and the most hostility of anything I have written to date. When I wrote it, I was mad as hell, and gravely concerned for my community. Black Rose had just completed its tenth anniversary celebration, the first of the now annual bashes we throw in suburban Washington, a splendid time had been had by most, and we were all feeling flush with pride. But all was not well in old D.C. BR insiders had always boasted how well its core of volunteers worked together, but as I came to be a member of that set, I saw trouble brewing. There most definitely was an inner circle. Help, ideas and people from outside that circle were often more than unwelcome; they were regarded as an affront. The massive tenth anniversary festival became a catalyst. Some who had worked hard felt disrespected and unappreciated. There were intimations of money being stolen by organizers, a long-standing Black Rose conspiracy theory. Rumormongering reached levels verging on paranoia. And there was more open hostility in the talk than I had ever heard before.

In the board election six months later, all hell broke loose. Accusatory gossip reached all time highs. Four incumbents - two who had served on the board for almost a decade - refused to run. It was at this time I became aware of what I started calling "the body count" - the alarming number of once active BR volunteers who were no longer at private parties, at BR socials, or the Tuesday night meetings. It was kind of spooky. As if they had died dishonorable deaths.

Over the next contentious year, three board members would quit, quickly joining the ranks of the disappeared: good, enthusiastic volunteers who had once believed in, and worked hard for the club, passed from the inner circle to oblivion, essentially unmourned. It was in this climate that I wrote the first cut of the civility piece, an article focusing on interpersonal conduct in our community, and on just how bad things had. Without naming names or citing specific incidents I put forth a simple proposition: Us SM types don't treat each other as well as we could or probably ought to. Later, I expanded the article to include some experiences of my friend Lady Medora of the late, great New Orleans Power Exchange, and have recently expanded it again. I have been blown away by the passionate responses I have received from individuals and groups from Sidney to Main to Berlin. Indecent and unkind interpersonal behavior seems to be a problem virtually everywhere SM is practiced. Hopefully, by shining a hard honest light on our sometime bad behavior we can better understand what causes it, and how to reduce the intolerance, vindictiveness, harsh judgment, and hypocrisy we sometimes encounter in the scene. If enough of us strive to make the SM scene a more tolerant, more friendly, and safer place for people to explore their inner fantasies, we will surely be successful.

OVERVIEW: THE CIVILITY CRISIS

One of the stranger attributes of the SM community is the prevalence of downright lowdown behavior. We get it all: gossip, arrogance, slander, ingratitude, interpersonal cruelty, rumor mongering, the propensity to snub, shun or belittle, a refined sensitivity to slight paired with strident disregard for how one's actions and words effect other people. It is frankly shocking, and terribly sad how poorly some of us get along from the viewpoint of interpersonal relationships. It is a true mystery why a community like ours, whose members strive for a mature outlook on power, consent and tolerance, should feud with such violent and monotonous regularity. In our community, we see behavior one would never dream grown adults could stoop to. We have seen SM groups who ought to get along fine bicker endlessly and mindlessly. We have seen "scene leaders" whose mission appears to be the personal demolition of not only bad people, but good people whose contributions to the community might challenge their own. We all know good people who have left the scene because of the cattiness, clique-mentality, and deliberate non-consensual meanness. This propensity, sometimes called "Tops disease", is by no means limited to dominants. The problem is international wide in scope, affecting virtually every group I have visited in my travels. It isn't hard to imagine a universe where this kind of behavior never occurred at all. Aggression, power, and consent, to say nothing of etiquette, are concepts SM folk deal with all the time. The BDSM community has made huge strides in developing and documenting a wide variety of safe SM practices, protocols, and standards for negotiation and play. But the bickering, bitchiness and backstabbing goes on nearly unabated. The 1998 Black Rose election cycle became a virtual demolition derby of friendships over seemingly trivial issues. TES went through a similar bloodbath several years earlier in the wake of their 25th anniversary celebration. And many small groups have closed, not because of legal persecution, fiscal mismanagement, or lack of membership, but from jealously, power struggles, and malicious gossip. The wounds inflicted by incivility go way beyond the damage performed in most consensual dungeon play. And the emotional scarring that incivility leaves on its victims lasts longer than any bruise.

You might guess that the worst of this behavior comes from scene novices, but you would be wrong. Beginners, usually eager to fit in and make friends, generally deport themselves well. Oddly, the worst of this behavior comes from people who have been in the scene for years. People with experience, with play partners, with contacts, are often the most judgmental, least generous, quickest to take offense, readiest to slander others. Over and over we have seen friendly newcomers arrive in the scene, become avid pupils of our craft, grow into competent players, then unexpectedly mutate into arrogance, self-importance, and interpersonal ruthlessness. Many of these perpetrators are later driven from the community in bitterness or disgrace. Or drive others away themselves.

The civility crisis hurts our leather brethren, demolishes friendships, breaks the spirit of our volunteers, cripples our organizations, invites retaliation, and weakens our claim that SM is practiced by emotionally healthy, well-adjusted people. The civility crisis may play a role in the scene's disproportionate absence of people of color, who know discrimination and hostility when they see it, may feel unwelcome, and stay away. Why are we doing this? What can we do to stop it?

LEATHERFOLK BEHAVING BADLY: SOME EXAMPLES

In analyzing bad behavior it's important to see in each instance both the damage done to the community at large and the ethical breaches they create. By no means exhaustive, here are some varieties of incivility we encounter in the scene, and some thoughts on how to deal with them.

The Empathy Gap

It's subtle, but lies behind much of the uncivil behavior we will be examining. The empathy gap is not so much the presence of hatred or dislike, but an absence of compassion, kindness or concern towards other members of our SM community. In a better world, we would all actively welcome strangers, extend cordiality, start up conversations, feel some brotherhood towards others like ourselves, whether we know them well or not. But more often than not - perhaps it's because the scene has grown so large, perhaps its because of the constant influx of newcomers - we often don't feel any particular warmth or connection towards people we meet in the scene. This "inner nothingness" sets the stage for much of the crude, and thoughtless behavior we find in the scene. Gossip as news We all do it, and yes it can be loads of fun catching up on all the latest dirt. And table talk is proper when you are trying to learn about someone your curious about playing with. But in gossip, as with all things, there must be some sense of proportion. By scene standards, it is entirely acceptable to conduct good faith peer review by inquiring about someone's play style, experience, and reputation. But nobody respects a nosy-Rosy, even if we find them morbidly entertaining. Character assassination, the spreading of dubious or inflammatory rumors, do great damage to the scene. It also jeapordizes the confidentiality of individuals, and invites retaliatory counter gossip. Both truth and privacy are cardinal principals in the scene, and reckless chit chat damages both.

Clique Politics

To have a circle of friends is a good thing, but not when the goal is circling the wagons to shut out people who "don't fit in." In the same way that benign sharing of information can be amplified into vicious gossip, clique politics whose purpose is exclusion, or hurting the feelings or reputation of those you don't like, hurts the community also. Ultimately, clique players make so many enemies that they themselves are resented or unwelcome.

Sweet and Sour

A common clique politics tactic: Some people make extravagant show of how close and loving they are to their circle of friends (hugs, smiles, introductions, glowing compliments) in part, to maximize the sting inflicted against perceived outsiders, who are refused even the time of day. A stock move among catty sorority girls during rush week (the Amish call it "shunning"), it's embarrassing to see how many grown men and women in our community use "sweet and sour" to isolate and hurt individuals whose feelings and esteem they regard as unimportant. This truly nasty habit creates "us and them" fissures that fragment the community, hurt feelings and invite eventual retaliation.

Chicken Hawk Syndrome

With a constant influx of SM beginners, some scenesters of dubious merit attempt to acquire play partners under the guise of "mentoring". Chicken hawk syndrome includes a strong come-on, boastful presentation of one's own experience and skill, frequently systematic trashing others, occasional pressure to isolate new people from the presence or influence of others, all in the name of "education", or "training". Sometime the goal is sex or play, sometimes the goal is to recruit newcomers into the "mentor's" clique of preference. While there is nothing wrong with expressing interest in someone (new to the community or not), it is dishonest to couch that interest in terms of education. For new people I advise this: take your time in choosing mentors. Ideally, develop a circle of friends and don't be forced into reliance on a single point of view. Do not yield to pressure to exclusive mentorship unless that's exactly what you want.

SM Psychodrama

High volume yelling matches, absurd conspiracy mongering, the blame game escalated to Olympian proportions, toxic loathing towards seemingly decent community peers... Does any of this sound familiar? Here's a test: If such behavior would get you fired from a professional workplace, please leave it at home.

Stealing Consent (sneaky dom tricks to undermine consent)

Everyone knows that its still rape if you say yes when there is a knife at your throat. But some tops pull the darndest stunts to avoid having to seduce consent. I maintain a list of the real eye-rollers I've run across, and add to it when I run across a new one. Here's what I have so far:

Real doms don't grovel.in which tops simply ignore questions of consent: grabbing, touching, caressing, doing whatever pleases their whimsy, as though you've consented by virtue of being within their reach. .their submissives grovel for them!: Every once in a while I am surprised by the submissive of another dominant asking if her dominant can play with someone I'm with. Huh? What? Dominants, please do your own negotiating. If you get turned down, you get turned down, and that's life even if it feels "undomly". This can take other more clever forms as well. A woman I know was cruised by a bisexual friend with this cunning line: "We should get together sometime; just you and me. I have this fantasy of tying your hands, kissing you all over and licking your pussy, and driving you mad while my hubby fucks you from behind. Doesn't that sound exciting!!!". Being submissive means you've consented already: The odious belief in "true Doms" ("true doms never bottom... being a true Dom means never having to say you're sorry, etc.") or "true submissive" ("If you were a true submissive you would do X for me, let me do Y to you, take it in stride while I waltz off and do Z."). And that by your choice of role, your sado-erotic engagement with me starts when I want it to. Lies: This is one bottoms do also. Simply comforting falsehoods to seduce consent where it might not be possible otherwise. The usual areas are marital status, scene experience, and expertise with specialized techniques. Bait and switch: negotiating one scene and springing another on your partner. One young newcomer to the scene arranged to play with a far more experienced woman who tied her up, and flogged her into a lovely high. But then, who should waddle into view but mister husband, naked as a baby and rolling a condom over his chubby. Luckily the young woman was able to shake herself out of the fog, blurt out her safe word and get out of it, and to their credit, the couple released her. But still. A safe word isn't really a safe word. Safe word violations are pretty rare, but I once saw a prominent Black Rose member respond to a safeword red with "Oooooh I knoooow you don't really mean that.. Doooo you?" Breaches of ettiquete like these really stand out in the minds of witnesses, and are almost never forgotten. Safe word stigma: Taking advantage of the fact that some bottoms regard safe word as a humiliating defeat. Afganistan-Bananastan: Demanding the submissive use awkward, degrading or hard to remember safe words. "Everybody please come butt fuck me" was once assigned as a safe word to a submissive, hopefully to make the prospect of safewording even more embarrassing and awkward than it usually is. No comment. "Ask me to hit your face." That's what the "famous scene photographer" kept repeating during his shoot, as the bottom slowly crumbled into tears of the unfun variety. He had already hit her out of the blue so hard that she was seeing stars. The scene did not end well. But not as badly as it could have had this bullying tactic worked. If you didn't forbid it, you've consented: The question "Is there anything you don't want me to do?" is a great thing to ask before a scene, but it is not fair gleefully planning rape, when someone answers the aforesaid question with a request not to be hit in the face. Its risky to pull a surprise fisting scene on someone who only asked for a flogging. Assuming the bottom knows what they can handle: Exceptions notwithstanding, bottoms often have no idea what they can handle, especially new ones. Someone who has never felt anal can't know whether they'll like it or not. So bear in mind that even with consent obtained, your partner may not know what they are in for, and may not respond ideally. It's easier to seduce consent from someone's mouth than it is from their body.

Why do tops do this instead of just being up front? Are they afraid they would be turned down? Do the more domly 24/7 types get all skittish at the thought of being turned down or having to work with the constraints of others when their fantasy is total control all the time? Whatever the reason, the art form is eroded when the very things that make SM different from date rape are tossed out the window. Don't let yourself be manipulated by tactics like these. Failure to separate role from reality.

We are an imaginative bunch (witness the number of science fiction fans and Renn-fair enthusiasts in our midst) and this is both good and bad. Some take the view that the scene is a place where fantasy becomes reality, raising the specter of unrealistic expectations, which can infringe on safety, consent, even sanity. Men, particularly, scene newcomers with long histories with cyber, porn, or with the commercial world of professional dominants, may experience awkward transitions to the more laissez faire environment of the scene where seduction, barter, and compromise are the rule. Furthermore, someone who prides herself on being an unreasonable, demanding bitch in scene must draw a reasonable line between what is appropriate in scene, and into daily life, even if they consider themselves "lifestyle."

Tall poppy syndrome

It is not always bad people who find themselves hunted down by the in-crowd. Sometimes it is the very people who volunteer, help out, are popular, bright and personable who are singled out for special hatred and grievance. The Australians call it tall poppy syndrome: If you grow too much taller than the others, you get your head chopped off. Many groups have defacto though unstated traditions of deriding and ostracizing enthusiastic newcomers as troublemakers and incompetent rebels. A lot of good people are chased away by in-crowd types who regarded club leadership and innovation as their sole domain.

Accountability Phobes (The Rules Don't Apply to Me)

In which characters proudly contest that they are too real, too experienced, too.whatever to be held accountable to the rules that others live by. Like all diverse groups, they often have good reason to not want to be held to an objective standard. One famous category of this is...

The Dom = Dickhead syndrome

While some dominants are true artists cultivating a gourmet's appreciation of pleasure, pain and power, others are mere peevish control queens, itchy for a chance to criticize, get belligerent, and boss others around. Still others, new to the community (but not to Gor novels) make the classic error of equating their sexual dominance with an overbearing, overreaching manner dominated by virtue of their presence at an SM event. Regardless of how dominant you are within your consenting relationships (and more power to ya!), you can no more "assume" consent in your interactions with others, than you can in an SM scene. Dominants who assume its okay to boss others around, and rudely demand subservient behavior, are making the classic newbie error of assuming it's okay to touch or grab others' bodies without asking.

The Realness Police (Your kink ain't My Kink)

In which your conception of SM is judged inferior to mine. Scoffing at scenes for being too mild, too heavy or too. whatever. Pet peeves include switching, use of humor in scene, lack of interest in 24/7. Even if they are consistent in their beliefs they are mistaken in thinking their standards should command anything other than the polite respect from you that we owe everyone.

Safety Nazis

Safety nazis are the flip side of the realness police. While the realness police spend time criticizing their brothers and sisters in kink for not being sufficiently authentic, the safety Nazis fret that people are be taking their SM a bit too seriously. While safety is certainly a pivotal SM value, unsolicited advice can come across as cutting, judgmental and condescending, and sometimes that is precisely what is intended. SM safety is certainly a concern. But so is discretion, tolerance of other viewpoints and playstyles and acceptance of our many differences and peculiarities.

Expert-itus

The state of confusing one's own expertise with the ability to pick nits and find faults in other people's play, demeanor, protocol and motives. While sharing scene knowledge is generally a good thing, it can be, and often is, overdone. Go easy on the free advice.