Name Droppings, Vouching, Vetting... Venting...

Cross-posted with FetLife for main location of comments and discussion.

It's been something I've wanted to talk about for a while now.  Now, this is not directly related to me, just more relevant to stories I've heard from friends, acquaintances, event organizers, etc. within the kink community.

Vetting, dropping a name of someone who "knows you," saying someone will vouch for you, what's it mean?  When is it valid?  When is it under false pretenses?  When is it meant genuinely, but something got miscommunicated?  And what's it look like to organizers, regardless?

Labels Are Awesome and They Suck

Cross-posted with FetLife, (although this one's a bit more visually-friendly this time around, in my opinion...)

When we first learn a term for something that we didn't know had its own word or its own phrase, when we first find out something has a label at all, it's awesome, amazing, "Wait, there's enough people that share my experience that there's a word for this thing?!"  As you read through the rest of this post, don't forget this, labels are powerful for those who need them.

When we're first getting to know each other, whether it be things that identify us, or turn ons, or limits, or just any general info about ourselves, labels are useful in directing conversation, in providing quick bullet points to touch on later.  Any label is a branch of conversation waiting to be tapped.

Labels are a great communication tool... but they are the beginning of a conversation, nothing more!  Many people make the mistake of assuming that they automatically understand someone because they know what they believe that label to mean.  People function well in categorizing things into boxes, and labels are what get put on those boxes, but it also prevents people from seeing the individuals in those boxes as individuals sometimes.

Revisiting an Old Writing - "I Dun Wanna!"

Cross-posted to FetLife, if preferred for commentary, loves, etc.

Several years ago, I wrote a post on FetLife titled "I Dun Wanna!" *sigh*, and my views on the topic have shifted to some degree, partly with my interests actually changing over time, partly with figuring out more about what I enjoyed even back then, and significantly in just seeing and learning more about the scene, the people, and interpersonal dynamics within it.

For those who cannot see FetLife, I'll sum the original post up as my stating that I didn't like brats, why I didn't (effectively disliking "I dun wanna!" without reason aside from feeling like saying it or to get reactions), and that while I didn't care for brats, it's not a dislike of the person but the not wishing to partake in that form of dynamic and others can do what they like.  That is an incredibly gross overview, but hopefully that's as much as you'll need to follow along here, since it's so old that I will not be cross-posting it to here.

At an erotic hypnosis conference some time ago now (phew, probably over a year ago now), someone did a class on "bratting as a service" or similar, and they privately mentioned to me that the aforementioned writing was at least part of what inspired their class or some of the class material.  In hearing that, I realized I felt a bit off about that... uncomfortable... but I wasn't fully sure why.  I started reviewing the writing, and I started to write once more on how I felt on my current perspectives on the topic today.  After collecting the various scattered thoughts and putting some logic to the feelings, you get the writing that follows.  It took me a long time of off-and-on writing and sudden inspiration (and various bouts of brain going "I don't wanna" of course...), and I still can't promise it feels right.  But, you know, (1) when does anything one writes truly feel fully "right," and (2) I felt it worth posting something reviewing my past self to this level.  Also, "better" is the enemy of "done," and frankly, I feel this is worthwhile to put out there, both for myself and people who may feel similarly.

Views on Volunteer-Driven Groups

X-posting with FetLife

Majority of kink-based groups, organizations, etc. are volunteer-based.  To make things happen, people volunteer to clean, volunteer to feed attendees, volunteer to setup or tear down, volunteer to register or check the door, volunteer to overlook play area(s) for spaces with such, etc.  These people are not Dominant or submissive or switches or vanilla or non-D/s kinksters... they're people who want to help in some way, either large or small.  If people did not volunteer, various fun things wouldn't be the same, or wouldn't happen at all.  And yes, I count literal leaders (board, concom, staff, organizers, etc.) as volunteer positions, most times, even when they get reduced attendance cost, or free attendance, to the stuff they organize.

Only One Kink?

So I was flirting with someone recently, fairly relentlessly and near-constantly for days straight, but at some point, their insecurities and such led to them telling me reasons they knew I wasn't interested in them.  I have things I can say on that single sentence premise alone (and might later, or elsewhere, depending on my mood), but this post is about one specific reason that they gave: I only have one kink, and she has a lot of kinks, and most of them she figured I wasn't interested in.  Now, with the exception of one, we didn't ever really touch on what that list of "a lot of kinks" were, but my "only one" kink is pretty obvious: hypnokink.  And that comment, in and of itself, bothered me almost instantly.

First of all, anyone who sees me as more than "person who does hypnosis" and gets to know me can tell that I have more kinks.  Maybe not more fetishes, if you're gonna be pedantic, but more kinks.  The main thing that bothered me is that, even in talking about what we were interested in, talking about how what each of us liked... all she thought about with me was just the fact that hypnosis would be included, and that's it.  Not about what I'd like, what I'd do with it, what I'd be interested in from her interests... just "hypnosis guy."  Don't get me wrong, I can work with being the local hypnokink expert and such, but I don't like being just "the hypnosis guy," you know?  There's a lot of facets to me, to how I play, to what it is that I do and want to do, and I'm not a fan of being filtered down to something so simple-sounding.

Even if I didn't have other interests myself, many kinks can be serviced by, met, or merged with hypnokink.  Power exchange, caregiving, bondage, various forms of roleplay, pet play, tickling, just to name a few varied ones (which, by the way, count among things I'm personally interested in to some degree... "only one kink"... ahem...).  And this bothered me partly because it's a common issue of mine: Some people are used to thinking "I'm not into that one kink, so I can't get anything out of it," without talking about it, because, well, that's the case for a variety of other kinks!  If you're not into bondage, you probably won't jump into bondage equipment or into being tied up.  If you're not into impact play, you probably won't immediately pick up a flogger or get up on a St. Andrews Cross to be whacked.  If you hate electrical play, you'll stay clear of violet wands.  Now, if you have a problem with someone getting into your head, or you fear what's there yourself, then I get avoiding hypnosis, fully understandable.  But for those who are simply not personally interested in hypnosis, it always mildly frustrates me that rather than asking "what would you do with that," some jump to "I'm not into that thing, so I'll be over here."  I get it, but it does frustrate me.  This person wasn't saying such, not saying they did... but the "only one kink" thing made me think of these frustrations.

The last of the things that bothered me about the "only one kink" sentiment?  Only one kink implies that one isn't good enough, or is not satisfactory for anyone, or that one's being graded by how many kinks one is into.  You can have a single kink and be quite amazing.  You can have none, that's fine!  You can have several, too, and there's no problem with that.  That said, having several doesn't mean you're great with any of them (just like having several years under your belt doesn't mean you're the best around).  That's not saying anything of chemistry between people and how one may not enjoy a particular kink or combination of kinks with anyone but someone they have strong chemistry with.

So this is a nice, long rant about how much it bothers me to see what I do or want to do as "only one kink."  Now this one person, I'm fairly certain, was just not thoughtful about her words, but these sentiments all exist out there for real, I've ran into them multiple times, and so I can't help but be bothered by them, or by someone being thoughtless about them.  Here's hoping that my rant, in addition to simply letting me vent, also helps someone be a bit less thoughtless in the future.

On Dominance and Pushing Boundaries

So this will be about D/s and BDSM in general.  This will not be specific to hypnosis play in any way, but like any tool or toy, hypnosis can be used in various ways, including in for D/s play, partnerships, and relationships, so it absolutely can apply.

So, fairly recently, there were some consent injuries happened to a submissive of a Dom/sub pair, and things got brought to public online arena through writings and comments (at first anonymously, but he, the Dom, admitted it was he the talk was about and things got, well, obviously less-anonymous).  Things didn't exactly get talked about well, let's say.  I'm not going to get into details of the situation, at all, nor am I going to get into the nuances involved... except for one, because it was a particular nuance that bothered the crap outta me.

You see, he had brought up early on that the main job/role of a Dominant (from his perspective) is to "push boundaries."  Now, ask people what a Dominant is/does, you'll get a million different answers, and then they'll all argue about the semantics of what everyone else said being wrong (especially when it comes to the role the submissive has in the Dominant's power/control >.>).  Generally, I'm accepting of all different meanings of what a Dominant is... but this one, this one bothered me, especially given the circumstances.

Events, Social Circles, and Inclusivity

No matter what you do, try to do, or try to avoid: every large enough community you will ever be a part of, whether you lead it, make it, or simply be in it without a strong role, will have subdivisions, a big enough social circle will have small social circles within it.  And often times those subdivisions, whether intentionally or not, will feel like cliques, will feel closed off to “outsiders.”  This goes for at any workplace, this goes for school groups, this goes for other vanilla groups, this goes for the kink scene as a whole, and this goes for smaller communities within the kink scene.

Hell, we can very much debate the topic (and it already HAS been, and will continue to be), but in my opinion, the Erotic Hypnosis community is a clique within the kink scene. For those that say “I’m not kinky, I just find erotic hypnosis and mind control hot,” I want you to realize, there are plenty of Spankos, spanking-enthusiasts, that feel the exact same way about making someone’s ass so bruised that it’s purplish-black: that they’re not a part of the “kink scene” really, they just find spanking hot. Labels get silly after a while is all I’m saying.  As this is not the point of this piece, I will leave this here, dangling, and I humbly request that if this gets discussed, it get its own independent thread of conversation.  Now then, back to the concept of “cliques,” and, in particular, those within the erotic hypnosis community…