Death Is A Dance On The Forest Floor

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naamah_darling's Bloody Hell! rant is classic, but The Great 'Stop Fucking Him' Post deserves an honorable mention.

The crazy people are trying to bad-mouth our subculture again. Details are in Naamah's journal. Do me a favor, call that hotel up and let 'em know there's every bit as much support as there is disgust - hopefully more.

Something is really hitting a nerve today. So frequently lately I find myself coming up against the implicit (or even explicit!) assumption that people only ever get into BDSM because they've had some kind of traumatic experience. It's such utter tripe. Even over on FetLife.com where people embrace it as a positive thing, using D/s to cope with and overcome old abuses - and make no mistake, I do enormously respect and support their ability to do so - it still frequently seems to come with the assumption that something screwed you up before you were drawn into the scene: abuse, or repression, or neglect, or whatever.

What about those of us with none of the above?

You guys, I had probably the most boringly idyllic childhood it is possible to have growing up in the good old US of A these days. My family didn't have money, but we had a lot of love. There were bedtime stories and summer camping trips and imaginary adventures with my best friend. There were birthday parties and barbecues and books instead of television. Even when my parents got divorced they kept their differences between themselves and made certain my brother and I knew they both still loved us very much. We never saw them fight, not once. When Mum found God and we started going to church on Sundays she refused to have us baptized because she wanted us to be able to find our own paths in our own time. There was no abuse in my family, no alcoholism, no neglect. The absolute worst thing I can remember happening was being soundly scolded for bad grades.

I had my issues growing up. Hell, I had whole damn subscriptions, and there are scars on my arms and legs to prove it. But they were my issues and I owned them. They weren't forced on me by anyone or anything. And they definitely have nothing to do with my affinity for BDSM. Bondage was just something I ran smack up against out of the blue, and my entire world sort of shifted three feet left and went "click." It was like some part of me had found a home.

I'd always been kinky; I'd simply never had word for it 'til then.

I guess I'm just tired of feeling like innocence is something I should have to apologize for.