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for Issue number 49
Friday, November 16, 2007
It's not infrequent that our organizations encounter a more or less serious bump in the road. The lesser evils are simply personality conflicts that are easily resolved. The more serious ones involve legal authorities, fundamentalist opponents, and disagreements that lead to all Hell breaking out, even to the destruction of the organization itself.
Now it is a simple fact that such is life. Though we don't often consider it, organizations have life cycles that demand attention in the form of honesty, change, reformation, renewal, correction, or cessation, depending upon the threat and/or place in its lifecycle.
As I look over the BDSM organizational landscape (and I've seen a lot of it this year) I want to point out that I see a lot of healthy and happy people. I write that so as to avoid sounding like a pessimist or naysayer. There is much good among us, a fact that we need to recognize. Doing so, though, doesn't mean that all is well in Kinkland. There are groups that are having leadership conflicts, are being investigated (or have been) by police, district attorneys, or tax collectors, or were successfully harassed by adversaries.
I could mention names but that wouldn't be fair so let me use a hypothetical example: the BDSM Org of Any Town is holding their annual weekend bash and is threatened with picketing by the Crazy Anti-sex Society. In an not unusual scenario, they fear that picketers will cause attendees to cancel their participation, that the notoriety will cause the hotel to cancel their contract, and that the police will descend en masse to look for all sorts of irregularities. Hence the title of this column: they fear scrutiny; they become intimidated; and their lack of transparency shoots them in the foot.
Scrutiny of folks like us is a fact of life, if only because scrutiny is almost always a fact of life. For that reason it behooves us to be certain that everything we do is without a doubt above scrutiny, or rather that if it is scrutinized it will pass the test. Let me note that I am writing about group-aimed scrutiny. Scrutiny of individuals is another important discussion but I'm not writing about it here.
Scrutiny is "a searching study, inquiry, or inspection; an examination; a close watch." The way to pass the exam is to know the rules and to follow them carefully. Too often we don't know the rules well enough to follow them. We make assumptions about what is proper, legal, or ethical without consulting the experts who can give us healthy and helpful advice.
Additionally we often think that a certain matter is too small to be scrutinized, that white lies and small indiscretions aren't worth our worry. We have the idea that bending the rules is OK or that we won't get caught because nobody will look.
Most often, of course, the "nobody will look idea" is based on the idea that we can "fly under the radar." Well radar isn't the only way to discover a fact. In fact, a recent event was threatened by a former member of the group. There's no way you can fly under the notice of someone who flew with you. Even if we are a happy group, why do we think we can hide the fact that 50, 100 or 200 people are meeting? How can we be so naïve as to think that no one knows what we're doing? Why do we fail to remember that putting our head in the sand does not mean that someone can't see us?
So the first step is to have nothing to fear by scrutinizing ourselves and being (or becoming) correct and therefore immune from any hazard that scrutiny might create.
Having passed the self-administered scrutiny test, we then can deal with intimidation: "to make timid or fearful, esp. to compel or deter by or as if by threats."
If our organizations have nothing to fear, then intimidation, since it is based on fear, has no hold on our actions or reactions. This especially applies to our gateway groups. If indeed they are gateways, then they need to be open enough to be found by those seeking entry into our subculture.
Intimidation has the adverse of effect of allowing those who intimidate to deny us our rights. Though this is somewhat of a personal example, allow me to tell a short story. At one of the munches I attended this summer, I displayed my books on a table inside the doorway of the dining room in which we were meeting. Fearing that the waiter would see them an attendee took her silk scarf and covered my books. It seems that the fear of exposure intimidated her.
Excuse me. What was illegal about displaying my books? What would the waiter learn that he didn't already know? Are we to think that a normal young adult wouldn't know the general subject matter of a group that met monthly in the restaurant where he worked and had done so for more than a year?
It is here that we need to distinguish between those attendees who are not intimidated and those who are. Perhaps we need to establish gateway groups where intimidation is not and can't be the issue. How about we begin holding IN YOUR FACE munches. Let's encourage picketing, media attention, and frank and open discussion about what it is that we do.
Let's base these events on scrutiny-immune activities that are fully publicized. Abolitionists, suffragettes, civil rights leaders, and gay liberationists, after all, didn't win their rights by flying under the radar. They certainly didn't allow themselves to be intimidated, which leads me to my last point.
Transparency means "frank, guileless, easily detected or seen through: obvious, readily understood." Though it is certainly not an easy dictum, the fact remains that "The truth will set you free." I say this because transparency leaves no place for illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior. Transparency allows in the light that dispels darkness, shadow, and the fears that they harbor.
I understand that social barriers exist and that not everyone who is kinky can be fully transparent about their predilections. What I am advocating is that those of us who can act freely need to exercise that freedom. Those of us who are obviously restrained (by children, by local laws, and by career) need to support those who do their best to insure that their groups are beyond scrutiny and that their groups are as supportive of freedom as is possible.
I once attended a munch where the leader advised me to use discretion as the town was very conservative. Sounds like a good reason, doesn't it? Well his wish for discretion was not based on the town. It was based on the fact that he didn't want his "vanilla" wife to know he was the participating in the group. If the leader feared scrutiny, the group shouldn't have allowed him to lead.
My friends, I am not suggesting that we take up stones and throw them. I am only saying that if we are to advance our rights and establish our freedom we must begin with self-scrutiny and act in such a way as to be above any risk that scrutiny might hurl at us. Acting thusly is the only way to end harassment of our events and our lives. Yet too often we fail to recognize that reality. There is a way to move beyond paranoia. Let us find it and live thusly.
Have a great week. You can leave me email at
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or visit my website at http://leatherviews.c.topica.com/maaiLsSabCQe8bqowrVb/ where you can subscribe to this column and receive it weekly. Copyright 2007 by Jack Rinella, all rights reserved.
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