Well, that's a wrap. I have one of my answers that I've been looking for. I don't like the answer, but it is an answer. And what an answer it was, what an utter and complete insult it is.
For some time now, like say the last thirty some years, I've been wondering what I'm doing so very wrong that I'm a magnet for the debauched and the perverted. What? I don't wear a sign, I'm not in their social registers, I don't think I'm on anyone's special high intensity training list. So what is it that attracts them to me? I asked a kid down at the diner I know to be part of the bdsm world that question, and I got my answer.
She was sincere, and in her sincerity she tipped a balance in my head. Once upon a time she had been sitting in my living room, and out of the clear blue with a look simply dripping malice and contempt said "I could be a dom to you that would make you beg mercy."
In the moment I went serious, stood to battle stations and stared her in the eye. "No, you could not," I replied. It was a staring match for several seconds before the moment faded. I let it pass, figured she was just jacking with me for sport. But today that moment was explained to me, and a sadder man and wiser I now am.
I've been called judgmental a fair number of times because in my world there are a few absolutes. Not so very many, but a few and I live to them. You don't beat up on the helpless, you don't cheat at cards, you don't try and lie to your God or yourself, and you don't surrender your self respect and dignity to anyone's assertion of authority no matter what they say.
These things are all basic Manhood101 according to the way I was raised. (in post script... I'd said American in the first, hastily written form, but no. It isn't a thing of nationality, it is a basic thing of uncorrupted humanity... please pardon my moment of nationalism) But apparently that isn't so very true anymore, not everywhere as it should be. What she told me is that the effort of manhood is considered an undue burden, and the cure for that burden is to voluntarily subject yourself to enough abuse your spirit is degraded into blow sand to be used in etching your tombstone. Well, maybe among the bdsm crowd that's how it plays, but not with me.
What did I say to her? I said "I don't beg mercy, I shoot." And then I said goodbye.
She said what attracted her kind to me was seeing me carry that burden at best ability, and carrying on with the intent of doing what I can where I stand for the good of the cause. She said that's why so many of them over the years have tried to seduce me into weakness and impotent misery. They thought I needed to be free of the very burden I maintain is my justification for existing. I suppose that's what I get for NOT being so very judgmental, for not judging people on their demeanor and being willing to talk to anyone who wants to shoot the breeze.
Sorry (NOT), I intend to keep right on talking to anyone who wants to shoot the breeze. But, I think I'd better be a little more careful than I have been, and watch where I go until I've gotten the appropriate hardware and permitting in place. Sooner or later some well meaning freak is going to decide that if I don't have the good sense to degrade my life voluntarily they'll just be good Samaritans and do it for me, and I'd have serious problems with that idea.
Well, maybe I too have a burden I can't put down: the burden of trying to make sense of my life and the humanity I find myself part of. But it is my burden, and I would not be I without it. Not only this: It would be a greater burden to voluntarily put down this "burden" and take up the greater burden of letting someone else control my thoughts. And who is worthy of such a burden as telling me what to think? No, I think I'll keep carrying my own burden. It's "easy" and "light" (Matthew 11:30), much more so than any kind of "dom" or "sub" burden.
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