Neo Victorian Expanded

This continuation is being written in a quite different frame of mind than the first segment posted in mid 2011 (which has been moved to display just below this one).  In the months since I've actually gotten to know a few of the members of the bdsm community, heard their stories, observed their lives.  The first installment was written from simply observing and analyzing their offerings of art.  It was a bit to the intellectual side, somewhat emotionally aloof.  This segment is much closer to personal, I now know names and faces and hearts, aloof is an attitude I can no longer maintain on the subject no matter how much more comfortable such an attitude might be.  I closed the first installment of this subject with a question I can now take a reasonable guess at answering, at least in part.

Concerning those who are living in "the lifestyle" as the practitioners of bdsm often call it I asked myself "…why these individuals who do indeed seem to be fairly intelligent and a bit introspective would have chosen to reprise the qualities of a culture that in all fact was failing, dying, unable to muster the strength and flexibility to meet the needs of a changing world.  I do not know if this was simply naiveté on the part of these youth, or if they were seduced with malice into a misplaced romance with a failed culture to serve some other entities purposes..."

I'm of a mind to say the answer is actually a mixture of both depending on the resolution in play, the dividing line between the options falling between the motives of the individuals and the motives of the collective entity ceBdsm/Fetishist by which they define themselves.

The individuals I've known are actually persons deserving of compassion, every one without exception are struggling to survive in spite of damage done to their lives, and the rigid structures of the bdsm world are part of the accommodations they make to those damages.  So far I've yet to meet one I'd put in the monster category, not based on what I've seen.  A few might have been, might be yet again, but in the time I've known them, no. Since I only act on what I've personally witnessed I have no grounds to take action against them, I have every motive of compassion to help them in what ever way I'm capable of that they find healing so they might transcend the self imposed limitations of their lifestyle.

In every case known to me there are damages as the direct result of a defective culture creating defective parenting, the children of badly failed marriages.  In more than a few cases the damages were the result of abuse, sexual or otherwise, suffered as a child.  I can totally relate to them.  In a few cases the initiating event was predominantly some disease or bodily condition.  I've yet to meet (or even hear tell of) anyone in "the lifestyle" where one or the other of those conditions was not present.  They accommodate the damages done with their lifestyle, as a result of their accommodations they leave those damages in stasis with little motive to actually healing them since the damage is the defining factor of the life they live.  That is to speak to the individuals, but there is a larger picture to consider. 

My nation, the United States of America, is a nation and a culture under attack.  It is my considered opinion this attack is by means of covert cultural warfare, an attempt to bypass all law and all physical defenses by corrupting the foundation psychology of the people to serve the interests of foreign entities.  It is my opinion this attack is originating from the orient, the Chinese the most likely physical regime involved. 

The current campaign to advertise and expand the BDSM lifestyle into the general population is totally compliant to such an agenda.  There have always been sadists, and masochists to match, there is nothing new about that ancient evil and sadness.  What is new is the expansion of that lifestyle to artificial stimuli being pumped into the culture.

I have yet to meet anyone involved in the BDSM lifestyle who does not revere the orient, embrace it as a superior culture.  Well they might, they are in fact the victims of their own culture's failings.  The issue is not the current practitioners, the issue is their children, children who will be raised from the cradle to consider the culture native to the land of their birth as inferior if not actually hostile.  The original incarnations of the BDSM lifestyle did not produce a significantly high percentage of the population, they were themselves a minor fraction of the population, and likely of lesser fertility given the conditions which set them members of that fraction. 

That fact is negated by the current fad emphasis on BDSM where an ever larger percentage is being seduced, individuals who do not suffer the damages to their lives that produced the elder generations of that lifestyle.  They do not suffer the damages, but to fit themselves into that lifestyle, to be accepted by their elders in that lifestyle they'll adopt the attitudes of those elders, including of course the convention that the inner repression and inner sterility of the oriental cultures is superior to the freedom of thought which is the ultimate foundation value upon which the United States was formed.  It is their children, grown to adulthood, who will betray the nation of their birth.  The Chinese are well known for their patience, well known for the subtlety of their thought.  From the perspective of a culture some four thousand years old to manipulate a young culture such as the United States would be a minor effort for them.

I will therefore go on record as believing that the current BDSM culture is actually a weapon of opportunity being exploited, and that contesting the spread of that lifestyle into the macroscopic culture is actually a matter of national defense. 

But how does one defend against such a threat without becoming that threat's greatest recruiter?  The answer is of course… love.  Gentle and compassionate and honest, love made available from any and every source where it might be found to heal the injuries which produce the population of the BDSM lifestyle, love to negate the lies that such a lifestyle is the better choice, genuine love empowered into public honesty to repair the culture itself so it is no longer vulnerable to such manipulation. 

Of course, it is far easier to wield a sword than it is to practice love on the scale needed.  I'm not sure the American people are possessed of such strength, not anymore.  All I can do is speak, and hope to be actually heard and understood.

No matter how nauseatingly repugnant and disgusting and brutal you might find the bdsm lifestyle to be if you want to defend your nation as a whole from being subjugated into a culture where the BDSM lifestyle is the most minor of differences then we as a nation must learn how to live genuine love in our culture, and do so before that lacking converts our culture into an exact match for one long known for its' total brutality.  Bottom line, there it is.