The good, the bad, and the ugly
exists in all of us.
We’re all capable of creating and we’re all capable of destruction.
A big part of my social life is tied in to our local alternative kink/fetish/bdsm community. I’ve been involved on and off in the community for over a decade now. Sometimes staying away from the public scene for a while. I think the last few years have seen us the most involved we’ve been participating in the public scene, and the last year the most so.
There has always been conflict of some sort in the community. There’s been people in positions of power who’ve come and gone. There’s been venues that come and go, or transform into new venues. There’s always growth and change, and always hurt and strife.
I guess that’s life everywhere.
I think the changes and conflicts and hurts in the kink community affect me because of so many of the people I’ve come to know and care about in the community. Most people in the community I don’t know really well personally. I don’t have many very close friends. Wolfe and I rarely develop really intimate deep relationships with other people. We have our little co-dependent relationship with one another that we love. We have family. We have friends, and lots and lots of casual friends/acquaintances, but in recent years haven’t really gotten very close with others. I think we both have a history of being hurt and betrayed a lot by peers and it keeps us leery of easily giving our hearts away. I think we also both have such contentment in ourselves and in our relationship, that feeling the desire or need for intimate friends doesn’t really arise often. That being said we do have friends that we love and care about a great deal. Almost all the friends and acquaintances we do have are within the kink community.
We’ve really enjoyed the social aspects of hosting parties and working on making more friends and acquaintances and slowly getting to know people better and better.
With all that good stuff, all the wonderful people we’ve come to get to know and care about. There’s been a lot of bad and ugly stuff too.
There’s a lot of people we care about that have shared feelings of hurt and betrayal, anger and fear, etc, towards others in the community.
This has been a real challenge for us at times. Especially when the hurts have been larger ones, or happened to people we are closer to, or seem to involve the same people over and over again.
First of all, it’s very hard to determine exactly what is going on in a lot of these circumstances. There’s always multiple perspectives on any of the issues that come up within the community.
There’s also personal chemistry with people, there’s always people that clash and conflict. No one ‘likes’ everyone. For me, I try and foster an unconditional positive regard/love of people/humanity in general, that is there even with people I don’t necessarily ‘like’. Often I personally view it as liking parts of a person, and caring for their basic humanity, but not liking some of their actions or behaviors. I constantly try to see the positive and the potential in people I encounter. I also try to understand where the behaviors I don’t like come from. Try to have empathy for their actions and reactions. Sometimes this can be challenging.
There are basically a lot of good people in this community that sometimes make bad choices, with ugly outcomes.
There are a few people that seem to perpetuate the same bad choices over and over again, leaving a trail of hurt persons behind them. There are a few people that now have a lot of angry hurt people feeling oppositional towards them. It comes to a point where it becomes obvious that there is something ‘wrong’ with someones method of operating in the world, ie, repeated behaviors, when there becomes a substantial number of people who feel hurt, anger, or opposition towards them.
Popular people in the public eye in positions of power will always have a certain number of people who dislike them, feel threatened by them, or for whatever reason, simple human nature, have a negative issue with them. However, there are also people who seek to be public figures with power who are motivated by selfish means that are willing to hurt and use others for their own gain. So how do you determine whether the person you are having an issue with, or others are having an issue with are really over the line in terms of behaving badly? What is the norm of personality conflicts and cutting someone some slack for being human and making an occasional mistake to someone who is truly selfish and dangerous and continues to hurt others?
It’s not an easy question to answer, and I don’t like black and white thinking, ie, this person is a good person and I like them, this person is a bad person and I don’t like them. I usually like some things about everyone, even people I ‘don’t like’, I usually find qualities in them I do appreciate. I also like to believe that even under the ugliest behaviors there’s a good kernel, a hurt child.
There are a few people in our local community, whose behavior does bother me. That I see the distinct tendencies of psychopathy in their personalities. This shouldn’t surprise me, bdsm is where people play with issues of power and control, and it’s a scene that will draw both people who deal with power and control in a positive way, a way where it is shared and explored with respect and regard and love of others, and will draw people who are drawn to power selfishly, and who will abuse power and control putting their own needs before the needs of others.
There are people I know who are struggling with these issues. There are people who I think are abusing power and control on a regular basis in their relationships and in the community. Some I think have a lot of good in them, and have the potential and ability to move out of that place of selfishness and use their strength and their gifts to do a lot more good, and to lessen their harm. I think they have the ability to work with their personality issues and make changes for the better, for themselves, and everyone. I also think there are others who lack the self awareness and insight to make those changes. They don’t want to change, they don’t acknowledge their mistakes or the behaviors they engage in that hurt others. I fear for them and those that get in their way.
For those of my readers in our local kink community, most of you reading this will identify with being someone who has been hurt by one of these people, some of you reading this will feel you haven’t been personally involved in any of these situations but will have some beliefs and ideas about the conflicts in our community and the people involved. A few of you reading may think you are specifically being written about as a person in our community in a position of power.
If someone reading this suspects it’s about them and their use of power, the best case scenario, would be them reading this, and thinking, that’s me, that first option, with self awareness and a desire to resolve my interpersonal conflicts and issues. I know I need to make changes in how I move through the world. I know I’ve been making mistakes, hurting others, and putting myself first and coming from places of hurt and fear, and I don’t want my life to keep moving ahead like this.
The worst case scenario, them reading this, and thinking, that’s me, she thinks I’m a selfish nasty uncaring bitch. Well, I don’t care what she thinks, she’s weak, I’m strong. I have power, I have people that love me. I don’t ‘need’ to be liked by her or by those others.
I genuinely hope no one reading this identifies with the latter option. I hope they have a healthy strong part of them that wants to care about others, all others, and move through the world with love, which is the ultimate power. If they think I have some hidden agenda regarding my own self interests, then they’re really not getting it. If they’re not sure what this post is about, but they think it’s some form of personal attack, then they’re likely too lost in the world of games they play. There are no hidden agendas here, no hidden attacks, no grabs at power, or any attempts to take anyone down. Just the opposite, I hope that people struggling with these issues in our community can heal and grow. I hope something in my words can reach them. That there is a part or parts of them I think are good and pure and positive, and that they have the ability to change and stop hurting others. That really is the ultimate in power, personal responsibility, responsibility to others, and love, love of self and love of others. Not control, not wealth… just love. If you’re not sure what love is, then my heart breaks for you most of all.
We all have some good, some bad, we all make mistakes, we can all identify parts of ourselves that could improve and grow. Forgive the bad in others, and in yourself, and focus on the good, and on growth. If you feel someone in your life really is ugly, and cannot or will not grow, then move on, separate yourself from involvement in their world and focus on the healthy relationships you do have.
Live in Love
Leila