In our attempts over the decades (yes, DECADES) to define what constitues the BDSM community we have often forgotten, except when forced to relate to the vanilla world, that we are a subculture made up of individuals who have chosen to transgress social norms. Yet this fact has a very definite consequence for anyone who seeks to define community in a BDSM context. Therefore a definition of the parameters of the context might be in order.
First, when referring to community in the BDSM context there are a number of different variants. There is the "national" BDSM community, made up of a very loose amalgam of organizations who really have very little in common except their mailing lists and the fact they all either own a playspace or would like to. Any attempt to create a truly national community will run headlong into the enormous regional and cultural divisions that are the natural result of size of the country and the demographics of the various groups. Even so, it is possible to find a commonality of interests among the various formally constituted groups which can even extend beyond them to the more informal groupings of individuals that are now becoming predominant in a number of regions. On the whole, however, the national scene is made up of organization people who think in organization terms. This has obvious negative consequences in a culture that is by its nature suspicious of organization. Thus there is a national scene of group leaders who spend a lot of time talking to each other and trading newsletters but at the same time is becoming of less and less relevance to local reality and individual group behavior.
Second, there is the regional or local level, depending on the population of the region and the size of the scene. And it is here that we find the stresses on community to be the greatest because while the national scene is very loose and made up of folks who are used to conflict, the local scene is a rather tight-knit thing and the tighter it is, the greater the internal stress. All may appear well on surface but there are always the dissatisfied and disaffected and these folks will either leave, stay around and cause all manner of trouble, or ultimately start their own groups and create divisions which are the source of much consternation to the communitarians but actually serve to relieve tension. But the greatest stress comes from the inescapable fact that these are groups of people who have already defined themselves as transgressive and not likely to allow themselves to be controlled by the agency of a club or community.
The most important factor to consider in this is that all associations in the BDSM world are voluntary. No has a gun at their head when they come into the community. And the only resources available to the various groupings are those which are available to voluntary associations. Which brings up the problem of control.
The coercive measures available to scene groups are rather limited, there have never been any that would work at the national level. And as the regional scene becomes larger and more diverse, these measures become virtually meaningless. Ostracism, the traditional method for disciplining the wayward, has always had weaknesses, it will not work on the popular or the powerful because they can just ignore it and, in the case of the powerful, retaliate, but now it becomes useless as one can merely go from group to group or even start one's own. In such an environment, coercive control must give way to persuasion and persuasive argument is not a strong point among scene folk. Nor are we in general the type of people who listen to such argument. This is why our serious disagreements tend to end up as shouting matches and flame wars with neither side willing to compromise, much less change.
What we have then is an anarchic community, an oxymoron in logic but a truth in reality. It is impossible to effectively control its members and yet it exists as a representative of common interest. It has managed to transcend the conflicts between its members, not by trying to control those members because it cannot, but rather by learning to ignore the source of conflict and concentrate on the elements of commonality.
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