This was written in the spring of 1998 in response to some matters on a mailing list. While the issues in that exchange have long since gone to a back burner to simmer, I am putting this up as a sort of overview of my feelings on the subject of Protocol. _______________________________________________________________________
I wrote Patty last night and told her I was going to stay out of this one, but on reflection, I can't do it. I've just got to jump in and so here goes.
Much of the argument over protocol is a semantic debate. What is being referred to as protocol is, for the most part, simple manners. No one is going to suggest that people walk into other's scenes or just start playing with a bound sub without permission from those properly involved. That sort of thing is not and never will be an issue.
The problem with protocol, and the source of my total rejection of it, is that there is an implication of control that is simply improper.
First, it implies that there are those who have, by some divine fiat, been given the right to judge and intrude on the relationships of others, implying that if people do not recognize their right to do so they are somehow not ";real". The absurdity of this position should be obvious. No one has the right to make such a judgement under any circumstances. The nature of a relationship is only to be decided by those participating in that relationship. No outsider has anything to say in the matter.
Second, there is the assumption that the role a person takes in a given relationship is external to that relationship. In other words, a sub is not only sub to the dom, but in a peculiar way also to other doms and even subs who have, because of the superannuation of their gaseous emissions, been doing it longer. This too, is unacceptable. No one who is sub to me is ever going to be expected to behave as a sub to anyone else nor would I expect such behavior from anyone else.
There are of course, the collections of absurdities and lunacies that one can tax the Old Guard with, such as who gets to wear the funny hat and perish the thought that chrome and brass should be mixed, but there is something far more disturbing going on here than that.
There are those of us who have worked very hard to get BDSM out of the black leather ghetto. And, at long last it looks like it is finally happening. We meet in the open, more often than not with vanillas sitting at the next table watching with amusement as the door prize is opened. As we become more integrated into mainstream society, we are less feared (a mixed blessing from my point of view because I love to make folks nervous) and because people see us as being just like themselves, drinking, laughing, hugging each other mercilessly, they become disinclined to believe the negative propaganda spread by our enemies (and we still have them). The numbers of those who play is growing exponentially. We in our chat rooms and munches are not even the tip of the iceberg. This is a very good thing. But there are those who do not see it as good.
Mainstreaming is threatening. Perish the thought that there are those who simply want to enjoy themselves without adopting the "LIFESTYLE." They want to go back to their ghetto and hide and play persecuted minority. It is that role that seems to validate their existence. Why, if what we do is commonplace, how can it be controlled? And the answer is, of course, that it cannot. The means of social control that exist in a small group cannot work in a much larger one. The means of coercion can be too easily ignored. If one is not invited to one play party, there are going to be others that will find you more than welcome. And of course that means the numbers of folks who don't know about protocol and don't care will grow to be overwhelming. But at the same time the freedom for the rest of us to do our thing will also grow! The funny hat brigade will not like this and say they don't respect us, but what makes them of such value that their respect is not worth the C4 it would take to blow them up with.
It is time for some people to realize that the closed culture that produced protocol is incompatible with the way the bulk of us live and think. We are not respecters of authority and we do not bow to hierarchy. On the contrary, many of us actively despise those things.
So the answer to the protocol matter is simple. Its day is over! Its dead! Bury it! We will all be much happier without it.
I for one will rest a happy man knowing that I, in my small way, helped to drive a stake through its dying heart.
Chuck
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