Every so often, such as last Saturday night, I get to talking with a bunch of people in the BDSM scene. Most of these people are almost always decades older than me. At some point in the conversation, which usually turns into a friendly debate of sorts (because those are the kinds of conversations I enjoy having), I get complimented on my “exceptional” nature.
“Oh, but May, not everyone who is your age has the emotional maturity that you do to handle BDSM,” they’ll say, “You’re exceptional.” And then they’ll go on to tell me countless stories about how they saw some young people totally fuck up their lives by not “being ready” for BDSM play.
Of course, it’s kind of nice to be complimented on my emotional maturity, or my intelligence, or whatever it is they feel will drive their point home the strongest, but the truth of the matter is that it’s total bullshit. I am not that exceptional. Very few people are.
Here’s the lie: to be “ready” for BDSM, you need lots of life experience, commitment, maturity, and intelligence in droves. They say you will need these things so that you won’t freak out over what you’re getting into, so that you can spend the years it’ll take you to find the (increasingly less) underground culture that is the scene, and then enough intelligence to “get it” when you’re finally there.
Here’s the truth: BDSM is just like anything else and you’ll get out of it whatever you put into it. That means if you’re an idiot and you think being kinky is the next bi, you’re going to do stupid shit and you’re going to regret it. But you know what, that holds true if you’re 15 or if you’re 40 years old. Age has nothing to do with it.
It is true that 15 year olds have a lot less life experience than 40 year olds (duh). However, I think it’s just plain dumb to assume that because of this lack of life experience these younger people have less emotional maturity (or intelligence, or what-have-you) than older people. Just because you’re 40 doesn’t mean you’re more mature than me, it could mean you’ve just been acting really immature for 40 years. Come on, you all know the kinds of 40 year olds I’m talking about.
People often use my mere presence in the community as proof that you do need to be exceptional to be a 23 year old with a healthy BDSM lifestyle. “Where are all the other 23 year olds in several year long committed D/s relationships?” they ask. Indeed, I’ve asked that very same thing, too. Since there are so few of us, that must mean people like Eileen and I are exceptional. Right?
Well, maybe in some respects (we do write pretty cool blogs, after all), but what’s exceptional about my being heavily involved in the BDSM community isn’t how exceptional I am, it’s the fact that I’m involved despite the odds. In other words, the circumstances themselves are rather remarkable, but that does not mean that the cause of those remarkable circumstances is solely of my own doing.
Though I could easily take all the credit for being one of the few young people out and about in the scene, most of the credit belongs to the rest of the community that doesn’t see young people like me as capable members in equal standing. With consistent decrees that we need all that largely useless life experience to really be a part of the scene, how could young people ever hope to be engaged?
What’s even more bewildering to me is that this apparent necessity for life experience makes no sense. Not only is that kind of disrespectful (albeit in a good-natured sort of way), it’s also contradictory: more often than not, you’ll hear people tell newbies that they need to “unlearn” lots of cultural and social programming to feel comfortable with BDSM. Well, gosh, unless the unlearning itself is the goal of BDSM (which would make for a really really boring kink if you ask me), then doesn’t that put younger people in a far more advantageous position to be “ready for BDSM”?
The inaccurate representation that BDSM requires some kind of special life journey, different or unique from other, “less intense lifestyles” is really nothing more than the older generation’s self-consoling opinion. “It’s okay that it took me thirty years to come out to the community and start having kinky sex,” they tell themselves, “because I needed all that life experience to be able to handle it now.” On the other hand, for them, maybe that was really true. If I were born in the 60’s instead of the mid-80’s, I also might have needed quite a few more decades to get my head around the fact that masochistic or submissive urges are not sick.
That’s not what I needed as a young boy, though, because with information about sexuality finally freed from the stranglehold of large organizations (such as governments and religions), young people are way more capable of exploring their own sexuality safely than almost anyone gives them credit for. Most of us are also smarter than people give us credit for, and we’re also way more emotionally mature than they think.
As long as people like Miriam Grossman don’t get their way, this means younger people like me (and, hell, even younger people than me—damn, now I feel old) will be able to find our sexual comfort zones at much younger ages than the previous generations. And really, how can that be bad?
June 24th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Thank you.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Agreed. Excellent points. I started getting into kink (more mildly, true) at 16 or 17. And got more heavy probably at 19 or 20. And much heavier (piercing, service, etc) at 22. I’m in the same boat; most people at things I go to are significantly older (although if I had a dollar for each younger person I knew that said “I’m into BDSM, but don’t go to group things because I’m always the youngest person there,” I’d have a lot of money, and a younger generation munch). I always feel patronized; “Wow, it’s wonderful that you’re so mature and ready to handle this. There aren’t many people out there like you.” Well, how many younger people do you talk to in general? Maybe they just don’t come to events because they don’t like the reaction they get.
Ok, you’ve got me started. Maybe I should post about this..
Anyways, great post. Well thought out, and I agree.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I never got that in kink, but that’s because my actual “kink community” participation was pretty much null when I was your age.
I got exactly that from the poly community, though.
My favorite example was the person with no poly experience who rejected my advice because I was nineteen or so at the time — never mind that it was advice for a problem that I would never have had because I’m not a damned fool and wasn’t even when I was nineteen — on the basis that I wasn’t old enough to know how to advise someone who had been married for umpty years. The same advice from someone fifteen years older was fine, though.
Did you ever get, “You can’t possibly know what you want in your personal life yet, you’re too young?”
June 24th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Just as LGBT folks are coming out at younger and younger ages, I’m willing to bet that, if a study were done or able to be done, it might say the same thing about kinky folks. If people are orientationally one way or the other, that’s the way they’re going to be–all they have to do is find the information they need in order to identify what it is they’re feeling and seek out a community of like-minded people. Just as I had a mad crush on my (female) seventh-grade teacher for three years, but didn’t have enough information until I was 16 to call myself bisexual, so it took me until 17 or so to identify feelings that I’d had since elementary school as inherently submissive-oriented. But without the Internet, and the openness of other teenagers today, I would still not know what I am or why I have the feelings that I do.
This is the way society evolves. Maybe someday we’ll have a society where everyone is open-minded and accepting and information is non-stigmatized and freely accessible.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
@Boymeat:
You’re welcome.
@Essin’ Em:
Thanks. FYI, I think I’m behind an HTTP proxy, but every time I load your blog I get Blogger’s “adult content warning” page and then, even though I hit “accept and continue,” it just reloads the adult content warning page. Again, I think it’s because of the HTTP proxy, but just thought you should know that you’re probably losing quite a chunk of audience possibilities because of that.
I haven’t tested routing through something like TOR yet, so maybe it’s not a proxy….
@Dw3t-Hthr
I’ve been getting that my whole life, starting when I was in second grade and trying to get my parents and the school administrators to let me out of school. (I ended up dropping out of high school and it was one of the best things I ever did for myself.) Obviously this is happening less now, but now everyone knows that I’m “exceptional.” Pfffffft.
@alterisego:
Exactly. Thank you for adding that. By the way, you were one of the young people I was thinking about while writing this post. Hope you’re well.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:41 am
“Where are all the other 23 year olds in several year long committed D/s relationships?”
Well, where are all the other 23-year-olds in several year long committed relationships, regardless of whether d/s or vanilla? Most 23-year-olds simply haven’t had a chance to be in such a relationship, especially not if they started dating rather late in life, for whatever reason. And those I’ve known who were did not always strike me as such a good example to others, either.
Yes, living longer gives you more experience, in that more things happen to you. Long relationships give you more experience of relationships, in the same way. But it all comes down to whether you learn from said experiences, and that does not come automatically with age.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:19 am
I think you may have to press it twice.
I’m eventually (once I’m done moving) going to move to WP, but not this very second, as my life is super busy. Damn warning. I never had one till I put up a nude picture wrapped in the American flag, and then BAM. Hmmm…
Thanks for letting me know!
June 25th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Oh May, I’m so glad to see that some of you young people today have the emotional maturity to write about BDSM and sexuality. And to use those computer thingies, too? How precocious. Back in my day, of course, we had to scrape the top layer off some old parchment and use goose quills dipped in berry juice.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I want to throw out that there are lots and lots of young kinky and/or poly folks out there, possibly more than in older generations. These same people who are remarking on how exceptional a 23 year old is don’t understand that the younger crowd is simply not coming to their events.
The reasons why are convoluted, but I’m going to mostly chalk it up to anti-young ageism. Some examples include: skanky intergenerational come-ons, a tendency to drown out younger voices, young people not wanting to deal with the goofy homophobia or gender essentialism of their elders, and of course a complete failure to actually target events at a younger crowd or even notice when the younger crowd does not show.
June 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Thank you for this, May. Wonderful post. I wish I’d had that understanding at 24 instead of 34.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Essin’ Em-
Actually, no. We just keep clicking, and it just keeps redirecting. I even tried going through the terms of service and clicking through all the links. It’s very frustrating! Once your move settles, I also suggest that you look into what’s going on there. Also, could you Twitter your RSS feed’s address?
May-
Yes, I realize the rest of the world is deprived of hearing my comments when I make them to you directly. But really, they already know what I think of you ;).
July 1st, 2008 at 7:40 am
I certainly know a fair number of kinky people who don’t go to events, because they are concerned about the environment not working for them. I remember 10 years ago in college, there were students there who’d been doing kink, reading all the books, talking the talk and walking the walk since their teens in the late 80’s. That young people do it isn’t new - I think the people who say that it is, forget how many gay leathermen started out at 17 year olds in motorcycle clubs in the 50’s.
That said, it took me 15 years from my initial contact with S&M erotica to coming out into the scene. Much of that time was deprogramming, emotional growth, etc. Honestly, I’m still not truly comfortable with BDSM, or with my bisexuality. I’m 31, I’ve been out in the scene for 3 years, I’ve been saying I’m bi for 6 years, and I’m not OK with it. I am sad and angry about that, but it does make me think there’s something to the idea that self-acceptence can take a lot of time.
I think you have a point on the deprogramming not necessarily taking as long anymore, because of exposure. I think you’re totally right there. However, I think more people have more to de-program than you might think. I think the more there is to deprogram, the more energy that deprogramming will take. That can be spread over time, or it can be done intensively and quickly - and more traumatically. Maybe that’s why there are as many flameouts and recklessly self-damaging people as there are.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:14 am
“That young people do it isn’t new - I think the people who say that it is, forget how many gay leathermen started out at 17 year olds in motorcycle clubs in the 50’s.”
The history major in me is screaming yes! Read the primary source documents! So true.