What Is “Real”?
This post was originally part of a longer article that appeared in the Bay Area Reporter for which I write a regular leather and kink column. You will find the original online version here.
There is a malady that seems to impact some of the leather and kink scene. It creeps in and taints social interactions, play and relationships. It holds people back from having the kind of sex they want. It gives newcomers to the scene yet one more hurdle to jump over in order to enter our world. And while I contend it’s less of an issue here in the Bay Area where we talk more openly and often about kink, it’s still something we deal with too.
What I’m talking about is when people declare who is “real” and who is not. What do I mean by this? Some examples might help.
You see a kinky online hookup site profile stating “only real Dominants need apply.” You hear of a Daddy who declares that a guy isn’t a real boy because he doesn’t conform to the Daddy’s rigid definitions of a boy. You are told that someone can’t possibly be a Master because you heard they like to submit sometimes too. A submissive tells you that a Dominant isn’t real because he didn’t carry out a scene per the submissive’s narrow view of what that interaction should look and feel like. A BDSM educator teaches that earning one’s leathers through some protocol-driven series of steps is the only way one can consider themselves a real BDSM player. A young guy wearing his first piece of gear to an event is declared not a real leatherman by some arrogant bystanders because he’s not worn it properly. The list goes on, and it’s all total crap.
Anytime I hear such nonsense I typically feel that insecurities are to blame. People like to believe that they are the real thing, so they judge others, usually unconsciously, in the hope that this will somehow make their shaky confidence in themselves more solid. Of course it does not. The more we put down others the more we reinforce that which is inside of us that fosters the lack of confidence in the first place. It’s a no win scenario, yet it plays out far too often.
As with so much in life, what is real or not in leather and kink is very much in the eye of the beholder. What might resonate with you as real might not resonate with someone else. Our personal backgrounds, identities, mental erotic landscapes and other things that make us and our life situations unique are far too complex and individual to allow us to declare that one way of being is real and another is not real.
The next time you read or hear someone say that they are a real player, a real Dominant, a real leatherman, or a real whatever, pause for a moment and let it sink in. What is this person really transmitting? What does it say about them that they must elevate themselves at the expense of others? If you are a newcomer to leather and kink and you read or hear such things, take the wise advice a friend of mine used to say all the time. “The red flags are not waiving you in.” Proceed with caution because most seasoned and reasonable kinksters can see through such self-important pronouncements as evidence of insecurity or someone posing as something they really are not.
As the leather and kink scene continues to change and reconfigure, as all things in life do over time, we are all likely to hear about more people who try to label themselves as real while condescendingly stating that others are not. We must resist this tendency if we find ourselves doing it. We must call others out when we read or hear them doing it. If two or more people are being, playing and relating in kinky ways that works for them, and they are all doing so consensually, no one has a right to say that who they are or what they are doing isn’t real. Not me. Not you. No one. You may not find it personally attractive. That is your right. But no one has a right to deem someone else’s erotic identity, play or relationship as less than another. To do so is to harm our scene terribly, and we just can’t stand for that.