I’m tired. I’m frustrated. Sometimes, I’m angry. I’m all these things because I’m watching a community tear itself apart, doing it at a time when we need most to come together. Something that used to give me hope and a sense of belonging somewhere has become a patchwork of divided subsets, fenced off and fearfully guarded. Something I used to take such joy and pride being part of has left me wondering where the joy and pride have gone.
I’ll say it: we aren’t a community any more. If we were, we’d be building each other up, supporting each other through the rough times and celebrating each other’s triumphs. But we’re not. We spend more time tearing each other down, jealous of other’s successes. If we were a community, we’d talk to each other, share experiences, and learn from each other. But we don’t. We shout at each other, try to drown out other opinions and perspectives, and trumpet our own experiences as the most viable. If we were a community, we’d listen to each other to understand our differences and find the common ground that works for all of us. But we aren’t a community. We shut out what others say if it conflicts with our worldview and shout at each other; common ground has become the no-man’s land on a battlefront of social discourse.
So what happened?
When I first discovered the leather community (and with it the kink and BDSM communities that co-exist alongside and within it), it was the most amazing circle of support and brother/sisterhood I’d ever encountered. Here was a place where people were welcomed because they were different from the mainstream. Here was a place that celebrated all those things that made us different – and encouraged us to explore them. Here was a place where we could let down our guard against the outside world and be who we are. Here was a community built on the legacy of what had been handed down to it through the years. In DC alone we had close to 10 different clubs, all working together for the community as a whole, and that number grew drastically throughout the Mid-Atlantic and New England areas where clubs throughout those regions came together under one council to coordinate different events and goings-on.
And it was still even more than that. It was a community where people looked out for each other. If someone needed help, a leather brother or sister was there. We built our own organizations toward the goal of helping those who needed a hand. We shared our experiences with those who wanted to learn, and we learned from those who had so much to teach. We talked among ourselves. We stood together against challenges posed us from the outside world and those who would demonize us as perverts and whatever other labels they tried to attach to us. We knew who we were.
Now it feels like so much of that is gone. Where did it go? Why does it seem we have lost our way?
I ask those questions as I look back, and I see something key missing: respect. The respect that held this community together has been worn down and eroded like rock columns in a floodtide. Now the whole structure it once supported is now teetering dangerously. How can you have a strong community when disrespect for the people within it and for the traditions it’s built upon has become so rampant? Quite simply, you can’t.
However, we can have that. There is absolutely no valid reason why the degradation of it has to continue if we care enough to do what needs to be done.
We need to treat each other with respect. We can disagree where we will on those things where our opinions and feelings differ – but there is room in this community for a tremendously large number of differences. What needs to stop is the shouting AT each other, replacing it with talking TO each other – and taking the time to stop talking at all and listen to what others are saying. Treating others respect also means being responsible for ourselves, for our words and for our actions. We need to think about what we say before we say it. Once the words are out, they cannot be taken back. It means accepting that their thoughts and ideas are just as valid as our own.
We need to respect that ours is a world that brings with it traditions – and to respect that tradition does not equate to law. They exist, whether we like or want them or not. Traditions evolve and adapt as they are passed down. It’s inevitable. There is room in this community for all manner of application when it comes to tradition. No one should be dismissing how others apply them within their own lives and relationships.
We have to respect that we are more diverse now than ever before. By respecting that fact, we give strength to those common bonds that bring us together. It also means respecting that not everyone or every subset within the community faces the same problems and challenges. Again, it comes down to listening to each other to understand those different challenges. If we’re going to call ourselves brothers and sisters and anything in between, then we have to stand together to beat those challenges, not divide ourselves into small clusters where no progress will ever be made.
Deep down, I still believe in our community, its potential, and its future. I believe in it because – as I learned when I first came into it – I’m not alone. I’m not the only one who thinks we have something worth building and preserving. But to get there, we have to stop this in-fighting. We have to learn to work through and accept our differences, not berate and despise one another for them. This has to stop being “Us vs Them” or “me vs everyone else.” We’re in this together!
If we’re going to call ourselves a community, we need to return to acting like one. There are enough on the outside who would like nothing better than to see all of what we are implode. Why are we helping them?
