Blog of the week: 'A Domestic Discipline Society's': "One DD World Community"

  In his article "Domestic Discipline: One DD World Community", Mr BBSpanker of the informative 'A Domestic Discipline Society (ADDS)' blog and network of DD sites this week poses the question,

"There is something happening over the years that has been a little puzzling. There seems to be a separation between those who frequent blogs and people who prefer to go on adult discussion groups. This has caused a void of information between the two venues of information. Although with cross-over blogs like this one and others the chasm is closing. But, why is there still any gap? We are ONE DD World Community."

I have some thoughts about this that I would like to share with you here.  I will first say that I have very mixed feelings about the matter as a whole.  There's no denying that there are some very high quality blogs out there and that there has never before been such a diversity of information available on this one topic. Obviously, that can't be anything but good.  On the other hand, as the co-owner of a forum which contains a large amount of DD information and resources that has been researched, collected, written and posted as a labour of love over a period of many years and is still updated regularly, it is very disappointing to see all of this effort virtually disappear into obscurity overnight.  I still think that we have a great deal to offer and it is very sad to see the forums and all the experience and diversity that comes with them, suddenly so underused and almost ignored.   These of course are feelings somewhat personal to me and they are accompanied by a sense of disappointment that I am not often even able to persuade a person whose blog, or even posts to another forum, I have found to be particularly informative, to participate or post an a piece of infirmation on 'D & L'.   There is an unfortunately cyclic effect that accompanies this that dictates that, because there is a obvious deficit of participation, others are discouraged from participating themselves.

Mt first thought is that, whereas forums are a medium of communication on which people generally seek advice and a variety of different opinions on anything that that is troubling or confusing them, blogs tend to be a much more personal experience in which individuals and couples chart and record the unique progress and development of their own DD relationships.  I personally feel that there is equal room for this on a forum, ('D & L' actually has it's own inbuilt personal individual blog facility) but, unfortunately, in that setting, it would probably lack the journal style continuity that is provided by a blog.

The downside of this is that, when people do ask for advice and thoughts, which happens occasionally on most blogs, because there is such a huge proliferation of DD related personal blogs (the 'DD Blog List' attached to this blog runs into hundreds) that it is humanly impossible to keep up with them all, responses, except on the most popular and regularly updated blogs, tend to be fewer and more sparing and there is not the capacity for to and fro discussion, sharing of information and clarification that exists on a forum.  

Also, while there may very well be 50 different articles on various individual blogs that cover much the same problem, they are scattered all over the 'blogosphere' under titles that don't always imply a connection and therefore a huge amount of information that could actually be of great help to others is impossible to pinpoint and is lost in the volume.  Depending on how they are set up, it can also very difficult to locate particular articles on an individual blog.  It's one thing to have the memory that one of your favourite bloggers had some useful things to say about a hot topic; it's often quite another to actually find the relevant entry,  On a forum, on the other hand, all the information related to that topic is likely to be located or linked in the same place and anything that isn't can usually be found using a comprehensive search facility, which, in my experience, makes it much easier to get, or find, advice.  

My other thought is a rather less specific one related what I call the "Great Divide".  The fact is that, whichever way that you look at things, any serious commitment to a way of life of this kind, as opposed to the part time sexually based role play that might be tolerated by some sectors of society, is very largely socially unacceptable. Present day society has promoted an ethos in which men and women are no longer permitted to celebrate and enjoy their differences, but feel compelled to deny that there are any differences.  The principle of choice is widely and enthusiastically promoted, but in reality, "choice" in most people's unconscious (or conscious) minds usually only extends to situations with which they can personally identify.  While this can make a great deal of sense when concerned with actions that can affect, damage or restrict other members of society, when it comes to the restriction of the personal and consensual choice of two individuals as to how to live their private lives, it's directly paradoxical to the very principle of freedom that they claim to promote.  The attitude overall is very much one of, "You are entitled to your freedom just so long as that "freedom" remains strictly within the bounds of my preferences and limitations". 

If this were only to extend to the "vanilla" sections of society, then for me, although I would still view it as short sighted and contradictory, it would be understandable.  People are often made afraid by what they don't understand.  The sad thing however, is that it doesn't. Instead there are enormous divides and much infighting within the world of TTWD at large.  Each 'genre' of  D/s has its own idea of what should be allowed or given the label, and what shouldn't. Many have no tolerance or wish to understand what another does or how it fits into the wider scheme of things. 

What I can never understand is why, with the underlying provisos that something is fully consensual and doesn't impact negatively on other people in any way, those who, within the world of TTWD feel that others don't have the right to judge and restrict them, can nevertheless feel that they have the right to judge and negatively label any practise that doesn't appeal personally to them. 

It makes no sense to me, that instead of presenting a united front to a world that wants to restrict and condemn us because our choices are not theirs, we choose to spend our time fighting and disagreeing among ourselves abut the details. Surely one of the greatest things about what we do is that we can tailor it to meet individual needs and desires without expecting others to do exactly the same.