Bringing the BDSM Community Closer

Mac Mclaughlin, administrator of the “Free the Kink” Facebook group, posted this question: “What would you suggest for bringing the BDSM community closer?.” There were almost thirty answers, and here we discuss the results.

In a previous post, we spoke about the importance of a sense of community among practitioners of BDSM. They are a group targeted with a lot of misunderstanding and even hate. So, it is important that people who share the same interest in kink support each other and stay close.

In the comments of the Facebook post, people talked about the importance of organizing events where people can meet and share their experiences and enthusiasm for kinky practices. It is important to remember that a live event can do more for a community than social media posts. Besides, what you can post on the Internet is severely controlled, whereas a live event allows for more freedom.

They also talked about the necessity of education. There are still a lot of prejudices surrounding BDSM. It’s going to take years of patient effort to slowly wipe them off. Any practitioner should also be an educator within his personal circle of friends and family.

Some people acknowledged that BDSM is experiencing dispersion. That is, everyone is taking their niche and forgetting about the rest of the community. Dispersion inhibits the creation of a true community.

Finally, many people mentioned that there is still a lot of judgment around BDSM. And it comes both from without and, more surprisingly, from within the community. This turns all the slogans about tolerance and keeping an open mind into empty speech. And BDSM practitioners should do something about it—the sooner, the better.

You can find the original post about bringing the BDSM community closer together and more on the topic in the “Free the Kink” Facebook group.