RACE BANNON: Be Your Authentic Kinky Self
from
Recon News
18 December 2020
Race Bannon AKA member LoneWolfPig has been an organizer, writer, educator, speaker and activist in the LGBT, leather/kink, polyamory and HIV/STI prevention and treatment realms since 1973. In this article he talks about being your authentic kinky self.
Recently I was a guest for a large kinky organization's online monthly meeting with about 75 people in attendance. When I was introduced the host said about me "…and with almost 50 years of experience in the scene…" and it spawned some serious self-reflection after the meeting.
Yes, I have been in the kink scene a long time. However, I have not been the same leatherman or kinkster throughout those decades. I came out of the starting gate one type of leatherman and speak to you now as another quite different type of kinkster, with countless permutations and intersections of my erotic self at various times during that period.
We often hear it touted that we human beings should always seek to grow, evolve, and explore. That is sound advice. Yet, when it comes to our kinky selves, that advice is often not heeded or, just as sadly, we feel encumbered in unhealthy ways from pursuing such personal growth.
For whatever reason, guys trust me to hold their confidences. Even total strangers tell me some of the most intimate things about themselves and their sexualities knowing I will not gossip. It has led to me gaining some insights into men's sexual lives and identities that are truly illustrative.
Here is something I have learned during all those conversations. More guys than you might imagine are hiding aspects of their kinky proclivities because of internal or external judgment, and it is stressful for them. Men often live in fear that if their authentic natures are exposed, or if it is discovered that they have embarked on a new or modified path, they will be summarily dismissed from men's kink culture. This is a sad situation.
The official name for this phenomenon is sexual repression. It is often linked with guilt or shame. Too many kinky men fall prey to sexual repression, whether that manifests as simply not pursuing a certain fetish for fear of judgment or hesitating about a complete reinvention of their sexual identity. Men fear being ostracized because of the change they desire or need.
Are all such fears well founded? No, not at all. But some are absolutely the result of our kink culture too often worshiping at the altar of templated sexualities. The prisons into which we place ourselves or are placed are numerous.
We hear things like: This is what a proper dom/sub dynamic looks like. This is the role you should stick to and not cross over the dom/sub boundaries. This is how you must dress to be a proper kinkster. True leatherman gear up, act, and function this way. Do not try to be a sir when you have been a boy for so long. Do not try to be a sub if you have been a dom for so long. That kink, even though consensual and everyone will come out of it happy and intact, crosses a line and you should not do it because it violates a prudish sensibility.
I could go on. The list of shoulds and should nots in our scene can be lengthy.
Some of these impositions on our sexualities are self-imposed. We absorb all the codified directives, rules, protocols, rituals, and histories (even if those histories are often mythologies) and construct a way of being that tries to stay in line with all those sometimes-conflicting messages.
Some of the ways in which we constrain our erotic explorations are externally imposed. A clueless mentor to a neophyte kinkster doles out awful advice and sets the newbie on a path closer to erotic destruction than erotic celebration. A book, article, or post from a rigid elder or scene leader barks out unrealistic and psychologically unhealthy parameters by which they believe all us kink folk should abide. Someone sits in a classroom during a fetish conference while a supposed expert tells a roomful of people this is the way true kinksters do what they do.
On a personal note, I have struggled with this issue too. Once my reputation as a dom was well established, breaking free of that reputation was difficult. Everyone placed me into the dom top box because that is where I started, and I never allowed that perception to waver. Over time I slowly moved toward an entirely switch and versatile approach for my sexual explorations, but that journey was a long arc of false starts and stops, and fear. I wish I had gotten out of my own way. It turned out no one, at least not the people I care about, gave a damn about whether I was dom, sub, or otherwise. Most of that was self-imposed and it is a source of regret.
As counterpoint, I recall more than once in my life when I collared as my long-term subs men who had been functioning in the scene as doms at the time. The blowback they received from some was at times off the charts vicious. They were told they needed to remain only doms because the scene needed them to remain that way. They were violating some fucked up pact by which those accusers felt doms were governed. I had a few snide comments thrown at me for taking a good dom off the market, so to speak.
Apart from role dynamics, we can avoid exploring certain kinks for fear of judgment. When you have situations like a hardcore BDSM guy exploring being a pup, or a man admitting he likes heavy raunch, or fantasies traversing darker realms, exposing one's liking of such things can trigger pushback from others who mistake their personal dislike for a certain kink for a decree that the kink should be off limits for everyone.
I will offer here my favorite quote of all time because it is apt for the topic. It is from the famed Dr. Seuss who gave us so much brilliant wisdom in his work. He wrote, "Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
Be the you that you want to be. Kinky and otherwise. As Oscar Wilde once said, "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Coming out as yourself, whoever you happen to be at the time, is not always easy, but remaining in closets often has far worse repercussions.
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