SSC? Nope.

So we in the BDSM lifestyle are often known to run about preaching SSC, that we're Safe, Sane, and Consensual, and thinking a jazzy slogan makes us oh, so cool.  I call bullshit.  Here's why.  How we define those words can cause radical differences in what those words really mean, enough so that they honestly mean nothing at all.  Let me explain:

Safe:

Sure, this sounds simple enough.  But how I define what's safe could meet not at all with how you define it.  My God, I was a paramedic for a big chunk of my life and thought that shit was safe.  To be fair, I was never seriously hurt, but looking back, I wonder if I was out of my mind to be doing that job.   Let's step outside of kink and look at the more prosaic for a moment.  We see seat belts as a safety measure, but in my EMS years I saw at least three people killed because of their seat belts, held upright and slaughtered in car wrecks.  Two were in one car.  I think the driver fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into a flat-bed truck.  They probably thought their seatbelts made them safe.  Turns out they signed their own death warrants with a click.  Many of you out there refuse to ride roller coasters, feeling they're unsafe, but how many people are hurt or killed annually by roller coasters?  Ditto for flying.  The truth is, even things that seem perfectly routine can, at times, go wrong.   Consider choking and breath play.  As a paramedic, I was taught that interfering with someone's airway was tantamount to going to Sunday Mass, slapping the nun, nut-punching the priest, and then crapping on the altar ... in other words, something polite people simply don't do.  But there's been no rash of deaths, has there?  I think the last breath-player I heard of being killed was David Carradine, when he lynched himself stroking one off and died in that misadventure.  I guess he was hung better than Robin Williams, huh?  Unconfirmed reports maintain that a crew of four morticians worked 'round the clock for 72 hours in an only partially successful attempt to get the happy leer erased from his face.  Else, any number of people engage in this activity and few, if any, come to harm.  So is that safe?  But what if your partner gets too excited and keels over of a heart attack while getting that ass smacked.  Was that safe?  A neighbor of mine a few years ago died screwing his wife.  Locked up and keeled over dead of a heart attack.  I doubt he meant to fuck off and die, so was that safe?  

The flat fact of the matter is that "safe" is in the eye of the beholder, and since we really cannot define it, the word is pointless to the broader community.

Sane:

I cannot define pornography, but I know it when I see it.  This infamous statement was made by a judge in a case, as I recall, involving Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, who seems to have spent a great deal of his life before this or that bar of justice before the judiciary finally affirmed his rights under the First Amendment to say what he wants without fear of persecution.  But we could say the same about sanity, that what might meet a legal definition of insanity might not be so clear-cut out in the world at large. 

Where do we draw the line?  Is a kleptomaniac sane?  A hoarder?  Someone who hears voices in his head all the time?  That last happens to me as a matter of routine.  #writerlife right?  Is a bipolar person sane?  Someone with attention deficit disorder?  A sociopath?  Ted Bundy was a sociopath but deemed sane and executed for his crimes of murder.  Charles Manson is in prison for leading his cult and more murders.  I think the argument could be made that neither of those men was altogether sane, yes?    I see skydiving as insanity ... why the fuck would I leap out of an airplane flying under its own power and all but certain to make an uneventful wheels-down landing at the airport?  But that doesn't mean I don't think those into skydiving should be excluded from BDSM activities.  I just ain't gonna get on an airplane with one of those nuts, is all.  But if she's appealing and interested once she lands on the ground, I just might spank her silly, just the same.  I think, again, this is between the members of a partnership to define whether one another is sane enough to do what it is that we do.  I can't define batshit cray-cray, but I know it when I see it!  Seems legit, right?

Consensual:

But this should be easy.  You're both over 18 years of age and both agree to engage in these activities.  Cut and dried, right?  Eh, not so fast.  Hmm ... Mary and Claude both got into a deep scene but Claude was stoned out of his gourd and wakes in the morning wondering how the hell he has all these marks all over him.  Did Claude consent?   Jack and Jill take a naked tumble, but Jill's IQ is about 65 points, and she doesn't understand now why she has rope marks on her wrists and a baby growing in her belly.  Did Jill consent?   Billy is eighteen and his school principal, Mrs. Jingleheimerschmidt, seduces him, or coaxes him, or even coerces him.  Did he consent?  Being that Mrs. J is in a position of authority over him, is his consent even possible or thinkable with her?  Let's say he even wanted it, being the horndog that most 18-year-old young men are?  Still, was it consent, morally or legally?  Larry coaxes Brenda into bed after she agrees in the heat of passion, with some profound morning-after regrets.  Did Brenda consent in the heat of passion?  If not, does that make Larry a rapist?  I knew one woman (I'll call her "Christine") who went excitedly into subspace while negotiating scenes, and got into a pickle after agreeing unaware to all kinds of hijinks.  Did Christine consent from deep in the wilds of subspace?  Did the dom who played with her abuse her?  She learned from it and had a trusted friend with her to negotiate things within her limits, moving forward.  So I would argue, once more, that consent means little after a very short walk down that path.

Conclusion:

I don't think I need to draw you a map.  But don't let a slogan do your thinking for you, kids.

Then What?

A new slogan has come along, complete to ... you guessed it! ... the acronym.  Risk-Aware Consensual Kink, aka RACK.  It covers things better, I think, although I'm personally still uneasy with the slogans thing.  But the fact is, all we do is risky.  So it's a more accurate expression, I think, of what it is that we do.  Ahead of all else, I advocate that you employ the services of that grey icky thing residing between your ears and behind your eyes.  You know, that thinky thing ... shit, what's it called?  Oh yeah!  YOUR BRAIN.  Think for yourself and realize that you are taking on certain risks, and use that brain to manage those risks.  I don't think "she wanted it" will be much of a defense at a trial for involuntary manslaughter, and there's really no olly-oxen-free when you're dead, now is there?

LXB

BDSM

I'm often asked questions about the BDSM lifestyle, as though I'm some guru or all-knowing being here at my abode in Texas.  Often, the questions are "do all doms ..." or "is every sub ...."  kind of stuff.  I think my answers to many are a disappointment to them, but I stand by my answers.  There is no such thing as "all doms" or "all subs" around here.  There never was, and there never will be such a thing as that.  We're all individuals and those of us involved in BDSM will take and give what we will, according to abilities, desires, and requirements.  I, for instance, am not into ropes.  I tell people the truth when I say I wear sneakers with Velcro because I don't even like tying shoes, for Pete's sake.  Does this make me less of a dom than a highly skilled rigger who could tie up seven girls with a spool of dental floss?  No, I don't think so.  It simply means that ropes and knots aren't my thing.  That same mystical rigger might not even consider flogging a chick, and he's not a lesser dom, it's just that flogging ain't something he likes to do. 

I frequently get the questions of "is it submissive if ..." or "is it dominant if ..." and the answer is the same.  I've told people time without number that your BDSM is what you and your partner make of it, and don't let anyone, not even the great Lucas X. Black, dictate the terms of your relationship to you.  There are too many variables, too many nuances, to impose any form of "one size fits all" onto this.  My stock remark is "it has to be what works with you and your partner."  I might toss in a suggestion here and there, and often have, and probably often will, but the flat fact of the matter is, it all comes back to "what works for you and your partner in this?" 

To this, I would add that we all evolve as we live our lives.  Things that excited us 20 years ago are old hat now in some cases, and things that might've seemed utterly freakish in the long-ago are deeply appealing now.  And sometimes a pair evolves differently, needs and desires don't intersect as they did in the ago.  Sometimes that means a relationship is coming to its natural end.  Sometimes one partner or the other swallows it and does what pleases the other, stifling their own needs in the process.   I don't judge that either.  You have to do what works best for you.

I likewise despise the kink shaming that goes on all too often here, where someone thinks they are arbiters of the One True Faith of BDSM and all variances are anathema to the lifestyle.  I call bullshit on that too, ladies and gents.  In another article, I'll take on SSC and RACK, but I'll leave it to say if you disapprove of another's kink, then don't participate in it.  It's really that simple.  I know people who are totally into choking and breath play, for instance.  That ain't my bag, but to each his own.  Nobody got killed or prosecuted and both partners came away from it satisfied and I simply say more power to 'em.  I'm not into the DD/lg thing either, but why do I care if that's what gets someone else's motor running?  But by that same token, don't try telling me I'm not a "real dom" because of what I may or may not be into doing.  I've never harmed another human being in my life, and I hope to be able to make that claim with my dying breath in the fullness of time.  Primum non nocere.  It's from the Hippocratic Oath and means "first, do no harm."  If I ever get a tattoo, that'll be on the thing.

So is this all clear as mud to y'all now?  Long and short, take what you want and need from this lifestyle and give your partner what your partner wants and needs that you're able to do, and if you're both happy, then piss on what anyone else thinks of it.

LXB

Experiences

One of the more consistent questions I get from fans or from those "getting to know me" as an author Facebook events is "how much of this is from real life experience?"  Right behind that is "are you really Josiah?"   I figured I'd address that here, to a point.

Yes, some of this is indeed experience-based.  But a quantity of it is flight-of-fancy, and little of life's mundane details is in what I write, glossed-over if mentioned at all.  Consider these passages:

Frank studied the menu for several minutes, pondering whether he wanted the fish'n chips or the pork chops.  Finally, he opted for the pork chops and told the waitress, whose nametag read Mavis, that he wished for the pork chops dinner.  Mavis questioned him as to what sides he wished to order to accompany his entree, and Frank asked her if the green beans were fresh, frozen, or canned.  Upon being reassured that the green beans were fresh from the local farmers' market, purchased that very morning, he asked for the green beans, and then asked if the corn was fresh.  Upon Mabel telling him it was canned corn, Frank asked about the fried okra, and was reassured that it was fresh, purchased at the same time as the green beans.  He waited eleven minutes, consuming a glass of iced tea, before Mavis placed his plate before him with a flourish.  She refilled his tea and Frank took a sip and then cut a piece from his pork chop about an inch by two, stuck it in his mouth, and chewed twenty-two times before swallowing ... 

OR

Frank went into the diner and ordered the pork chops.  The waitress refilled his tea when she brought his plate to him.  He finished his meal and got a tea to go, and then left the diner .... 

Sometimes the details can be burdensome and not only unneeded but unwanted.  So I often leave details aside that aren't important.  And then I hit the high points.  Josiah doesn't take three pages to shower.  He takes a sentence or even part of a sentence.  "Josiah showered while Molly did her hair, and then the two dressed and went out on the town."

Anyway, so yes, some of this is me, and some is the flights of fancy the muses lay on me, or perhaps more accurately, a weaving of both.  Similarly, my answer to "are you Josiah" is that maybe a part of him is me.  He's my brainchild, but so are all of my characters, so little bits of me go into each of them, but by that same token, none of them are entirely me. 

Tom Clancy wrote some really good novels surrounding Jack Ryan, and to a point, I'm sure Mr. Clancy could have said the same.  Jack Ryan had little bits of Clancy in him, but just bits.  So far as I know, Clancy (otherwise an insurance agent in those halcyon days as he wrote The Hunt for Red October) was never a badass CIA field agent like John Clark or Ding Chavez.  By that same token, I would suggest that neither did Agatha Christie ever murder an actual human being.  She just had her butler kill imaginary friends, right? Stephen King writes all kinds of powerful supernatural and macabre stuff, but so far as I know, the gentleman from Maine lives in the same world as you and me and puts his shoes on one at a time.  I somehow doubt he spends his spare time wearing a clown suit in the storm sewers looking for children to tear limb from limb and wreaking other horrors on unsuspecting Derry. 

Out here in the real world, like anyone else, I have my good days and my bad days.  There're those days when I can do no wrong, and there're those days when I couldn't get laid in a Bangkok bordello with a suitcase full of C-notes.  Anyway, that's a more expansive answer than those author events afford me enough time to answer. 

LXB 

Why Am I Doing This

Writing is a lonely pursuit.  It's one where I get to be God, creating worlds and people, dictating their every move, their every action, whether they live or die, scratch their watch or wind their ass.  Often, I work fourteen or more hours in a day, writing feverishly, sometimes in a half-dozen manuscripts at once.  It's not unheard-of for me to churn out ten thousand words in a day when my muses drag me deeply into The Zone.  To see me, you'd think I'm navel-gazing or stoned on some really good drugs.  But the fact of the matter is that I'm off in another world, being God, and at most, my body is a placeholder in this world while my mind is off in another.

But why?  It's not the money.  Sure, I sell books and make a bit of jingle from the publishing, but few of us are able to make a living from it, although I'm trying.  I've told people I write because it's a passion, and publish because I'm a whore.  It sounds funny, but it's true.  Yes, I want to make a living from doing this, but the flat fact of the matter is, even with no market at all or ability to publish, still I would write.  It's an addiction.  But I suppose it's harmless.  Thus far I haven't pawned my TV for ten bucks to support my habit, right?

So anyway, maybe this gives you a slight bit of insight into my world, into me.  And with that, I'll return you to your regular perversities, interrupted in progress.

LXB