What is utbdsm?
utbdsm (shorthand for "Utah BDSM") is both a public mailing list and an evolving experiment in group-building systems. It is easiest to describe as an Open Source community, rather than what most people have come to think of as the "formally organized" bureaucratic system of an SM-leather-fetish group. It's an attempt to take some of the ideas of social structure that have evolved in the online metaverse, and bring them out into the real world to form a loose collective.
A more complete and complex definition would be to say that utbdsm is an adhocracy. Here is a definition of the term from Wikipedia:
Adhocracy (from Wikipedia):
Adhocracy is the absence of hierarchy, and is therefore the opposite of bureaucracy.
The term is used in the theory of management of organizations. All members of an organization have the authority to make decisions and to take actions affecting the future of the organization.
Alvin Toffler noted in his book Future Shock that adhocracies will get more common and are likely to replace bureaucracy in the near future. He also wrote that they will most often come in form of a temporary structure, formed to resolve a given problem and dissolved afterwards.
So, what does this all mean to me?
The basic idea here is to remove the formal bureaucratic structure from a leather group (though really, this could be applied to any social interest group) and put the power of self-governance in the hands of the members. Instead of one or three or five elected members calling all the shots and organizing all the activities, anyone is welcome and even encouraged to put ideas up to the rest of the group for discussion and group consensus. It's not so much a case of no one is in charge, but rather everyone is in charge.
So, as an example, say you wanted to learn and discuss the finer points of corseting with others who know about it. You could bring up the point that you wanted to learn more about safely corseting to the group, and see who would be knowledgeable and willing to enter into a discussion group about it. You would also find out who else would be interested in learning about the topic. You could either arrange discussions online with other interested parties, in either email or in a chat area, or you could arrange a physical meeting space where the interested parties could get together, show each other designs, talk about special diets, etc. This is called a special interest group (or SIG) and could meet as often as all those interested wanted to. It could be for one presentation by someone with the knowledge, or it could turn into a monthly or even weekly get together. It's all up to those in the SIG.
Perhaps you have an interest in throwing a play party. You could bring the topic up to the adhocracy, discuss the best dates to do it, and go on to organize a small SIG of members who would be interested in helping to organize a great party for everyone. It would be up to the organizers whether it would be an all pot luck affair, or if a small door donation would be asked to offset the costs of the party, with perhaps the surplus going to a charitable group like the GLBTCCU or PWACU, or maybe to a member of the community who is in need of financial assistance from medical bills or the like. All that is required is that the goals of the SIG and the party are open for everyone to know about beforehand.
The point is, utbdsm provides a communication network to help special interest groups get organized, poll the members of the adhocracy about ideas, and above all else help people have fun. And nothing is compulsory – if you don't want to attend Master So-and-so's party because you don't like their political party or ideology, that's entirely up to you. Just have the common decency to not organize a boycott out of petty intentions. Make your own choices, and be mature enough to let others make theirs.
On that subject, what happens with personal politics?
Among any group of human beings, personal politics (known sometimes as drama) is completely unavoidable. People don't always get along, people can be very frustrating, and we don't always agree with someone's personal choices.
However, the basic concepts behind an adhocracy necessitate that everyone respect everyone else as adults who can make their own informed decisions. You might not like someone's choice in partners, or their consensual BDSM activities, or even their hair color. But it's no one's business but their own.
And as previously mentioned, nothing is compulsory. There's no written rule that you must play with someone you don't trust, or that you have to believe everything someone else says unequivocally. You don't have to be a part of any one clique, or follow anyone blindly, unless you have chosen to do so in an informed manner. And if you have chosen so, no one else can tell you it's wrong. They can only offer their opinions, and the choice is up to you and you alone.
So, in theory no one person can take charge of the adhocracy, nor would they want to. If they want to organize their own SIG for a topic, that's up to them and they will certainly be encouraged (if it's a good idea) and can be in charge of that for as long as they want to be. But with such an open source community, if anyone is abusing personal power or politics you can be sure will be discussed by others, and might not find themselves in very comfortable surroundings if they insist on playing political drama games.
In summary, we're all adults and all looking for the same basic things from a BDSM community. So treat each other as such and leave your politics at the door as much as possible. In all honesty, this will probably be the single hardest hurdle to overcome in building any kind of working adhocratic system.
Who can belong to the utbdsm adhocracy?
Anyone and everyone who wants to be part of this community* is welcome. A big part of being open source is that you have to stay open. There are a few simple (and mostly state-required) guidelines, however, and you should read them before joining.
(*Obviously, if you act in a brutish and incivil manner to people online here, you're not really interested in being a party of this community. Don't bother joining just to troll, this isn't usenet and you will just waste your time and ours.)
These guidelines are by necessity. Without them, there would be little to keep the state police force from walking in and making arrests. And I think that anyone interested in participating will be able to agree to these.
The primary rule is: you must be a legal adult. In Utah,
this means you have to be over the age of consent, which is currently
18 years old. This is a hard and fast rule, subject only to adjustment
if the state changes the rules. So if you're 17 and dying to get involved,
I'm sorry but you'll have to wait a few more months. In the meantime,
there are many safe sources of BDSM information available on the web.
Since everyone involved must be an adult, this also means
de facto that no one involved in pedophile activities can be involved.
We've all heard the arguments for and against adult/underage relationships
over the years - "some people mature faster, etc" –
and while I'm sure everyone has a few of those arguments they find they
agree with, rules are rules.
Everyone should also agree that informed
consent must be a rule of thumb in our lifestyle. Without consent
it is rape and/or abuse (and even consensual-nonconsent
is, well, technically consensual.) Everyone should probably at least
understand and agree to the concept behind RACK
(that's "risk-aware consensual kink") and take responsibility
for their safety and the reasonable safety of those they play with.
If you're a risky and consistently dangerous (read: unsafe) player in
your sex life, the people in an open community will find out. 'Nuff
said about that.
What else? Well, these rules are likely to evolve a little
bit as time goes on, per the consensus of the adhocracy. We'll let you
know when they do. Here are a few policies:
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need any rules. We're going to keep this as perfect a world as possible, and the rules to a minimum. Here are some guidelines for behaving yourself and making new friends on the list once you've joined:
- Don't go crazy with personal ads -- posting a quick "who I am and what I like" when you join is not a problem at all, and in fact welcome as it lets us know who has joined the party. Posting a weekly or even monthly "looking for X" ad and not contributing in any other way to the list is right out. That kind of thing can kill a good list. It's usually a gray spectrum between the two extremes, but sometimes people can go overboard and you might get a gentle (and privately sent) nudge if you do. You won't get banned without warning, and in fact you'd have to push pretty darn hard for that to happen. (See the caveat above about wanting to be a part of the community.)
There are also literally hundreds of personals sites all over the web (and a few are quite effective) where you can post your personal desires for masters, slaves, or just play partners:
- Don't be all flamey -- Debate is great, but flamewars just burn people out. Resist the urge to attack Sir So-and-so on the list, and if you wanna fight take it to private email. This is just common courtesy and civil behavior. If it goes too far, you could push over into #5 (see below)
- Messages are moderated for new members -- Just be aware, your first posting might not immediately appear, so posting it 10 more times won't make it happen any faster. After the first one, you're cleared for open posting (unless you abuse, refer to 1 and 2 above.)
- Don't ever EVER spam -- Okay, defining the spam: ads for interesting kink-related websites, good - ads for non-related pr0n sites, bad; messages with nothing but links to celebrity pr0n or "hottset lolit.a.s" are also usually regarded as spam. I think we all have a good idea of what spam is. This doesn't mean don't send us links to cool stuff, or even your new personals website or kink related products or Amazon bookstore -- that's all cool in context, and again if you're a regular contributor and didn't just create an account in the last 3 hours, it's not unwelcome.
- Trolls will not be tolerated any more than spammers -- Trolling is a growing epidemic to lists and message boards all across the net. It has not been a problem here, and will not be. Debate is great, but if all you ever do is unprovokedly attack people or topics with the obvious intent to disrupt or harm, you will be muzzled or banned. Nuff said.
How would I become a part of this?
Well, by reading this far and deciding you want to be, you pretty much already are. There are no dues, no formal membership cards, no need of a treasury, and you can enter and leave as freely as you like.
To get involved in the communication network, you just have to join the primary discussion list. Just go to the utbdsm Google Group and sign up. It's as anonymous as you want it to be, meaning that if you post all your personal information that's up to you (but certainly inadvisable.)
Feel free to lurk and get an idea of what's happening, and when you're ready to jump in, go ahead and say hi. We'll be waiting for you.
Last revised Monday, 29-June-2009
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