your take on the difference between Top, Dom, or Master and bottom, sub and slave

[Sir_Russell]

It is a shame then, maybe it is my belief that words are tools that has me concerned that terms and history of the life has gone so loosy goosy.

There was a group in Colorado that was teaching their newbees that BDSM started after WW2 by black gay men. That is what frightens me, if we don't know more about what we do and who we are how will anyone ever understand how dangerous our form of play can be.

[Aesop]

It is a shame then, maybe it is my belief that words are tools that has me concerned that terms and history of the life has gone so loosy goosy.

There was a group in Colorado that was teaching they newbees that BDSM started after WW2 by black gay men. That is what frightens me, if we don't know more about what we do and who we are how will anyone ever understand how dangerous our form of play can be.

That's an excellent point and one I partially agree with. I don't know that it follows that if a person doesn't know how and when BDSM started they won't practice it safely, but there are too many people out there half-assing their way through BDSM and that makes them dangerous. Your post about your introduction to BDSM makes me view your initial post in a different way too. In a society of people it would be necessary to have distinctions between the titles so everyone would know what you were. Most of us aren't in societies though and I don't like to give people the impression that there is a "right" way to practice the relationship parts of BDSM or that the words are what is most important.

[Ozme52]

It is a shame then, maybe it is my belief that words are tools that has me concerned that terms and history of the life has gone so loosy goosy.

There was a group in Colorado that was teaching their newbees that BDSM started after WW2 by black gay men. That is what frightens me, if we don't know more about what we do and who we are how will anyone ever understand how dangerous our form of play can be.

And there are groups who try to teach that the Holocaust didn't happen. Some official U.S. Schools, as recently as the 1950's, didn't teach that the South lost the Civil War, and just this year there was a court battle over Intelligent Design.

We all just have to continue to tell and teach the truth as we see it and hope the majority of people will be able to recognize the b.s. for what it is.

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But if you try to put too much structure around an otherwise loose, social, human set of actions, you stifle creativity. For example, if we use your definitions, there is no place for me to exist. I don't fit into your definitions. I actually suspect that most of us don't.