Jack Rowan
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Registered: January 1970
Messages: 16
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I've been reading the posts on this with interest, and I'm impressed by the good-natured level of the debate. My thanks also to those who have had kind things to say about my story, including people who would rather it weren't on Tim's site. That's very generous.
I still don't want to prejudge the question of whether The Story of Tim should be on the site, as I still don't really think it's my place to do so. But I would like to look at some of the reasons why one could justify putting something like that into the hands of a questioning teenager.
I'm not so bothered by adults, by the way. There are warnings, and I think one's obligations to adults are, at any rate formally, discharged by being explicit about one's content. All the same, even if people have chosen to read the story and then been hurt by it, I regret that.
It also seems to be common ground that the story would probably not be a bad thing to read for a teenager who is already pretty sure that they have an SM orientation, and are thinking about exploring that in the real world.
It's the others that are worrying people, and I'm thinking particularly of Cossie here. Cossie's been very frank with us about this (much respect due). In one post he said:
>For the sake of those for whom the penny has not yet dropped, the
>story worries me because I appreciate and feel the allure of the world
>it portrays, and it frightens me. I don't see the attraction in
>feeling pain, or in inflicting pain, but I do see the potential for
>such attraction. The story has never been out of my mind since I read
>it for the first time.
I'm not going to overread this. Cossie says he doesn't feel the attraction to actually doing anything, and I believe him. But the allure is there, and it frightens him. I expect many of us know that sort of fear; even if not about SM, about other things. It tells us we are finding things out about ourselves that we would, at the moment, rather not know.
Cossie's position, if I read him right, is that this is something to be avoided. People who might otherwise not do SM, he feels, might be lured into doing it, and this would be a bad thing. He himself advances the analogy of gay stories in a mainstream context (in a newsagents, for example) and faces this squarely:
>I suspect that it would lead a number of readers to
>question their orientation and consider at least the possibility of a gay
>relationship. Now I don't, and you don't, see anything wrong with that,
>because we are gay. But if we stand back and look at the situation
>objectively, it would do no favours for the confused explorer; being str8
>is much easier than being gay! I am not in any way ashamed of what I am,
>but it's no soft option.
In other words, if young people are already clued about being gay, or at least questioning, it's okay to give them support and information. Otherwise, it's better to let things be, so that they will continue to be, um, part of the majority. Same for gay kids who get as far as Tim's site: if they're already searching for SM information, let them go elsewhere, or rummage around at the bottom of column eight, page seventeen, if they can find it. If they ain't, leave it be, don't mention it, because SM is dangerous, and it's better not to go that way unless you can't help it.
I have to say that I can't agree, not in either case. I suppose everyone knows Tim's personal story, since he's had the guts to write it up on his site. As it happens, in some ways mine isn't dissimilar; it wasn't till I was nearly 40 that I got to grips with my sexuality, my identity as a gay man. Both of us bust our guts trying to be part of that majority, and as far as I'm concerned, the results were overwhelmingly negative. Lost love, lost life, alienation, isolation, a grey pall of wrongness over everything. The idea that I was in some sense better off for not being exposed to the possibility of my own homosexuality, what you might call the Section 28 position, is by my experience quite wrong. Fortunately, in my case, it was just me who was damaged by that. It could easily have been also the woman, now a dear friend, whom I nearly married.
In my view, it is a good thing for people to learn about themselves, to know themselves. It's the basis for all sensible decisions and authentic action. And just to make it clear: that includes deciding *not* to express parts of your sexual personality. I, for example, do not actually practice SM (at the moment...) for various reasons. And I suspect there are people on this site, many of them, who have taken similar decisions about other things for very valid reasons, am I not right? But they would *not* be better off for not understanding themselves; on the contrary, they could well be setting themselves up for a fall. A person's sexual personality can be expressed, or compromised with in various sensible ways. But in my view it cannot be forever suppressed or denied without damage.
SM is not rare. If there's one thing that's certain, it's that there are people reading this who have it as a part of them, even if only on the borders of their consciousness. Let's appreciate that helping them to understand themselves and to integrate themselves and to direct their lives consciously and rationally, is good for them, and for the people they meet.
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