As a distraction....the abuse issue still makes me angry

I'm in a venting mood so I'll vent on this. Basically just wanting to blog because it bothers me I haven't been, but I have nothing relevant to say, so I picked this topic.

I so resent both that what is called the BDSM lifestyle is used to justify abuse, and even more that those involved allow it to be used in such a fashion. I have had people in the past ask about my feelings about abuse. They want to know how I see a line being crossed for someone that has agreed to or even asked to be “hurt”. It’s pretty simple really, anything that is damaging to the submissive is abusive no matter how it is justified. Notice I did not say injurious, because I understand there are those out there that play a whole lot rougher than I ever have had the desire to do, and sometimes some pretty weird stuff (By my standards) seems to have a positive effect on the people involved. Note too I don't limit hurt to the physical.

When asked how a person can tell where the line that shouldn’t be crossed is in regards to “punishing” a submissive, I often use an analogy referencing owning a classic car. The point being, if your classic car doesn’t start one morning the way to address the problem is not to get out, kick the shit out of the fenders, and expect that now it will run fine. If you do that you will now have a slightly to severely damaged classic car (Depending entirely on how hard and how much YOU the owner kicked it) that still doesn’t start. Now you have the original problem and some new ones to overcome. Instead I suggest remaining calm in the face of your frustration and conducting a logical investigation into what is causing the no-start problem. Once you find the problem, it’s likely to be an easy fix, and it will be the only problem that needs to be resolved. Finding the problem might take a while, and it may not be anything obvious. It’s likely to take a little patience to get to the cause, but then if owning rare and beautiful things was easy everyone would have three, wouldn’t they? I think just about anyone should see the truth in that analogy, but somehow an awful lot of people claim they don’t see the correlation. They claim women aren’t machines; they are more like “Pets”. O.K. Let’s follow that concept out. So instead of a Mustang or Camaro, you are kicking a misbehaving dog. Let’s say a Chihuahua (Sorry ladies, but it needed to be something that seems at first glance to be non-threatening). Not a dog with a reputation for aggressiveness. Not one usually seen as a pit-fighter. But let’s say you kick that dog a few times. What do you suppose that dog is going to do?

Uh huh, she’s going to bite you. See, living creatures have an ability inanimate machines don’t. They can strike back. So to those that disagree with me on this, just remember fellas if you ever wake up one morning with your hands tied to the bed above your head and your amputated dick stuffed in your mouth as a gag, it could get worse. I could find out, and I’ll say I told you so while I laugh. After all, I’m the guy that said there IS a right way, and yours isn’t it.

But here's the thing that irritates me to a much larger degree. The "Community" that refuses to take a stand against abuse and irresponsible activities because they don't want to risk being accused of claiming "My kink is O.K. but yours isn't." I've got news for you. If your kink has the effect of destroying a submissives self esteem and self confidence, of removing from her the ability to function independently and making her physically dependent as a method of controlling her, then your kink is not O.K. under any circumstances and yes that means even if she asked. And if in your opinion that makes me an intolerant bigot that's trying to label you, I'm fine with that. It's just a simple fact that if any level of power exchange relationship is ever going to be acceptable in general society then we who practice it are going to have to police ourselves. That means we have to create labels that we can use to define ourselves both to the outsiders and to ourselves, and then we have to enforce those limits.