Owned Boy

Social networks such as Fetlife and Collarme can provide very useful functions for those of us in the BDSM “lifestyle”.  They can be places to meet others of like mind, both in your area and around the world, places to go to learn about different kinks and other activities, places to go to just play and have fun with new found friends.  But there is a danger there too.  We can become so wrapped up in that internet life that it becomes too real, we take things too seriously, we develop “friendships” with people we don’t really know well enough to call a friend, we end up trusting people that should not be trusted.  This is not just limited to BDSM related sites, but to social networks of all kinds.  Nearly every day there are news stories about internet “bullying” and conflicts, especially with younger people. But it’s not limited to kids either.  People can go into chat rooms or discussion threads, and through naivety, ignorance or just plain inexperience, ask questions or solicit advice only to be verbally excoriated  or harassed by others. It happens more to those who are relatively new to a site, by those who have been around for a while.  Excuses are made about questions and situations being posed over and over again ad nauseum and how newbies should take the time to read previous posts on the subject, etc, etc, etc.  Those with barbs such as that don’t remember their first few days or weeks on the site, nor the repetitive or inane questions they themselves may have asked, they only remember reading similar posts a number of times.  i guess they’d want newbies to spends weeks reading the hundreds or thousands of posts they themselves have read over a period of time and just stay the hell out of discussions until they’ve accumulated enough knowledge that they never have to ask questions. Like their tormentors, they would at that point know everything there is to be known and can just sit back and chat about how smart or urbane they must be.  Every once in a while someone will ask “where is so-and-so? i haven’t seen him/her in a long while.”  Quite often, the answer is that they, like me, have tired of being involved in all the verbal nastiness.

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