Mar 17, 2009

The Small World Club

It's no secret that the Internet is making the world a very tiny place at times.

Recently, I've had a few occasions to cross paths with people in my "fetish life" -- "Porno Person" side of my life -- that I had never expected to see there. It's like laying in the gutter and finding someone you know beside you.

Per my posting of the other day -- "Be My Friend" -- I've been spending a lot of time on Fetlife.com and MySpace.com lately. MySpace is fairly dead but it's still nice to go poking around and seeing who's online in my local community. It was from popping from one profile to another via friends that I happened to run into a familiar face, someone I went to high school with. We didn't necessarily hang out in the same circle of friends but I knew her nonetheless and it was really nice to see that I wasn't the only one from my home town that grew up into a "pervert."

Meanwhile, Fetlife has proven to be a great site with lots of interesting and relavant discussions. Oddly enough, when I tried to register with it recently it told me that my handle was already being used. "What's this? How could someone else be slaveboy72?" Then, on a whim, I tried my usual password with that username and -- voila -- I was in. I had registered for Fetlife.com when it was in its infancy and had forgotten. I went there years ago when I heard that one of my co-workers had started up "some fetish site." Luckily for him, he's done a hell of a job with it and it's turned into something valuable to him and to the community.

Thus the question becomes... Do I talk to these people? Do I acknowledge them at all? I try to keep this side of myself locked away in a little box, like Dr. Jeckyl trying to suppress his Mr. Hyde. By speaking up, I'm putting Hyde out into the light, albeit little by little.

The answer in this case becomes "yes." I said my greetings. What happens next? I'm not sure. If this were a Penthouse Variations story, I'd be blackmailed and on my knees in front of either one of them in no time flat. Luckily (or not), that's not the case. "I never thought it would happen to me..."

Why don't I embrace this part of my life and separate it out with a pseudonym and a thin barrier of attempted anonymity? Probably because of my past and how chastened I was by my ex-wife and ex-therapist about my "proclivities." Also, no matter how much people may hope that BDSM is becoming more mainstream, it's still a sore subject amongst many. Hell, even within the community there are several hot buttons that can be pushed (see my earlier post regarding discrimination).

By the way, I don't have delusions of grandeur. I'm not under the impression that anyone reads this blog or cares about what I say here. I'm just aware that it's better and safer to only allow a select few to know about this side of me. When I write here, I'm okay with those people reading what I write and knowing "too much" about me. I've been diving deeper than I usually do lately and I'm okay with that, as long as I can maintain the self-delusion of being just another anonymous jerk blogging into the ether.

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