Why be a Titleholder?

That is a good question. I mean, why exactly?

In some ways, the bad reasons come more easily to mind than good reasons: to “be” someone (as if a contest can make a person), to prop up your image, to be relevant, to get other people to pay attention to you.

And for every good reason — to raise money, to build community, to be a leader, to help — there is always the clear argument that you don’t need a title to do those things, you can do those things without a title. So why be a titleholder?

A few weeks ago, I ran for the Mr. Alameda County Leather 2009 title, a title sponsored by a great club, the Alameda County Leather Corps. My boy Brutus, just recently, entered the SF Leather Daddy’s boy Contest. So this question has been an ongoing conversation around My household.

Here is my current answer, an answer that is still forming even as I write this.

A title is an organizing role in the community. It doesn’t actually create anything unique — something that wouldn’t exist if there were no title — but it does facilitate action and it does foster community. Now, action and community are functions that would have to happen, title or not, so if the title contests disappeared tomorrow, the Leather Community would find some other way. But for right now, titles and titleholders help us come together a little more easily. They focus our attention and they help us focus our attention together, in the same direction — in other words, they organize us (whether we rebel and reject them, or support them).

I want to make things happen, and I want to build community. I can do that without a title – but holding a title makes those things happen a little more quickly, a little more easily, a little more efficiently.

We all know people who make things happen in our community, without titles. We all know people who bring us together or articulate a vision of what we could be, without titles.

But those people have been able to do that by taking a path that is harder, lonelier sometimes, longer and rockier. If they are persistent and caring enough, they end up creating events, businesses and institutions that do far more good, in the long run, than a particular titleholder can. They end up earning our respect. But it is a long haul, I think.

The image I have in mind comes from the situation of becoming bilingual. If a person starts to learn another language when they are older, they often make very fast progress early on, but then peter out, hit a plateau, and don’t develop to the same level of proficiency as a native speaker. If a person starts to learn another language when they are younger, they make slower progress, but they end up at a higher level of proficiency, often a native-like proficiency. So, the choices are “faster but not as far” vs “slower but further.”

Being a titleholder is “faster but not as far” in terms of making things happen, bringing people together, than doing so without a title.

So why be a titleholder? Ultimately, the answer is personal. For me, taking on a title means I can make faster progress in building community and supporting our community — but I know that the more enduring aspects of community-building and organizing will take place farther down the road, after I am a “wuzzie” — if I stick to it.

What is Leadership?

There are many different kinds of disciplines that try to understand the nature of leadership and how it develops. Political science, psychology, sociology, business: they all have a stake in understanding and supporting the development of leadership. One area or discipline, educational leadership, is an area that is applicable to many situations in the BDSM/kink/leather communities, because educating, mentoring, helping people develop skills, knowledge, and character, are essential to the health and functioning of the kink community at large.

Currently I am most informed about leadership through the work of a scholar, Dr. Linda Lambert, who has spent many years trying to understand the nature of leadership at elementary schools and high schools. She begins with the following assumptions about leadership: (1) everyone has the right, responsibility, and capability to be a leader; (2) how we define leadership frames how people will participate in it; (3) leadership is about purpose in life, and purpose is essential to every human; (4) acts of leadership are mostly affected by the organizational environment, especially if there are opportunities for skillful participation.

In her analysis, leadership is not about some sort of rugged individual mystique – “leaders are born” or there is some secret to being a leader. Leadership is an act of the entire group. So, she defines the concept of leadership capacity as the “broad-based, skillful participation in the work of leadership.” (p. 4, 2003). This idea about leadership is most appropriate in a democratic, loose-network social environment, like our leather/kink community.

What is the leadership capacity of your club, group, organization? To answer this, first look to the level of participation in certain functions related to leadership: articulating a vision or stating the purpose of events and actions; making decisions based on accurate information; increasing the quality of practice, improving people’s lives and aiding their development. How many people are involved in these activities in your group, how often is your organization doing these activities? One person? Several? The more people involved in this, the larger the leadership capacity of that group.

But that’s only half the picture. What makes acts of leadership possible is not just more people participating, but also their skills for leadership. These skills include: (a) knowing how to dialogue, to speak and to listen deeply to another person; (b) knowing how to evaluate yourself and to reflect on events; (c) knowing how to be a team member and to collaborate with others; (d) knowing how to handle conflict and not be afraid of it; (e) knowing how to keep focus on the larger plan or mission. Each of these are skills that can be taught and can be learned, just like learning how to ride a bike or flog a back.

Often we believe that these skills are some aspect of “character” and somehow, then, innate to a person or mysterious in nature. But if we believe this, then “leaders are born” and we just need to find the right woman or man to lead us, and when they get burned out and used up by the community, then that’s it – the group falls apart or instantly clings to anyone who kinda looks like a leader (but who may not have the skills mentioned above).

Building up our leadership capacity is a much better way to ensuring the continuity and the quality of our groups and organizations. More in the columns ahead on the skills of leadership and some of the challenges to leadership that we face.

Are We a Nation or a Loose Collection of Tribes?

I am reposting this reflection from March 2007. I think the reflection is still applicable and relevant.
_______

March 2007

Next month is the Leather Leadership Conference in Minneapolis, the eleventh such annual gathering of people who organize within the US leather scene. We have a Leather Journal which reports nationally and internationally on events and developments within the leather/kink/BDSM community. We have an internationally recognized Leather Archives and Museum, and we have international events like IML, IMsL, Folsom Street, etc, etc, and the list goes on and on.

But do we really have an identity or culture larger than local tribes, centered on urban regions of the country? Are we a loose federation of groups with somewhat parallel interests, or do we have ties that bind us together no matter where in the country we happen to live?

The only people who can truly answer these questions are individuals answering for themselves, because “identity” is fluid and negotiated. How much “ownership” do you have in these national and international events and institutions? Would you miss them if they went away? Do they serve an important function in your life?

I would argue that these events and institutions do serve us, and together they create (for better or worse) our Kink Nation. They connect us, educate us, hold our memories for the next generation, allow us to communicate and coordinate – and most importantly, they create something larger than ourselves that we belong to.

But it is difficult sometimes to have a clear picture of what that “something larger” actually is. When I reflect on my own connection to the national or international scene, I notice that I feel two things at the same time – both a fuzzy sense of belonging and a lack of warmth. In this space, I want to explore some possible reasons for that lack of warmth.

** We are Rebels, Explorers, Libertarians – there is a strong recurring theme in many leather communities that we are outside the safe, conservative, boring mainstream – we explore the edges. I believe that the emphasis can weaken a sense of connection and belonging. (I’m not saying it is bad, but I am saying it has effects on a sense of connection to others). It sets up an “us” against “them” perspective, which can be distancing, and it emphasizes a tricky notion: that to belong, you must be different.

** Old Guard, New Guard, No Guard – this conversation manages to come up again and again (although there are some people who feel very tired listening to it over and over). The conversation points to the fact that we are undergoing a generational shift, and when a new generation comes up into the community, things change which can lead to feelings of alienation or opposition.

** No Thanks – as a community, we are not very good at nurturing each other, helping each other, recognizing the good in each other and appreciating the efforts and spirit of each other. We do it, but not as well as we could. There are many reasons for this pervasive characteristic and this characteristic is not distinctive to the leather community – but it does cause a sense of disconnection when experienced over and over.

And those are just some possible reasons for the feeling that we are not a Nation, but just a loose collection of small groups or tribes – that the larger identity is an illusion. Notice that each of these possible reasons are about how a person acts and presents herself or himself on a personal, individual level. Culture, identity, is made in the little moments of our lives together – how we decide to “be” on a daily basis. That is the foundation of the national and international events and organizations which mark the Leather or Kink Nation.

Having said all this, I do believe that we are a Nation and not a loose collection of tribes that happen to walk alongside each other from time to time. Our institutions and world-sized events, and their vitality, speaks to that. The important point is to recognize those tendencies that force us apart, and to realize that these tendencies exist in the everyday, individual actions we take when facing our brothers and sisters.

When Your Sexuality Transgresses Your Identity

There are strange connections that can happen between people – unexpected connections.  Sometimes a person who might usually be happy in a submissive or masochistic role will come across someone else whom they just have to Top, to aggress on, to express a sadistic impulse towards.  Sometimes a person who might usually be in a Dom mode will come across someone else – and want to submit.  A person who usually has male partners for sex or BDSM will suddenly find themselves open to a certain female partner, or vice versa.  People who normally see themselves as open and polyamorous will find themselves in a relationship wherein they are not interested or motivated to have multiple partners, but are happy acting monogamously.

 

Our sexuality has a certain fluidity, more than some of our labels would suggest.  We grab onto certain categories and expectations, rules even, that are meant to capture our essence – and then something happens that challenges those rules, categories and expectations.

 

Should you worry when that happens?

 

What does it mean?  How can you be so wrong about yourself?  What else might pop up, unexpected? Where do you stand, is that quicksand beneath your feet or are you standing on solid ground?

 

Some people revel in the fluidity and hate rules, expectations and categories.  “It depends” and “whatever happens, happens” are some of the mottos spoken by the gender-fluid, switch or post-modern people that are exploring the edges of our culture.  Most people, though, want or need the clearness of the lines, the expectations that categories give us.  There is a sense of safety in having a clear identity.  Knowing who you are and knowing who other people are, allow us to move forward in an efficient, safe, and powerful manner. 

 

These two ways of being in the world – the explorer who refuses to be categorized, and the builder/nurturer who wants/needs their categories – should respect each other even if they can’t agree or get along all the time.  Our BDSM and leather/kink communities live out this tension all the time, especially given the higher proportion of explorers we have in our midst. 

 

But all of us will experience moments in our life path that challenges our identities.  Our sexualities shift, change and won’t stay in the boxes or within the lines.  This is true even for explorers – what happens when their sexuality starts to look like a traditional expression?

 

Each person has to figure this out for themselves, but figuring it out is not something a person has to do all by themselves – without the support and input of your friends, lovers and families.  Without your community.  That is why the tired discussion of Old Guard vs. ?? is actually useful, beneficial.  That is why more discussion on welcoming the diversity of our community is useful, beneficial.  These things matter – they actually help people when they hit the weird moment in the life path when their sexuality transgresses their identity.

 

So continue to have those discussions – don’t shut them out.  They matter.