PDS

PDS revisited

After my posts earlier this week (here and here) on PDS (Public Display of D/S) I thought I was done with the topic. Then I stumbled on the image below and felt like riffing on it a little more.

Personally I don’t kink on humiliation and I have a very low embarrassment threshold. I can get embarrassed just watching television on my own. Some people hide behind the couch when watching horror movies. I do it when watching comedies like Fraiser or Seinfeld. All this means that I’m not big on being leashed and led through the local shopping mall in a pink tutu.

On a more general philosophical note, I’m also not a fan of dragging innocent bystanders into a scene they’ve not consented to. However, when it comes to public spaces a little bit of my libertarian side does tend to leak out. A shared space means it should be for everyone. The fact I may not appreciate a couple making out, or practicing their fetch/sit/stay commands, doesn’t mean they should automatically be prevented from doing so. It’s their space as much as it is mine. After all, if it was left to me, I’d ban Ugg boots and Cargo pants from public display. Aesthetically I think I’d be right, but it’s hard to argue from a provable harm point of view.

For me the deciding factor for a lot of these ambiguous situation lies in intent. If you’re trying to piss people off and get off on their shock factor, then that’s obnoxious and out of line. But if you’re genuinely immersed in your thing, and trying to do it in the least confrontational way, then you should get a lot of leeway.

All of which brings me to the picture below, which I thought was very sweet. It made me smile. For all my fear of embarrassment, I’d be very happy to be this gentleman. And anybody complaining about it could go and kiss some other part of my anatomy.

I found this on the appropriately named Kiss the Feet tumblr.

I was going to follow-up my previous post with some comments on my personal feelings about PDS (Public Displays of Dominance and Submission). However, as I started to write it, I realized I really wasn’t adding much to the debate. The rules on how a shared public space should be used are endlessly debatable and mutable.

So instead let me make a meta-point: Everyone stands on a slope. By which I mean there is no fixed point and stable surface from which to cast other opinions down. If you read the comments on the two articles I previously linked to (here and here) you’ll see a lot of de facto assumptions about what is appropriate behavior in public and what should be reserved for private spaces. The comment writers don’t seem aware that their universal truths are not universal at all. Unfortunately, if you hang out on BDSM forums and blogs, you’ll often see much the same attitude coming from the opposite direction.

This isn’t to say that there’s no right or wrong. Just that whatever position you adopt on any subject, be aware that you’re on a continuum. It’s still possible to draw lines and acceptable limits. Just don’t try and pretend that what you’ve chosen is somehow God given or universally accepted. Anyone arguing from that perspective instantly loses credibility.

After all that pontificating, let me make amends to my readers with some more leash shots. In this case they’re from The Properly Leashed Male tumblr and feature gentlemen being pulled by something a little more sensitive than a neck.

Leash laws

Earlier in the week I came across this story on a public display of D/s. It’s an advice column, and featured the story of a woman taking her leashed partner for walks in a residential area. The letter writer was a concerned neighbor who wanted to know how to handle it. While the ultimate advice given was good (be friendly and don’t worry about it), the tone it was couched in was obnoxious. It seemed to have no understanding of why somebody might do it and attributed it entirely to a juvenile desire to shock.

I was pondering writing about this when, courtesy of a post from Mistress T, I was pointed to a follow-up article. The domme in question, a woman named Kai’enne, had seen the article and contacted the columnist. It’s a much more positive piece and puts across their D/s lifestyle in an understanding manner. It reflects well on all involved, although the reader comments are depressingly full of the usual hateful rubbish you might expect.

Then, just minutes after I’d read that article, I came across this post by Mistress Alex. It features leashes, public exhibitionism, bootblacking and the photograph below. I wonder what the original letter writer would have said to this scene in her neighborhood?

Mistress Alex is a NYC based pro-domme. Her blog is available here and her professional site is here.