Thinking

This post isn’t about fun stuff. It’s just me pondering our strange world and its contradictions and consequences.

I read an article about Billie Eilish. She is a young musician. She claims that she started watching adult content when she was eleven and it “destroyed my mind.”

Wow. That spurs me to re-evaluate what I think I think about adult materials.

Perspective #1: I believe that intimate content created by and for consenting adults is a legitimate artform that should be protected as free speech.

Perspective #2: I hate it when private companies censor their customer’s content based upon loosely defined and inconsistently enforced "community standards." I’m sure they have that right from a legal perspective, but it still feels like a betrayal. This practice reinforces the premise that corporations cannot be trusted to safeguard our right to free expression.

Perspective #3: Government censorship is worse. They have more responsibility and greater ability to suppress speech and repress speakers. We definitely don’t want politicians deciding which kinds of speech are permitted.

Perspective #4: Government has a legitimate interest in protecting children from exploitation.

Perspective #5: Age verification services designed to prevent children from accessing adult services create serious privacy concerns for legitimate consumers.

Perspective #6: Consumers favor social media that is easy to use. They will eventually move to less restrictive services and jurisdictions.

Perspective #7: Vibrant online communities require acceptance of anonymity.

Perspective #8: Arbitrary standards of what is and is not acceptable content will inevitably advance one parochial viewpoint at the expense of alternative preferences.

Perspective #9: Parents are the ideal control point for protecting children from inappropriate materials. Especially with younger children, parents and caregivers have a responsibility to monitor and guide them in their online travels. But this is difficult when every kid has an internet-enabled phone. Kids have a natural curiosity about anything forbidden and the ingenuity to defeat many blocking schemes.

Perspective #10: At the end of the day, the best solution, and maybe the only effective one, has little to do with technology or community standards or legislation or customer preferences. Conversations between parents and kids can emphasize sensible choices, model healthy relationships, and reinforce positive human values. Open communication is no silver bullet, but it may be the best tool we have.

That’s what I think.

Editorial: It's Not Up to Me

This post is my opinion alone. I don't intend to tell anyone else how they should think or what they should believe. If these topics upset you, offend your sensibilities or make you feel uncomfortable, I am sorry. I invite you to click the back button or simply direct your browsing elsewhere.

I regularly cruise around the web searching for new spanking-oriented blogs. Along the way, I encounter many different sorts of places - clever places, seedy places, confusing places, gross places, and beautiful places. Through these travels, I sometimes gain a feel for what is important in and around our community at the moment. So it was last week.

I witnessed dozens of scalding attacks on domestic discipline blogs and especially those that advocate CDD. The attackers were from outside our community. Most assume that DD wives must be abused and controlled by their violent and dangerous spouses. Never mind that these very women speak out in favor of their arrangements. They must have low self-esteem we are told. Never mind that these wives volunteer that they asked their husbands to act as head of household. It's some sort of Stockholm syndrome. It has to be. No one could ever want to be spanked.

I recognize that domestic violence is real and a major problem in our society. I don't for a minute minimize the damage it does every day to our families and our society. But let's not start a war over a case of mistaken identity. The difference is consent. Without it, we have a crime. With it, we have an act of love.

The common thread in all of these attacks is that paternalistic do-gooders are convinced that they know better what is right for a couple than the couple themselves do. They hold to a belief that their world view is superior and therefore should apply to everyone.

I am not in a DD relationship. That's our choice. But I have no right to tell someone else that they shouldn't incorporate DD into their lifestyle. It's not up to me.

Lest you think I reserve my venom only for liberal half-wits, let's move on to what I believe to be a closely related topic. I see the same sorts of arguments against same sex marriage. Critics believe that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to marry essentially because it clashes with their own values. They don't wish to marry a same sex partner, so no one else should either.

As with DD, I reject this viewpoint. The vast majority of people are smart enough and aware enough to know what they want in love and in life. Even if they get it wrong, and inevitably some will, they have the right to follow their own passion, instinct, and judgment.

I'm not in a gay marriage and I don't imagine I ever will be. That's not my preference. But other people should be free to do as they wish. Once again, it's not up to me.

When will we as a society finally resolve to quit trying to protect people from themselves? Not soon enough...