Poll Results - Integrated Play Spaces

Laissez Faire seems to be the mode du jour, but is it really?

Our leather/kink community is growing up...and having some growing pains to contend with.  One of the most interesting discussions we get in to is the issue of inclusiveness.  And believe me there are lots of thorny discussions which go way beyond simple black/white gender issues.  Were talking about multi-sexual, multi-gender, multi-indentified kinksters here and if there's one thing we excel at, it's not fitting in!

We laser focused on one question for our December poll - What is your opinion of integrated play spaces? - with four possible answers.  Yes, it's simplistic considering the complex makeup of our communities, but we had to start somewhere!.  Here's a look at the results:

6.1% Play spaces should always be inclusive of all genders and all sexualities

59.2% Every group should choose what works best for their members

6.1% Play spaces should be gender and sexuality inclusive but should have separate areas

28.6% Play spaces should remain segregated: men-only, women-only, gay-only, het-only, etc.

We were scratching our heads a bit about what conclusions to draw when we first reviewed the final tally.  There seems to be a strong each to his/her own sentiment, reinforced by a second place finish for maintaining segregation.

So how do we really feel about it.  We contacted a few people in the community for more in-depth contemplation and what we encountered was a strong feeling that we're emerging in to a time with few hard/fast rules that can be applied across the board.  

One of our favorite Next Gen players says his crew's just looking for other kinky players and lets the gender and orientation work itself out.  The identities are much more fluid for them and people are playing for the experience and no for the sexual gratification, necessarily.

The emerging profile of trans folk, especially trans men, into traditionally male-only play spaces is another trend that, well, bucks past trends.  One of our brothers from the 15 Association in SF wanted to know what the big deal was.  Does the guy self-identify as male?  Can he play?  Throw a single tale?  Cred is more important than birth with a lot of play clubs.

And yet there is still a strong sentiment for many that men-only play, het-only, women-only, etc. spaces are the rule of the day and should stay that way.  We found this especially true among some of the older clubs.  Full disclosure here - I am a member of Avatar Club Los Angeles and produce their dungeon parties.  Avatar Club produces about 6 dungeon parties a year, all of which are male-only.  They are a gay men's organization so that makes sense.  However the monthly demo meetings are open to everyone.  So on New Year's Eve Avatar had it's first multi-sexual, multi-gender party.  There was quite a bit of pushback.  And not just from members of the club.  Others in the community thought that Avatar should stick to its mandate and serve its community.

Hmmm.  So here we are again with conflicting ideas and no clear direction.  The top poll answer was in favor of letting each club choose it's own path.  Kind of reflects the ideal of letting each individual follow his/her own path as well.  

We'll look forward to your comments!

Comments

[Master John]

Id like to post this as I have had this conversation with many people and it always boils down to the same thing. First off many gay men are not comfortable getting naked let alone having sexual relations in front of str8,and lesbians, just as they are not that comfortable in front of gay men. WE all say yes to just play but mostly for gay men play leads to sexual activity. I was told when I wrote my most recent book on Old Guard Protocol which I interviewed many Pansexual people and it all boiled down to the famous penetration whether oral or anal or vaginal no one was really comfortable with it. Yet others found it very hot to watch the other lifestyle do it and got them hot. Well until we all can get comfortable with having sex together which I don't think is going to happen we will have to have different play spaces. Many pansexual events don't allow penetration for that reason and then it still is a problem for men like to have more intimate sexual contact in play ie oral play or some other type of play which is intimate which may be wanted by the pansexual and lesbian but they refrain from doing it overtly and just play. Even when I attended some events where penetration was allowed in pansexual dungeons there wasn't much done and if it was done it was done very quietly. Upon further discussion with men on men they just don't want to see that female genitalia which is why gay men don't want to be involved in their play spaces. Its more of a gay issues for us gay men, and having crossed that boundry personally, I still feel awkward doing anything sexual in a pansexual open penetration dungeon. The moment I do I tend to draw an audience which causes me to stop doing what I am doing and the intimacy with my bottom is lost and the connection is lost. I just don't know how to get over it myself but I try it all the time. I usually end up going back to my room and doing it privately to finish. My pansexual friends are more exhibitionists that actually fuck publicly as I tend to keep it private but I guess that still the Old Guard in me.

[mike]

Let's not be so open minded that our brains fall out!!!
Nature has always been an important baseline- a touchstone - just playing for the "experience" is not allowing the primal energy to flow - to really play well I allow the players to enter an experiential zone - each sexuality transmits unique, primal, energy - one example - fuckin a woman up the ass is very different to me than fuckin a dude - after all - he has a prostate - for the dude it is a more intense experience - also playing for the experience seems to be approaching a scene on a level that is acting on feelings from the outside in - I choose to act on feelings

from the inside out

this allows me to feel vibrations on a visceral sexual level much more easily as flow.I have also lost a lot of my tribe and realize to expand I must choose to put what I have learned out there in my art work - that is what will keep me growing.

[Papa Tony]

I had to deal with this question as well, when I was organizing events for many different groups in the past. Some women were outraged that I would create events that were male-only, and would demand to know why. Such a thing must clearly be an affront to diversity, and must be squashed.
These same people would also be attending female-only discussion meetings or play-parties, but thought nothing of their own double standard.
When I first started getting involved in community leadership, I met a lot of extremely diverse people, and my new friendships opened my mind considerably. I learned some of my best single-tail techniques from lesbian kinksters, I've played noj-sexually with many 100% heterosexual men, and done kinky play with every kind of people over the decades. This is healthy, valuable and mind-expanding. It's what the future looks like - Everybody being accepted for who they say that they are, no matter how they were born or raised.
AND…
Gay leathermen have a unique problem, and we'd all love to hide away from it, forever, but we can't.
It's our history. Gay leathermen were the first to die of AIDS, and we suffered the biggest losses in the first decade. I've personally lost over 130 close friends, lovers, mentors and Daddies - Out of my original extended Leather Family, I'm the only survivor. This has had a severe effect upon our sense of Tribe. Major proportions of our role-models have been lost, and their fetish-gear sent to the landfill.
Young men have ridiculously small chances of being personally mentored by an older man who has walked their path before. I'm all for all-inclusive play-parties, but I've attended a ton of them, and young gay men simply don't seek them out. I wish that they did. I also wish that there wasn't an enormous gulf between the generations of gay men nowadays.
I don't have any solid answers, but I'm all for three-part play-parties - women-only, men-only, and everybody in the enter room.

[Mistress Cyan]

I believe in unifying and uniting the community, but not necessarily homogenizing it. The gay, lesbian. trans and het communities all have some things in common, but there are also differences. These communities have an "identity" that should be appreciated and preserved. There are many places where the play space is open to all, and others that are specific to a particular facet of our community, and I think that's a good thing.