If you've nothing good to say...

With 'Love our lurkers' day having just passed I've been reflecting on this time last year. I had just signed up to Spankfinder, the previous month and was taking my first shaky steps from lurking to chatting.

Back then I was in a marathon emailing session with Caroline Grey discussing kink the moon and the stars. I was also chatting to her partner Topcat and we were but one week off meeting for the first time! They would be the first of many online folk that I would happily go on to meet in person.

Caroline's was the first blog I commented on with any regularity. And between the blog and my email exchanges with both her and Topcat, I built up a picture in my head of what they'd be like. I'm sure they did the same with me.

When we met some things about them were exactly as I had expected, and others were different. I hasten to add not in a negative sense at all and this process of reconciling preconceptions with reality is one I've had to do again and again.

For example, in my opinion, Caroline is even more mischievous in real life but is often very thoughtful and reflective too. While HH is not at as scary as I thought he'd be and is really very sweet in person and Abel is not nearly as dominant, but just as friendly as I expected. (Although HH and Abel can both be very scary and dominant in an actual scene!)

I'm thinking over all that now as I look back on nearly a full year in this scene. Put somewhat into focus by recently meeting another new friend and us both candidly talking of how the other did and did not meet expectations.

It made me think of how we create an image of ourselves online through our site profiles, comments on blogs and public chats, on sites like IC and Fetlife. The things we say on Twitter, the pics we show of ourselves and those of us who blog, what we say on our blogs. All of these allow people build up an expectation of what we'll be like in person.

I've also been thinking about how that image can be altered by what others tell us. How often someone has told me, "just wait until you meet so and so, you'll really love them." Which I find very hard, being afraid that I won't like them at all, disappointing everyone concerned. Although I have to admit to being a lil guilty of this myself!

But it's the opposite side of it that's more concerning; the negative recommendation. "I doubt you'll like that person at all, you don't play the same way" or "you'll have nothing in common."

I understand this is only human and not limited to kinky people at all. I also know that most of the time my friends are looking out for me. And of course I would want them to advise me of someone who broke limits, ignored safewords and was unsafe to meet. But in general I like to make up my own mind on people.

And blogs are another factor in image building and breaking. When I started my own blog I intended to honestly record and assess my experiences in the scene. But I quickly found myself self-censoring to some degree. I leave out some details and sometimes I refrain from discussing an incident at all.

One form of this censorship is that I don't write in any detail about my sexual experiences or partners. It's not that such things don't happen or indeed that I don't enjoy them but for me personally it's not something I feel comfortable about discussing on this blog. Partly because I don't want to write about the intimate details of what I get up to with people in the scene, something they may feel even more private about than I do.

But also because Emma Jane is just one step removed from the real me. She has the same personality and approach to life, just enhanced through my core kink of CP and discipline. The things her more depraved alter ego may get up to distract from who she really is and what she wants. I don't want to meet other people based on that alter ego.

My other form of censorship is that I try not to write anything negative about someone I have played with. The scene is too small. Even if I don't name the player, it can be pretty easy to work out who I'm talking about.

I'm a firm believer in the bottom taking as equal responsibility for the scene as the top. For me taking responsibility means facing up to the difficult conversations, being honest with the other person and not blaming them for a scene not working out. Or not telling them the scene was great when you really didn't think it was. And this works both ways, the top needs to give honest feedback to the bottom too.

If I have a problem or an issue in a scene then the only person I really need to talk to is the person I'm playing with. And even if I don't get the courage to interrupt the scene itself or even speak up directly post scene it has to be said afterwards.

This post scene communication can take many forms. From a gentle "I'd prefer if you did X this way" to a "please don't do that again" or "I can't read you well enough for you not to safeword" to a more serious "you broke a limit I set in stone and I don't want to play with you anymore."

Like all things in life, or perhaps even more so, reputation is a very important ingredient in this thing we do. Therefore we must be very conscious of how easy it is to harm one. But we also need to bear in mind that one person's rubbish is another person's gold. Just because you don't click with someone or like how they play, as long as they weren't unsafe or reckless, then don't affect their chances of playing with others.

As my grandmother used to tell me, if you've nothing good to say about someone, then don't say anything at all.