Edgeliving: Master Jim and slave marsha

i've been asked by several folks for a copy of the keynote speech i gave at the GWNN Bash 2007. So, here it is -- but i have one favor to ask. Please do not copy, reprint or forward the speech without express permission. Thanks -- slave marsha

All I Really Need to Know about Leather/SM I Learned in Kindergarten
slave marsha, in service to Master Jim
International slave 2001

Keynote Speech -- GWNN Bash 2007

It is my great pleasure to be here today, serving as the keynote speaker for this year’s GWNN Bash. Giving a keynote address in Austin is particularly special for me since this is, in many ways, my leather/SM city of birth – the very first leather/SM educational event I ever attended was Texas Leather Pride. And as some of you know, I have another close connection to this city’s leather/SM community – I’m proud to be a member of the Austin-based women’s club, Bound by Desire.

But what you may not know is that Austin also is the birthplace of my Master/slave relationship with Master Jim. On May 1, 1997 – over 10 years ago, I gave myself to Master Jim as his slave, here in Austin. There was no one else present at the ceremony – just the two of us, one giving over control of her life, one accepting total responsibility for that life. And shockingly, there was no hot scene afterwards. In fact, I think we followed up the ceremony by going out to dinner! How kinky is that?

But the long journey as Master and slave that Master Jim and I are still on today began right here. So for me, being in Austin with you is very much like coming home, very much like getting back to the basics of my leather/SM life.

And getting back to the basics is at the heart of what I want to talk with you about in the time we’ll share this morning. So let’s start with one of the most basic questions of all:

What words come to mind when you think about leather and SM?

Go ahead. Think about it. I’ll wait.

So what did you think about? Pain? Pleasure? Maybe obedience? What about service?

Did thoughts of floggers or singletails dance in your head? Did the word play come to your mind? Fire play? Needle play? Edgeplay?

Maybe you daydreamed for a moment of chaps….or corsets… or stilettos… or boots.

Or was it a strict Master… a cute boy… a hot butch leatherdyke… who occupied your thoughts?

Maybe you thought of one of the words I mentioned -- maybe you thought of all of them. If you really thought about all of them, see me after brunch. We need to talk.

But I’m willing to bet one word you didn’t think about during that brief moment was…kindergarten. Yes, kindergarten. And as odd as it may sound, it’s a word that should come to our minds when we think about leather and SM. Because I believe everything you really need to know about leather/SM you learned in kindergarten.

As you’ve no doubt guessed, Robert Fulghum’s book, “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” was the inspiration for my conversation with you today. If you’ve read the book, you know that Mr. Fulgham proposes a list of rules we all learned in kindergarten as the foundation we need to live our vanilla lives. In fact, I think many of those rules apply just as much to our leather/SM lives, and I want to share a few of them with you this morning.

You may find some of the rules obvious and simple. Even basic – they are kindergarten rules, after all. But take it from a slave who has served for over 10 years – the very best rules are the basic ones.

So, let’s get started.

Rule Number 1: Clean up your own mess – better yet, don’t make one in the first place.

In kindergarten, we learned to hang up our coats and put away our toys and flush the toilet. We learned that it is important to clean up our own messes, and not leave them for someone else to clean up. And we learned that if we don’t make a big mess in the first place, we can spend less time cleaning up and more time having fun.

Clean up your own mess. Of course, we teach this rule in our leather/SM community, too -- it’s in all of our “intro to SM” classes and books. We teach that you should put your toys away when you’re finished with a scene. Put your bottom away, too. Don’t leave bodily fluids on the dungeon equipment – or on your Top, at least not without permission.

But there’s another kind of mess that we make in our community far too often – and worse, we seldom clean it up. That’s the mess we leave through gossip. Remember your kindergarten class room? It didn’t take too long for a few kids to make a big mess. And it doesn’t take long for a few leatherfolk to make a big mess in our community with backbiting and gossip.

Now let me ask each of you – and myself -- a tough question: Have you ever made a mess in our community and left it in the floor for others to clean up? Have you ever passed along a rumor? Posted a nasty comment on an email list in a fit of anger? Cut loose with criticism about the community without offering to help solve the problem? I’m afraid the answer for most us is… yes.

When Master Jim and I ran for the International Master/slave title all those years ago, a very wise leatherman told us to get ready – that the leather/SM community likes to “eat its own” and when it does, what the community leaves after the feast is a real mess. I didn’t want to believe him then – sadly, after all I’ve seen in the community over the years, I can’t avoid believing it now.

What’s even worse is that too often, we deny that we’re spreading rumor and gossip by claiming we’re only “informing” the community or getting “advice” about a situation. We tell ourselves we’re only engaging in “healthy discussion.” And sometimes, that might even be true. But not always.

So let me suggest a way we can tell the difference between gossip and healthy discussion. If I’m talking about a situation that directly affects me and directly affects you, and I’m seeking a positive solution to the situation, and I’m really willing to act on that solution, then it probably isn’t gossip. If, however, I’m passing along third or fourth hand hearsay to everyone and every list in my email address book, or resolving the situation really is the furthest thing from my mind because then what would we have to talk about? – that’s likely gossip.

As a community, we don’t have to eat our own. Each one of us has the power – and the responsibility – to change things. If you’ve caused a mess in our community with your words or deeds, clean it up. Apologize – without excuses – and that holds true whether you identify as Top, bottom, Daddy, boy, Master, Mistress, slave, Dominant, submissive or Grand High Old Guard Poobah of the Leather Universe. If you make a mess, say you’re sorry. Make amends where you can.

And next time, don’t make a mess if you can avoid it. If you think there’s a problem in our community that needs to be addressed, go ahead and speak up, by all means – but do it by offering helpful and constructive comments, and be a part of the solution if you can. Put criticism and gossip away on the shelf.

Our community is too small, and the harm you can do with a single comment is too big. Clean up your mess – better yet, don’t make one in the first place.

Rule Number 2: When you fall down, the best thing to do is to get right back up.

Remember when you were a child, running and playing on the playground at recess? You were laughing and having a good time. Until suddenly, you slipped on a rock. Or you tripped over your shoelaces. Or you just didn’t see that tree root in time. However it happened, you found yourself flat on your face, dirt in your nose and a scrape on your knee. And if that wasn’t enough, you looked up to see all of your friends laughing at you.

What did you do? Do you remember? Well, if you were me, you probably sniffled a little and looked around for a cute baby butch to help you up. But eventually, with help or not, you picked yourself up, dusted off your hands and got back to the business of playing tag or hide and go seek or whatever the game was.

You may not have realized it, but you learned an important lesson: when you fall down, the best thing to do is to get right back up.

In our lives in the leather/SM community, every single one of us is going to fall down. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are as a Top. It doesn’t matter how obedient you are as a slave. Eventually, life will send a stone or an untied shoe lace or a tree root to trip you up.

And there are so many ways it can happen. A scene goes badly and no one knows how to make things right. We trust someone with our body -- or with our life -- and they hurt us. We disappoint someone else. We disappoint ourselves.

When it happens, we have a choice. We can reject the leather/SM community and everyone in it, or we can take a hard look at what happened and figure out where to go from here. We can give up or we can get up.

I first learned this lesson in kindergarten. And then I learned it again, later in my life, while I was learning to ride a motorcycle.

They say there are only two kinds of people who ride motorcycles: those who have been down and those who are gonna go down. Well, I had only been riding a motorcycle a few months when my turn came, and I went down. I was making a left turn when I was tagged in the rear by a car. The impact put me and my bike down and across two lanes of oncoming traffic. I remember thinking, “Wow. It’s going to hurt when those cars hit me.”

Fortunately, they didn’t. As you might imagine, when Master Jim realized what had happened, he hauled his bike over to the side of the road and ran to help me. After he got me and my bike off the road, he told me he would ride his bike home and get the car so I could drive home while he rode my bike back.

Let me tell you… I was tempted. I was terrified at the idea of getting back on that bike. But I knew that if I didn’t, I’d never ride again. So I said, “No, Sir. That’s my bike, and I’m riding her home.” And I did.

It’s a lesson we learn in kindergarten -- and then we get to practice it, over and over again, throughout our lives. When you fall down, get right back up.

Rule Number 3: Take naps often.

I think we really had it right in kindergarten – a little nap in the afternoon (preferably after a snack of milk and cookies) is a key part of physical and mental health. Our kindergarten teachers understood that our bodies and minds need time to rest and recharge, time to just be quiet.

But somehow, many of us in the leather/SM community have lost sight of this basic truth. Take a look at your local community’s calendar – I bet that if you live in or near a city of any size, there’s probably something leather/SM related you could go to almost any night of the week. If you aren’t in a big city, there’s always the Internet, just waiting to keep you occupied with SM websites and chatsites and email lists for a minute…or for hours. And if you can travel, there’s at least one major leather/SM event somewhere in the country every single month – and often more than one. I know. I think I’ve been to most of them.

All of that action, all of that excitement, is seductive. After all, many of us came to leather and SM later in our lives. We’re looking to make up for lost time – and some of us are really succeeding!

Take a look at your calendar. Are you on the verge of suffering “leather melt down?” Are you so immersed in the community that there’s never any time for you to rest and recharge?

You don’t have to go to every munch, every meeting, every bar night, every benefit, every event in order to be a member of the leather/SM community. Of course, that doesn’t apply to South Plains Leatherfest in Dallas in February – you’re all required to attend that one!

But really -- take time for yourself. There’s nothing worse than a cranky Top or a burned out bottom. Listen to your kindergarten teacher -- you’ll all feel better after your nap.

On to Rule Number 4: Not everyone is going to want to play with you all the time.

At some point, every child is told by another, “I don’t want to play with you!” Remember when it happened to you? I do. It hurt. I didn’t understand – what was wrong with me? Why wouldn’t everyone want to play with me?

When I asked my Daddy (being a good Southern girl, he was and always will be my Daddy) this question – he had an answer for me, as he always did. He told me, “marsha, not everyone will want to play with you all the time. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t your friends. It just means that some times the boys want to play together and sometimes the girls want to play together. Sometimes you want to play with just your very best friend, sometimes you want to play with all your neighborhood friends, and sometimes you want to play by yourself. It’s a good thing that you don’t all have to play together, all the time.”

How often do we hear the same question I asked my Daddy asked in our leather/SM community? We hear:

“Why won’t the gay leathermen come to our pansexual event?”

“Why do the women need a club of their own?”

“Why are there private parties that I’m not invited to?”

“Why should we have separate play spaces – can’t we all just play together?”

I believe the answer to each of these questions is the same as the one my Daddy gave me, so many years ago. As a leather/SM community, we quite rightly celebrate the incredible diversity of our community. But the lesson we have to learn and accept is that this diversity means not every part of our community is going to want to play together or be together or socialize together all the time.

Sometimes a group will need time and space apart to meet its particular needs – and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, if we as a community support the need of our diverse groups for time and space apart, we’re likely to find that those groups will be more willing to come together with the community as a whole more frequently and when it really counts.

So rather than wonder why we can’t all play together all the time, let’s celebrate the fact that our Texas leather/SM community is so diverse and so thriving, it can support separate time and space for its different groups. Rather than see the desire for time and space apart as a rejection of the larger community, let’s embrace and respect it, and see it as a healthy expression of diversity.

We don’t have to play together all the time to be a part of the same community, all the time.

Rule Number 5: Sometimes it’s hard to be brave (but holding a stuffed animal helps).

As children, we’re taught we need to be brave. We’re schooled not to show fear. We’re told not to cry when we’re scared. By teaching us these lessons, our parents were trying to do their best. They knew then what we’ve all come to know, that the world is a tough place, and we’ll need courage to go through it, and still be able to laugh and smile and love.

Courage. What exactly were our parents and our kindergarten teachers trying to teach us about the need for courage? What did they mean by courage– and more importantly, what does courage mean for us today in the leather/SM community?

I’ve read many definitions of the word, but today I’d like to share one written by journalist and activist Dorothy Thompson. This is the definition of courage that I’ve adopted for myself… because I believe there is a real lesson in it for us to learn both as individuals and as a community.

Ms. Thompson wrote, “Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, and injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.”

Choosing to be a part of leather and SM requires that kind of courage. It takes a brave person to step onto this path. It may mean a long and lonely search for someone to walk the path with you. It may mean risking your job. It may mean losing the acceptance of your biological family.

Without a doubt, it will mean getting more honest with yourself about who you are and what you need – and that will require the most courage of all.

If you are new to leather/SM, let me tell you a hard truth about the need for courage in this life: if you choose to walk this path, the time will come when you will wonder if you have the courage to go on. You will have nights, like the ones I have had, when you stand alone in front of your bathroom mirror and you look into your own eyes, and you say to yourself, “What the hell am I doing?” -- and there is no one there to answer that question but you. I can’t tell you why that moment will come to you, or when it will come to you. But I can tell you this -- it is in that moment that you’ll need to hold fast to what it means to have courage.

Those of you who have walked the path of leather/SM for a while, do you remember your dark nights? What did you do? What did it take to get you through them?

Well, for me, holding a stuffed animal helps. Remember when you had a favorite stuffed animal as a child, and holding it made everything seem a little better? My stuffed animal is a llama, named Harley.

In fact, the rest of my leather family has stuffed llamas, too – Master Jim’s llama is named Davidson (get it – Harley-Davidson). Cougar’s llama is named Trooper.

Yes, you heard right. Master Jim and Cougar. A gay leatherman and a leatherdyke, two of the biggest, baddest, don’t fuck with me-heavy SM- leather Tops in entire great state of Texas… have stuffed llamas. And you heard it here first – Master Jim makes them talk to each other!

Admit it – that information alone was worth the price of your brunch ticket.

And finally, Rule Number 6: When you go out into the world, hold hands and stick together, so no one gets lost.

When we were in kindergarten, we learned that being in a group meant we were safe and that we belonged. We went out to recess together. We cleaned up the classroom together. We ate our snack together. We took naps together. We went to the bathroom together. In fact, based on what I’ve seen at my home leather bar, some of us still go to the bathroom together….

Then when we went out into the big, wide world, our teacher told us to hold hands and stick together so we wouldn’t get lost.

Hold hands and stick together. I intentionally saved this rule for last. All the other rules we’ve talked about are important and helpful – but in this one, final rule, I think we can find everything we really need to know about leather and SM.

Human beings have a deep, fundamental need to be a part of something, of some group. We need to find other people like ourselves. It makes us feel safe. It makes us feel connected. That need for others causes us to join together in communities, like the one we call our leather/SM community.

But what do we mean by a “community?” After all, isn’t “community” another of those words like “respect” and “honor” that we use all the time, without quite knowing how to define it? It is. So to make sure we’re all on the same page, let me tell you what the concept of “community” at its best means to me.

A community at its best creates a safe place for us to learn and grow. It’s where we find our best friends and our closest lovers.

A community at its best accepts the differences and diversity of its members while at the same time reminding the members they all have things in common that have drawn them together. These things are the community’s traditions. At its best, the community is made up of members who value and respect those traditions -- and who pass them on to new generations in the community, while also understanding that those traditions may change over time.

A community at its best will support and stand by its members. A community at its best does away as much as possible with gossip, criticism and backbiting, and replaces those things with communication, encouragement, and guidance.

Those of us who have chosen the path of leather and SM need to be a part of a community, in the very best sense of the word. Acknowledging who we are, whether it’s to a small group of close friends or the whole world, is hard. It’s dangerous and sometimes lonely. And sometimes people get lost.

Several years ago, I came up with a theme for South Plains Leatherfest that we still use today – that theme is “We will not forget.” I wanted to send the message that those of us involved with South Plains promised we would not forget those people and ideas that have been and still are important to our leather/SM community.

So what do I believe we are in danger of losing in our community? What do I believe we must not forget? As our time together today draws to a close, let me suggest a few things to you.

We will not forget those in our community who we have lost to the plague of AIDS. We will not forget that the plague is still among us, and that members of our community are still being lost to it. We will not deny the seriousness of this plague by claiming that because of our sexual orientation or gender, AIDS is not a threat to us personally or our concern. If you believe that, please – reach out to others in this leather/SM community and get the facts. We don’t want to lose you.

And we will not forget what it was like when we first found leather and SM, how we were afraid and overwhelmed and excited, all at the same time. We will remember, and we will hold out our hands to those who come to us, and offer to teach them and mentor them in the ways of our community, so that they are not lost.

And we will not forget those men and women who came before us, whose lives and work helped form the leather/SM community we live in today. We will not do violence to the truth they lived by creating stories around them or the way they did things, then claiming our invention is the one true “old guard” way.

Instead, we will respect our leather elders for the work they did and the risk they took that laid the foundation for the community they have gifted to us. We will pass on their truth to our new generations, accurately.

We are so fortunate to still have some of those elders among us. To give you one example, Bound by Desire has two members who were a part of the club at its very beginning more than 15 years ago and who are still active in the club today. I’m proud to say that one of those elders is my mate, Cougar, who first came into the community through the gay leathermen, and then embraced and worked wholeheartedly for the dream that leatherwomen needed a home of their own.

Another example is Hardy Haberman, one of the presenters here this weekend. You all know Mr. Haberman is an outstanding teacher of SM techniques – and is without question one of the finest SM tops I’ve had the privilege to watch in the dungeon – but you may not know he also is a long time member of the leather community, and is an incredible resource for learning our history from someone who experienced much of it first hand.

I bet if I went around this room, many of you could name others among us today who are our elders. Our elders are a precious resource to this community for what they have given in the past and for what they still give. We must honor them. We must seek out their counsel. We must pledge we will not toss their experience to the side by flippantly saying, “We need a new direction for the community!” without even taking the time to learn and understand where we came from.

If we do all of these things, our leather elders will continue to reach out to us over the years and over the miles, take our hands, and keep us from getting lost.

And so… that’s it. All the rules you need to know. Of course, there will be a test. But you won’t receive a grade. You won’t get a gold star for good work. And no, you can’t take the test over. Because the test is simply this: to live what you’ve learned. To live your life as fully and honestly and joyously as you can in leather/SM.

So before we go, let’s review the rules, one more time:

When you make a mess, clean it up.

When you fall down, get back up.

Take naps often.

Not everyone is going to want to play with you all the time, and that’s okay.

It’s hard to be brave, but a stuffed animal helps.

And most of all… when we go out into the world, let’s hold hands and stick together.

You see – you really did learn all you needed to know about leather and SM in kindergarten.

:: 2:46 PM [+] ::
...

:: Edgeliving: Master Jim and slave marsha ::