littlesarbonn
Posts: 1710
Joined: 12/3/2005
From: Stockton, California
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
Hey, I LIKE fucking in public! We actually get a bit of crossover already and in fact the gay and larger het groups DO get along. There are smaller het groups that don't.
As for common ground, you are right, it isn't always easy to find. The gay groups didn't really come out to see Jack Rinnella at all nor did they host him on their own. Who knows but there is no crime in trying.
Well, I was there for Jack's speech in Stockton, and at least at the gathering I attended, it was well attended. (I honestly don't think anyone realized who I was, and I made a pretty good effort at keeping low key this time around)
Part of the problem with rebuilding a community is finding common ground within that community in which to build. It doesn't matter if they're scattered all over the place in what they desire, such as male top/female bottom, males only, females only, or whatever. What does matter is that those who attend different gatherings are very open into welcoming members they don't already know. THAT alone is such a huge factor in rebuilding a community because you need new blood, and if you don't welcome the new blood to where that new blood doesn't bolt at the first moment because he or she feels like an outsider, you're really never going to create an atmosphere where people will want to gather.
We had a lot of this same problem with groups in San Francisco (specifically the femdom scene), and people would scatter, creating their own groups, and then they would splinter. What ALWAYS brought people together was the success of one group that become inclusive and welcoming to practically everyone else. When the splinter groups started to see that one group was doing well and very open into outreach, quite often the estranged groups would come back. I spent so much time a decade or so ago just rebuilding bridges that had collapsed because someone said something that pissed someone else off and it caused a rift that no one believed could be fixed. I once got too very estranged groups back together because I was a long time officer of one femdom group and the slave to a woman who was a senior officer of another group. Sometimes, coincidence is what is needed to bring them back together. Other times, I actually had to contact members of the gay bdsm community who I had built friendships with over the years and ask one friend to contact another person because I couldn't get two other people to speak to each other.
Once people get beyond the "I hope their group fails" mentality, rebuilding bridges can happen. But that's SO HARD to get past.
Anyway, I can talk about this for hours, but what's funny is that in so many different patches I made over the years to different groups, so few of them even realized I did it. Unfortunately, that's usually how you have to do it because people have a hard time reacting to positively when the big names try to mend fences rather than the little peons that everyone know but if asked to describe him or her, couldn't really do it.
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<---- FYI, this picture looks JUST like me
http://www.littlesarbonn.com/Stickman/Stickman.htm
The Adventures of Stickman and the Unemployed Lego Spaceman
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