This took me a while to figure out and I'm still not sure how to put it into words, but it's been on my mind a lot the last few years:
"Community" isn't a label you adopt or a party you show up to. It's what you bring to the table.
If you want to feel connected when you walk into the bar, you have to introduce yourself to people and make conversation. If you want to play, you have to approach and ask for what you want. If you want a certain kind of event, you gotta organize, donate, volunteer.
I think it's easy to imagine "the community" as this Big Powerful Organized Thing that owes us understanding and support. Why did the contest not provide ASL interpretation? Why didn't someone welcome me on my first night at the bar and introduce me to everyone? How could Springfield Leather provide the wrong kind of bootblack stand? This community is trash!
These are all great things. We *should* have terps! It's *nice* when someone takes a newcomer under their wing personally.
Broadly speaking, our classes and events run on shoestring budgets. Almost everyone involved is an unpaid, overworked volunteer desperately trying to keep an ungainly plane in the air. Our boards are tiny and piece together events in their free time through a network of personal favors and the goodwill of sponsors. All of this runs on people just like you.
You gotta show up. Buy raffle tickets. Lend your sparkling wit. Volunteer in whatever capacity you can. Sit on committee. That's community.
This goes for informal social spaces too. I spent so long waiting for someone to swoop in and do the work of socializing for me. Finally realized: it's not enough to be open to the possibility of conversation! I have to approach people. And once we start, I gotta be fun to talk to!
Good parties happen because the people who attend put their energy into the space: through dress, demeanor, conversation, play.
@aphyr I think the life experiences that prepared me most for leather bars was growing up going to Irish Catholic holiday parties. There’s all of these people in this room that you’re vaguely connected to, it’s chaotic as hell, and there’s limitless opportunities to talk to people about the weirdest shit that you never would have imagined discussing when woke up that morning.
A point in favor of gay bars is that they have a lot less fights started by breaking a beer bottle on the bar stand.
@BootblackTouko @aphyr
Thats exactly the kind of problem that pushed me in my burnout over the recent years.
I tried to be helpful for the kinky SM something "community" but
They turned out to be hetero couples, talking about "balanced gender ratio" and keeping out single man
They turned out to be driven by gut feelings, rejecting me clumsy autistic gay for feeling unsafe
I am burned out from two decades of trying to be helpful and valuable for a communiry
Sorry for Venting
Yes!
I started the humble beginnings of a literal circus this way. My partner and I went to the park, welcomed others who wanted to play, and things kept growing.
It's scary to let people into your emotional space. It's also how trust is built. Which is how communities happen.
2/n Things like title contests _can_ be highly mutually beneficial, but lately at least I’ve been running into a lot more of the ancillary baggage than increased fun (People chasing as beauty or popularity contest; exclusionary groups; High barrier to entry / “must own all gear yourself”). When they’re mutually beneficial: Person gets a platform and community gets someone dedicated to helping curate and grow it. Fresh ideas and perspective for a year is really good.
@aphyr Thank you so much for this. It all felt a little thankless in some points over the last few months.
And on that note, from the bottom of my heart
Please tell volunteers/community leaders that you appreciate them and their work, to their face, in social media, and in company! That's the third thing you can do. Boost up the people who do, because they need to know that you see them and that you care.
@aphyr in our local group (which I organize ) I get a lot of suggestions. And I love that, we have no shortage of good ideas.
But what there is always a shortage of is people to show up, and put in the work.
I went to a convention in Chicago , and it was awesome... And the first thing I asked was, what could I contribute to make it better.
I unloaded trucks at the next one, and they want me back to help for the one after that. Because I showed up, and helped... It was that simple.
I love this message and I would love if people who read this will take it to heart
@aphyr @reddywhp I've been learning to set boundaries and say no, and to eat my feelings of disappointment in myself and the community over the gap between the vibrance that is possible and the pared down reality of what's practical.
Anyway, anyone reading who isn't volunteering, even one person additional on a committee or board makes a huge difference in what an org can do for the community. I hope you'll consider giving your time to make the community you want to see!
@aphyr And we end up with a kink "community" that is largely centered around "vanilla latte" harness parties and contest culture that exists to fund venues, line producer pockets, and promote alcohol sales, while most interaction to find radical sex happens online. Or, queer kinksters have to enter pan spaces that are mostly straight and white, and often don't feel like home even if they attempt to be welcoming.
I would guess this is less of a problem in Chicago and SF, but elsewhere...
@yearofthepig @aphyr Definitely still a problem in SF. There's a reason WickedGrounds no longer has a physical presence, there's only one main public dungeon, ... Fortunately the community has/builds a lot of other spaces esp. recently; bars and dungeons aren't the sole, but those additional spaces also make a lot more barriers to entry. Be so nice to have a city which is a kinky play ground.
I'm definitely hopeful that with lowering commercial real estate more will become viable
@yearofthepig @aphyr Tho this is more from protest groups: a common dynamic is also that there's a pressure for performance (events, tickets, high profile speeches) and/or the defacto org boss is high octane -> educational / reachout/ chill events are deprioritised -> new ppl inflow drops -> rinse and repeat till burnout :(
And again, newcomers don't necessarily get that such spaces (even with some funding or merch) simply can't exist as for-profits. Reproductive work still sucks in that way, yay.
At SLSC, we focus on education, service, play, and broadcasting diverse voices in queer kink. Everyone at the table (board, committee members, educators, venue partners) is part of deciding what success is and looks like. As a result, we together decided to deprioritize events that don't fill a gap and don't feel pressure to put all our effort in "going big."
@chmps @yearofthepig Agreed. And to add on: we have to be honest about the fact that universal accessibility is often in conflict with constraints of budget and volunteer expertise & time (or, implicitly, access for people with less money).
I'm really happy that the events CinL puts on (and leather events in general!) have widespread ASL interpretation and partial mobility accessibility. Hell yeah! But I also recognize that takes a specific combination of organizers, volunteers, space, funds.
@chmps @yearofthepig @aphyr I probably interpret this article more widely than its author intended, but a lot of the systems / reinforcements it talks about for _how_ and _why_ it's hard to make changes in kink orgs. I've been trying to make 1) feedback encouraged, 2) help changing appreciated 3) Bring what you'd like to see; there's a lot of space, and more fun is a good thing.
To try and counteract some of them
@aphyr
> You gotta show up. Buy raffle tickets. Lend your sparkling wit. Volunteer in whatever capacity you can. Sit on committee. That's community.
This is perfectly the kind of building and beeing valuable for a community that i want
@yearofthepig That's a really good point, yeah.
And like... the flip side of that whole thread is that organizers and established community members have some obligation to be warm and welcoming--to be guides for newcomers, etc. I feel like a lot of us are cognizant of the risks of insularity, monoculture, and stagnation. We lean more towards super-inclusive messaging now. But as you note, that has some unexpected drawbacks!
@aphyr while my current professional work is related to community development, my best story about this comes from when I was in undergrad.
I was an officer in the GSA at my school and that club had been there for two decades. During COVID, every club crashed. And so last spring someone decided to stage a coup and create a new GSA. As a protest against old establishment.
Immediately - immediately - they lost funding because our district representative is Matt Fucking Gaetz.
@aphyr Very this. I used to get sad and frustrated leaving IML to go home to OKC that there wasn’t a more active community there.
It clicked one year that we WERE the community and we had to organize gear nights and meetups for ourselves…and it grew to OKC Kink Weekend and Rt66 Leather contest eventually (after I moved)!
@aphyr lighter note: I've had a _lot_ of success with getting a number of trusted friends to be a introduction/welcoming group for people who are standing alone in a corner.
Not everyone can do the extrovert esp. in a new place.
Setting up a standard that if someone's standing alone and looking like they want to interact but are afraid to intrude / don't know people/shy/etc someone goes and says hi makes a nice space.
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