11 May 2004: Domination Initiation Participation

Dear Valkyrie,

You asked me to help you drum up participants in the intriguing audience-participation BDSM experiment you're performing with Lila. Or should that be "performing on Lila"?

I'll be delighted to help spread the word, in my favorite manner: by posting this reply to you in my journal today.

For the benefit of those who haven't been reading Lila's blog on her Guttergaunt site, I'll summarize the situation: Valkyrie wants Lila's readers to send Valkyrie ideas for erotic tortures/humiliations, which she will then inflict upon Lila over Memorial Day weekend. This has turned into a bet of sorts - Lila is betting that most people would never respond to such a bizarre request, and that she will therefore get off easy; Valkyrie is hoping that so many people will write in that she'll get to torture Lila for the entire three-day weekend.

The way I see it, Valkyrie, this isn't just about kinky fun. There's a fundamental point at stake here. Lila is deeply cynical about community, about human beings in general, and even about friendship. She sees most people as being passive spectators in life, and unchangeably so.

You, on the other hand, believe that there are many people out there who will respond favorably to a good opportunity to turn from a spectator to a participant. When I met you at the Orphans of Delirium performance Lila brought you to, you mentioned being a Burning Man attendee, and you seemed to have a keen appreciation for the beauty of groups of people coming together to make something happen, for no reward except the intrinsic joys of participation.

I see your initiation of this experiment as springing directly from your strong personal belief in the human need to participate - the same belief that is the stated intent of Burning Man.

Lila, on the other hand, is the proud owner of one of Bitter Pie's infamous "Burning Man is for Yuppies" t-shirts.

My own views, both on Burning Man and on the capacity of most humans to break out of spectator-trance, lie somewhere in between yours and Lila's - but my life is very much committed to helping individual humans initiate themselves into lives of increased participation.

As you know, Lila and I are in the midst of an extensive email dialogue about BDSM and initiation, the early parts of which were reprinted in this journal a while back as The Inanna Dialogue, Parts 1-4, and the subsequent parts of which will start to appear here after I’m done with my finals for the semester. In light of this, it is most appropriate (in a “Mission from God” kind of way, if one shares my perspective on such things) that I post this in my journal in order to assist you in creating this BDSM initiation ritual.

I regard it as an initiation ritual in two ways: First, anyone who participates by writing to you, unless that sort of thing is commonplace for them, is initiating herself/himself in a small but significant way, by taking one more step away from spectator-trance and into participatory fun. This is doubly true for those whose own sex lives are fairly straight and “vanilla,” since they get to mentally explore an entirely new avenue of creativity.

Second, this has the potential to be an awesome initiatic experience for Lila. If you turn out to be right, and a whole lot of people write in – especially people from the extended communities of Lila’s fellow bloggers (for instance, Yoko’s “Scrabble Librarians” crew) – then Lila may have to rethink some of her cynicism, because she’ll have direct physical demonstrations of the presence and attentiveness of her extended online community. The more torture her readers and their friends and friends of friends conspire to have you put her through, the more she’ll learn to appreciate that she’s not alone.

All this talk about principles and initiation and community sounds awfully high-handed and serious, so in the interest of balance I should also mention that one of the main reasons I’m helping out by posting this is that I’m just terribly amused at the thought of you getting to torment Lila for an entire three-day weekend.

Yoko has already taken the initiative and made an announcement in her journal. Perhaps some of Lila’s other fellow-journallers/bloggers will do the same, either of their own initiative or inspired by me and Yoko. If not, you could always write a few of them and ask, as you did me.

Best of luck with this interesting and entertaining experiment. I’ll be emailing you soon with my own contributions.

Regards,

Nicky