Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles,
tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they
don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight
them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit
space-magic countermeasures out of their arses – but they’re as likely
as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the
process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and
accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually
happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.
So to everyone else in the galaxy, all humans are basically Doc Brown.
Aliens who have seen the Back to the Future movies literally don’t realise that Doc Brown is meant to be funny. They’re just like “yes, that is exactly what all human scientists are like in my experience”.
THE ONLY REASON SCOTTY IS CHIEF ENGINEER INSTEAD OF SOMEONE FROM A SPECIES WITH A HIGHER TECHNOLOGICAL APTITUDE IS BECAUSE EVERYONE FROM THOSE SPECIES TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE’S ENGINE ROOM AND RAN AWAY SCREAMING
vulcan science academy: why do you need another warp core
humans: we’re going to plug two of them together and see if we go twice as fast
vsa: last time we gave you a warp core you threw it into a sun to see if the sun would go twice as fast
humans: hahaha yeah
humans: it did tho
vsa: IT EXPLODED
humans: it exploded twice as fast
I love this. Especially because of how well it plays with my headcanon that the Federation does so much better against the Borg than anyone else because beating the Borg with military tactics is nigh-impossible, but beating them with wacky superscience shenanigans works as long as they’re unique wacky superscience shenanigans.
Yeah, I love this.
Reminds me of the thing I wrote a while back about Humans in high fantasy realms – they’re basically Team Fuck It Hold My Beer I Got This.
Impulsive, passionate to a fault, the social structures they build to try and regulate this hotheadedness ironically creates even greater levels of sheer bull-headedness. Even their “cooler” heads take action in months or weeks.
All their great heroes of the past were impossibly rash by galactic standards. Humans Just Go With It, which is their great flaw but also their greatest strength.
klingons: okay we don’t get it
vulcan science academy: get what
klingons: you vulcans are a bunch of stuffy prisses but you’re also tougher, stronger, and smarter than humans in every single way
klingons: why do you let them run your federation
vulcan science academy: look
vulcan science academy: this is a species where if you give them two warp cores they don’t do experiments on one and save the other for if the first one blows up
vulcan science academy: this is a species where if you give them two warp cores, they will ask for a third one, immediately plug all three into each other, punch a hole into an alternate universe where humans subscribe to an even more destructive ideological system, fight everyone in it because they’re offended by that, steal their warp cores, plug those together, punch their way back here, then try to turn a nearby sun into a torus because that was what their initial scientific experiment was for and they didn’t want to waste a trip.
vulcan science academy: they did that last week. we have the write-up right here. it’s getting published in about six hundred scientific journals across two hundred different disciplines because of how many established theories their ridiculous little expedition has just called into question. also, they did turn that sun into a torus, and no one actually knows how.
vulcan science academy: this is why we let them do whatever the hell they want.
klingons: …. can we be a part of your federation
Come to think of it, I mean. Look at the “first human warp drive” thing in the movie. That was… Not how Vulcans would have done it.
you know what the best evidence for this is? Deep Space 9 almost never broke down. minor malfunctions that irritated O’Brien to hell and back, sure, but almost none of the truly weird shit that befell Voyager and all the starships Enterprise. what was the weirdest malfunction DS9 ever had? the senior staff getting trapped as holosuite characters in Our Man Bashir, and that was because a human decided to just dump the transporter buffer into the station’s core memory and hope everything would work out somehow, which is a bit like swapping your computer’s hard drive out for a memory card from a PlayStation 2 and expecting to be able to play a game of Spyro the Dragon with your keyboard and mouse.
you know what, I’m not done with this post. let’s talk about the Pegasus. the USS Fucking Pegasus,
testbed for the first Starfleet cloaking device. here we have a handful
of humans working in secret to develop a cloaking device in violation
of a treaty with the Romulans. they’re playing catchup trying to develop
a technology other species have had for a century. and what do they do?
do they decide to duplicate a Romulan cloaking device precisely, just
see if they can match what other species have? nope. they decide, hey,
while we’re at it, while we’re building our very first one of these things, just to find out if this is possible, let’s see if we can make this thing phase us out of normal space so we can fly through planets while we’re invisible.
“but why” said the one Vulcan in the room.
“because that would fucking rule” said the humans, high-fiving each other and slamming cans of 24th-century Red Bull.
there
must be like twenty different counselling groups for non-human
engineering students at Starfleet Academy, and every week in every
single one of them someone walks in and starts up with a story like “our
assignment was to repair a phaser emitter and my one human classmate
built a chronometric-flux toaster that toasts bread after you’ve eaten
it.”
Humans get mildly offended by the way they are presented in non-human media.
Like: “Guys, we totally wouldn’t do that!” But this always fails to get much traction, because the authors can always say: “You totally did.”
“That was ONE TIME.”
There’s that movie where humans invented vaccines by just testing them on people. Or the one about those two humans who invented powered flight by crashing a bunch of prototypes. Or the one about electricity.
And human historians go, “Oh, uh, this is historically accurate, but also kind of boring.” To which the producers respond: “How is doing THIS CRAZY THING boring????????”
There are entire serieses of horror movies where the premise is “We stopped paying attention to the human and ey found the technology.”
reblog for new meta.
RE that last line: McGuyver.
“MacGuyver” is the equivalent of Vulcan vintage human horror television.
during orientation at a human college, vulcans are presented with a list of swear words.
“what is the word ‘fuck’ for,” the innocent young vulcans want to know. “surely there are more logical intensity modifiers.”
“yeah, you’d think so,” say the weary, jaded vulcan professors. “you’d really fucking think so.”
there is a phrase in vulcan for ‘the particular moment you understand what the word ‘fuck’ is for’.
This is why the Federation is the only organisation to ever stand a chance against the Borg
The Borg can adapt to the brilliant millitary strategies of the Romulan Star Empire, the Klingons and even the cold logical intellectual prowess of the vulcans
The Borg weren’t prepared for a starship captain to lure them into his 50′s noir detective holo-novel and then machine gun them to death with a weapon made out of hard light
This thread is amazing. Even as a baby star trek nerd that only really knows the new movies.
“there is a phrase in vulcan for ‘the particular moment you understand what the word ‘fuck’ is for’.”
I just died
I lost my shit at “toasts your bread after you’ve eaten it”
Oh please please someone write this
the best thing about this post is that the way it’s written – by multiple human authors getting over-excited about ridiculous, wonderful, impossible ideas that ought by rights to be terrifying – is itself proof that we’re like this
“One of the serious problems with planning against Federation (especially human) doctrine is that Starfleet officers do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine.”
“Captain,” the visiting emissary from the Vulcan contingent asked, “where is the operations guide for this vessel?”
“In Engineering.”
“So that it is accessible to repair personnel?”
“No, it’s keeping one of the bent warp core support struts from rattling.”
“If someone should approach you and offer you everything that you want, things even that you did not know you were missing, laugh in their face and destroy them. Then find their home and destroy it, and their livelihood, and destroy it, and everything they valued, and destroy those too. Watch them burn. If someone should have to offer these things to you, it is highly likely that they were withheld from you in the first place. And if the someone knew what you desire better than you did, they already had a poisonous potential to control you. Either their surveillance into your desires is dangerous, or such desires were contrived in you for their own use from the beginning. If someone should approach you and offer you everything that you want, even things that you did not know you were missing, kill them where they stand and raze them to ashes. You do not want to know what they would have expected in return.”
— advice from a monster, on remaining human. (via betterbemeta)
One of the more profound things I’ve heard recently came from a Mr. Rogers documentary. In a clip from his show, Mr. Rogers had just visited with a musician, and tells his audience that some people play music, and some people don’t, and that’s okay.
And then he said, “The important thing is to find something you feel good about doing.”
That phrasing struck me. “Something you feel good about doing”. Most people would have phrased it as “something you enjoy doing”. Or “something you’re good at doing”. But Mr. Rogers’ subtly different phrasing leads to a profoundly different connotation. “Something you feel good about doing” may not be enjoyable–people who work in hospitals or in disaster zones might not enjoy much of their day, but they probably feel good about helping people. “Something you feel good about doing“ may not be something you’re particularly good at–you may be a terrible artist by any objective standard, but if you feel good about making your art, then it’s a worthwhile endeavor. Looking for “something you feel good about doing” can help you find a truly satisfying life path.
That phrase is also helpful with daily decision-making. Too often, I can make choices based on “what feels good.” I put aside tasks that are too stressful or avoid activities that seem too difficult, in favor of mindlessly browsing the internet. And I enjoy myself. I feel good while I’m doing that. But at the end of the day, I don’t feel good about how I spent my time. However, reminding myself to do “something I feel good about doing” can motivate me to accomplish those more difficult tasks. It can push me to do something outside of my comfort zone, to try something new that I might not be much good at. And maybe this is a blindingly obvious philosophy to everyone else. But I’m grateful for the reminder.
tomorrow’s eclipse is not just a restart, it’s a rebirth. these past few weeks have been preparing us for major endings and shifts. our perceptions of ourselves and our reality are changing. be prepared for your limiting beliefs to fall away. these changes might feel devastating or painful, but they’re necessary. the universe is ripping away everything that doesn’t serve us and is gifting us with a clean slate! don’t be fearful of this blood moon, be grateful!
“if you actually met 100% of the requirements they couldn’t afford you”
I really needed to hear this. I had never thought of it this way. This literally never occurred to me, I’ve just spent my whole adult life thinking I was underqualified for everything. Thinking I’m not good enough for anything because the “minimum requirements” are so high.
I need specifics. I wanna know what I can get away with. I wanna know what they really mean by “minimum.” I wanna know how much I’m actually worth.
As someone who worked in hr, this is true.
True to the point that if someone was extremely unqualified, but because of timing we were desperate, we’d bend rules to get them hired. And the only people taking advantage of this were guys.
if you actually met 100% of the requirements they couldn’t afford you
this made so much click in my head. because this was literally it–spend half the time being unqualified for everything and just not applying. and the rest of the time being qualified and not getting hired. because ahahaha fuck you, you’re too expensive now/we’re too worried you’ll jump ship and leave us because of how qualified you are! guess we’ll just hire this shitty dude to do it !? ?
I debated posting this here but WWAMWMD? He’d post it. #girlgogetyours
It’s way more than “if you actually met 100% of the requirements they couldn’t afford you”
The reason they couldn’t afford you is that if you meet 100% of the requirements, you’re ready for the next position up.
Career strategy 101: The most valuable employees are always learning. Every company wants employees who won’t stagnate, i.e. sit in one role doing the same thing ever year and continue getting annual raises. A company wants to hire you for one thing at one salary, and then move you up through higher positions over the years, i.e. they keep getting new benefits for the additional money they’re spending on you.
A good company will offer you development opportunities, either within your role or in addition to it. So when the company interviews you, they want to see that you can learn what they need, and you want to see that they can teach you new skills. Companies know that the best applicants are interviewing them in return and that if they don’t offer development, they will lose those applicants to better jobs.
Companies structure positions this way intentionally and they assume you know it.
So not only should you apply to jobs you aren’t 100% qualified for, you can use 100% qualification as an indicator that you’re overqualified and should look for the next job up.
This started funny but became really important to know.
The issue was how things were portrayed. Readers focused on the sex and not on the scenes between fucking.
BDSM is not about spanking, or handcuffing, or sliding an ice cube down your lover’s chest. It’s about mutual respect and consensual alternatives to pleasure. It’s often not even about sex. You can be a virgin who is into BDSM. (Please read “Nana to Kaoru” for an example of good BDSM between virgins.)
“Fifty Shades of Grey” is a story about suppressing a woman and attempting to mold her into a BDSM slave, mostly against her wishes. It crossed lines the BDSM community would never dare cross. There was not full consent, there was a massive lack of mutual respect, and the dominance went beyond playtime. It claimed to be about sadomasochism, when what it really portrayed is a domestic abuse relationship.
I’m going to partially quote this website and this blog to show what actions Christian Grey uses against Ana which are in direct violation of the very essence of BDSM.
Duties of the Dom – This is the heart of BDSM. There is mutual trust between two or more people, a Dominant and a Submissive. There are rules and restrictions to keep everything safe, sane, and consensual. That mutual respect was not shown in the books. The BDSM community, and the duties of a Dom, were completely mocked. First, the contract was shown as a literal legal binding contract,
which is WAY over the top. Normally, contracts are just verbal, “Can I
do this? Is this okay?” Only rarely are they written down, mostly if the Dom has multiple Subs and needs to remember which restrictions to
follow. Granted, Christian is some rich-ass bloke so he might need that
legal side so some Sub doesn’t turn around and sue his ass for being an
abusive fucker, but then he pressures Ana into signing it,
which is precisely against the reason to have a contract between a Dom and Sub in the first
place. If someone is not comfortable with an act, you NEVER pressure
them into it. If they are not interested in BDSM and don’t want anything
to do with it, holy fucking hell, DON’T EVER DEMAND THEY DO IT ANYWAY.
The first rule of BDSM Club: don’t force others into BDSM Club.
As
a Dom, as soon as he realized she was NOT into the BDSM scene, he should have
left her. You can’t force someone into being your Sub. Oh God, I can’t stress enough how utterly WRONG that is!!! Now, he could have dated her, eased her into it, started off
with light things, worked her into more. But no. He flat out did not want to date her. He only wanted sex and a
slave, and he didn’t want to wait for her to get used to it. He had
ZERO consideration for her emotional well-being, which is against the very ESSENCE of being a Dom. He could have gotten an actual Slave, but no… for some
godforsaken reason, he wanted her. Maybe that was part of the appeal to him: getting his way with
someone who was not fully willing, breaking her in. That’s horrible to
think about and puts a terrifying twist on the entire series, but it explains why he pressured Ana into this instead of going out and getting a real Slave.
Give me a moment to explain something important. What Christian Grey wanted is not out of bounds for BDSM. What he wanted was a Slave, and that’s fine. There
is an actual category of submissives known as Slaves. They are a
rarity, because not many people are willing to have their lives so
thoroughly controlled. BDSM Slaves crave to have that control
placed over them. They want someone to control what they wear, what they
eat, who they hang out with, etc. Mentally, they need this extreme
level of control placed over them, or they simply can’t function well.
We see a Slave in the ex-submissive, and we see how Christian dropped
her so coldly, she honestly could not handle the freedom. That was
horrifically cruel of him. Slaves have a delicate mental state, and a
good Dom caters to their emotional needs even after they no longer
want that person as their Sub. Ana is not a Slave. She doesn’t
want this level of extreme submissiveness, and she’s vocal about it.
Most of the not-sex storyline is her balking at his restrictions. It’s
the main source of conflict in the first novel: she doesn’t want her
diet to be restricted, he forces her to eat more, sometimes sitting
there and intimidating her until she eats. He KEEPS PRESSURING HER and
demanding that she obey all those rules, and she keeps attempting to
reassert her freedom only to have her opinions and requests bluntly
ignored, or only grudgingly compromised. THAT RIGHT THERE is a huge violation of BDSM. The biggest thing separating BDSM from domestic abuse is consent and intent. She did not give her consent to be a pure Slave. He kept demanding it. BAM! NOT FUCKING BDSM!!! The entire relationship, each and every act, is not BDSM, because it lacks the respect and mutual trust a Dom and Sub must have.
Intimidation – He threatens to hit Ana for getting drunk before they’re even in a relationship. He again threatens to hit her if she rolls her eyes at him, and when she does, he follows through. When he attempts to feel up her leg at the restaurant and she pushes his
hand away, he glares at her, as if to say “you’ll pay for this.” In
chapter 18, they’re discussing his desire to spank her
again. When Ana asks if he’s going to hit her, he replies: “Yes, but
it won’t be to hurt you. I don’t want to punish you right now. If
you’d caught me yesterday evening, well that would have been a different
story…” So, basically, had he seen her the previous night, when
she simply forgot to call him, he’d have hit her in order to actually hurt her,
rather than as a part of a sexy, consensual BDSM scene. That’s called physical abuse, guys. He also has a habit of yanking her arm or forcefully carrying her whenever she doesn’t want to go with him. It’s passive at times, but he uses intimidation and flat out threats through all aspects of his life, not just in the playroom. Threatening to hit someone as punishment for perfectly normal actions, like forgetting to call, drinking with friends, or not wanting intimacy in public, is abuse.
Possessiveness – He shows anger when she visits her own mother but does not tell him. He gets jealous of her male friends and demands she not hang around them. These are classic warning signs of domestic abuse.
Stalking – THIS was plain creepy, maybe because I’ve had a few stalkers in my life. Christian Grey takes stalking to a whole other level. He shows up at her workplace, her apartment, he repeatedly calls her when she won’t respond, he even flies across the country to harass her at her mom’s house when she obviously went there to escape from his abusiveness.
Imprisonment – It was right in the fucking contract. “The Dominant reserves the right to dismiss the submissive from his service at any time and for any reason. The submissive may request her release at any time, such request to be granted at the discretion of the Dominant.”
She even catches it. He’s allowed to drop her at any time, for any reason, but if she wants to break up… nope, she
has to BEG FOR PERMISSION which may or may not be granted. That…
shiiiit… I hope I don’t have to explain how utterly wrong that is.
Dubious Consent – He bypasses consent. A LOT. Even with the contract, he openly
admits that he got her drunk so that she would agree to it. What. The.
Fuck. Oh, but she “communicates better” when she’s drunk. Folks, never trust someone who purposely gets you drunk so you’ll have kinky sex with them. This means the entire contract is legally void, since she agreed under the influence. It means their entire relationship as a BDSM couple is void as well.
Gaslighting – This term has been in the media a lot, and you can find it in many things Christian Grey says. It boils down to saying and doing things which makes a person’s perception and sense of reality invalid. He preys on her lack on confidence, right from Chapter 3 and their first date, makes her question just about everything that is her reality, and then invalidates her opinions by enforcing his demands.
Bodily Respect – There are so many examples of this through all three books. In the “sex on her period”
scene, he actually yanks her tampon out, without asking if that’s okay
first, which by her reaction, IT WAS NOT. Many women compare such a
personal violation as equal to rape itself. Having been a victim of
something similar, that scene really angered me. Even worse was about birth control. Ana didn’t want to be on the pill. Christian flat out demanded and threatened her to take it because he didn’t like condoms. Holy fucking shit, NO! A thousand times NO! And then every time she doesn’t take them, he’s outraged. When she ends up pregnant, he’s so furious that she honestly fears he’s going to leave her. HE COULDN’T JUST PUT A RUBBER ON HIS DICK??? No, he has to force his girlfriend into taking a pill with horrible side effects, a pill she has to take daily rather than him just covering his dick when he wants sex, or get a shot which is painful for her, all because he doesn’t like fucking with a condom on. And then he’s practically like, “If you don’t obey me, you won’t get sex.” Godfuckingdammit, I cannot even begin to express how outraged I was at Christian for THAT ALONE!
Comfort Zone Breach – Not just Christian, but Ana has flaws. It’s okay if our partner doesn’t want certain levels of intimacy. What’s not okay is when you’re in a longterm relationship, you want something, your partner does not, and you try to demand it. One of them wants to go out on dates, the other hates that idea. One wants to sleep in the same bed, the other wants their partner in a completely separate room, upstairs, away from them. That’s a sign that this isn’t going to work out, and that’s what Ana and Christian struggle through. He compromises, but grudgingly. He doesn’t WANT to compromise, he shouldn’t NEED to, and she shouldn’t FORCE him to change his comfort zone. Then there’s the touching his chest thing. He repeats many times, don’t touch his chest. Simple, right? She keeps trying. Now, I picked up on this because my husband has the same issue. I can touch everywhere but his nipples. Those are a hard limit no-touch zone. I couldn’t understand why until he finally told me about his issue. Hard limits are often connected to abuse, so they’re difficult to explain even to a loving partner, which is WHY they should be HONORED. Ana does not honor Christian’s bodily comfort zone. She keeps trying, keeps at it, becomes fixated on touching his chest. Jesus, woman, he doesn’t want it touched, don’t fucking touch it!
Ignoring Instincts – She completely ignores and suppresses her inner voice. (Not the pirouetting thing, but the sane side of her brain.) She complains about Christian to her roommate, she does not feel comfortable around him, she despises the idea of being his “sex slave” when he first mentions BDSM. Once Ana has experienced being spanked, she finds that she has mixed
feelings about it. She emails Christian and tells him that she was
shocked to find herself aroused by it, as during the spanking, she felt
abused. ABUSED. Any caring Dom would immediately realize their partner isn’t up for BDSM at all, or they need to slow this WAAAAAY down. But Christian? No. He
replies: “If that is how you feel, do you think you could try to
embrace these feelings? Deal with them for me? That’s what a
submissive would do.” Are you kidding me you fucking little manipulative piece of shit??? Yeah, so in other words, “Hey, sorry you feel like
I abused you, but you know… you gotta just accept it,
because other girls would.” And she doesn’t even realize she’s just told him he’s being ABUSIVE and he’s just slammed her down. Fuck, girl! She even calls her mother in tears when she realizes how horribly her relationship with him is. Instead of realizing she was right from the very first spank and she’s being abused, she keeps returning to him.
“He Will Change” Mentality – Oh God, this one! It’s so common that people (no matter the gender) don’t see just how wrong it is. “He will change. I’ll change him. I can make him better.” Or even worse, this idealistic concept: “If you try hard enough, be patient, love enough, the person you are
with will eventually come around and treat you the way you deserve to be
treated.” Jesus Christ on a popcicle stick NO! This is dangerous, potentially DEADLY. This is how you get into toxic relationships that can seriously harm you. When making important decisions, such as entering into a
relationship, it’s important to base that decision on who the
person is today – not who they may become tomorrow. You likely won’t change them. You shouldn’t be burdened to do that. It’s seriouslyfucking dangerous, okay???
Rape – I saved this one for last, because it shocks almost every casual reader who liked the series. Yes, Christian Grey rapes Ana. He’s a rapist. She was sexually violated by her boyfriend. Okay, so here’s the scene. Christian turns up at her apartment (uninvited). He tries to seduce Ana, she tells him that she
doesn’t want sex and would rather talk. He does not respect her wishes and continues to be forceful. “‘No,’ I protest, kicking him off.” After such a definite “no” to sex, he replies: “If you
struggle, I’ll tie your feet, too. If you make a noise, Anastasia, I
will gag you. Keep quiet. Katherine is probably outside listening,
right now.” He then proceeds to have sex with her, in spite of her
trying to kick him away and saying a rather firm “No!” That’s rape, by the way. EL James writes that Ana enjoys the sex that
Christian forced on her, so we’re meant to ignore the fact that she asked
him to stop and even physically tried to force him away. She enjoyed it, so that makes it all okay, right? Fucking Satan with a dildo NO!
I don’t care if he’s got a cock to rival Zeus, rape is rape, even if it
felt good! If a person doesn’t want sex, and sex is forced upon them, especially under threat like what he did,
I don’t care if you’re dating, married, if you orgasmed, if it felt
FUCKING AWESOME … it was still a rape.
Meet Christian Grey: confirmed
rapist!
Ugh… I hope this wordy rant explains why “Fifty Shades of Grey” is not about BDSM, but about abuse and the suppression of a young and rather naive woman by a powerful and dominating man. Maybe the sex scenes were hot (when they weren’t utterly repulsive), but when you take out all the fucking and spanking, what happens between the two of them in day-to-day life is a terrifying example of domestic abuse.
BDSM is so much more beautiful than that. It’s mutual, it’s respectful, it honors the Submissive as something precious, a gift bestowed upon the Dominant, to be cherished and spoiled … not a Dominant who demands, pesters, belittles, coerces, threatens, and ultimately rapes the Submissive.
When people in the BDSM community learn about a person like Christian Grey, they shun that person. They warn Subs against getting involved, because that’s not BDSM. It’s abuse. It’s dangerous, potentially life-threatening. I can’t help but wonder if that’s precisely WHY Christian Grey chased after a neophyte like Ana. Maybe the BDSM community in Seattle had heard the stories and knew he was bad news. He apparently left a trail of shattered Slaves in his wake, and that doesn’t go unnoticed, even if it’s not reported due to respect for privacy and not “outing” someone to the police.
Maybe he went after Ana because the BDSM community knew not to get involved with him, and since he simply couldn’t find a real Slave, he decided to create one of his own, someone who wouldn’t know the boundaries, wouldn’t see when he crosses them, and wouldn’t realize the idea that “you can’t leave me unless I give you permission” is total and utter bullshit.
Abusive behavior is something you really do have to watch out for, not just in the BDSM scene, but in every relationship. BDSM practitioners just happen to notice the abuse easier, since we know the vital importance of consent, intent, and mutual respect. EL James obviously did not understand the importance of consent to the BDSM community. She wrote a fanfic about Twilight characters fucking, she turned it into a novel, and she truly had no understanding of the community she was so poorly portraying.
Fifty Shades of Grey is not about BDSM. It’s a story about abusiveness interspersed with kinks. Not BDSM fucking. Just kinky fucking.
ealdor 