You’ve seen this. A BDSM relationship breaks up, goes bad, and suddenly both parties are lobbying publicly for the community vote on who’s the poor, abused victim. Character assassination? Why sure, pass some right over… there!

Sometimes each person in the break-up has hurt feelings, and a yen to hurt the other back. But often there’s been some seriously bad behaviour. We don’t want the abusers in our midst, free to find another to harm. What action can we take, as a community of leather folk, to find the actual abuser?

I understand why we might wish to keep the intricacies of our BDSM break-ups and kinky relationship issues out of the straight world’s law courts, considering their track record with even simple-by-comparison vanilla relationships. And even when we’re not facing outright anti-BDSM hostility, I’d still rather not try to stand in court and explain safewords and informed consent, dominance and submission, responsibility and aftercare to a judge who had never considered the possibility of a friendly spanking before this day. Sure, I could trust those few words of education to carry the day for understanding and justice; I could also buy a house built by someone who’d only read the blurb on the flyleaf of a carpentry book.

I’ve heard, over and over, that in the absence of clear-cut criminal-type crimes, we must police ourselves. Okay, but that brings up some thorny issues for me.

Who judges? Maybe we could set up a community court, wherein the combatants and their passionately devoted and loyal best friends stand and shout at each other. If it’s like a courtroom, do leather-clad lay lawyers argue the case? Do we get a choice of 12 peers for a jury and do we suffer arguments about who are really our peers? Like: “Those leather boys are okay, but the PVC crowd, whoa, no way.”

If one party is indeed guilty of abuse, I have some further questions. What power do we have to rehabilitate, punish, or prevent further abuse? Can we banish someone from a community with no borders, a loose identity, and new eager members every day?

Maybe we should have an offender registry, so that if you want a hot date with a new top or bottom, you can look her up first and see if she has any prior leather community convictions.

Now, wait, that sounds like a workable possibility. We could have an online kinda thing, y’know, like that big bookseller site.

“Shopping for a new play partner? Meet Sam, GBM, 46, cbt, gs, raunch. Sam’s sanity rating is: 7 stars. Click here if you’ve dated Sam and want to give a review. Leather boys who have dated Sam have also dated these men?”

______________________

Elaine Miller is often guilty of undue process.

My boy calls me Daddy, no matter where we are. He calls me Daddy in the bank line-up, asks for me on the phone as Daddy, and yells “Daddy, are we there yet?” over his shoulder as I sit on the back of his motorcycle, and we laugh into the wind. He’s been my boy for about 7 years now, and I’m just as proud of him as I could be.

Wait. When I say *boy* or *girl* I mean *role played by an adult human of either gender*, when I say Daddy, I don’t mean someone’s biological or adoptive father–and they don’t have to be male. Same with Mommy. *Age Play* means *grown-ups playing roles with other grown-ups*. At no time am I talking about legal children. Okay? Okay. ‘Nuff tender sensibilities.

When I first heard about age play almost a decade ago, it was in some fictional erotica about two leatherdykes, a daddy and a boy. My then-lover and I looked at each other. “Geez, what’s up with that?” “Wierd… I think?” Then we blithely returned to doing genderfuck within the top/bottom framework that worked best in our relationship.

I did some research, though. Seems like gay BDSM players had been daddies and boys (some say it ‘father/son’) for ages, with some reasoning that master/slave roles don’t have a lot of flexibility built in, and that mentor/student just wasn’t juicy enough, but that the daddy/boy roles offered reams of room for whatever the players wanted to bring to it. Tenderness? Obedience? Strict training? Playfullness? Cuddling? Hot sex? No sex? Spanking? The idea sparked, and became so popular even the het folks are doing it.

Hmm. I thought about what being a daddy would feel like. I guess we were both thinking about it, because one day she said “Daddy” where she’d ordinarily say “Sir”, and my world turned inside out, and I knew what I’d been training all my life to be.

Calling someone Boy is permission for that person to relax and let his/her sweet (or bratty) and playful side out. Calling someone Girl is my excuse to bring her candy treats just to watch her eyes light up. Go ahead. Giggles are encouraged.

Daddy is a label that fits without tugging. To me it means caring and spoiling and always having a shoulder available to cry on. Daddy fixes little broken things. Daddy spanks harder than anyone else–and I hear that?s a plus. Daddy is always ready to back you up in a tough situation.

Daddy is the other name for my heart.