How To Be Real.

Have you ever read the Velveteen Rabbit?
It's a story about a toy bunny who thinks he's real until some "real" bunnies come along and blow that notion out of the water. They tell him that he's not real like they are because he's different from them, and suddenly he's just not good enough any more.

The same thing happens here.

There are people who are perfectly happy in their idea of what a BDSM relationship looks like. They think they're a "real" whatever (Submissive, Domly, Master, Slave, etc) and then they get around other kinksters, and they hear those kinksters espousing the idea that in order to be "real" and "true" you have to do things this way, or you have to do things that way, and their way- Well, it's just not good enough any more.

They're not good enough any more.

Even I, badass snarktastic bitch extraordinaire, went through that. So you know, I know what it feels like to feel like you're less than because you don't measure up to someone else's idea of what a "Real" and "True" Whatever looks like. But here's the thing- I can also tell you that it doesn't matter.

Do you want to know why?

It's because there is no Real and/or True.

Honestly, there's not. There isn't one individual who is in charge of deciding what has to work for ALL BDSM relationships. There's not some hidden cabal of crusty Old School/Old Guard/ Old Whatthefuckever kinksters deciding what is wrong and what is right in BDSM relationships. There is absolutely NONDBY who gets to dictate what your relationship or my relationship or any of the other thousands of kinksters who belong to this site SHOULD look like.

And anybody who uses "Real" and "True" (or its other similarly dirty cousins "Must, should, have to, natural, genuine" or a plethora of other terms designed to make someone not doing it their way feel "Less Than")- You can feel free to ignore them. They're speaking or writing from a place of insecurity or ignorance and don't have a blessed clue about how harmful their words can be to the Velveteen Rabbits of this world.

You can ignore them because the person you are, however you chose to be, YOU ARE ALREADY REAL- And they cannot take that from you unless you let them.

So don't let them.