Petrsonal responsibility and wrecking up your new hooptie.

I'd like to play pretend for a minute, and no you lovely pervs, not THAT kind of pretend.

So lets pretend that you've got yourself a spiffy new car and you invite a friend to go on a road trip with you because road trips are awesome, yo. So you all load up the hooptie, you discuss places you want to visit, places you want to stay away from, and places that might be fun to hit up if you have the time. It's all systems go and as you go to back down the driveway you put the car in the wrong gear and plow through the garage door.

Now your friend is all, "Wow man, that blows."
And you're all pissed because your friend, who is a really good driver, didn't stop you from plowing into the garage door.
Your friend gets a little riled because you're supposed to know what you're doing right? You are, after all, behind the wheel of a rather dangerous machine.
Wrong. Turns out you've never taken driver's ed, you've never started up a car before this moment, and you've never even looked at your car's manual.
You, in your infinite wisdom decided that because your friend knew how to drive they had some responsibility to keep your ass out of trouble.

That's just F'ed up, isn't it? Most of us can figure out that if we're going to do something we should at least do a bit of learning about it, right? And the more danger the new thing possesses the more learning we should accomplish before trying it. Makes sense, correct?

So why is it that when some new little subbie gets it into her head that she wants a domly dom (and she wants one NOW! damnit), she suddenly abdicates all responsibility for her own safety and puts it on the shoulders of whatever dom crosses her path? And then when she gets hurt because of something she didn't know, but could have easily learned because there's no dearth of information on safe BDSM practices, all of a sudden the poor domly is an evil, heinous bad guy.

That's just F'ed up, isn't it?

And before you all start yowling at me, I'd like to take a moment to point out that this isn't directed towards anybody who is doing their damndest to learn about BDSM and who is trying to ensure their own safety. I have nothing but respect for you guys, kudos for being rational thinkers, you rawk.

So I'm sitting here wondering, why these new subs, people who wouldn't usually do something that could cause them a great deal of harm without learning about it first, suddenly seem to go batshit crazy and throw caution (and personal responsibility) to the wind? I have to ponder the thought process behind what makes this abdication of responsibility Ok when it's not OK in any other scenario?

Is it the weak, helpless submissive stereotype rearing its ugly head (yet again)? Someone who is helpless shouldn't be capable of seeing to their own safety, so they extrapolate that to mean that the all-powerful Lord Domly should be responsible for educating their fragile, little submissive brains while they sit back in wide-eyed wonder at the domly excess of knowledge and shit?

Do they think that there's some domdar that starts pinging like mad when it picks up on unlearned fresh meat, and if they remain inept and ignorant it will be some sort of draw for the D-types?

Are they afraid to appear too knowledgeable in front of a dominant? Like the D-types will be turned off if a submissive actually has their shit together and knows what's what?

Or is it, as I suspect, just sheer laziness and an unwillingness to take care of their responsibility to themselves?
Because yeah, it is really lazy to fail to look out for your own interests and expect someone else to do that for you. It's immature, selfish, and dangerous. And saying, "Well I didn't know that I was supposed to go read things and learn stuff on my own..." No. Not cutting it. That shit wouldn't work in school, it wouldn't work at your job, it doesn't work in real life, so why on earth would it work here in BDSM land when it doesn't work anywhere else.

And it's not as if there's a dearth of information out there. There are books on BDSM, there are countless blogs, websites, and forums devoted to discussing any question a newbie might have, and it's all available with a simple Google search. How lazy does a person have to be to avoid typing a few words ("BDSM safety") in the Google search bar?

And yep, once again I've been riled by that other site. Some newbie decided to start playing without bothering to learn *anything* first. She depended on her dom to teach her the ways, and when she had a bad drop (because the dom didn't know she would need after care), HE was the bad guy. She got behind the wheel of a car without bothering to read the manual and her passenger was at fault for her irresponsible actions.

And then to add insult to injury, when 30 different people said, "Hey, I'm sorry that you had a bad experience, but you really need to take some responsibility for your part in this" she threw an epic shit fit and flounced. Why? Because we were all big, poopy-headed meanies for not giving her fluffy bunny huggles and joining in on the dom bashing.

But anyways, a lesson to the newbies who pull this shit who probably won't read this because they're not in the habit of reading anything...
It is your responsibility to ensure that you are safe. It's not my problem, it's not the D-type's problem, it is not the internet's problem. It's yours. You need to educate yourself so you don't get hurt. You need to read, read some more, ask some questions, keep reading, and actually learn about BDSM/kink/whatever before you decide to get behind the wheel of that car. You have got to stop laying all this responsibility on the shoulders of the first dom you play with, because he should have the ability to play with a safe partner who has their shit together, not some dangerous newb who's going to scream to the community about what a wanker he was because the newb didn't know that she'd drop like a hot potato.
Just read the damn manual before you get your car on the road. The rest of us will thank you for it.