“There are new words now that excuse every body. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains. The people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.” ~Bette Davis, The Lonely Life

Tolerance. A disposition to allow freedom of choice and behavior. Willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs and practices of others. The capacity to tolerate unfavorable conditions. A permissible difference.

I’ve had this subject on my mind for a good long while.

Everyone wants tolerance – particularly those of us in alternative lifestyles. We, after all, don’t get much of it from the outside or vanilla world. So within our own world we preach tolerance like a holy mantra; repeating it over and over along with things like safety and consent. (Don’t get me started. Thoughts on THAT can be had here .)

And I’ll be the first to admit that tolerance can be a very good thing. The world would be unpleasant in the extreme if nobody employed any tolerance for others in their lives.

But just like all good things tolerance should really be practiced in moderation. (I can hear you all now. “Is this heifer SERIOUS?” I am. )

I watch people on a regular basis “tolerate” things that I honestly feel they shouldn’t. They tolerate them because they want that tolerance in return. They tolerate them because they’re afraid of looking judgmental. Or because someone told them to, for gods sakes.

Well, let me ask you this…

When it comes to our lifestyle why in the HELL should we tolerate things for such piddling reasons? It is not helping us any. It is not improving our warped little alternative society to tolerate absolute bullshit just to be politically correct. I mean, really folks, we’re not ever going to be politically correct. “Regular” society is never going to accept us. Become accustomed and desensitized to what we do, maybe. They may even “tolerate” us if we don’t disturb them too much. But we are never going to suddenly be considered normal. What we do is never going to be universally accepted as okay. We do not need to tolerate absolutely EVERYTHING in hopes that we’ll get the same in return.

Why should I tolerate obvious lies? When some jackass online starts talking about all his experience, all the things he supposedly does with his partner, all the girls he has in his enormous stable of slaves, all the training he’s received from European Houses and Secret Societies, etc, etc… Do I really need to tolerate this? Why must I bite my tongue and refrain from embarrassing him by calling him on his lies? Do we not realize that by allowing these fakers to spread such things about themselves as truth we’re enabling them to “teach” these falsehoods to newcomers as truth? Do we not see the harm that can do? Do we really believe it’s harmless when some girl jabbers on and on about the things she’s done – things that are obviously nothing but fantasies ? And what about the fairly new Dominant who believes her, treats her as experienced and ends up being labeled an abuser when it turns out she’d actually never felt a whip or been locked in a cage or didn’t REALLY want to be shared with six men? Is it his fault she lied? Or should those of us who tolerated her obviously fantastical bullshit shoulder the blame?

I will not tolerate lies. I might look like a bitch when I call people on them. I might even, occasionally, be proved wrong by someone I think is lying. But I say better safe than sorry. Not only is it possible for lies to harm others but, damn it, I cannot stomach the idea of feeding the egos of these fraudulent fucks. I DO have more than a decade of experience and I will NOT give the same credit to some ass who has managed to read a few web sites and decides he knows it all. I will NOT allow that bullshit to be taught to newcomers as fact. When I think someone is wrong, unsafe or unrealistic, I am bloody well going to open my mouth about it. I’ll apologize if I end up being the one who goofed but I will not hold my tongue.

And why should I tolerate unsafe play? If I’m at the local dungeon and some idiot is delivering kidney punches with his brand new heavy flogger is it not my damned responsibility to say something? Now I”m not talking about rushing over and interrupting a scene. But shouldn’t I at least speak with the DM and let him/her decide what to do? Or should I wait until they’re done and deliver the girl to the ER? I constantly see people noticing unsafe play and doing nothing about it. I’m not talking about intentionally unsafe play. Once again, my thoughts on safety can be found here . I’m talking about uneducated idiots who DO NOT KNOW what they are doing being allowed to do it anyway. Jesus. People can stand around in a little circle and whisper about how so and so did this and what’s her name did that and can you believe it? But god forbid they actually step up and say something. That wouldn’t be tolerant!

I could give hundreds of examples. I could type until Blogger ran out of space and still keep on typing. But I won’t. If you don’t understand what I mean by now, a million examples won’t help you any.

Tolerance is overrated. Nobody deserves absolute tolerance; no group of people, no race, no religion, no lifestyle.

We need to stop worrying about seeming judgmental.

We all judge, folks. All of us, every day, make judgments about those around us. Stop being afraid to speak on them. Stop sitting on the damned fence, trying to be tolerant. It does not make you better than anyone else. It just makes you a pussy.

Give people the common courtesy every human deserves. Give them respect unless they prove they are unworthy of it. Practice the social graces when doing so is called for; when you’re at a wedding, a funeral, Governor Doyle’s little soiree or at work. But, for the love of fuck, STOP being so tolerant of things you know are wrong, things that are harmful, things that offend you or you know are false.

So what if you look like the bad guy for being so intolerant. You are not going to be universally liked no matter what you do.

I’d rather be true to myself and stop tolerating the bullshit than have you all love me, anyhow. I’m the one who will be judged when all is said and done and I do NOT want to be judged as an ostrich, having stuck my head in the sand and “tolerated” everyone and everything. I’ll end up either hero or villain, they’ll either boo me or hiss at the pearly gates, but I will not be judged a slick, credulous pussy.

Tolerance.

As popular as tolerance is today as a catch word we’d probably tolerate Hitler.

And now I’ve done it. It’s in the rules. Mention Hitler and you have to shut up. :)

End of rant.

~peace

powered by performancing firefox