Insider or Outsider?

[cascadiabound]

See, and for me, this was my first board.
Cassie and DGE welcomed me. The girls then were cookie, collar n cuffs, masters delight, meek, lally...
And of course, some hot dude in cookie’s pool party thread.

I met Cassie on the PG. She does a terrific job of keeping a couple of my threads up and going.



It occurs to me to say that had i not gotten involved on the PG, i never would have met some amazing people who are involved (or at least interested) in BDSM, but rarely or never post about it. Not a judgement on anyone else's choices at all, just a reflection on the path that I've taken, and where it's led me.

I look forward to seeing what people are talking about next.


I am pleased to see this thread at the top of the board again. Tells me there are new people about. And I saw the link to it in the cafe on PLP's most wonderful discussion thread.

It has always been curious to me that the BDSM board is viewed by some Litsters as weird or scary as, like Fara, this was my first home. But, like Honey, I flit about all over the board and there are people who are so very dear to me that I would never have met if I had not ventured to other parts of the forum.

bfg and Honey and I have had discussions at times about the importance of having BDSM entree' points in the PG - places where people who have curiosities or proclivities can feel safe enough to ask questions or explore them without having to venture over to *this* scary corner of Lit. Therefore DD/lg thread and Someone to Watch Over Me and Reflections on Gentleman Doms.

 

[midwestyankee]

I was fortunate to have access to someone both experienced and knowlegeable about BDSM from early on in my time at Lit.

But in terms of community, we (my dear friend elli and i) tried to create our own niche on the Playground, and be supportive of others who wanted to talk about BDSM without leaving their 'home board.' We wanted to 'bring BDSM to the people,' so to speak, and there have been several threads that were successful in facilitating conversation on the subject, including the still very active Daddy's Little Girl, currently hosted by tbe very lovely bfg.

I have no inhibitions about board hopping, and kept poking my nose in here to test the atmosphere, and to be at least an occasional contributor. I've known midwestyankee for what feels like forever but i can't recall if we met here or the HT Café.

Eventually i met Fara, cookie, Eva, et all, and that was really the turning point for me. That was when i began to feel really at home here.

You're too young to have met me in my time as a regular at the HT Café - but if you encountered me in the HTC, it was on one of those rare occasions when I did a drive-by post over there. I'm pretty sure that my earliest recollection of you comes from a thread here in BDSM Central where you were quite active early on. Can't recall the exact name, but I think it had something to do with submissive men? Ring a bell?

 

[Wild_Honey_66]

You're too young to have met me in my time as a regular at the HT Café - but if you encountered me in the HTC, it was on one of those rare occasions when I did a drive-by post over there. I'm pretty sure that my earliest recollection of you comes from a thread here in BDSM Central where you were quite active early on. Can't recall the exact name, but I think it had something to do with submissive men? Ring a bell?

Fun Fact! I started my first thread in Talk in 8/14. You don't want to read it.

Hmm... i don't remember you from Erochic's thread (12/14), but i knew who you were when you started this one, and the Barn (both in 1/15). i posted on the first page, even!

I do distinctly remember you from the HTC Blurt Thread (current incarnation begun 3/15), as it's such a small group. Some people have come and gone, of course...

Fun Fact #2: i started my first HTC thread in 2/15. You don't want to read that one, either. LOL!!

Here's a link to the first time i posted in the current HTC BT.
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1178811&page=5
Which reminds me... i think you and Saucy still owe me a day of Crime and Funishment!

 

[midwestyankee]

Fun Fact! I started my first thread in Talk in 8/14. You don't want to read it.

Hmm... i don't remember you from Erochic's thread (12/14), but i knew who you were when you started this one, and the Barn (both in 1/15). i posted on the first page, even!

I do distinctly remember you from the HTC Blurt Thread (current incarnation begun 3/15), as it's such a small group. Some people have come and gone, of course...

Fun Fact #2: i started my first HTC thread in 2/15. You don't want to read that one, either. LOL!!

Here's a link to the first time i posted in the current HTC BT.
https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1178811&page=5
Which reminds me... i think you and Saucy still owe me a day of Crime and Funishment!

That link brings back good memories, thanks. Still, that was from a period when my appearances in the HTC were occasional and limited to foolery such as that. The Minx and the Shine are fine folk and are worthy lures to that neighborhood still today.

 

[midwestyankee]

*bumped*

Of course. I thought I felt a disturbance in the force.

 

[Acktion]

Outsider. Definitely.

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/db6c870/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1466x824+0+0/resize/840x472!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fca-times.brightspotcdn.com%2Fce%2F56%2Fad8f54c3ce7816bc37e3d1f7dac3%2Fla-1476891820-snap-photo

I am most definitely an outsider.

But, then, I always have been. All the way back to when I was just knee-high on a grasshopper. In my senior annual, my page that listed all of the things I'd been involved in was a third again longer than the next longest. And the hilarious part? No one remembers me doing any of it except football. Even the people that were there, doing it beside me.

And I know that is my fault. I had a tendency to be hurrying from one thing to the next and had moved on after practice or performance while everyone else was collecting the awards and socializing. (In my defense, typically practice or performance for something else I was involved in had started already.)

Ah, but this is specifically about the BDSM Lit boards.

And, yeah. I would consider myself an outsider here too. Welcomed by a few kind souls. Scorned by a few. When I de-lurk to respond to something. My absences mostly unnoticed and unremarked by the majority.

So, backing up a while... When I first came to Lit, I did so for a place to publish my smutty stories. And when I came to waste time on the boards, I stuck to the Author's Hangout at first. Then gradually came out to the How-To forums and (once I knew it was there) the Looking for a Story sub-forum (that really needs to be easier to find).

And one of the things that always just chapped my ass was when people (myself included, but more than just me) would create a thread. And some monkey would come swinging out of the trees with, "we've already got twenty-seven threads about this. Go look."

No, no. That wasn't the part that chapped my ass. I could, somewhat, almost understand that. Give me just a second.

But, then, when we figured out how to massage the more advanced features to actually find those threads that were more than sixty days old, and dared post something there, often that same swinging dick would come out of the trees with some pithy "wow, necro threads much?"

So, we were fucked if we did and fucked if we didn't. And not in a good way. We weren't supposed to start a new thread and we weren't supposed to say something in an old thread.

Fortunately, I've got a thick skin and even thicker skull. So, I said what I had to say and ignored Methuselah over there who carved this shit in the stone tablets.

After my wife died, a woman found me where I was still hanging out in the AH and HT forums (and occasionally playing Marian the Librarian in the Looking for a Story subforum). And lured me out into the BDSM and Playground.

As far as BDSM, I wasn't a neophyte by any stretch. But, I just didn't see the point in posting about that chapter of my life that, as far as I was concerned, died with my wife and slave.

But, I'm disabled and virtually housebound with not a lot of human interaction after my wife died save for that one person I would chat with several times per day. And not a lot of options to occupy my time.

Also, in my checkered misspent past, I wasted some time getting a graduate degree in education and then more time being a teacher. So, perhaps it was natural that when someone asked a question that I knew a little something about, I would fall into guest lecture mode.

And a lot of times, the posts here that comment that the same questions are asked, are right. I would stumble into the same questions. Almost verbatim. And I would give the same answers. Almost verbatim. ***shrug*** Maybe it's the teacher thing. I just figure just because the question has been asked before by someone, it hasn't been asked by them.

However, some habits ingrained from a lifetime are difficult to break. So, I didn't actually discuss anything. What I mean is that I would drive-by post and drive on. Just like the olden days when I would practice, perform, and then leave. I wouldn't have any idea what was said following my post as I'd been there, said what I had to say, and moved on to something else. The only feedback I ever saw to any of my posts was the Private Messages, never anything said in the public forum I posted in and then ignored in favor of something else.

Some of those messages thanking me. Some castigating me.

And a lot offering to take me up on something I wasn't offering.

"Dom you? Lady, I don't even know you! Who are you?"

Not, I'm certain, even a quarter of what a submissive woman gets when she is unwise enough to state publicly that she is one.

Oh, I admit that my sense of humor (always vile) has gotten the better of me a time or two when some little thing posts what reads (to me) as an obvious come hither, managing to work into her "question" how young and pretty and shapely she is and that, almost incidentally, she is into humiliation. And couldn't resist sending a PM asking her just what she thought she could possibly do for me if she is that young and inexperienced without any scars as yet?

Now, ask me if I feel guilty.

About a lot of things. But, nothing I've said publicly. And not those playful PMs to those "hot" and "innocent" little doe-eyed creatures that found it necessary to work their measurements into their "question."

***shrug***

I don't know. For me, outsider or insider is irrelevant and always has been. I've always been too busy just being me. And anyone who had (or has) a problem with who and what I am... not what I say, mind you. I have absolutely no issue with a healthy debate and disagreement with opinions expressed (although if you present your opinion as undisputed fact, you'd better bring a minimum of ten outside sources or a poncho)... But, a problem with who and what I am can get the funk out.

And, for my money, if you are reading this and consider yourself an outsider and fear is what is stopping you from posting... get over yourself.

Sure, some assholes are going to take a swing at you because you don't fit their criteria of what they want to read, see, or hear.

But, this forum is a lot like life in general. For every loud-mouthed asshole (of which I cheerfully admit I am one) there are nine good people that you are looking right past if you are only seeing us assholes.

And it may just be that someone right here and right now needs to hear what you have to say, needs your presence on these boards and in their life.

But, absolutely no pressure or anything. The first person you have a responsibility to is yourself. So post if you wanna post. Otherwise, don't.

Now, if you'll excuse me, typing exhausts me. So, I think I'll go read awhile.

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780007224838_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG

 

[cookiecat]

See, and for me, this was my first board.
Cassie and DGE welcomed me. The girls then were cookie, collar n cuffs, masters delight, meek, lally...
And of course, some hot dude in cookie’s pool party thread.

ahh, the good 'ole days.

 

[Lady2020]

Outsider. But that's ok. I read some of the threads periodically. Posted a few dumb comments. C'est la vie.

 

[PaxNurgle]

I feel pretty accepted generally- thanks to all of you, and if I've been a jerk then I apologize for that, as it was obviously never intentional. I certainly wouldn't want to come across as a "Busybody."
I've been the clueless newb, and I've tried to be a constructive poster when I could, and overall this whole thing has been a learning experience, sometimes painful, (emotionally I mean, not painful as in, you know) and sometimes rewarding too.

 

[midwestyankee]

Looking back on this thread and missing Bunz.

Ditto.

 

[LouisianaWild]

I am so glad this one got resurrected. I’ve always been more lurker than poster for a few reasons. I recently had some changes in my life and decided on a fuck it attitude. I am posting where I see fit. I am not rude, obnoxious, looking for anything more than just like minded people who I can converse and learn from. Believe it or not I find the BDSM boards the one that is most friendly and welcoming. I have received a PM or two welcoming me and encouraging me. I find a few other boards harder to speak in because it is much more clique centric. So thanks.

 

[Jasminelit]

If the thread is relevant, than I reply. If I put that much thought into everything I did I would be miserable. People can opt to ignore me. No worries. Sometimes this forum has more topics that apply to what interests me.

 

[DVS]

Is there a clique in this place? Of course there is. I've experienced it twice for sure, and to a lesser degree more recently. When I first came here, I started in the AH. Then, because this forum was more in my line of interests, I started posting here.

There was quite an incident back then, but we won't go into it, except to say there was one favored poster who didn't like what I posted somewhere and she got her favored regulars to gang up on me. Yes, that's exactly what it was. A gang.

But, that's all old news. Then, I left for a while, and I guess it was a long while, because when I came back, many of the regulars I once knew here were gone. I was actually a newbie, although I had been here long before most of the regulars posting at the time. I wasn't ganged up on, but I was ignored. I guess that's standard for someone who people don't know. But, I really felt it, because I thought I was coming home and of course, you can never go home again.

Lately, I've been "sort of" back, posting again and some people seem to remember me, but there are still quite few who don't and assume I'm some sort of troll, at times. That's OK. I understand that, because sometimes my humor is a bit dry and difficult to understand.

Now, after saying all of this, I don't think the clique that's here is the kind that's normally thought of, when you think of a clique. Normally, a clique is a group of people who assume they are elite or somehow better than others and they view them as outsiders.

The clique here is different in that it tends to guard against outsiders of the forum, people who come to troll or otherwise be hurtful to posters. I guess you could kind of call them the forum police, in a way.

Sure, there are still some who will jump on a post too soon and call them a troll, when they aren't and we do still have some posters who can just be pissy, for no other reason than it's Tuesday.

But, such is life, and that's what this forum is. It's a community and hopefully, the regulars will keep the newbies in line, but not be too mean, because it can be scary posting for the first time. Some people can be so scarred that they leave and don't come back, and we don't want that, if someone is actually asking for help.

Be kind with the new crowd. You were once in that group yourselves.

 

[midwestyankee]

Is there a clique in this place? Of course there is. I've experienced it twice for sure, and to a lesser degree more recently. When I first came here, I started in the AH. Then, because this forum was more in my line of interests, I started posting here.

[SNIP]

Be kind with the new crowd. You were once in that group yourselves.

This is a really informative post. As much as I have been a regular here, I have also spent enough time away occasionally that I recall being somewhat ignored on my return. In my golden years, now, I've come to believe that such is the nature of communities like this one.

To gain re-entry you just have to piss someone off, over pizza, say, and then your lovable curmudgeonly self will be welcomed back into the fold.

 

[Mei5ter]

It's a little hard to feel accepted when folk are reminiscing about how much better this place was before I arrived...

 

[littlebirdjoy]

Outsider definitely. Some people seem to be given carte blanche and the and the grace and mercy to grow and make mistakes and still be accepted. Other people will be repeatedly tared and feathered and chased out of town with pitchforks.
I seem to fall into the latter group. It's ok. I'm resigned to being fine with that. A few people do reach out on occasion. I stick to my thread and I'm always incredibly grateful when the rare person engages or messages me <3
Sure, I could stick it out and basically ignore the nastiness that is directed towards me and post where I darn well like, but ya know what.... I just flat out don't want to. I like being here. I've been here for 17 years at this point... so I'm not going to walk away because i make a great punchline to a joke or cautionary tale.... but i'm also not going to invest myself where I'm not wanted.

How can you tell if you are an "insider"? If you fuck up and people accept your mistake and still welcome you. If not, yeah... you're an outsider.


Who am I? The woman who woke up at 2:30 am to get on a voice call with a girl I've never heard of in my life because she was ghosted and broken and alone... and I do things like that ***ALL.THE.TIME.***

I'm good with me. Anyone who isnt, isn't worth my time, energy, or concern. Their loss.

"To all of Maggie's family and friends. May you be the butt of an easy joke. May your lives be the punchline. May you be publicly flogged for every bad decision, and May your noses be rubbed in all of your mistakes. " ~The Runaway Bride

 

[cookiecat]

I'm neither.

I'm not a lurker, I've created a few threads. Given my opinion in a few threads. Think I've generally been kind to people I disagree with. Am I an insider because I feel comfortable posting? I don't think so.

I don't have an easy rapport with people here. I rarely send PMs, people rarely PM me. Other than a couple people, I only know surface things (the things shared here) about you guys. I have a tough time keeping a connection going. Does that make me an outsider? I don't think so.

The person I am here is pretty much the person I am in real life. Kind of middle of the road. A pleasant in-betweener?

 

[DVS]

I'm neither.

I'm not a lurker, I've created a few threads. Given my opinion in a few threads. Think I've generally been kind to people I disagree with. Am I an insider because I feel comfortable posting? I don't think so.

I don't have an easy rapport with people here. I rarely send PMs, people rarely PM me. Other than a couple people, I only know surface things (the things shared here) about you guys. I have a tough time keeping a connection going. Does that make me an outsider? I don't think so.

The person I am here is pretty much the person I am in real life. Kind of middle of the road. A pleasant in-betweener?

I could be wrong, but I think it's your Avatar. Those teeth look mean.

 

[seela]

Like cookie, I don't think I'm neither. Not anymore.

Maybe I was an insider once, but I no longer know almost anybody here. And it's okay. I don't think I give much of myself here anymore, so it's not fair to expect others to give more of themselves either.

Also, over the years my tolerance for drama and interest in porn pics has hit rock bottom and as a result I've started to curate my Lit experience even more carefully. It leaves very few threads that I open anymore.

 

[Mei5ter]

So I guess this raises the question: does anyone consider themself an insider?

 

[seela]

So I guess this raises the question: does anyone consider themself an insider?

Probably not.

It seems to me that people mostly know each other from other boards (mostly the PG) or from PMs. There's been marvelously little conversation in the recent years, so I don't know if any kind of inside circle can form in that environment.

 

[Chewbacca79]

I am mostly an outside lurker.
Which sounds sinister, it isn't.

 

[AnnieLit]

I don't know who I am...

I was reading Lit for a long time, but discovered the boards only about year and half ago. The only reason I created an account was that I wanted to comment on a specific thread on this very board. There was a question asked, I had something to say about it, so I did. Nobody cared that my post count was 1, it got maybe to 10 on that thread.

Never in my 1.5 years here had I anything negative said about me based on how long I've been here or how many posts I have to my name. Few people actually took time to welcome me to the boards.

I know few people, most I have never met before.

Recently somebody asked me for an advice and called me a "Lit expert". I had to laugh at that -- I am no expert! But I guess to him I looked like an insider.

 

[cookiecat]

So I guess this raises the question: does anyone consider themself an insider?

Probably not.

It seems to me that people mostly know each other from other boards (mostly the PG) or from PMs. There's been marvelously little conversation in the recent years, so I don't know if any kind of inside circle can form in that environment.

This is probably it. There aren't many threads that allow for interaction anymore. Even in Talk.

When I first got here in 2012 or so, there were a group of folks who interacted in threads a lot more. Lots of opinions, advice, experiences. That just doesn't happen much anymore.

Now, it seems like the threads we get to know each other in are the "What's cookin'" or blurt / what makes you happy threads. Or the covid thread when it's bumped. Was it ultramarine who started a conversation thread?? That's a good way to get to know each other! That being said, there aren't enough of us around to sustain an ongoing conversation.

I'd like to be an insider! Sometimes. I don't make enough of an effort. I see people here who know each other well and I think that'd be nice. They do seem to come from the Playground, where there's a lot more opportunity to interact on the boards.

The times change. Geez I sound like an old outsider. But it's true. The advent of gifs, tumblr, our short attention spans. And a little bit of feeling protective, too. Giving out too much info.

 

[cookiecat]

I could be wrong, but I think it's your Avatar. Those teeth look mean.

rawr!!