Navigating the Noise
The liminal spaces of allyship, accompliceship, and co-conspiratorship
This one feels more personal than most of my posts. But sometimes you just have to work out your thoughts out loud. Thanks for indulging me. — Sir Quill.
For those of us who play “publicly” in BDSM and leather clubs, or in the playspaces at various kink, leather, and BDSM cons, we’re used to being around the “noise” of those space: the sounds of floggers and single tails snapping in the air and against skin; of people shouting, crying, or laughing in pain; of people in the throes of orgasms or being held mercilessly at the edges of them. We can hear the sounds of chains and metal and the buzzing and humming of violet wands. We can hear the thumping music of a good playlist being piped in (and hopefully not just “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails). In fact, that ambient noise of playspaces can help us get into flow.
Other times, however, the noise around us can be distracting. Busy dungeon nights can mean people having conversations too close to our scenes; or we hear someone arguing with a DM regarding the load-bearing capacity of whatever is being used for the suspension scene that they are literally trying to get off the ground. Or there’s that one person whose kink is being the loudest person at the club. If we’re experienced players, we know that when we’re in the right mood, we’ll be able to navigate it all. We also know when we don’t have the capacity to handle all that noise, and we opt to stay home or to play with our partners in private, where we may not have the hardpoints, or the St Andrew’s Crosses, or the cages, but we have what we need.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately as I try to navigate social media and doomscrolling post-election. The queer and BIPOC folks I love and anyone and everyone who considers themselves an ally, accomplice, or co-conspirator have been exposed to a ton of noise filled with doom and horror. It’s distracting and at times downright terrifying.
I recognize so much of this noise as the cruel theater it is: executive orders attempting to curtail the basic human rights of my Queer and BIPOC partners and friends in the community (and so many others across the nation). Logically, I know that these were enacted to shock, dishearten, scare, and paralyze in order to destroy hope, undermine joy, and to distract from the even bigger grift happening behind the scenes. Logically, I know that the legality of a good portion of these orders will be challenged and stalled. But emotionally, I know how damaging they are simply by looking into the eyes of my partners. And I know that in many cases these orders will cost lives.
As an ally, accomplice, and co-conspirator I find myself adjacent to so many communities in varying degrees. But with my partners I feel the backlash of all of this acutely, and I find myself in that liminal state of “holding space,” where I’ve learned not to assume, and not to offer solutions that are only possible from the point of view of my own privilege – a privilege I constantly examine and work through to make sure I’m tempering it or using it to undermine the oppressive systemic forces in play.
But the noise still rages on.
I try to avoid the doomscroll of news and socials. Am I looking to these feeds for hope? Am I looking to them to validate my fear? Am I looking for stories of bad things happening to bad people to experience the schadenfreude that is so sweet at first but then leaves the most bitter aftertaste? I “like” and reshare the memes that I agree with and hope that the little heart becomes a means of support and amplification …
… But an amplification of what exactly? Am I just shouting into the cacophonous void? Is my voice just another yelp in the dungeon or crack of the whip among so many others?
I maneuver to abandon social media and am scolded by activists who say that it’s the only place where vulnerable people can get information and feel a sense of support. I jump back on again and get scolded by other activists pointing out the damage I’m doing by supporting a given platform, or who direct me to the next platform which seems okay now, but like all the others, will probably succumb to the hyper-enshittification that is so characteristic of this late-stage, palliative capitalism. Enshittification, like gravity, seems to always win.
When I turn back to the real world, I think about how – as long as I can remember – I’ve always been more comfortable in “othered” spaces. I think about how much comfort I take in my home club’s dungeon space and at leather cons. I think about that chosen family and how welcoming it has been. On the vanilla side of things, I think about how when I’m with my spouse’s family, often the only white guy in the room, I feel nothing but acceptance and joy. In both instances, I know that my sense of joy is predicated on deep trust.
On days when the horror comes through – either via the latest news story or via some asshole at the store who said the bigoted/racist/homophobic thing out loud – temporarily rattling my partner(s), I “hold space” by holding onto hope and/or joy for them: and holding that hope and joy doesn’t mean throwing it back at them when they’re down. I like to see it as “keeping it safe” for them when they are not in a space to hold it themselves.
But the way I see it, I don’t just hold spaces, I navigate them. I move through them. I read the room. I position myself contextually. Some days I stand back and stand aside so as not to get in the way, other days I stand with and next to them, showing support and care, advancing toward some goal or into some fight. And yes, some days I do need to get in front, to take the metaphorical (and perhaps someday, the literal) bullet. There have been days when I’ve had to get in a bigot’s or homophobe’s face because they were just too used to getting away with it.
But allyship in all its degrees is as tricky a thing to talk about is it is to do, because I’m constantly sensitive to my position and my adjacency to the people I’m allied with. I am perpetually aware of my whiteness, my straightness, and my maleness. I do the work, but it still doesn’t ameliorate the flashes of awkwardness that adjacency sometimes brings; the constant questioning; the nagging feeling of never being able to do enough.
The noise, like the horror, still persists.
But so do I.