Touching the inner child

Oddly enough this isn't about Littles in their many shapes and forms. This is about the peculiarity of BDSM lexicon and its overwhelming tendency towards infantilization of supposedly sensible adults... usually women. It gets done on a daily basis and most don't even seem to notice or care. In fact one suspects some secretly enjoy it...

We no longer beat the crap out of each other, we "play". It sounds so much lighter and much more fun doesn't it? Now that one probably came about because we were desperately trying to remove ourselves from the stigma of domestic abuse. Still one can't help but feel we could have come up with something more... adult? Well at least something that doesn't conjure up an image of swings and seesaws every time it gets read.

We have safewords and safecalls... like they are going to make things so much... safer. Someone, anyone, is still to come up with a cohesive argument as to how they are going to do anything other than provide the police with a starting place to look for the body, but some do persist in chanting them like a magical spell of protection... no newbie should leave home without one. Frankly your chances of being killed by a stranger are way lower than by someone near and dear to you... still feeling safe?

There is this ethos of care that abounds... if you don't practise these atonements you are somehow bad it seems. Women are but fragile creatures that need to be cosseted after you do mean things to them. They have to be wrapped up, fed snacks, given sips of water and their iPads until they come back... hell some of them even come prepared. These are the same women that have, in many cases, managed to survive childbirth and an assortment of major illnesses.

Then we have the particularly irksome bit of magic by which women suddenly become girls, baby and that personal favourite "little one". OFFS! Really? And we aren't talking pet names here between two people; we are talking about men who are old enough to know better calling complete fucking strangers by these endearments and then acting surprised when the odd one of us snaps... like the mean auld women that we are.

So the next time you are out playing with your spells of protection, while regressing blissfully, think about this...

Maybe if we stop talking like we have arrested development we might actually become... adults.

Just imagine the possibilities...