Slapping that label on

There is a glorious train wreck occurring over at Fet at the moment. Actually it is a series of train wrecks all started by the same person in the same group. Honestly pounds per square inch it is providing more laughs than any wreck should and it's been going on for hours with no end in sight. The cause of all this laughter you may be wondering? Ah, well it is the natural by product of words and labels can mean whatever you want them to mean... except when they don't.

One of the biggest problems with online communication is that you have to say what you mean. To do this we use all sorts of labels. They act as a kind of short hand. On BDSM boards it becomes extremely important; otherwise you have people talking at cross purposes.

This process is made all the more complex by the fact that no one can actually agree on what terms mean. Hell if you ask five people what BDSM stands for they can't actually agree. So you end up using some terms to mean broad concepts...

BDSM as a broad concept means a collection of ideas encompassing kink, power exchanges, assorted fetishes and the like, often wrapped in a lot of latex and leather and nudity...

Yeah not simple.

So people on Fet form groups, define terms for that group and cluster together chatting. It works well until someone comes along and appropriates a label they fancy, plops themselves down in the group and proceeds to insist that their relationship is just like the other members.

It's a free net. They can call themselves princess if it makes them happy. Where it starts to go wrong is when other people in that group turn around and go, um that word doesn't mean what we think it means and we aren't talking about the same thing at all...

And the other person insists that it does...

And hunkers on down to keep that dream alive.

It is the stuff of laughs. Hours and hours of laughs