Earning leather…
Posted on July 16th, 2008 in ramblings |
This evening on prompting from a friend I set up a profile on FetLife, a fetish community. I took a moment to browse around the forums and came across a thread that struck me. Due to privacy concerns I will not copy / past the words of anyone from that community here except my own (because I own those, dammit).
In essence it was a discussion about an article in Power Exchange Magazine discussing the old practice of “earning leather”. Essentially in some (by no means all) closed fetish communities the right to present yourself as a peer or dominant was one you had to earn from those who already held power in that group. This is not a bad practice in a closed group but doesn’t really work well in a much larger one.
This was my reply:
“I certainly do get the concept… I simply reject the core premise. It is a given here that earning "leathers" brings with it ideas such as certain titles, relationship dynamics and so on.
Someone granting me leather, or me needing to earn it is founded upon the core premise that I need someones permission, acceptance or blessing. Since I require none of those things… the very premise is one that doesn’t apply to me.
This is not to say I have not learned from several really great people, it simply is to say that not one of them was in a position to withold or grant anything from me.“ – soulhuntre on fetlife
Anyone have any thoughts to contribute? Post a comment or join the thread. This might make a good Power In Practice topic.
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It seems odd to give over power in the case of learning how to more effectively exercise personal power.
To touch on the idea of instruction vs. certification, one of the most effective instructors I've ever seen adopted the technique "If you do it that way, this is the result. If you do it this way, this is what happens", and left it at that. Whether you wanted to do it the first way (and fall on your ass), or the second was totally up to you, and his personal approval/disapproval did not (overtly) enter into it.
If the way you do things builds the dynamics you want with the people under you, why should you care if someone thinks you do, or don't, deserve leathers?
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However, I think it is one thing to take the reactions of people around us - even those we care about - as indications of "I am not accomplishing what I thought I was", "I am doing things I didn't realize I was doing" or "I am not being what I want to be". It is another to attempt to gain the emotional/personal validation of those people. There is a subtle, but critical, difference, I think.
One is lending people the ability to give us feedback, critical evaluation of our actions and attitudes, (possibly indirect) feedback of how effective we are at expressing or realizing our values, or even indications of the interactions and implications of those values. The other is allowing people to skew the priorities of those values, or even altering our value set itself.
That ties back to the example of my instructor above. For me, since technical proficiency in what he is teaching me is something I value, then I strive to change the way I do things to match what he tells me. I'm not as invested in whether or not he personally likes me, so long as we can respect each other and effectively interact.
Neither approach (feedback or approval) is objectively wrong, they're just very different; I don't think you can accept people on "both sides of the leash" if you can't accept both views as valid personal approaches. It just seems to me that if you are trying to assume power over yourself, or others, it is more effective to be more rooted in the "determining your own values" camp of thought.
Where we escape being totally cold unfeeling bastards or bitches (mostly, hopefully) is that the well-being of other people, and social interaction, are almost always amongst our values - although not always the top of the list in every case.
Tying it back to the original topic, if "earning your leathers" means someone whose rational judgment you can respect has objectively evaluated you, and thinks you are technically proficient at what you do and effective at realizing your values, then your "leathers" have value. It would be someone akin to getting a BDSM driving license. If it means you have the approval or blessing of the "old guard" as being somehow "worthy", or that your values are now sufficiently like the groupthink of everyone else, then I don't see it as having particular value any more than I care if my driving examiner likes me as a person.
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