Eroticon, 3 Things

So, instead of ten things I’m taking away from Eroticon 2018 I thought I’d share the three most important things I’ve learned, as a person, between my first Eroticon back in 2014 and now.

1) It’s a microcosm, not a utopia

Ok this refers more to the kink (and other) communities, but is still pretty important. Communities aren’t perfect. There will be lots of amazing supportive inspirational lovely people. There will also be arseholes and occasional abusers. Bearing this in mind it also means that the community doesn’t crumble into nothing just because of one arsehole.

2) If “no” isn’t an ok answer to hear, then you shouldn’t be asking the question.

I find that this is a really good acid test for whether a question I want to ask is coming from a healthy head-space. There’s a fuck-tonne of social conditioning that basically says saying no to a man comes with potentially violent consequences. This doesn’t solve that, but hopefully it can at least not exacerbate it.

3) The world doesn’t owe you shit!

This one very much aimed at cis-het-male folks like myself. And to clarify I don’t mean this in some libertarian pull yourself up by your bootstraps sense.

But when it comes to interacting with other people, this is pretty much the starting point, the core understanding on which everything else is built. Really internalising that you are not owed anything is, in my view, more or less a pre requisite for seeing others as equally valid human beings.

There’s a whole Buddhist tangent from this about letting go of desire but that’s a bit too big for this post…

Also desire is sexy as fuck…