Are we just smarter?

[wren14]

just had the same conversation!

I just had this same conversation with another kinkster as it was a conclusion we'd both reached, although only from personal experience.

The reason we came up with was simply one of curiousity, those who are clever are more likely to be curious about new ways of thinking and acting and surely sex is just a small part of it.

wren xx

 

[Ravenwind]

The reason, I think,t hat most of them/us are upper middle class professionals is because BDSM is EXPENSIVE. Doing it cheaply is not easy (as I can testify to).

Oh, sure it is... plenty of methods to make it cheap, if you're willing to forgo, say, the wrought-iron cage. It just takes a little elbow grease, ingenuity, and a well-stocked craft and hardware store. ^_~

 

[eastern sun]

I used to think I was the smartest person in whatever community I was in until I discovered the very big drawbacks to thinking that way.

There is always someone smarter than you. Always. In ways you can't foresee if you meet the world with prejudiced eyes.

Once you think you're the smartest, you'll start dismissing the valid experience of other people and stop hearing the important things they have to say.

And once you stop listening to the truth from whatever source it's coming from, you start living in a "fantasy" world and act pretty stupid.

 

[Netzach]

Oh, sure it is... plenty of methods to make it cheap, if you're willing to forgo, say, the wrought-iron cage. It just takes a little elbow grease, ingenuity, and a well-stocked craft and hardware store. ^_~

DIY is cheap ER.

It is still not always cheap.

 

[eastern sun]

. . . .

Now, you just are smarter.

 

[Betticus]

"The one thing I will say for those I have seen on the BDSM scene here is that they seem like a pretty intelligent and well-spoken group overall. It's actually made me curious whether this is just my impression, a coincidence with the people who post here, or fairly accurate for the community as a whole... and if so, what is it about domination and submission that would draw those of above average intelligence to it?"

Are we smarter? Is the rest of Litdom dumber? Or is it just that those who are wired for BDSM are OCD enough to double check their grammar and google questionable spelling?

In any event, I asked my friend if I could post her questions anonymously here, and see what happens. Thoughts, smarty pants?

Or is that smarty pantses?

I immediately thought that since people into alternate lifestyles, bdsm are so often judged by others and looked at through the microscope by the rest of society that we become better communicators, smarter, faster just as self defense mechanisms. In other words, our judgmental society has forced us to evolve in order to survive amongst the mensch.

 

[Netzach]

Now, you just are smarter.

Nuh uh.

Had I not been surrounded with superfreakysmart people and uberachievers I'd have fallen prey to the smartest person here syndrome. I just was always around people who could make me feel dumb at least some of the time.

 

[Netzach]

I immediately thought that since people into alternate lifestyles, bdsm are so often judged by others and looked at through the microscope by the rest of society that we become better communicators, smarter, faster just as self defense mechanisms. In other words, our judgmental society has forced us to evolve in order to survive amongst the mensch.

Sometimes it just makes you more neurotic when they're out to get you.

 

[Betticus]

Sometimes it just makes you more neurotic when they're out to get you.

Survival of the fittest.

 

[Netzach]

I just think I've met more pervs who have responded with the crazy than the brililant.

 

[Seurat]

How about this: it isn't base intelligence that makes people smarter, but the application of learning and imagination to that intelligence.

You can give a monkey a rock and a cocoanut, and it will use it's base intelligence to figure out how to use the rock to open the cocoanut. Application of base intelligence; doesn't make them smart.

You can write a program that will correct grammatical errors in a story; application of learning without imagination, and it certainly doesn't make the program 'smart'.

But....

When you throw in imagination, the relative requirements for either swing wildly to-and-fro as 'smarts' come into play.

It is imagination that conceived of 2001 and the whole 'monkey and the tool' scene, and imagination that has created multiple movies and books about programmed computers learning enough to achieve intellectual autonomy.

Now that I have gone completely off track, it is that imagination (in combination with learned data) that allows the people here to come up with the witty responses posted so far. Anybody can tie up another person, but to make it an erotic and enjoyable situaation takes a bit of imagination.

When it comes to playmates, I think that intelligence and imagination are a hell of a lot more stimulating than purely cosmetic attributes.

When it comes to the people here being 'smarter', I think that the average intelligence rating is probably normal. It's just that the 'imagination' factor is higher. All those geeks, ren-farire people, etc.? They are doing nothing more than demonstrating that they have the ability to imagine things could be diferent.

Ah, I see that this is no longer making as much sense as it did before I started typing it in; time to stop writing and take more back meds. They let me see new colors.

 

[subsarah1989]

BDSM is creative, often artistic, elegant, daring, fun, etc; yet by nature one has to feel like it is the right lifestyle to live in. In general i would agree that people attracted to this lifestyle are more interesting, well spoken, educated. The feelings one can experience are much more profound than the classic romp.
this lifestyle has always room to grow. variety is the spice of life.

 

[ouchfeelsgood]

My personal experience over the years has shown that while BDSM lifestylers are not necessarily smarter per se, they are certainly more imaginative and open-minded than the general population.

They also possess an intrinsically inquisitive nature; i.e. always "experimenting" in an effort to come up with new scenes and twists on the vanilla relationship. Whether these attributes are a precondition to higher intelligence is debatable.

 

[subsarah1989]

My personal experience over the years has shown that while BDSM lifestylers are not necessarily smarter per se, they are certainly more imaginative and open-minded than the general population.

They also possess an intrinsically inquisitive nature; i.e. always "experimenting" in an effort to come up with new scenes and twists on the vanilla relationship. Whether these attributes are a precondition to higher intelligence is debatable.

pretty modest i think-somehow i just believe it DOES attract more interesting people; i guess it is debatable if interesting=intelligent

 

[ouchfeelsgood]

pretty modest i think-somehow i just believe it DOES attract more interesting people; i guess it is debatable if interesting=intelligent

I agree with you on that point -- it definitely attracts interesting people, to say the least

 

[sweetnpetite]

Your hypothesis, as I understood it, is that kinky people tend to be smarter than non-kinky people. To support his hypothesis, you reference Lit BDSM. Yet, here, we tend to disqualify kinky people for reasons having nothing to do with actual kink. So your use of Lit as an example to support your hypothesis makes no sense.

BiBunny put this better than I did. I'll add that observation of kinksters, in real life, belies the notion that kinky people are somehow smarter.

People are people. Kinksters don't tend to be more or less intelligent; they're just scattered on a spectrum of intelligence, like everyone else.

so that's a yes. post that on the GB and see how many people understand it...

 

[sweetnpetite]

As the bunny said, participation in online forums tends to self-select for the verbally informed.

You would think so but experience has not bore (sp?) this out.

 

[JMohegan]

BDSM is creative, often artistic, elegant, daring, fun, etc; yet by nature one has to feel like it is the right lifestyle to live in. In general i would agree that people attracted to this lifestyle are more interesting, well spoken, educated. The feelings one can experience are much more profound than the classic romp.
this lifestyle has always room to grow. variety is the spice of life.

My personal experience over the years has shown that while BDSM lifestylers are not necessarily smarter per se, they are certainly more imaginative and open-minded than the general population.

They also possess an intrinsically inquisitive nature; i.e. always "experimenting" in an effort to come up with new scenes and twists on the vanilla relationship. Whether these attributes are a precondition to higher intelligence is debatable.

There's something intrinsically unimaginative about the notion that power & pain are the only means to obtain experiences that are more creative, artistic, profound or fun than the "classic romp."

Just because you folks can't think of "new scenes and twists" that are non-BDSM, doesn't mean no one else can.

so that's a yes. post that on the GB and see how many people understand it...

That's a no.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I think that BDSM is very much a nonconformist activity. In general, non-conformists are people who question things. People who question things and who are curious and people who take the time to learn more than just what is handed to them that they are expected to except and believe tend to be intelligent. (I think that curiosity is the biggest factor in intelligence- whether it's the cause or the effect intelligent people tend to be curious that's why they continue to learn and non intelligent people don't tend to be very curious)

This is not to say that there are not intelligent people amoung the conformists, just that anybody can BE a conformist without much thought. It takes thought and creativity to step outside of the limits and norms that are set for you.

People either come to BDSM by thinking up something that is not the norm (imagination) or by reading about it (curiosity and imagination again lead to reading and readers expand their mind, learn things both intentionally and unintentionally through their reading, and expand their vocabulary. All markers of intelligence.) [usually I think it's a combination]

Non-imaginative people and non-readers do not tend to come to BDSM or any alternative lifestyle or 'counterculture' [Goths for example tend to be very intelligent as well].

In short, it takes thought to go against the grain. (it does not take thought to follow the crowd)

So yes, I do think that BDSM'ers are more intelligent in general than the general population. Thinking too much is probably what led us to try something so unusual (and taboo) in the first place.

 

[Netzach]

There's something intrinsically unimaginative about the notion that power & pain are the only means to obtain experiences that are more creative, artistic, profound or fun than the "classic romp."

Just because you folks can't think of "new scenes and twists" that are non-BDSM, doesn't mean no one else can.

We have a total winner. I am very rarely surprised by the sexual imagination of the many men I have sexual conversations with who are into traditional BDSM ideas. It's not to say I do or don't like them more - they just don't throw me for a loop or challenge my improvisation skills. The conversations that start "well I don't like whips or chains stuff" are actually more likely to spin off into the road less traveled.

 

[Netzach]

I think that BDSM is very much a nonconformist activity.

But if you scour the official scene you'll find a lot of uniformity and attempts to be uniform and fit into a kind of scripted notion.

 

[midwestyankee]

My personal experience over the years has shown that while BDSM lifestylers are not necessarily smarter per se, they are certainly more imaginative and open-minded than the general population.

They also possess an intrinsically inquisitive nature; i.e. always "experimenting" in an effort to come up with new scenes and twists on the vanilla relationship. Whether these attributes are a precondition to higher intelligence is debatable.

pretty modest i think-somehow i just believe it DOES attract more interesting people; i guess it is debatable if interesting=intelligent

All of the above could and often is said of any group of people who are deeply invested in a hobby. If you wander into a forum of dedicated gardeners, private pilates, dungeons and dragons afficionadoes, and the like you'll find the same kinds of characteristics. Being deeply involved in a complex activity causes you to do things that look like inventive, creative, or intelligent behavior. And often they are these things. It's not that the people are more intelligent than the norm in any way; it's that they have chosen to invest themselves in a pursuit that brings out some of these characteristics.

And look, the practice of bdsm is just a type of hobby. You don't earn your living from it (except for the pros), and it doesn't give you food, shelter or clothing. Some people call it a lifestyle but essentially it's a hobby, a pursuit that brings pleasure, enjoyment, and fulfillment.

One other thing: people like to believe that they make good choices in life. We like to believe that our choices reveal us to be good people or people with talent. And it seems to be an essential motivation in life to belong to a group. So we persuade ourselves that we belong to an elite group by virtue of doing whatever it is that we do.

 

[KissKitt]

Sheep vs. Wolves

How about this: it isn't base intelligence that makes people smarter, but the application of learning and imagination to that intelligence.
...
When it comes to the people here being 'smarter', I think that the average intelligence rating is probably normal. It's just that the 'imagination' factor is higher. All those geeks, ren-farire people, etc.? They are doing nothing more than demonstrating that they have the ability to imagine things could be diferent.

I think that this is correct personally. I grew up with the idea that 80% of the popultion is a bunch of sheep, moving towards whatever they're told that they need to move towards. That they tend to be petty as they constantly try to get ahead of each other.

The other 20% of the population, nicknamed wolves in my family (I don't know why, in my experience, which is admittedly fairly limited, they don't tend to prey on the sheep any more than the sheep prey on each other, the wolves who prey on sheep just get more attention for it) tends to be more intelligent and free thinking. I'm not saying that this is the way the world really is, I am simply submitting another theory to be looked at.

I do think that BDSM requires more thought and imagination that vanilla sex, and that people who use their minds more than the norm calls for tend to be more intelligent. So, perhaps in some ways we are more intelligent because we use our minds more, but I'm sure that we are less inteligent in others. Perhaps it takes a lot of thought to content oneself with vanilla sex and decide that vanilla is what you like and prefer.

Thus I feel I must conclude with this thought: Can anyone REALLY, truly and honestly compute the vast and wonderful powers of the human mind with a mere test? I think not.

Good luck figuring it out

 

[sweetnpetite]

But if you scour the official scene you'll find a lot of uniformity and attempts to be uniform and fit into a kind of scripted notion.

conformity within non-conformity... yes, but still very much different from the mainstream.. following scripts and rules just means searching and uncertainty... in an unfamiliar world that is to be expected.

 

[midwestyankee]

conformity within non-conformity... yes, but still very much different from the mainstream.. following scripts and rules just means searching and uncertainty... in an unfamiliar world that is to be expected.

When was the last time you saw a dominant male wear a yellow shirt at a scene event?

Please explain this: "following scripts and rules just means searching and uncertainty" because I just don't understand what you meant by it.