BDSM capitalizations: annoying or respectful?

[KillerMuffin]

I find them intensely annoying. Not just a little bit annoying, but blah, oh my gawd I'm so giving you a 1 annoying. I haven't followed that impulse yet, but someday I imagine my self-control will snap and I'll be a shrieking 1-demon forced to PM Laurel and beg her to whitewash the votes later.

I used to put habitual board offenders on ignore (just avoid the problem) until I got promoted to board lackey and now I don't have anyone ignore.

What do you think about them? In stories and on the boards?

 

[Guest]

Hi Muff. I find them pretentious, as I do many bdsm-ers who have the attitude "Hotter than thou". They're as annoying as tantric sexperts.

I do hope it annoys some of them that I call my stories bdsm "lite".

Way cool/hot AV.

Perdita

 

[Couture]

KM, right on baby. This is one of my pet peeves as well. Don't even get me started on this. Jesus, whenever I see S/he or H/e I just want to grab 'em by the shoulders and shake 'em til I they write so I can understand 'em. And if that doesn't work, I want to take a little medium grain sandpaper doused with hot pepper, wrap it around the handle to something and. . .yeah, you get the idea. Give 'em some real bdsm. Get medieval on their ass.

Seriously. I would love to 'one' vote someone for this. I've never done it though. You know why? I always back click the moment I see that first hyphen.

I can deal with the Mistress or Master and the 'i' deal. I find it a little unnerving. Sort of like watching your parents kiss. You don't want to think about it, it's just one of those things you accept that happens.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I/it's F/fucking A/annoying.

M/makes T/the W/writer L/look L/like A/an I/idiot.

One of those absurd online conventions. Any editor would laugh in your face if you tried to submit something like that.
The sad thing is, many BDSM publications have to spell that exact thing out in their guidelines.

M/morons.

 

[Madame Manga]

One more vote for "annoying". Not that I can pretend for an instant to be one of the cognoscenti, but even in posts, upsy-downsy syntax makes me roll my eyes. Some people just try too damn hard.

MM

 

[raphy]

I'm probably gonna get slammed for this, heh...

Annoying, maybe.
Pretentious, yeah - I think I agree with 'dita on that one.

But c'mon, folks, show a little tolerance here.. For those that *do* live and love that lifestyle, the You is one of the accepted and conventionalized (is that a word) means by which a sub can refer to a Master or Mistress. Likewise, subs will refer to themselves in the third person, hence all the 'this slave' and 'this girl' stuff that you read about.

I think a lot of it is very much influenced by John Norman and his Gor series of books, and the rest is just evolved social programming (for that particular subset of society)

Raph, who wouldn't ever do it, but isn't going to rag on someone else's parade for doing it.

 

[Seattle Zack]

To a certain extent, I agree with you raph ... I can tolerate it in a chatroom or even in a forum post, because they are online conventions ... like ROFLMAO or ppl or cuz.

But in a work of fiction, it does annoy me. You have to be a pretty good writer to disregard basics of capitalization or punctuation and expect the reader to buy it. In poetry, it sometimes works, but not in prose. e.e. cummings and Kerouac got away with it, but I can't think of too many others.

Norman did use 'this slave' and stuff, but only in dialogue. In his narrative, he was a pretty structured writer (although a rather long-winded one, and rather too fond of semicolons).

I immediately lose interest in a story with He and i as the two main characters ... and the You is even worse.

 

[Guest]

I get you, Raff (don't I always?), and I didn't mean to rag the lifestyle itself, just the attitude of most as far as I read them on Lit.

Zack, you make a good point. A good writer should be able to imply and precisely express his or her characters so that werid punctuation isn't needed. Show me who is the dom and who is the sub and you need not get all goofy with the spelling of their labels or what they do.

Perdita

 

[Dirty Slut]

I've played around with BDSM with my lover...

And I can't remember a damn / or special capitalization of any kind during our playtime. LOL

DS

 

[Whispersecret]

Hi, all. I vote for annoying. But that's no surprise. The One and Only KM and I often (or at least we used to!) agree.

 

[Madame Manga]

It's not my impression that D/s spelling is all that conventional to the 'lifestyle'. On the BDSM forum here (the only one I've checked out, natch) the vast majority of posters *don't* indulge in creative capitalization. I've even seen people asked to knock it off when their posts get to the point of illegibility. D/s spelling is characteristic not of boards or of most BDSM stories, I think, but of certain flavors of chatroom or private messaging, and isn't considered particularly appropriate outside of them. Of course, that doesn't stop everyone.

MM

 

[Xelebes]

|<{}U|_D |33 \/\/{}|253, |<{}U|_D |33 |_3375P34|<

Now that is goddamn worse. THe BDSM capitalisation dealie also irks me, but not to the same degree as this remnant of scatophilia....

 

[5extant]

i could be worse?

 

[raphy]

I think, Zack, that (especially in the ones with You in them), the work of fiction is not necessarily that. I'm not saying that it's true, but it's also not literature. It's an expression by that person of their sexuality, and it's a fantasy. In their mind, the dominant always does have the uppercase Y, because they're the dominant.

Would they be worth a 1 rating? I guess that depends on how you rate your stories. It's not grammatical, and it's not proper literature, that's for sure.

But not everyone *writes* on Lit to write literature. (regardless of why people read it)

I guess I just thought that calling someone a moron for expressing themselves in the way they felt most comfortable was a bit harsh, is all. Maybe they're not trying to write a story to be published. Maybe they're just trying to get a fantasy down in words.

Raph, with utmost respect for Zack and the other people in this thread, and everyone else on lit too

 

[Icingsugar]

I think, Zack, that (especially in the ones with You in them), the work of fiction is not necessarily that. I'm not saying that it's true, but it's also not literature. It's an expression by that person of their sexuality, and it's a fantasy. In their mind, the dominant always does have the uppercase Y, because they're the dominant.

There is a point to that I guess, but on the other hand, no. It IS literature when it is posted as stories here, innit? It can be that these people write for a small little audience that is already in on the lingo. But if they write for the general public, as general as the average Literotica reader is, then there is no point.

I have read a handful of stories in the grnre, and when I see that a 'He' or an 'i' I only think 'Slipped on the Shift-key, did we?'.

If an author needs to take to creative capitalization to establish the dom/sub relation in a story, then I think that that particular author needs to practise a bit on the characterisation.

 

[Icingsugar]

5extant, compared to other handles I've seen, that is a smoothie.

Xeleb, ugh. That brought back some horrible memories.

/Ice - reformed geek

 

[Quint]

It's not my impression that D/s spelling is all that conventional to the 'lifestyle'. On the BDSM forum here (the only one I've checked out, natch) the vast majority of posters *don't* indulge in creative capitalization. I've even seen people asked to knock it off when their posts get to the point of illegibility. D/s spelling is characteristic not of boards or of most BDSM stories, I think, but of certain flavors of chatroom or private messaging, and isn't considered particularly appropriate outside of them. Of course, that doesn't stop everyone.

MM

I agree with this. For some people, it truly is how they think of themselves and their partner and anything less would be completely disrespectful. I don't share that opinion, nor would I find it tasteful to include it in my BDSM literature if I did. I don't care to read it, but it doesn't make my teeth grate either. Plus the "ignore" button does have unlimited possibilities for we unhampered ones.

 

[Linbido]

Hulloh, ye AH-crowd.

I'm not at all interrested in bdsm or that lifestyle. I've been dominated enough in the past to not want to touch a world where submission is a turn-on with a ten foot, no make that ten mile pole.

So, needless to say, I've never read any stories about it. But this thread got me (academically) curious about them. Can you direct me to any examples of stories on Lit that uses the kind of syntax you talk about? I wanna see what the fuss is all about.

-Lin
jello-sub-marine (?)

 

[Guest]

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Hi, Lin. I don't think I have read enough BDSM stories to direct you to a good example, but you can't browse the erotic poetry section without bumping into several hundreds of them. What's the vaguest title you could come up with for a BDSM poem? Yeah, let's take a look at the list. There you go. First try:

Pain

Now, I haven't read it yet, and it could even be a masterpiece of contemporary poetry. But the second I opened it, my eyes went straight to Catapult U/us to new heights / Feed O/our inner most needs.

I don't care how incredibly amazing the rest of the poem is. Its chances of getting a 5 have all but disappeared O/on A/annoyance F/factor A/alone. Even if I were forced to give it a 5, it would at least have a N/negative F/feedback note attached to it.

 

[raphy]

If an author needs to take to creative capitalization to establish the dom/sub relation in a story, then I think that that particular author needs to practise a bit on the characterisation.

Again, I think you're missing the point a little.. They're not trying to establish the Dom/Sub relationship in the story. They're not going for characterization.

Put very simply, that is how they think of that person.

To someone that uses that creative capitalization, it would be totally unthinkable for them to refer to a master as you, and not You. It would show a total and complete lack of respect.

Now, you can argue that such things don't have their place on lit, but if you ask me, that's really starting on the stairs to intellectual elitism. We're climbing the ivory towers now.

In some cases, the rest of their story is well written, with correct grammar and punctuation, which leads me to believe that they specifically chose to capitalize their Y/you in that manner.

I don't know. I'm probably not fighting a very good fight here, because *I* don't do it, and *I* don't understand the choices that go into making someone do it, so I'm somewhat searching for arguments to counter the lynch mob here.

A lot of my arguments here are theories. I *think* that if you got one of those people in to talk about why they write that way, they'd say something like:

"But it is the right and proper way to refer to my master. I don't care whether it's literary or not."

And maybe it's just me, but I think that's a fair enough answer, personally.

 

[Guest]

 

[gauchecritic]

Ok, I can see the W/we and I can see the U/us but where does Y/you come into it? Is M/me included (that would make them Madamoiselle wouldn't it?)

Seems a might silly, making a D/s into a symbiote. Not much point in dominating/being submissive to yourself is there?

Gauche

 

[Icingsugar]

Again, I think you're missing the point a little.. They're not trying to establish the Dom/Sub relationship in the story. They're not going for characterization.

Put very simply, that is how they think of that person.

Ok, I'm beginning to get the idea. It's just that I really can't get my head around the concept of thinking in written words, or syntax. I don't even think in comprehensible words most of the time, so how a capital letter can have that impact is beyond me. Each to his own, I guess.

To someone that uses that creative capitalization, it would be totally unthinkable for them to refer to a master as you, and not You. It would show a total and complete lack of respect.

Now, you can argue that such things don't have their place on lit, but if you ask me, that's really starting on the stairs to intellectual elitism. We're climbing the ivory towers now.

I'm not saying t'hat those things should be banished anywhere. I'm too liberate in my use of grammar, puncuation case and structure in my own writing to point any fingers.

But what I am saying is that a writer who use that kind of technique should be aware of that the majority of the readers won't read anything into it, and will not get the point.

Thus, the writer is not interrested in making more than a select few already initiated readers understand the world and the relationship that is being described.

If I want to be an ass about it (and here we go), I could even say that that makes them the elitists, instead of me.

/Ice - can't even dominate my plants

 

[Guest]

I'm with Sugar, though nearly with Gauche, and always with Raff. And I'd vote for Hillary.

Perdita