We don't need no stinking badges!!!

[izod]

All day long I've been thinking that "back in the day" when we simply acknowledged things as PYL/pyl it kinda sorta covered everything. The "old timers" made a point to explain -

PYL = Top/Dominant/Domme/Master/Mistress
pyl = bottom/submissive/slave

I like this.

 

[BiBunny]

All day long I've been thinking that "back in the day" when we simply acknowledged things as PYL/pyl it kinda sorta covered everything. The "old timers" made a point to explain -

PYL = Top/Dominant/Domme/Master/Mistress
pyl = bottom/submissive/slave

The only thing that sucked about that was the ninety gazillion "What does PYL/pyl mean?" questions. There were way more of those than there ever were "arguments" over terms.

You can't win either way.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well I just placed my vote. I felt so sorry for the second choice. Nobody loved it. So I voted for the totalitarian, fascist underdog.

Just this once.

 

[CurvAppeal]

If someone is eager and wants to learn what certain lables mean then that to me is excuseable.

 

[Stella_Omega]

All day long I've been thinking that "back in the day" when we simply acknowledged things as PYL/pyl it kinda sorta covered everything. The "old timers" made a point to explain -

PYL = Top/Dominant/Domme/Master/Mistress
pyl = bottom/submissive/slave

PYL stands for Pick Your Label(s). You can't pick your labels if you don't know what the labels mean.

 

[laceNlthrgrrl]

I know my post count is low, but I've read quite a lot here, and lived quite a lot more. I think the quibbling over labels can get in the way of some genuine, useful discussions. If the actual question is about some particular label, fine, but otherwise it seems to mostly turn into a distraction.

I've always figured that my lowercase-self is whatever my Uppercase SO prefers to call me. It's our relationship and gets to be "quantified" by us, and us only.

 

[the captians wench]

PYL stands for Pick Your Label(s). You can't pick your labels if you don't know what the labels mean.

But is there truely a standard when it comes to the meaning of each label?

I mean, what makes you a Top vs a Dom in your circle, might be different a couple of states over. Hell, I've noticed that when I go certian places they have very strict ideas of what each label means vs other places an hour away who don't care if you call yourself purple when you are very clearly aquamarine.

 

[CutieMouse]

PYL stands for Pick Your Label(s). You can't pick your labels if you don't know what the labels mean.

Which is why those of us who have been around long enough to remember when AngelicAssassin coined the PYL/pyl thing, would explain

PYL= Top/Dominant/Domme/Master/Mistress
pyl= bottom/submissive/slave

 

[4bidnfruit]

If someone is comfortable with their label than the debate on labels could be irritating but most of the time, the debate happens from someone new entering the BDSM world/community.

Personally, I think if a person engages in a little bit of light bondage and desires to be spanked, they are still, “vanilla”. This logic works for me but walking into The Crucible and waving that vanilla flag would not make any sense. I can blame the confusion on my ignorance and lack of understanding or their connotations that come with the term “vanilla” but either way, it would be an issue.

I knew what I was into before I ever heard the term BDSM and damn sure didn’t need a label to engage in any activity but having some knowledge before I choked on the term would have been a blessing. Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here years later wondering what the fuck I was thinking, how the hell did I miss that. I don’t believe the debates are used to force anyone to choose a label but it sure as hell does give a little gray area rather than making it so black and white.

There are plenty of debates that constantly come up in here and should not stop because the regular lurkers are tired of it. The library is nice but nothing like reading the words of experience. If anything, the only thing that pisses me off, with these debates, are the ones that come in claiming they have never had any real experience but after a hundred or so post they start dishing out advice because they are “really experienced” and their online “master” has made them an expert.

I didn’t vote because the options are fucking childish: “If you don’t’ agree with me than you must be an asshole that believe in enforcing strict label usage”. Black and white!

But then again~ that’s just a vanilla’s opinion!

 

[Chiara_searches]

Which is why those of us who have been around long enough to remember when AngelicAssassin coined the PYL/pyl thing, would explain

PYL= Top/Dominant/Domme/Master/Mistress
pyl= bottom/submissive/slave

Actually, the PYL/pyl was a part of why I eventually got comfortable enough to stop lurking - it made me feel like Lit was a community that wouldn't force a definition or label upon me. Lately, I don't feel that as much.

Yes, we need to be respectful of each other's personal definitions; but none of us should force, for example, *my* definition on *you*. It sometimes amounts to trying to force someone to view the world through your experiences. Please tell me of your experiences and why you define yourself as you do, but please don't insist I use your definitions when discussing myself.

I don't feel like I'm it expressing it well. Perhaps I'm just tired of the labels in general and can't put my hands around what I mean. But I get tired of feeling like we are beating each other over the head with these labels. I would rather just say "I identify as sexually submissive" or "it sounds like you and your PYL enjoy that activity." Let's give each other the freedom to be self defined...and the PYL/pyl is the only thing I've seen that gives us that freedom to a certain extent.

 

[Etoile]

I don't think explaining the differences is the same as telling someone "you are this" - I missed the thread that triggered this conversation, or at least the part of it that triggered this. I assume it's from Stella explaining the difference between Dom/sub and Top/bottom. I always interpreted that as just an explanation - hey, here are some terms you might not be familiar with. It's up to the individual to decide whether those terms apply to them.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Which is why those of us who have been around long enough to remember when AngelicAssassin coined the PYL/pyl thing, would explain

PYL= Top/Dominant/Domme/Master/Mistress
pyl= bottom/submissive/slave

"What's the difference between a "Top and a Mistress, or are they all the same? What's the difference between a Dominant and a Domme?"

I like the PYL/pyl coining very much. I use it a lot. But-- unless you know which labels are closest to your situation, how can you pick?

Also, I don't get this idea that you have to pick one of them and hold strictly to it. In fact, what I keep on noticing is that Dom/sub is usually the ONLY label on offer.

Talk about black and white!

 

[catalina_francisco]

I do get tired of some telling others just how they should act, feel, be etc., or bitching about those who don;t fit their idea of perfect or the same as themselves, but I also find it more disturbing when people giving the advice have not actually experienced anything in this world we love, but advise others how it should be done and often give an impression they are speaking from experience. It has been a problem from time to time over the years I have been here, and continues to be...like I said in another thread, you can read about driving a car, the rules and what nots etc., watch a DVD, but that is vastly different from actually getting behind the wheel of a real car in peak hour traffic.Bit like that with BDSM and all things associated....you can read as much as you want, can fantasise and wish with all your being you could experience it, but that does not give you a good position for many situations from which to advise someone who is actually experiencing it or intending to, but still some do.

Catalina

 

[Stella_Omega]

Again:

Not everyone fits easily or completely into Dom/sub.

Some people have experienced shaming because of that.

They need, and they deserve, to know that there are other ways to think about BDSM besides D/s.

 

[teknight]

Again:

Not everyone fits easily or completely into Dom/sub.

Some people have experienced shaming because of that.

They need, and they deserve, to know that there are other ways to think about BDSM besides D/s.

Heathen!!!

 

[Etoile]

Also, I don't get this idea that you have to pick one of them and hold strictly to it. In fact, what I keep on noticing is that Dom/sub is usually the ONLY label on offer.

Seconded, I have been noticing that more lately too. I've been in a slave mindset lately and I'm feeling a little disconnected.

 

[Chiara_searches]

Again:

Not everyone fits easily or completely into Dom/sub.

Some people have experienced shaming because of that.

They need, and they deserve, to know that there are other ways to think about BDSM besides D/s.

Absolutely.

My hiccup comes lately when it seems like people are saying "what you described is called X, not Y." It may just boil down to semantics, but I think education goes further when you say "What you are calling Y is *in my life* X because of this set of experiences in *my life*." I've actually read some people's explanations and thought "okay, so maybe that applies to me." But I've also rejected other labels after reading other points of view, too.

Some people are really good about setting out the educational aspect in that way. I honestly stopped reading some of the massive debate that lead to this thread...but I do remember there were people who did take a care to say "for me this is how it is." Others seem to come and basically say "no that's the wrong term for what you do even though I've never watched what you do and you might be really bad explaining what you do. So use this correct term." All we have here are the words we use, so that's why I think the PYL/pyl is more inclusive.

And I've had to let go of some of my issue with the whole capitalization/lower case thing just to get okay with using PYL/pyl...but I think that's a topic for another thread.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The message I try to put out here is:

There is an X-Y contiuum in BDSM and there is also, at the same time, an A-B continuum (And a blue-pink continuum as well, and certainly an apples-oranges one, but these two seem to be the biggies).

So sometimes we might tell someone: "The reason your friends say are doing X-Y wrong is because you are, from your own description, doing something more along the A-B continuum."

Or, we might say: "You can do B as well as X and it does not make you a bad X-er."

Or, "Yes, you can be more Y than X, and still call yourself X."

Or "Yes, You can do A-B and have no interest in X-Y and still call yourself a part of BDSM. "

Or "Yes, you can be X without having the slightest interest in A."

Yes? No?

Now, I'm a lousy sub, especially with men But I'm a hell of a bottom, even with men. I'm a service sadist. I'm real good at following orders, and not especially dominant *when I top*. D/s doesn't describe my experiences.

And somewhere a few months back in this forum, I talked how a pillow queen, as we might call a dominant bottom, might control the way she wants a spanking. And some guy said this: "If she's not truly submitting to me then I'm dumping her off my lap and leaving."

To him, sub is the default for anyone who wants to be done unto. Subs should display a whole host of submissive behaviors-- she would not be doing it right.

And the more D/s becomes the only label people know about to pick, the more that happens. What, you think those misunderstandings don't sting?

 

[Chiara_searches]

The message I try to put out here is:

There is an X-Y contiuum in BDSM and there is also, at the same time, an A-B continuum (And a blue-pink continuum as well, and certainly an apples-oranges one, but these two seem to be the biggies).

So sometimes we might tell someone: "The reason your friends say are doing X-Y wrong is because you are, from your own description, doing something more along the A-B continuum."

Or, we might say: "You can do B as well as X and it does not make you a bad X-er."

Or, "Yes, you can be more Y than X, and still call yourself X."

Or "Yes, You can do A-B and have no interest in X-Y and still call yourself a part of BDSM. "

Or "Yes, you can be X without having the slightest interest in A."

Yes? No?

Now, I'm a lousy sub, especially with men But I'm a hell of a bottom, even with men. I'm a service sadist. I'm real good at following orders, and not especially dominant *when I top*. D/s doesn't describe my experiences.

And somewhere a few months back in this forum, I talked about controlling the way I want a spanking. And some guy said this: "If you're not truly submitting to me then I'm dumping you off my lap and leaving."

To him, sub is the default for anyone who wants to be done unto. They should display a whole host of submissive behaviors-- I was not doing it right.

And the more D/s becomes the only label people know about to pick, the more that happens. What, you think those misunderstandings don't sting?

I purposefully avoided paying attention to who was cracking the labels over other people's heads because as Keroin pointed out elsewhere, bellowing into a void doesn't make one a good person. I'd rather know good people, so I instead try to look for people who are at least posting with some rationality even if I disagree with them. The guy that would dump a sub off his lap is what springs to mind as someone not open to allowing people to define who they are for themselves and that's irrational because he likely would insist on the freedom to define himself.

As I've commented elsewhere, Stella, I think you sometimes make the wrong assumptions about where I'm coming from. You were actually one of the people in mind when I said there are posters who try to educate, not brow beat. Does that mean I agree with everything you say? No it does not. Does that mean I would say you never brow beat? No it does not. Lately, however, it really has seemed like you are trying to be more encouraging than you were a few months ago. It's been a refreshing change in tone, at least from my perspective.

And yet, I still very much agree with CutieMouse that just going with the PYL/pyl label is better. To me, it's my preference because it allows everyone to make their own definitions...they do not have to fit your definitions to use the words you do...but to avoid confusion, a common reference point is needed.

I am also not the OP to this thread who seemed to have set the tone; instead I was trying to encourage a more middle road approach. I still feel that a strict insistence that someone else use a particular label is the wrong approach. They should listen to what people have to say about the continuum and then write their own rule book, play book or definitions for themselves. Yes, my experience is very limited; but my intellectual endeavors before undertaking actual experience were intended to help me NOT be a label because no one but me has the right to define what goes on in my life.

And now I'm laughing over the fact that a debate about defining labels has now lead to a debate about using labels. Please, don't start another poll anyone....unless it's a We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badgers...oh, wait, that's been done....that damn (fine looking) DGE and his irreverent humor.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thank you Chiara, I admit I'm beginning to feel a bit beleaguered. Lemme ask you, if I'm not bullying people with labels (as OP obviously thinks I am doing) who is?

Because of the forum skin I use, polls show up in a particularly ugly shade of urine yellow. I do not like polls, especially ones that use PA choices like "CHOOSE "A" OR BE A NAZI" and I am highly unimpressed with OP.

I like PYL and pyl. I am gleefully looking forward to the day that some newb shows up saying "I think I'm a pyl..."

But you know that the next sentence will be; "But my partner thinks PYL always means X, and I want to A."

As long as people try to claim we don't need definitions, baby-- BADGER BADGER BADGER.

 

[Chiara_searches]

As I already said:

I purposefully avoided paying attention to who was cracking the labels over other people's heads

I also stopped reading that particular thread because it was a rehash of things I've already read and honestly I've already defined my own label so didn't need to be further schooled. If you digressed there into being the bully, I missed it. My last post in this thread was another attempt to remind you to not read things into what I'm saying because it wasn't the first time it came across to me that you thought I was being critical of you.

 

[Etoile]

I am still disappointed in the lack of gum.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

I think the most useful things to come out of all this has been Curious_in_Cali's short post in the other thread:

Top/bottom - What you do in action; Top acts upon, bottom is acted upon.
Dom/sub - Who you are by nature; Dominance seeks control, submission seeks surrender.

Is that any better? Would it be enough for someone not knowing anything about the dynamics to at least be a starting point for more "appropriate" terminology that would be more widely accepted within the community at least for use in discussion?

Labels are useful as a starting point, if one wishes to communicate. If one isn't particularly interested in discussing it, or if the person you're hanging out with Gets It without a lot of defining, then that's fine too.

If one orders a "burrito" in a restaurant, one expects that it will bear at least some resemblance to the concept of "burrito" that is widely held in the larger burrito-eating-and-preparing community. It's not gonna be cotton candy, served in a dirty laundry hamper, with chopsticks, unless one has been banished to Bizarro Earth.

That said, if you want to go home with your SO and cook up Fruit Loops on broiled sea bass and beets and enjoy your "burrito" together, then no Word Police will break down your door. Although an angry sea bass widow might.

And if you want to expand the concept of burrito, then cool. But you'll have to do a little more explaining to be understood. For instance, your restaurant might feature an "open face Thai style burrito on a spelt tortilla." Now people know that "THIS burrito differs from the commonly-held head-picture of a burrito in X ways." That requires a little more work to be understood, but so what? It's worth it.

I like PYL/pyl, with the caveat that this is going to be the equivalent of the term "Mexican food": if one wants to communicate with more precision, it will require a little more effort.

God. I didn't realize how hungry I was when I wrote that.

 

[Etoile]

I think the most useful things to come out of all this has been Curious_in_Cali's short post in the other thread:

Top/bottom - What you do in action; Top acts upon, bottom is acted upon.
Dom/sub - Who you are by nature; Dominance seeks control, submission seeks surrender.

Is that any better? Would it be enough for someone not knowing anything about the dynamics to at least be a starting point for more "appropriate" terminology that would be more widely accepted within the community at least for use in discussion?

Labels are useful as a starting point, if one wishes to communicate. If one isn't particularly interested in discussing it, or if the person you're hanging out with Gets It without a lot of defining, then that's fine too.

If one orders a "burrito" in a restaurant, one expects that it will bear at least some resemblance to the concept of "burrito" that is widely held in the larger burrito-eating-and-preparing community. It's not gonna be cotton candy, served in a dirty laundry hamper, with chopsticks, unless one has been banished to Bizarro Earth.

That said, if you want to go home with your SO and cook up Fruit Loops on broiled sea bass and beets and enjoy your "burrito" together, then no Word Police will break down your door. Although an angry sea bass widow might.

And if you want to expand the concept of burrito, then cool. But you'll have to do a little more explaining to be understood. For instance, your restaurant might feature an "open face Thai style burrito on a spelt tortilla." Now people know that "THIS burrito differs from the commonly-held head-picture of a burrito in X ways." That requires a little more work to be understood, but so what? It's worth it.

I like PYL/pyl, with the caveat that this is going to be the equivalent of the term "Mexican food": if one wants to communicate with more precision, it will require a little more effort.

God. I didn't realize how hungry I was when I wrote that.

This is quite possibly the best post I've ever seen on this topic.
And now I'm going downstairs for a midnight snack.

 

[Stella_Omega]

This is quite possibly the best post I've ever seen on this topic.
And now I'm going downstairs for a midnight snack.

I want noodles.