Following up from this article.
I imagine from that article then comes the thought of…. “Well, I just want to make sure we can keep things safe. And in order to do that, we need to have certain standards that everyone needs to know”.
These days we see many things on the internet about what’s safe and what’s not. There are certain kink activities that are deemed unsafe and have caused polarization. One side believes in a prohibition, not telling people how to do it; others believe in harm reduction, telling people how to do it safely.
I somehow want to lean on harm reduction, but then, I’m not sure if harm reduction is a perfect solution. Here is why.
Using a kitchen knife
Imagine a kitchen knife. A kitchen knife is a tool that allow us to make a great delicious food. However, give that to a baby, that’s probably a very bad idea. Give that to a kid, probably still a bad idea, but then if properly supervised by adult, then that will mitigate a lot of risk.
A teenager can probably use a knife safely without supervision, or they might hurt themselves if they never learn how to use a knife. They definitely might hurt themselves if they’re not having the right mental health and thinking of self harm.
The same with adult. Even with adult that use knife everyday might still accidentally can hurt themselves.
A person might decide to go to a Culinary Institution and learn an awesome chopping skills. But then, chances are, this person might still gonna hurt themselves once in a while.
People who go to Culinary school more likely will be able to create delicious food that everyone will enjoy. But then, so people who learn themselves from their home. There are a lot of restaurants where the chef of the restaurant didn’t go to any formal culinary school but just from their passion of cooking at home.
So, how all of these analogue got to do with kink?
If you’re giving a harm reduction lesson to a baby, a kid and a teenager, how much of this harm reduction lesson will be retained?
Most likely the baby will throw the knife to your face while you’re trying to teach harm reduction.
The kid will probably listen, but then, they might get distracted easily and just forget what has been taught.
The teenager, they will listen. But then, most likely they won’t remember anything about harm reduction when they are actually thinking to harm themselves.
Harm reduction only works if a sane, mentally stable and sober person utilized techniques to mitigate risks associated with certain activities.
Giving an open education on how to do risky things to everyone without considering who they are can be dangerous. We don’t give away driving license to everyone.
I’m not saying that only those who are coming from certain institutions (eg: leather clubs) are those that you can only trust. Those who are passionate enough to hone their skills are valid too. I just hope that just like a Samurai Sensei (teacher), we don’t pass our swords easily to anybody.