Posts Tagged ‘ abuse ’

donor appreciation day

If you frequent the various sites and fora of the vampire community (and you’re reading this, so i reckon you do) you’ve certainly come across Drake Mefestta’s declaration of October 1st as Donor Appreciation Day. In case you’ve somehow missed it, the full text is at the end of this post.

This has stirred up quite a flurry of activity: of the top of my head there’s discussions about it on the AVA forums, two on the VCMB, in the Black Swan Haven, on the german CT, the VVC has put a poll about it online (i’ve not linked those instances requiring registration), and i reckon there are probably discussions ongoing more or less everywhere in the VC. Some of the reactions have been quite negative, and there’s been some drama, but that’s more or less to be expected in a community like the VC.

I am inclined to support the proposal. Not that i’ve ever felt unappreciated or used by any of the vampires i’ve donated to, and though i love a little pampering that is hardly reason to create an international holiday.

But what i’ve seen is this: a donor coming into the community, telling more or less horrific stories about things their vampire has done to them. Often the vampire would have denied doubts the donor had brought up, saying to trust them, and that they knew what they were doing. Often the vampire would have actively discouraged the donor from seeking advice with the VC, or even denied them the right to do so.

I’ve not seen it often, but often enough. And it seems to me that a large majority of donors have very little – if any – contact to the VC, and are entirely dependent on their vampires for information. Most of us certainly can’t seek information or support outside of the VC (Drake definitely got that right: if a member of the general public just about understands that somebody might want to drink blood, they look at donors with blank incomprehension). Though i trust that most vampires are entirely well-intentioned towards their donors, a few aren’t, and for those the isolation of donors is ideal. And even if the vampire is well-intentioned the relationship with an uninformed and isolated donor is more likely to deteriorate than when the donor is knowledgable or has reliable people to talk with.

In that sense i support the creation of a donor appreciation day. Not as a day for vampires to pamper us donors, but as a day for the VC as a whole to reach out to donors. As a day for the VC to encourage vampires to introduce their donors to the community. As a day for vampires to connect donors to other donors. As a day for integrating donors into the community. If you then want to go ahead and pamper your donors a little, then i’m sure none of us will complain. But let the first goal of this holiday be a reminder that donors need the community just as much as vampires do.

http://www.facebook.com/drakemefestta

To the members, supporters, and observers of the Vampire Community

July 31, 2010

Throughout the decades the vampire community has been comprised of members from all paths, faiths, and walks of life. As a community and as individuals we have all felt, at one time or another, the burden of our own personal tribulations, being what we are and existing within a social structure that is growing but still infantile in its understandings has made for a difficult way of life for many within our society. I feel that there is a part within our community that still can be considered far more unacknowledged in their way of life and whom I feel deserves necessary validation and recognition for what they do in support for our community, our donors.

Within the general society donors are often looked at as simply food, portrayed often as something to be fed upon and nothing more, given an almost consistent stigma of helpless prey to the mighty hunter and to this I raise my objection. I believe most would agree that though we the vampires may be negatively perceived by many, there are still others who would equally find positive traits, things to admire and find fantasia or mystique in therefore the icon of the vampire still has a formidable substantiation to it . The donor’s life however I consider the perception to not only be misconstrued in society but also not as empathized within the community due to the fact that almost all that would feed from a donor had never been in the donors place and truly experience what they sacrifice for our preservation and all so willingly as well.

By this I would wish to declare that on October the 1st, I will be holding personally as a secular holiday, as a day of thanks to the donors that have given so much for our preservation. I feel that they are just as much of a part of our community as any other and hold an irreplaceable role as the ones who make it possible for us to exist and maintain our sense well being and that is something to give deepest honor to. I hope you will all join me by giving thanks to your donors however you see fit and celebrating their sacrifices to us. This secular holiday I offer for our community I hope will fortify the bond further of our society and whatever role we all have within it.

I welcome your thoughts and insights to this desire of mine and anticipate you will support me in this endeavor.

Regards,-Drake Mefestta

2010
08/04
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community issues
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slave donors reprise: not like this

third post in 24 hours! though actually, this one is less fun. because just as i write about slave donors, we get the news that some guy from vampirefreaks.com [1] has had a warrant for an arrest issued against him for “electronic solicitation of children”. the news has been pushed to the vampire community by the folks at the AVA, who do a good job in keeping us alerted to current events which impact the community. you can read the full news articles on their forum.

usually i would disregard such news items. not that child abuse isn’t a horrible crime which needs to be taken very seriously. not that the victims of child abuse don’t suffer deeply and deserve all our support. but child abuse is pandemic. at least 1 in 5 children suffers some kind of sexual aggression before they reach the age of 16. sexual abuse of children happens everywhere, in all societies, all cultures, all religions. and don’t forget the reverse: if so many children suffer abuse, then there are just as many abusers. think of that next time you chat with your colleagues at work, or with your mates in the bar, or the fellows with which you do sports. it’s a harsh reality.

but each time the media takes an event such as this and created a scandal around it they are helping us forget that it is something which happens every day all around us. no, they happen in catholic boarding schools or in scary goth internet fora. the perpetrators are priests (who quite consciously are “other”, and therefore never quite trustworthy for the simple mind) or self-proclaimed vampires (and how could they be anything but monsters). the media makes us believe that child abuse is something special, which only happens to others, when in reality it is happening all around us. sometimes i get very angry about this.

it is even worse when the media, like both the articles linked above, drag up and lay out all the sordid details in search of a higher readership. very soon this sinks into pure voyeurism, readers getting their fix of righteous outrage on the back of the suffering of others.

so what did actually happen here? as far as can be seen from the articles there was no force involved, no threats, no violence. to put it a little extremely, it was simply a relationship which developed from vanilla into an online master/slave relationship. the only thing which doesn’t work is that the girl is too young.

in BDSM one of the few universal rules is that all participants must give fully informed consent. there are edge-cases to this, of course, such as in consensual non-consent or when subs agree to play without safewords. but even then the partners don’t enter into that kind of relationship without understanding what this involves. fully informed consent is one of the very few absolute hard limits i play by.

the other edge-case for fully informed consent is whether the participant are able to give such consent. somebody who is not mature enough is not capable of understanding this kind of relationship and it’s implications, and is therefore not capable of giving informed consent to it. this is why we have legal age limits. some youngsters grow up alarmingly fast, but many don’t. so all are by default protected. and in a master/slave relationship being capable of understanding the implications at the time that consent is given is even more important, because being in such a relationship does weird things to your brain.

i do not mean to minimise the severity of the perpetrators deeds. fully informed consent is such a big thing exactly because the kind of power dynamic established in a master/slave relationship can very easily lead the slave to do things which they would not have agreed to do without that power dynamic. and a fifteen year old girl can not give such consent, even if she were mentally and emotionally mature enough to understand what she was consenting to. this has to be a hard limit.

nevertheless, the news lies not in that it happened. the elements which made this case news-worthy were that the perpetrator frequents a goth/metal forum, that he dresses himself in the allure of the vampire, that he is overseas (and not just overseas, but in such a remote location as the shetland isles), that he lives with his parents. the scandal is that people who read this story get to blame it all on strange people, on vampires, on people who live far away, they get to blame everything on the other, thereby becoming that little bit more blind to the abuse which is happening all around them.

what this whole post isn’t about is vampires, or donors, or bdsm, or master/slave relationships, or vampire/donor relationships, or even vampire/slave-donor relationships.

[1] vampirefreaks.com is only peripherally linked to the vampire community. a few real vampires can be found there, as there is some overlap between the communities. but it is mainly a social network catering to the goth lifestyle, fashion, and music. nothing in the articles indicates that the perpetrator actually identifies as a vampire.

2010
05/05
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community issues
non-vampiric
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