This is what I said when I posed this superb post to my social media:
If you have not yet seen Pillion, you might not want to read this. It doesn't contain specific storyline spoilers, but the discussion might be considered an overall spoiler.
That said, this is one of the most articulate explanations about the leather/kink communities (plural intentional) internal disagreements about the movie.
Also, while it's discussing Pillion specifically, I think it speaks directly to prevalent overall disagreements within those communities generally. When we disagree, we're often coming from entirely different mindsets and one mindset camp often not only disagrees, but judges, the other mindset.
Thank You for Your kind words and encouragement, Sir! And yes - the intention is to provide perspectives to deepen the understanding of each other, not to further divide us.
Knowing you pretty well I do get exactly where you are coming from and you knowing me I'm not one to hide my disagreements.
One point is, and I touched on this in my review of it, was that the parents, particularly the mom, were only superficially supportive. The mom never inquires as to whether or not this is what Colin wants, instead she attacks Ray with her knee jerk reaction. I think because of the collar, the shaved head, how Colin dresses it's obvious what kind of relationship he is in but in order to not have that conversation with Colin and spoil their relationship she vilifies Ray to voice her disapproval of the relationship. Parent child relationships don't need to be overtly abusive to be toxic and this is where I think her true nature comes out.
Having been both scene based (which I don't feel the way you talk about that represents me at all but I see what you are seeing with the weekend warriors type) and lifestyle based I don't think I can agree with you when it comes to negotiation (which I will elaborate on in a separate post today or tomorrow). I don't know how Travis took you on but when he took me on there was negotiation, there was a contract which I don't think I actually signed because I understood regardless of my lack of experience at the time that relationships evolve and that I didn't know myself. This is where I see the biggest flaw in Ray's approach.
From my perspective Ray enters the relationship without establishing a baseline which given Colin's inexperience Colin likely couldn't provide. How many subs today put CNC in their profiles when they've never even felt a singletail? He doesn't have a point of reference and where I think how Ray handled it "immorally" is that when the cracks started to form he didn't take stock or review if this is right for Colin. Adjustments needed to be made and it was Ray's responsibility to assess whether the adjustments fit within his needs and if he couldn't meet Colin's needs then he needed to terminate the relationship.
I actually don't think the day off was really what Colin needed, I agree with you on that. What stands out to me is the camp scene where Colin is cuckholded and his response to that wasn't what I would expect from someone who actually likes humiliation. His jealousy was real and palpable and the hurt damaged his relationship with Ray but Ray wasn't looking, he didn't discuss it, he didn't care that Colin is a human with real human feelings which were incompatible with how Ray wanted to conduct the relationship.
For me the abuse is NOT the style of D/s relationship, that style is absolutely appropriate for certain people. The way I see it is that Ray wanted a slave, an object, not a person with feelings while Colin I feel falls more into the boy category where he needs his Dom to say things like, "thank you, boy" or lets him sleep in the bed once in a while because Colin needed affectionate touch and confirmation that he is loved. Ray had no interest in seeing Colin for who he really is and tried to box Colin into the M/s that Ray wanted.
What you didn't touch on which I feel like is the point of the film is that in the end Colin does with the new guy what he and Ray didn't do at the start of the relationship which is that he communicated his perceived needs and set a boundary.
So I don't want to say that you're wrong because again, I know you well and I know that the kind of relationship Ray was after is similar to the type you seek but by dividing the scene players from the M/s group ignores many kink subsets which is similar to what Ray did. Ray treated the relationship with his own cookie cutter without reflection as to whether or not the relationship was right... and the way he ended it was, frankly, cowardly.
For me the film is about self discovery and I do think Colin needed this relationship to grow as a person. Sometimes you need to feel the sting of the singletail to know it's not for you. One time I had a 19 year old kid someone brought to a play party and I was asked to flog him. The kid was scared and safeworded two swings in... I didn't untie him, I checked in and took more time warming him up. At the end of the scene I was using my galley whip on him, yeah the one with the latigo falls, and he was sooo high I needed to be the adult and end the scene. He is now a pain pig, btw. The difference is that I started, assessed, adjusted in a way that allowed us to go on a bigger journey. Ray, by contrast, threw Colin into the middle of the ocean and said, "now, swim!" without even knowing if Colin could float. Ray needed to recognize Colin's inexperience and warm him up to the relationship and that is why I don't respect Ray's approach. If YOU were my slave I know I can push you because you've experienced it and know you still want it. Colin, however, is the newbie who wants to jump right into CNC and so it falls on the one with experience to set the pace.
I do appreciate the thoughts you share here - many are very valid interpretation of the movie. As an art, it’s up for everyone to interpret it differently from our life experiences and perceptions. It’s the point to have variety of thoughts to deepen the understanding - it doesn’t mean full agreement necessarily, or “win an argument”, it’s about the willingness to listen with curiosity and without judgment.
I actually touched a lot of the same points in my earlier piece - Pillion: is it abuse, or just not your kind of love? - such as the mismatch of the two’s needs (literally in the subtitle), the implicit negotiation - interestingly you mentioned a written contract not signed but still a 10 year D/s lasted - it illustrates a point in my article from an opposite angle. We even used the same swimming analogy and the same word “cowardly” to describe Ray’s abandonment of Colin.
I touched the cuckholding scene in my other piece (the first general review) and called it cruelty - it’s a kind of mindfuck that may have gone too far. So we can agree on that too.
As someone relatively new to the kink experience (long before Pillion but way late to Fet) might these different relationships exist on a spectrum? The possibility of someone being primarily scene based with a bit of that lifestyle leaking into their non-scene relationships or vice versa, a lifestyle type of person slipping into something just for a scene? I agree that the mindsets can be totally different, but that's the part of community and especially THE community, that I love. Not everyone feels the same way I do about aspects of kink, and that should be celebrated and discussed and debated and played with! With consent preferably.
Yes totally! Not even a linear spectrum, maybe even a multi-dimensional matrix. Years ago someone asked on FB - do you think kink is part of queerness, my thought was no, LGBTQ+ is a gender and sexuality among genders kind of dimension, while everyone can engage in kink including straights, which looks to me as another dimension.
As I had to make clear at the beginning, this dichotomy is an over-simplification. But on the other hand, I see them as the biggest distinction among kink communities. Someone needs to be coherent in their deepest OS, you cannot run them simultaneously - it’s where inner conflicts start.
A really good essay on the controversy around the film. I agree with you that the two very different ways of thinking about kink are apparent in the community - I noticed this way back in the 1990s when I was involved with a leather/sm club.
I produced a feather-length documentary about the group that included recording extensive and detailed oral history interviews with the members of the club. I saw these two different attitudes play out in many of the club's internal conflicts, with neither side really being able to articulate the core differences that led to these disagreements. While I didn't address this directly in my questions for the documentary, I tried to edit the finished work in a way that compared and contrasted these two different "takes" on what leather kink meant to them.
For those that are appalled by Ray, I think it's something of an overreaction, making a lot of assumptions about Ray's character that are just not in the script. Ray really is a blank cipher and we know nothing about his past. The way he behaves and his inability or unwillingness to show intimacy or be vulnerable could be because of his own past trauma or the way he was "trained" in the sm subculture he experienced. As you suggest, Ray might be neurodivergent. But it could also be a cultural difference. Ray isn't necessarily a native of England and could be an immigrant with English as his second language.
But, regardless of all that, Ray simply presents possibilities for Colin and Colin can walk away at any time. It's nothing like some of the psychological and physical coercion I saw with a few players in the kink community over the years who really back someone into a corner or force them into unsafe and sometimes dangerous scenes without any kind of consent.
In a sense, Ray's approach reminded me of a video game where Ray constantly pushes Colin mentally and physically through "quests" and "mini games" - and, again, that seems to fit when you think of the original novel, taking place in the 1970s, being updated for a contemporary setting. (With Ray's past and work life being completely unknown, he could be a video game designer, for all we know.)
I will disagree with you on one point: "I actually think the movie’s choice to give Colin loving, functional parents makes less psychological sense than the book."
I have to disagree with you on this one. The change to the parents in the film makes perfect sense when shifting the setting of the original novel from the 1970s to the present day.
It's more common today to have supportive parents if you're gay. But what the writer-director did here with the character of the parents is what makes this part interesting. We get hints that maybe the relationship between he and his parents isn't as "healthy" as we think.
He sets up a parallel between the relationship of Ray and Colin and that of Colin's parents. It's a little subtle, but it's easy to see that Colin's mother is controlling - she's the driver that sets up Colin on a date at the beginning of the film and she's the one who doesn't trust her son and has to take it upon herself to insist on having dinner with Ray and attacking him in the dinner scene.
Colin's mother is the contemporary phenomena known as the "helicopter parent" who can't just let Colin live his life. She has to give him structure. And that drive to micromanage Colin's life is probably intensified since she has terminal cancer and knows she is dying.
When Colin brings up the dinner, Colin is being passive aggressive, basically saying, "Hey, my mother is dying of cancer, but there's no pressure" and Ray responds, "You're pressuring me." Colin is likely mirroring a behavior from this helicopter mom that mom regularly uses on Colin. And Ray might recognize that's what's going on.
It's telling that Colin's father is more supportive of his son and the relationship and, in most scenes, acts as a kind of apologetic buffer between Colin and/or Ray and the mother. Especially in the third act sequence where his father helps Colin look for Ray, I got the feeling that Colin's father understood or empathized with his son's intense devotion to Ray - it probably mirrors the kind of relationship he had with a rather domineering wife that he supported with unquestioning love even as she was dying.
I think "Pillion" will be seen in a few years as a landmark film, both for it's representation of a "different" kind of gay relationship, but also for the authenticity it brings in showing relationship dynamics and the questions it raises about consent and "fantasy versus reality". It's a challenging film and we should be embracing it for creating this debate and conversation.
Such a thoughtful and comprehensive comment! I love and really appreciate it.
Totally agree, Ray is a complicated character and cannot be easily labeled. This is how this movie creates drama and depth, which provokes the discussions and debates - and I agree it’s a good thing.
About the mom - I think it’s a perfect analogy about how someone’s background and life experiences shape their different perception of the same reality. Like some would compare Ray to their standard Dom and think he’s toxic, I compare the mom with mine and many (if not most) Asian moms and conclude she’s like a saint we never had. Everything is relative. And, people cannot imagine something they have never seen or experienced - I never had any tiny bit of an idea that those tattooed female names could be dogs’ name.
And finally, yes, I believe this movie would be part of a history and we haven’t fully grasped its impact yet - only after years would we look back and realize that.
I have to disagree with the concept of a polar scene/identity framework. We necessarily exist in both of them, the social construct of the "scene", and our own identity of hierarchy and where we are on it. We regularly engage with others on both of these spectrum and we rely on the ethical framework of informed consent to differentiate abuse from power exchange. The relationship wasn't toxic because of the hierarchy dynamic it was toxic because vanilla Colin wasn't informed of his role or choice to be in that role. It's no surprise the relationship ended after a few months. In his next relationship Colin chose to engage in a power dynamic as the slave/sub with informed consent and limits.
I totally agree with that this is an over-simplified framework ignoring the nuances on this kink spectrum, it’s more a thought experiment and a perspective from me to participate in the discussion. I do have two things to share my thoughts though:
- Yes, lifestyle kinksters can well participate in just a scene, although not fulfilled enough, but a scene-based kinksters won’t really participate in a (T)PE lifestyle. A lot of lifestyle kinksters don’t have the luxury of living it and have to be scene-based, that’s just how they appear to be, not their identity. Scene is the common denominator among them.
- I question if Colin is as naive/innocent/vanilla as people project such well-intended protection urge onto him. He watched the gang member’s public display of PE with fascination, much more interested than in his vanilla date. He didn't say “F you who do you think you are” as a common people would do when someone threw coins at him to sort out. He said “whatever you like“ before Ray did anything. He said “I knew this one actually“ when he was forced down. After the first night he could just walk away, and he was even happily surprised he could come back. Yes all these can just be he got starstruck by Ray with pretty privilege, and we can all think he put up with too much to be with Ray, but it’s not for us to judge if he feels he gets what he wants fair and square in this “arrangement“. Nonetheless, he is some level informed and keeps giving consent by participating. Ray never hides his intentions, he’s actually brutally honest 100% from the start - take it or leave it. The problem is his very limited emotional capacity - Colin is “happy, but can be happier“, and he cannot give that extra happiness. The real toxic part is not non-consent or “abuse”, it’s someone’s behavior from an insecure attachment style, and that’s universal.
On whether or not Colin is naive, innocent, certainly not vanilla, he's non of the above. He is new and doesn't know his needs, limits, or even if that level of D/s is even for him. As for Kurt's statement on the relationship being toxic because Colin was not informed or didn't consent, Colin knew he wanted submission, he was never forced by Ray into anything. The toxicity comes in when Ray doesn't recognize Colin's inexperience and he doesn't reassess the relationship and adapt or terminate it based on that assessment. To the quote, Colin is "happy but can be happier", this quote is superficial and if you take it as face value, Colin is expressing a need, not a want but when there is a power differential one feels like they can't express a need so they frame it as a humble request even though not meeting that need is absolutely destroying the relationship. The whole relationship Colin isn't given voice, which is fine in a M/s relationship, and when it becomes time to communicate a need he's understandably apprehensive not knowing how Ray is going to respond. What Colin was trying to say isn't that different from saying, "I can't serve you today, I have kidney stones and am in an incredible amount of pain". As someone who has had deep seated needs that don't get filled I know how neglect can eat you from the inside out and emotional pain can be just as bad as physical pain. Perhaps that is why Colin intentionally burns his hands. He needs confirmation that on some level Ray actually cares about him. He wants to know, if I am hurt, are you there for me? When his mother died, Ray wasn't there for him.
This is what I said when I posed this superb post to my social media:
If you have not yet seen Pillion, you might not want to read this. It doesn't contain specific storyline spoilers, but the discussion might be considered an overall spoiler.
That said, this is one of the most articulate explanations about the leather/kink communities (plural intentional) internal disagreements about the movie.
Also, while it's discussing Pillion specifically, I think it speaks directly to prevalent overall disagreements within those communities generally. When we disagree, we're often coming from entirely different mindsets and one mindset camp often not only disagrees, but judges, the other mindset.
Thank You for Your kind words and encouragement, Sir! And yes - the intention is to provide perspectives to deepen the understanding of each other, not to further divide us.
Knowing you pretty well I do get exactly where you are coming from and you knowing me I'm not one to hide my disagreements.
One point is, and I touched on this in my review of it, was that the parents, particularly the mom, were only superficially supportive. The mom never inquires as to whether or not this is what Colin wants, instead she attacks Ray with her knee jerk reaction. I think because of the collar, the shaved head, how Colin dresses it's obvious what kind of relationship he is in but in order to not have that conversation with Colin and spoil their relationship she vilifies Ray to voice her disapproval of the relationship. Parent child relationships don't need to be overtly abusive to be toxic and this is where I think her true nature comes out.
Having been both scene based (which I don't feel the way you talk about that represents me at all but I see what you are seeing with the weekend warriors type) and lifestyle based I don't think I can agree with you when it comes to negotiation (which I will elaborate on in a separate post today or tomorrow). I don't know how Travis took you on but when he took me on there was negotiation, there was a contract which I don't think I actually signed because I understood regardless of my lack of experience at the time that relationships evolve and that I didn't know myself. This is where I see the biggest flaw in Ray's approach.
From my perspective Ray enters the relationship without establishing a baseline which given Colin's inexperience Colin likely couldn't provide. How many subs today put CNC in their profiles when they've never even felt a singletail? He doesn't have a point of reference and where I think how Ray handled it "immorally" is that when the cracks started to form he didn't take stock or review if this is right for Colin. Adjustments needed to be made and it was Ray's responsibility to assess whether the adjustments fit within his needs and if he couldn't meet Colin's needs then he needed to terminate the relationship.
I actually don't think the day off was really what Colin needed, I agree with you on that. What stands out to me is the camp scene where Colin is cuckholded and his response to that wasn't what I would expect from someone who actually likes humiliation. His jealousy was real and palpable and the hurt damaged his relationship with Ray but Ray wasn't looking, he didn't discuss it, he didn't care that Colin is a human with real human feelings which were incompatible with how Ray wanted to conduct the relationship.
For me the abuse is NOT the style of D/s relationship, that style is absolutely appropriate for certain people. The way I see it is that Ray wanted a slave, an object, not a person with feelings while Colin I feel falls more into the boy category where he needs his Dom to say things like, "thank you, boy" or lets him sleep in the bed once in a while because Colin needed affectionate touch and confirmation that he is loved. Ray had no interest in seeing Colin for who he really is and tried to box Colin into the M/s that Ray wanted.
What you didn't touch on which I feel like is the point of the film is that in the end Colin does with the new guy what he and Ray didn't do at the start of the relationship which is that he communicated his perceived needs and set a boundary.
So I don't want to say that you're wrong because again, I know you well and I know that the kind of relationship Ray was after is similar to the type you seek but by dividing the scene players from the M/s group ignores many kink subsets which is similar to what Ray did. Ray treated the relationship with his own cookie cutter without reflection as to whether or not the relationship was right... and the way he ended it was, frankly, cowardly.
For me the film is about self discovery and I do think Colin needed this relationship to grow as a person. Sometimes you need to feel the sting of the singletail to know it's not for you. One time I had a 19 year old kid someone brought to a play party and I was asked to flog him. The kid was scared and safeworded two swings in... I didn't untie him, I checked in and took more time warming him up. At the end of the scene I was using my galley whip on him, yeah the one with the latigo falls, and he was sooo high I needed to be the adult and end the scene. He is now a pain pig, btw. The difference is that I started, assessed, adjusted in a way that allowed us to go on a bigger journey. Ray, by contrast, threw Colin into the middle of the ocean and said, "now, swim!" without even knowing if Colin could float. Ray needed to recognize Colin's inexperience and warm him up to the relationship and that is why I don't respect Ray's approach. If YOU were my slave I know I can push you because you've experienced it and know you still want it. Colin, however, is the newbie who wants to jump right into CNC and so it falls on the one with experience to set the pace.
I do appreciate the thoughts you share here - many are very valid interpretation of the movie. As an art, it’s up for everyone to interpret it differently from our life experiences and perceptions. It’s the point to have variety of thoughts to deepen the understanding - it doesn’t mean full agreement necessarily, or “win an argument”, it’s about the willingness to listen with curiosity and without judgment.
I actually touched a lot of the same points in my earlier piece - Pillion: is it abuse, or just not your kind of love? - such as the mismatch of the two’s needs (literally in the subtitle), the implicit negotiation - interestingly you mentioned a written contract not signed but still a 10 year D/s lasted - it illustrates a point in my article from an opposite angle. We even used the same swimming analogy and the same word “cowardly” to describe Ray’s abandonment of Colin.
I touched the cuckholding scene in my other piece (the first general review) and called it cruelty - it’s a kind of mindfuck that may have gone too far. So we can agree on that too.
Beautifully articulated. This will be helpful to share with friends.
As someone relatively new to the kink experience (long before Pillion but way late to Fet) might these different relationships exist on a spectrum? The possibility of someone being primarily scene based with a bit of that lifestyle leaking into their non-scene relationships or vice versa, a lifestyle type of person slipping into something just for a scene? I agree that the mindsets can be totally different, but that's the part of community and especially THE community, that I love. Not everyone feels the same way I do about aspects of kink, and that should be celebrated and discussed and debated and played with! With consent preferably.
Yes totally! Not even a linear spectrum, maybe even a multi-dimensional matrix. Years ago someone asked on FB - do you think kink is part of queerness, my thought was no, LGBTQ+ is a gender and sexuality among genders kind of dimension, while everyone can engage in kink including straights, which looks to me as another dimension.
As I had to make clear at the beginning, this dichotomy is an over-simplification. But on the other hand, I see them as the biggest distinction among kink communities. Someone needs to be coherent in their deepest OS, you cannot run them simultaneously - it’s where inner conflicts start.
A really good essay on the controversy around the film. I agree with you that the two very different ways of thinking about kink are apparent in the community - I noticed this way back in the 1990s when I was involved with a leather/sm club.
I produced a feather-length documentary about the group that included recording extensive and detailed oral history interviews with the members of the club. I saw these two different attitudes play out in many of the club's internal conflicts, with neither side really being able to articulate the core differences that led to these disagreements. While I didn't address this directly in my questions for the documentary, I tried to edit the finished work in a way that compared and contrasted these two different "takes" on what leather kink meant to them.
For those that are appalled by Ray, I think it's something of an overreaction, making a lot of assumptions about Ray's character that are just not in the script. Ray really is a blank cipher and we know nothing about his past. The way he behaves and his inability or unwillingness to show intimacy or be vulnerable could be because of his own past trauma or the way he was "trained" in the sm subculture he experienced. As you suggest, Ray might be neurodivergent. But it could also be a cultural difference. Ray isn't necessarily a native of England and could be an immigrant with English as his second language.
But, regardless of all that, Ray simply presents possibilities for Colin and Colin can walk away at any time. It's nothing like some of the psychological and physical coercion I saw with a few players in the kink community over the years who really back someone into a corner or force them into unsafe and sometimes dangerous scenes without any kind of consent.
In a sense, Ray's approach reminded me of a video game where Ray constantly pushes Colin mentally and physically through "quests" and "mini games" - and, again, that seems to fit when you think of the original novel, taking place in the 1970s, being updated for a contemporary setting. (With Ray's past and work life being completely unknown, he could be a video game designer, for all we know.)
I will disagree with you on one point: "I actually think the movie’s choice to give Colin loving, functional parents makes less psychological sense than the book."
I have to disagree with you on this one. The change to the parents in the film makes perfect sense when shifting the setting of the original novel from the 1970s to the present day.
It's more common today to have supportive parents if you're gay. But what the writer-director did here with the character of the parents is what makes this part interesting. We get hints that maybe the relationship between he and his parents isn't as "healthy" as we think.
He sets up a parallel between the relationship of Ray and Colin and that of Colin's parents. It's a little subtle, but it's easy to see that Colin's mother is controlling - she's the driver that sets up Colin on a date at the beginning of the film and she's the one who doesn't trust her son and has to take it upon herself to insist on having dinner with Ray and attacking him in the dinner scene.
Colin's mother is the contemporary phenomena known as the "helicopter parent" who can't just let Colin live his life. She has to give him structure. And that drive to micromanage Colin's life is probably intensified since she has terminal cancer and knows she is dying.
When Colin brings up the dinner, Colin is being passive aggressive, basically saying, "Hey, my mother is dying of cancer, but there's no pressure" and Ray responds, "You're pressuring me." Colin is likely mirroring a behavior from this helicopter mom that mom regularly uses on Colin. And Ray might recognize that's what's going on.
It's telling that Colin's father is more supportive of his son and the relationship and, in most scenes, acts as a kind of apologetic buffer between Colin and/or Ray and the mother. Especially in the third act sequence where his father helps Colin look for Ray, I got the feeling that Colin's father understood or empathized with his son's intense devotion to Ray - it probably mirrors the kind of relationship he had with a rather domineering wife that he supported with unquestioning love even as she was dying.
I think "Pillion" will be seen in a few years as a landmark film, both for it's representation of a "different" kind of gay relationship, but also for the authenticity it brings in showing relationship dynamics and the questions it raises about consent and "fantasy versus reality". It's a challenging film and we should be embracing it for creating this debate and conversation.
Such a thoughtful and comprehensive comment! I love and really appreciate it.
Totally agree, Ray is a complicated character and cannot be easily labeled. This is how this movie creates drama and depth, which provokes the discussions and debates - and I agree it’s a good thing.
About the mom - I think it’s a perfect analogy about how someone’s background and life experiences shape their different perception of the same reality. Like some would compare Ray to their standard Dom and think he’s toxic, I compare the mom with mine and many (if not most) Asian moms and conclude she’s like a saint we never had. Everything is relative. And, people cannot imagine something they have never seen or experienced - I never had any tiny bit of an idea that those tattooed female names could be dogs’ name.
And finally, yes, I believe this movie would be part of a history and we haven’t fully grasped its impact yet - only after years would we look back and realize that.
I found your piece so inspirational that I wrote a ridiculously lengthy response to it. If you’re so inclined, you can access it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1950rcbtNPWvmBcr0PobdNAwYF3nqz0LTtow7DD3iflE/edit?usp=drivesdk
I have to disagree with the concept of a polar scene/identity framework. We necessarily exist in both of them, the social construct of the "scene", and our own identity of hierarchy and where we are on it. We regularly engage with others on both of these spectrum and we rely on the ethical framework of informed consent to differentiate abuse from power exchange. The relationship wasn't toxic because of the hierarchy dynamic it was toxic because vanilla Colin wasn't informed of his role or choice to be in that role. It's no surprise the relationship ended after a few months. In his next relationship Colin chose to engage in a power dynamic as the slave/sub with informed consent and limits.
I totally agree with that this is an over-simplified framework ignoring the nuances on this kink spectrum, it’s more a thought experiment and a perspective from me to participate in the discussion. I do have two things to share my thoughts though:
- Yes, lifestyle kinksters can well participate in just a scene, although not fulfilled enough, but a scene-based kinksters won’t really participate in a (T)PE lifestyle. A lot of lifestyle kinksters don’t have the luxury of living it and have to be scene-based, that’s just how they appear to be, not their identity. Scene is the common denominator among them.
- I question if Colin is as naive/innocent/vanilla as people project such well-intended protection urge onto him. He watched the gang member’s public display of PE with fascination, much more interested than in his vanilla date. He didn't say “F you who do you think you are” as a common people would do when someone threw coins at him to sort out. He said “whatever you like“ before Ray did anything. He said “I knew this one actually“ when he was forced down. After the first night he could just walk away, and he was even happily surprised he could come back. Yes all these can just be he got starstruck by Ray with pretty privilege, and we can all think he put up with too much to be with Ray, but it’s not for us to judge if he feels he gets what he wants fair and square in this “arrangement“. Nonetheless, he is some level informed and keeps giving consent by participating. Ray never hides his intentions, he’s actually brutally honest 100% from the start - take it or leave it. The problem is his very limited emotional capacity - Colin is “happy, but can be happier“, and he cannot give that extra happiness. The real toxic part is not non-consent or “abuse”, it’s someone’s behavior from an insecure attachment style, and that’s universal.
On whether or not Colin is naive, innocent, certainly not vanilla, he's non of the above. He is new and doesn't know his needs, limits, or even if that level of D/s is even for him. As for Kurt's statement on the relationship being toxic because Colin was not informed or didn't consent, Colin knew he wanted submission, he was never forced by Ray into anything. The toxicity comes in when Ray doesn't recognize Colin's inexperience and he doesn't reassess the relationship and adapt or terminate it based on that assessment. To the quote, Colin is "happy but can be happier", this quote is superficial and if you take it as face value, Colin is expressing a need, not a want but when there is a power differential one feels like they can't express a need so they frame it as a humble request even though not meeting that need is absolutely destroying the relationship. The whole relationship Colin isn't given voice, which is fine in a M/s relationship, and when it becomes time to communicate a need he's understandably apprehensive not knowing how Ray is going to respond. What Colin was trying to say isn't that different from saying, "I can't serve you today, I have kidney stones and am in an incredible amount of pain". As someone who has had deep seated needs that don't get filled I know how neglect can eat you from the inside out and emotional pain can be just as bad as physical pain. Perhaps that is why Colin intentionally burns his hands. He needs confirmation that on some level Ray actually cares about him. He wants to know, if I am hurt, are you there for me? When his mother died, Ray wasn't there for him.