Yeah, they are displaying their sexuality in a way that is wierd. Unlike (say) a woman wearing scanty clothing, they are not doing it to attract positive attention; unlike (say) two gay guys holding hands in a place where gay rights have not been established, they are not doing it to assert their rights to be treated equally to other couples.
They are pretty clearly doing it to revel in the negative attention they know they will attract.
In short, the kind of attention they are seeking is tasteless and anti-social: it is selfish to ‘scare the horses’ just for your own kicks, involving bystanders in your kink.
Not that I think acting in a way that is tasteless and anti-social ought to be illegal of anything - just subject to disapproval. Whatever the legalities, the owners of the Mall have every moral right to toss these doggies out on their ear.
There are a number of people who are into “race play”, in fact. Well, I don’t know any personnally, but it’s not difficult to find on the internet. Note that white Dominant/black submissive doesn’t seem more common than the contrary.
Also, I don’t believe in your statement that Doms/Dommes are typically colorblind. Well, not anymore than the rest of the population. I think it’s a common mistake to attribute common traits to people into this lifestyle (typically positive traits). They’re exactly as flawed as other human beings, IMO, including wrt racism.
ETA : and by the way, I don’t have an issue with race play. I don’t like it, but there are plenty of practices I don’t like anymore in BDSM (including pet play, in relation with this thread). Whatever floats your boat.
Oh come on. Did you even look at the pics? She’s wearing a massively spiked collar that is like a stereotype of BDSM gear. How is wearing a spiked collar and being made to walk like a dog on a leash not “bondage” and “discipline”?
Well, back in the day, I knew some punks who would’ve found it hilarious to do that. Although they would’ve flipped the script and had the guy on the leash…
You don’t know that. A number of people into BDSM would like to be able to behave in public as they do behind closed doors. Not for the attention, but because it’s the way they live, and they’d find liberating not to be obligated to refrain themselves. If it were socially acceptable, I would do in public a number of things you would, no doubt, find equally shocking.
These people can’t ignore that they’re going to shock the bystanders, and I’m hardly a supporter of shocking public behaviours. But you can’t assess that receiving negative attention is their main motivation.
I’d label the behavior a public disturbance. Like a food fight in the food court, or spreading out a blanket in the mall for a family picnic. It warrants being ejected from the property.
No charges if they are cooperative and leave. The mall is not our personal playground. It’s a business service intended to facilitate shopping.
While of course one can never be one-hundred-percent sure of anyone’s motives for anything, not being mind-readers, one can make the quite reasonable assumption that someone who goes to a public mall to ‘display their lifestyle’ is doing it so others can see them doing it.
Why so many here are trying so desperately to avoid admitting the bleeding obvious is a mystery to me.
I disagree with the assumption of many here that these people must have been trying to attract attention, and think another explanation is just as likely if not more so.
A lot of subs like to feel humiliated as part of their submissiveness. Going out in public as a sub is a way of really really being humiliated by the submissive status. (And the converse goes for the Dom.)
So in sense they’re capitalizing on people paying attention to them because that gives them that extra feeling. But it’s not like they’re trying to get anyone else to feel anything. They’re focused on what they themselves feel.
On the other hand, it’s Staten Island, so the locals would heartily approve.
I’m not sure why you assume they wouldn’t. I think kids will be less traumatized, and indeed less interested, than their projecting parents.
First. you don’t have to explain every little thing that crosses your line of sight. Your conversations with your hypothetical little daughters sound incredibly tedious.
Second, that’s at best an incredibly narrow and misleading view of BDSM. Would you be more comfortable telling your daughters “There are some women who enjoy raping, torturing, and humiliating men”? That’s equally justifiable.
This isn’t actually ‘another explaination’. It’s the same explaination. Namely, that these two are getting off on the (negative) attention they receive from others.
It is tasteless and selfish behaviour. From the viewpoint of those ‘others’, they have no interest in acting as an involuntary backdrop to these two folks’ kink.
When I got my female dog, my first (and she’s now 11), I could never get used to the breeders and dog handlers using the B-word so casually. But now for this couple or any other who do this puppy play, do they use the B-word? Does he say, “She’s my B?”
