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Papa Tony:
I was chatting with a fine new friend, and something that he said set me off. I realized that losing my online Tumblr Tribe is ringing some old bells inside me.
I realized that the LAST time that I felt this distraught at losing contact with so many superb people happened when so many of my loved ones died of AIDS. I suddenly lost my Tribe of trusted, respected and admirable friends.
It feels good to find Tribe, even if it’s a wildly-dispersed, global one. Before the recent Tumblr Purge, I was in constant contact with dozens of the wisest, kindest folks to be found online. Now? Their absence distresses me, and I crave the good old days.
I am slowly rebuilding some of that community. I’ve had to do it before, sadly.
I was going to two or three funerals a week, back when our brothers were dying of AIDS. Imagine losing everyone who meant the most in your life. That crushed my heart and soul, and took me down for years. The PTSD is still ever-present.
I stopped having ANY friends at all for around a decade.... I didn’t trust anyone to be close. Experience had taught me that friends GO AWAY, no matter how much I invested in them, so it was best to avoid giving my heart away in the first place.
I am determined never, ever to give in to that feeling again. I recovered starting in the mid-1990's. I began to host over 3,000 social events, designed to bring kinky folks together in joy and pleasure.
Yes, I am damaged by my past, and always will be. It makes me seem peculiar and driven. I am okay with that. I am still doing my best to make my efforts worthwhile in a larger context.
dirtydaddythings:
Papa Tony has the right of it here. It wasn’t clear, at first, what the feeling was that was nagging the back of my head about all this. Admittedly it’s something that the younger crowd wouldn’t catch but there was something itching from the past and it’s the old wounds from one of our darker times as a community.
Tumblr, in spite of its flaws, became a platform to create a global version of our community and it served quite well in that regard. It was our little ‘seedy back alley gay bar’ on the internet where we could be flamboyant and freakish but most of all we could be Free here. Now that the white curtain has dropped over us, where do we still stand?
This is that time when the old guard stand their ground again. We know the horror of looking around at empty chairs and the deafening silence of quiet rooms. I have stood on the bow of boats with microphones in hand reading the litany of the lost, marched on the thrones of power, all to be recognized as a human being but most of all to not have to die in isolation.
The stark reality is that the HIV epidemic’s death toll is a fraction of the truth because it only counts those who died from complications relating to it. It does not count the premature suicides after diagnosis (this is why testing comes with counseling at most clinics) and if it did the number would be considerably higher. We were sold the idea that it was a mandatory death sentence for homosexuality and when you’re a young kid, as I was at the time, you believed the lie: Live in isolation, celibate, or seek companionship and die alone staring at white walls in a hospital or worse.
We were force fed a diet of pressure to end our lives yet we remained as a people. We survived. We will do so again. Now that tumblr has fallen to the oppressive regime that seeks to whitewash the world into this unflavored oatmeal paste for them to consume, we must decide our path from here because ‘here’ isn’t really a thing anymore.
They brought in the tarp and tape and covered over our little gay bar in the alley but we’re still going anyway because it became a kind of home for us. Next comes the bulldozers but we’ll still be here, the old fools who’ve done this before, because you know what... we’re damned good at it.
Papa Tony has the right of it here. It wasn’t clear, at first, what the feeling was that was nagging the back of my head about all this. Admittedly it’s something that the younger crowd wouldn’t catch but there was something itching from the past and it’s the old wounds from one of our darker times as a community.
Tumblr, in spite of its flaws, became a platform to create a global version of our community and it served quite well in that regard. It was our little ‘seedy back alley gay bar’ on the internet where we could be flamboyant and freakish but most of all we could be Free here. Now that the white curtain has dropped over us, where do we still stand?
This is that time when the old guard stand their ground again. We know the horror of looking around at empty chairs and the deafening silence of quiet rooms. I have stood on the bow of boats with microphones in hand reading the litany of the lost, marched on the thrones of power, all to be recognized as a human being but most of all to not have to die in isolation.
The stark reality is that the HIV epidemic’s death toll is a fraction of the truth because it only counts those who died from complications relating to it. It does not count the premature suicides after diagnosis (this is why testing comes with counseling at most clinics) and if it did the number would be considerably higher. We were sold the idea that it was a mandatory death sentence for homosexuality and when you’re a young kid, as I was at the time, you believed the lie: Live in isolation, celibate, or seek companionship and die alone staring at white walls in a hospital or worse.
We were force fed a diet of pressure to end our lives yet we remained as a people. We survived. We will do so again. Now that tumblr has fallen to the oppressive regime that seeks to whitewash the world into this unflavored oatmeal paste for them to consume, we must decide our path from here because ‘here’ isn’t really a thing anymore.
They brought in the tarp and tape and covered over our little gay bar in the alley but we’re still going anyway because it became a kind of home for us. Next comes the bulldozers but we’ll still be here, the old fools who’ve done this before, because you know what... we’re damned good at it.
We’re not just the lucky ones. We’re the tougher ones who, as much as we have always wanted to put them down, know damned well how to hold the line with shield in hand. We fought decades long wars against the hands wrapped around our necks and losing this place has hurt, but it won’t stop us from doing what we do best.
There will be other places, there always are, but the crowd won’t be the same. New faces will appear and old ones will vanish having chosen to go into hiding or found a different venue entirely. Many of my fellow Daddy/Doms are now spread out across different sites, still doing there thing, so the voices are yet out there to be found just no longer a ‘unified’ front in one location.
It took one voice saying those fateful words, to call me to stand once more. That’s all it’s ever taken. So here I am, and here you are, standing in the rubble of another attempt at wiping representation of us from the world. The truth is that we freaks built the world they are trying to purge us from. It wasn’t cat pictures. This isn’t Icanhaz. This is Tumblr and coming to find us is what drew the masses here.
So for whatever it is worth, this old bear is standing on the line again. I’d rather go out with my boots on anyway. As attractive as ‘at home with loved ones’ is, we aren’t all meant for that kind of ending. Some of us, especially us old war dogs, are best suited to holding the door and drawing the line even if for a little while.
To my fellow “Daddies” and the old guard by whatever flavor you label yourselves:
Thank you for your service to the community.
If you stay, thank you for the companionship on the line.
If you leave: tend those who follow you. It’s your job now to keep them safe and hold the line wherever you land.
Me?
Here is where I stand.
There will be other places, there always are, but the crowd won’t be the same. New faces will appear and old ones will vanish having chosen to go into hiding or found a different venue entirely. Many of my fellow Daddy/Doms are now spread out across different sites, still doing there thing, so the voices are yet out there to be found just no longer a ‘unified’ front in one location.
It took one voice saying those fateful words, to call me to stand once more. That’s all it’s ever taken. So here I am, and here you are, standing in the rubble of another attempt at wiping representation of us from the world. The truth is that we freaks built the world they are trying to purge us from. It wasn’t cat pictures. This isn’t Icanhaz. This is Tumblr and coming to find us is what drew the masses here.
So for whatever it is worth, this old bear is standing on the line again. I’d rather go out with my boots on anyway. As attractive as ‘at home with loved ones’ is, we aren’t all meant for that kind of ending. Some of us, especially us old war dogs, are best suited to holding the door and drawing the line even if for a little while.
To my fellow “Daddies” and the old guard by whatever flavor you label yourselves:
Thank you for your service to the community.
If you stay, thank you for the companionship on the line.
If you leave: tend those who follow you. It’s your job now to keep them safe and hold the line wherever you land.
Me?
Here is where I stand.
bhuey12:
Well spoken Sir. i May be new to the bdsm life, having come to it late in life. But i am here now and it is my place, i feel it deep down that this is home now. And i will NOT go quietly nor stop. Please continue to stand the line and i will stand with You
Well spoken Sir. i May be new to the bdsm life, having come to it late in life. But i am here now and it is my place, i feel it deep down that this is home now. And i will NOT go quietly nor stop. Please continue to stand the line and i will stand with You
PaPa Tony: I will find you! Wherever You are. For You understand. I'll never let go of that again.
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