Free B003B0W1QC EBOK by Dossie Easton, Catherine A. Liszt

life until the police and the headlines told them. Newspaper articles featured quotes from school parents: “But they seemed like such nice people!” Well, that’s true, we know them - they are genuinely very nice people.
    Why did these nice people have to give up their professional lives? Why were they not allowed to be good teachers, to make a contribution to those high school kids? Even being in the closet wasn’t enough to protect them from prosecution.
    This means something very important for you, our reader. When your friend with the unusual sexual lifestyle confides in you, he is demonstrating great trust in you. If you betray his confidentiality, if you gossip about him, if you complain about him, you might be endangering him in very concrete ways. If this is a person you care about, please be careful about his safety.
     
    A culture in the closet. Inside the S/M closet, the sexual minority’s “ghetto,” you may be surprised to learn that there is a large and very active community. Most major cities in the U.S. have a variety of support groups for people of alternative sexualities. The Resource Guide in the back of this book lists some of them.
    These groups function as clubs, usually screening their members and requiring a membership fee and attendance at an orientation before an individual can become a full member. Some of these support groups restrict their membership to a particular population by gender and/or orientation, like some lesbian and gay male groups. Still others specialize in particular behaviors like spanking, particular forms of drag like cross-dressing or baby clothes, or particular fetishes like cigar-smoking or high-heeled shoes.
    The larger and more active clubs typically offer meetings once or twice a month, discussion groups, a newsletter and/or a web page, and access to a lot of volunteer work, which is a great way to make new friends and keep that newsletter coming out. These clubs protect their membership lists and have a very high regard for confidentiality.
    Support group program meetings often feature a guest speaker, who might offer information and a demonstration of a particular kinky activity, such as how to do rope bondage or use an English cane. The speakers are usually experienced players who are willing to hand down what they have learned to those with less experience, and so club meetings offer the member an opportunity to listen to and meet veteran players who already do whatever it might be that a newer member would like to try.
    The S/M “lecture/demo” in certain circles has become an art form in itself, offering technical information about safety, materials and technique in a theatrical atmosphere, culminating in a brief demonstration /performance.
    Another meeting might feature a speaker leading a discussion: communication in S/M scenes, incorporating play personae into real-world relationships, or even how to come out to your family and friends. Some groups alternate between discussion and demos so all the important stuff gets covered.
    The first purpose of a support group meeting is to offer a safe and supportive space in which its members can talk about and learn about kinkiness. People do meet potential partners at support group meetings, but intrusive cruising is considered rude. A support group is not usually designed to be a meat market.
    This brings us back to what we mentioned before: one of the first difficulties all of us run into when we decide to expand our sexual lifestyles is that we have little or no language that feels safe and is explicit enough to be accurate, in which to describe to another person what it is that we would like to share with them. One of the tremendous benefits of joining a support group and attending meetings is that the members get together and talk about their sexuality, and so everyone gets to practice finding language that works to express themselves.
    Support groups may also put on parties, social events, potlucks: Halloween