I do *not* laugh at other people's fetishes, no matter how silly or strange they may seem to others. That's a core-deep worldview from spending over a decade in the BDSM community. As a pro domme, and even as a private player, I've participated in acting out fantasies that many people even in the BDSM might find strange or funny or amusing or even pathetic. I don't judge. That ain't funny.

To the outsider, the internal dynamics of a BDSM scene can be imperceptible or even wholly invisible. All the viewer might see who looks in from the outside is an old, overweight man capering ridiculously in frilled pink underwear and schoolgirl ankle socks, and his matronly wife dressed in a leopardskin bikini holding a toy spear. Is this funny? Possibly to you, but if you look closely and deeply, you might just see something that would elude the average person. If you look more closely still, you might even see what I see.

What do I see? I don't see anything laughable or pitiable or ridiculous. On the contrary, I see something to be envied. I see love, and passion, and desire. The physical form it takes is not important to outsiders. What is real is the beauty and intensity of the emotional dynamic between them that they are honoring by sharing their fantasy. And that is all I see.

I see nothing whatsoever to laugh at in the naked vulnerability of other people's souls, or of their deepest fantasies. I don't choose to make fun of other people's fetishes, perhaps in part because I know that my own may be percieved as equally silly by someone who does not share my dream.

There is definitely a welcome niche for laughter in our community, but to me, some types of humor seem to scrape a little raw. Aren't we all potentially strange, ridiculous, pathetic, *funny*, to an outsider looking in? The courage here lies in exposing those parts of ourselves anyways, and sharing what we can with one another so that we know we're not completely alone.