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These are guidelines for polite behavior in the BDSM scene. It's based on observations, personal experiences, conversations with peers, mailing list & newsgroup postings,
workshops, web pages, magazine articles, books, and personal mistakes. While some items of higher protocol are covered, these notes are mainly to address the most common social situations.
This article is introductory. It is not meant to be a "complete guide."
Play Nice: Some Notes on Scene
Etiquette and Leather Protocol
Version 2.09
Version 1.00 first posted May 31, 1999
Version 2.00 first posted May 31, 2005
(formerly entitled "Basic Protocol and Etiquette"
and "Some Notes on Basic Protocol and Etiquette")
This article is dedicated to Beverly M. in Austin
Part
7 of 7:
In Closing
In Closing
Summary
In summary -- play nice. BDSM is about playing games, and in the best games everyone has fun.
Acknowledgments
- Mistress Constance: A Lecture on Etiquette at the PEER TNG Tea Party. January 24, 2004
- Townsend, Larry. The Leatherman's Handbook: The Silver Jubilee Edition (Masquerade Books: New York, 1997) Introductions by Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., Victor Terry, and John Preston
Further Reading
Recommended Books
- Campbell, Drew and Donna Barr The Bride Wore Black Leather ... And He Looked Fabulous!: An Etiquette Guide for the Rest of Us. (Greenery Press: Emeryville, 2000.)
This book includes some information on Leather protocol but that is not its main focus. It covers a wide spectrum of alternative lifestyles including but not limited to Pagan, Wiccan, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, and Polyamorous. Buy it on Amazon.com - Post, Emily. Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage
(The 1922 edition is the most highly recommended book for High Procotol. It's available on-line at http://www.EvilMonk.org/A/epost.cfm) - Schwartz, Oretha D., Service Etiquette 4th edition.
The definitive book on U.S. military protocol and etiquette. Buy it on Amazon.com - Townsend, Larry The Leatherman's Handbook: Silver Jubilee Edition. (Larry Townsend Publishing: 2000)
Both a historical document about the Gay Leather scene in the 1970s and also a useful guide to the leather lifestyle. Buy it on Amazon.com
Further Reading on Etiquette in General
- Etiquette by Emily Post: This is an online republication of the 1922 edition of Emily Post's 627-page first edition Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home (The 1922 edition is the most highly recommended book for High Procotol.)
- U. S. Flag Protocol (Title 4)
- George Washington's "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation"
- Cardinal Newman On Being a Gentleman
- Passage from Jane Austen's Northhanger Abbey
Further Reading on Etiquette and Protocol in a BDSM and Leather Context
- This site's History and Protocol section
- Etiquette for the Scene by Rose
- Civility and Incivility in the Scene by
Chris M [Black Rose of Washington DC] - A Proposed "Pansexual Protocol" by Ambrosio
- To Share or Not to Share? by Rowan Ste. Julian
- Commandments: Ten Rules for Dominants / Ten Rules for Submissives (from the SOJ)
- A Leather Bar Hanky Code
The Mythology of the "Old Guard"
If people start telling stories not as they were, but as they would like them to be, that procedure can be used by anybody for any purpose. So I think that we need to be consistent in the truth.
- Robert Bryan, Stonewall participant
- The Mythology of the "Old Guard"
- Old Guard? If You say so. By Joseph W. Bean
- The Old Guard History, Origins and Traditions By Guy Baldwin, M.S. (from The Ties That Bind)
- Old Guard, New Guard By Gayle Rubin
- The Myth of the Old Guard By Jack Rinella
- Multiple Tops: Master, Mistress and Daddy Makes Three By Master L.J.E. An Old Guard view of 'Net Generation polyamoury.
- Marginalia on the Old Guard, Leather Traditions, and BDSM History by Ambrosio contains "Leather's Military Heritage," "Six Contrasting Definitions of the 'Old Guard,'" "Napoleon Bonaparte's Imperial Guard," and "What was the First Use of the Term Old Guard in a Leather Context?"
- Rover's column in the December 1973 issue of California Scene Magazine: Earliest documented use of the phrase "old guard" in a Gay Biker --- and possibily Leather --- context (depending on whether you think Gay Biker qualifies as Leather.)
- Why Old Guard? by David Masterson
If we are demanding that our history be respected, then we have to respect it ourselves. You have to apply the same criteria to our history that it be worthwhile, that it be accurate, that it be well-researched. We should recognize our warts as well as our flowers, as it were.
- David Carter, Historian
Reposting Policy
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Additional Articles by Ambrosio

- Eleven Short Tips for BDSM Novices
- Some Notes on Safety for Meeting Online and Off
- Meeting Someone Else into BDSM
- An Open Letter to a Novice Domme
- Perverted Vocabulary: a Glossary of Terms Used in BDSM
- Some Notes on Netiquette and 'Net Basics
- Marginalia on the Old Guard, Leather Traditions, and BDSM History
- Play Nice: Some Notes on Scene Etiquette and Leather Protocol
- A Proposed "Pansexual Protocol"
- BDSM Gone Bad: Reporting Non-Consensual "Play" and Rape to the APD
Additional articles by Ambrosio can be found under the "My Writings" heading on his About Me page.