A friend of mine posted on FB a little rant about education:

There are a ton of memes that get passed around about how school didn’t teach me about taxes or mortgages but I learned geometry and chemistry.

Ask yourself two questions if you see these and feel like they have a point.

1. Did you at least learn to read in school? I presume yes, if you’re reading this. We usually learn this pretty early in school.

2. Did your school and town have libraries? I also presume yes, because I grew up in ass-backwards bayou land and we had libraries. Even better if you have the internet.

So if you answer yes to both of those – the only reason you don’t learn anything you want to know is because you CHOOSE not to.

Don’t blame anyone but yourself.

Which, on the surface, is easy to agree with, especially if, like me, you are intellectually privileged.

Let’s take kink for example.

As a woman in kink, I deal with idiots every day. Multiple times a day. People who wouldn’t recognize a clue if you stuck a name tag on it and waved it in put it two inches in front of their nose.

And I’m (mostly) kind to them.

Even when they are nasty/mean to me.

Although sometimes, I do feel like stretching my bitchy muscles and giving them a wallop with a snarky clue-by-four. And when I do that, I often take it one step further and share it publicly.

But, most of the time I am kind.

Why? Why, if they are responsible for their own learning?

Well, because I know I’m privileged:

1. I’m bright. High IQ.
2. I was taught at a young age HOW to learn things beyond my personal experiences, and more importantly why.
3. Number 2 was encouraged at home, too.
4. READING was a major thing. Required, encouraged, and provided for.
5. I grew up in a VERY open-minded household (kinky people everywhere).
6. I’ve been in kink almost 25 years, now.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…

This saying has a basis in reality.

I trained dogs for 22 years. When working with puppies, the thing that was most critical was teaching them how to learn, to open up as many pathways as possible in their brains to taking in information. To play in many different ways, meet many different people, etc.

Once dogs were older, and had not been exposed to much, it was a much more difficult process (8 years of rescue and rehab).

People are similar. Our brains learn to learn, and when we are younger, that is easier—we don’t have the entrenched highway systems blocking local paths and roads trying to be built…

It’s not impossible.

Just more difficult.

Add to that the ignorance of NEEDING to learn (after all, this is actively discouraged in many cultures—getting too big for the proverbial britches), and you have a serious disadvantage created for many people.

Because many people, despite their kinks and fetishes and needs are raised in ways that don’t encourage a whole hell of a lot of introspection and DO encourage a great deal of casting blame on “people not like us.”

Yes, they are still responsible for their behavior. They just don’t have the experience or understanding or skills to do much about it.

IN THIS AREA.

Because most of these idiots are anything but.

It’s a case of topic-specific idiocy.

These idiots are lawyers, and doctors, and business people. They are charming in their daily lives, and get along with people. They might even be good-looking and successful.

But they have no idea how to handle themselves in kink.

They are nervous. Afraid, even. And defensive.

BUT, some of them turn around. And grow. And provide amazing value to the people around them, while enjoying happier lives.

And if I can help, if I can provide the turning point, the inspiration, the clue, I’ll do it. Because I have the energy and the resources.

And so, I’m kind.

At least most of the time.