Status Report: What's Going On in San Diego's Tribe

GOOD WILL.

That's the first thing that I want to mention. Right now, in Late September 2012, San Diego's local FetishMen community is utterly swamped with good will. It's coming at us from every direction - Our sisters and brothers in the local community, friends in other cities, and of course, within our brotherhood itself.

I mention this because each separate person within a community needs a solid foundation of trusted, dependable friends in order to thrive as an individual. If we are all feeling like a big mess of stressed-out, isolated and lonely satellites instead of as a cohesive solar-system, then it shortens our lives, makes life much harder and blocks us from reaching the highest levels of human achievement.

Right now, many of us don't have that problem. The numbers of happy, satisfied and relaxed local gay FetishMen are rising rapidly. We don't have to worry that the Law of the Jungle is suddenly going to erupt, scattering us and breaking our hearts. We can now focus on the truly joyful methods of human interaction…

Hugs, in particular.

I was photographing the recent STUD Night event at the Eagle. I wish that I had taken the time to photograph the line outside, which lasted until 1:30AM!  I was inside, having a great time, and clearly, so was everyone else. I took a series of photos like this one:

In retrospect, I wish that I had taken a moment to ask the guys onstage to hang on for a minute, while I really should have clambered up next to them, to turn around and photograph the crowd watching.

The entire first row of the audience was CUDDLING.  Arms wrapped around each other, caressing and snuggling. This wasn't some A-List clique, enjoying themselves while they sneered at other people's exclusion. I think you could have shuffled the crowd around pretty thoroughly, and the front row would still have ended up in Cuddle Mode.

At least ninety percent of that massive assemblage of men were FMSD veterans, who have attended enough events to know that they can be as nice as they want to be, and that everything will work out great. Years of positive experience have made us all pretty sassy.

Here is the payoff:

We now have lots and LOTS of dynamic, energized and idealistic young men who are doing everything they can, in order to be better men of the community. We are swamped with new leaders and volunteers (many, many more than I have mentioned so far). Each event is exploding with good will and unity of purpose, thank to their efforts.

More and more men are taking ownership of their Dominant natures, to the joy of the boys in town. You wouldn't believe how many new Flogging Tops have arrived on the scene lately. There's a new, cocky swagger that we haven't seen enough of, in years past. More and more men are learning the Champion Strut, and have excellent reasons to use it.

You might have noticed that we have a LOT of events, every week. In the early days of FMSD, I had to create new stuff just to get the ball rolling. Now, I don't have to do anything except sit back and applaud while the new generation handles everything superbly, creating new, exciting breakthrough events that provide us with immense numbers of happy choices.

We could never have gotten to this point if we had constant changes and stressful turf-wars. New leaders would have had their hearts broken and would drop away, never to be heard from again. Since we don't have that problem (as we did decades ago), we can keep improving as a Tribe.

We are now evolving as a community to a VERY high level of personal and social fulfillment. Every event is now "crowd-sourced". This means that:

- Everyone who shows up as a general attendee is polite, affectionate and ready to cooperate. If plans change, everybody shifts in unison.

- Every volunteer does everything they can to achieve the desired result that everyone craves, and then gets rewarded for their hard work.

- Every leader can take some risks and still succeed, because the whole crowd arrives with enormous amounts of good will and shared intentions.

- Nothing goes off the rails, because everybody there helps keep the festivities moving in a mutually-agreed direction.

Before the event even gets announced, a big, swirling mass of community-minded men start networking with each other over text messages, email, phone-calls and face-to-face coffee chats. They are brainstorming over what could happen that would add flavor and excitement to the event.

They are not making "safe", bland, dependable choices. They feel confident enough to go wild with new, risky and breakthrough ideas. They can get away with these youthful indiscretions because everybody finds their results charming and fresh.

After only 27 months, FMSD has transformed into a new kind of group organism. There are a lot of new things coming up that I haven't mentioned because every detail hasn't been lined up yet. Just be aware that it would be a really good idea to pay attention to my newsletter over the next few years. San Diego's reputation as The Laboratory Of New Ideas is only going to increase.