Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy by Staci Newmahr Page A

understood, and accepted unconditionally.
    This view of SM—and of social life—makes sense in the context of identi- ties of marginality and lived defiance. Marginal status, on multiple levels and in multiple ways, takes precedence over any particular source of outsiderness. This status either leads to or is framed as the explanation for marginal interest and pursuits, rendering a nonconformist life—the romanticized, open-minded, creative rejection of social imperatives—the overarching explanation for the connection among community members.
    The open-mindedness that is taken for granted among community members is clearest when outsiders venture into the community for the first time. While some newcomers integrate fairly seamlessly, others, particularly those who do not appear to necessarily live lives on the margins of social acceptance, find that the scene is not what they envisioned. During a major multi-day event, I was wandering through the dungeon, stopping occasionally to chat with people, when I was approached by a clean-cut, good-looking man in his mid-twenties. Appearing frantic and highly agitated, he asked me to point out “Miss Danielle” to him. “Miss Danielle,” who was known as Danielle in the scene, was ten feet away from us. I explained that I was unwilling to identify her because I did not know who he was, but I said that I would be happy to give her a message when I saw her. He grew increasingly agitated, his voice raising in pitch and his eyes darting around the room. He did not seem angry, only profoundly uncomfort- able and slightly fearful. I told him that he seemed highly agitated and asked what the trouble was.
    He finally looked me in the eyes. Though a bit reticent at first, he agreed to accompany me to a quiet corner with a table, where we sat down together and he told me his story. Danielle, whom he had met through a personal ad, had told him about the event, and he had come to meet her. It was his first time at an SM event. Having paid a good deal of money to attend this event, he (Scott) was shocked by the sight of so many conventionally unattractive attendees, and he was afraid to meet “Miss Danielle” without knowing what she looked like.
    Further, he explained, he was extremely uncomfortable with the activities he was witnessing. He was interested in the light bottoming known in Caeden as “slap and tickle”—ice, silk scarves, and light spanking. He thought everyone around him was insane, and the fact that he found so many of them unattractive rendered everything even less understandable to him. As I later wrote in my notes, all of this “clearly freaked him out.” He made no mention of leaving the event, but he paced, tapped his hands and feet, and all but trembled with anxiety.
    As we talked, I found his agitation unsettling. Hoping to calm him down, I introduced him to several strategically chosen members of the local scene. At one point while we were talking, Kevin approached me and commented on the scene I had done the night before (described in the prologue to chapter 4). Scott, who had finally begun to seem more settled, asked about the scene. I changed the subject, but he pressed for details. When I described the scene, as generally as I could, he asked to see my back.
    I lifted my shirt. He gasped and stammered, “But . . . you seem so . . . so . . . so . . .”
    “Normal?” I asked.
    He grew flustered again, afraid, I think, that he was offending me. “No, no, I didn’t mean that—I didn’t mean that at all. You just seem so . . . down to earth.” Out of a sense of loyalty to the community, I regretted confirming his sense, on the basis of my appearance, that I was anomalous, but when I told him that I was a researcher, he appeared confused. For him, that explained why I was not the same “type” as most of the other attendees, but not why my back was welted. Scott and I talked for most of the night. When Danielle was free, I told her that he was there,