In the online world, it is expected there will be conflict.  Unexpected is that  conflict will escalate into something greater, something bigger.  When that happens it is the violation of implied agreement to respect your peers.

Some might argue that the age of social media has created a society where keyboard courage is the normal, and because we are separated by a screen that people are willing to take chances they normally would not in “real time”.  I hope in the time we’ve known one another constant reader that you understand me enough to know I am not that girl.

All that I’ve shared with you over the years is me, without sanitation. Anything I’ve said here is something that I’ve either already shared with other parties to whom it mattered, or fear not the opportunity to say it to one personally.  Yes that even includes the time I called Gov. Chris Christie a pussy.

This entry though is the story of how a polite and fairly respectful online association with Hafez, or AMP deteriorated into what its become today. It was not instantaneous, it was a gradual erosion of mutual respect as time went on and true colors were shown.

In the prior entry I mentioned the event (Black BEAT) where I met Hafez, his submissive Mlfu (My little Fuck Up), and that our early interactions were not unpleasant.

In the days and weeks….sadly also months post Survivor Saturday AMP went off on a rant about his treatment by attendees of the conference.  While I’ve been at Fetlife for years, at that time my presence on the site was fairly new.  I was not aware that our kinky little world of Black and Brown people had history that went beyond what can be seen by the naked eye.  Although to my vizion, AMP was a little off, I did not know how others perceived him.  Frankly, at that time it did not matter to me until I watched that what was going on went past a failure to communicate.

AMP felt that some of the people who attended were uppity in nature, and felt slighted that some refused to acknowledge his existence.  I’ve shared my own Survivor Saturday experiences, they can be found in the Black BEAT category.  As the online war of words went on I chimed in from time to time with my own impressions.  I was a newbie at an event and while I walked out of that event richer by both the experience and the connections I made… I could also relate to AMP just a little.  The men and women in the dungeon that day were not all friendly, some were downright hostile, and although many of them I’ve since come to know better…. at that period in my development I did not.

I also did not know that AMP’s history with these same men and women traveled back to a time before Fetlife was created, that it traveled from Atlanta to DC and beyond.  I stepped into the middle of a fight that was not my own.  The difference between then and now?  Then I was not clothed with information.  I was buck assed naked and no one told me or gave me a sweater.

Even though I empathized with the obvious pain AMP felt at his treatment, I did try to play peace keeper at times.  It did not seem to be a big enough deal for us colored folk to be fighting over.  Time moved on, I focused more on my relationship at the time which was with Reginald.  I began to go out more, socialize more, and found that those same men and women who were not ‘warm’ to me at Survivor Saturday, warmed up to my presence at other events.  I found that my own treatment was not a matter of uppity attitudes, rather it was I’d entered a family reunion and nobody knew me.

These were not people for the most part who didn’t welcome new people, this was a group who knew each other better than they knew me, and were more comfortable with the familiar.  There is both good and bad there, but at least towards me there was no malice.

Life went on and I lived mine the best way I knew how.  AMP did his the best way he knew how.  With the passage of time though, and new associations, I began to learn more about the history of the POC community and the WHY behind AMPs treatment that day.  Others will have to share their own whys, that is not my story to tell.

What is my story, and what can be viewed as public knowledge on the various pages of Hafez’s internet presence, is how I reacted to what he disclosed about his life post Black BEAT, and his relationship with Mlfu.

Mlfu now goes by the name of _____.  She is no longer a member of his house, or in service to him.  It would be literally years before I could have a conversation with her woman to woman.  Back then what I reacted to is what I saw from her so called ‘owner and handler’.

____ or Mlfu is as imperfect as all of us.  She makes good and bad decisions, loves and hates, eats sleeps and shits like any other human being on this planet.  She deserves to be happy, should deserves peace, and she absolutely deserves to live a life free of stress caused by her intimate relationship.  I pray that at this time in her life she in on the road to all of it.

Her imperfections  aside, as I watched the actions of Hafez I grew uncomfortable.  What I was seeing bothered me, but like so many others I said nothing.

My first alarm bell went off when my friend Saki explained that Hafez asked her to train Mlfu because he was less than thrilled with her attitude and service.  This was something just dropped in one of many marathon conversations that Saki and I would have over the years.  She’s been a friend who’s gifted me with her ear and her time, and as friends do we talked about everything… including what we saw on Fetlife.

What set off my alarm bells was simple… the request was not something I was used to seeing a dominant do in this life.  I may not have been around since Moses parted the sea, but I’ve been around long enough to have the fundamental understanding that to train one is to own one, and if you are contracting out something is wrong in that relationship.  It might be that the two people are not a good fit for one another.  It could very well be that the dominant is full of shit and doesn’t know what he is doing.

The bottom line is if you have to ask someone outside of your dynamic to give your property some act right… you have failed.

One can admit they’ve failed and take the steps needed to make it right, or one can double down on what they’ve been doing to questionable consequences.

It was just about four [4] years ago that I witnessed behaviors in AMP / Hafez that made me ill, had me questioning if this life was someplace that I wanted to be, and the end of polite discourse between the two of us.

That story is up next with all of the details filled in, the details I was not able to share in that place I was censored.

 

Aphrodite Brown