The world is full of stories and injunctions warning us against the dangers of an array of activities too vast to catalog. Why?

Because we need something to fear. Humans are a pack animal that evolved their social nature (partly) as a protective mechanism. One human couldn’t stand up to the predators, but a pack of them could, by spreading the risk throughout the entire pack and allowing both a defense against the attack and a simultaneous counter-attack. A person without fear left the pack. A person without fear died. So fear–and the social nature of fear–was built into our very nature.

For ancient man living in the savanna, this was very useful and healthy; danger was everywhere and they needed to be vigilant and “high-key” in their awareness.

Zoom forward 50 millennia, and the world is an amazingly safe place–but our “need for fear” hasn’t been bred out of us. As man became more intelligent and the real dangers of the savanna no longer held sway, he started to create “unreal” dangers–evil spirits, angry gods, creatures of the night, and demons of every variety. Say what you will about religions, but they have played a very critical role in mitigating our “need for fear”. Historically, they acknowledged that this need exists, gave us specific targets upon which to direct that fear, and (here’s the important part) showed us ways in which to “defeat the demons”–at least for now. This system and cycle is very important and very healthy. Was it abused by those in power? Of course. But that’s not the fault of religion, that’s simply another fact of human nature.

One of the primary foundations and functions of theatre is to present our fears to us in a way that draws us into the story and lets us share in the “defeat of the demon”. This is known as a “cathartic release”, and was described by Aristotle as being very important for any theatre. In ancient Greece, it was the tragedies, In the middle ages, it was the morality plays. In the Elizabethan era it was Hamlet and the sins of his fathers.

Skip forward to today, and… we find ourselves safe. Like never before in the history of mankind, we are safe. Compared to even 100 years ago, we live in a world that is covered in fluffy pillows and devoid of monsters.

We no longer believe in evil spirits, creatures of the night have been watered down to pouting teens with bad haircuts, and our vengeful gods are apparently so pathetic that the best they can do is get annoyed if you don’t wear a bra.

So… what do we do with our fear? Our need for fear hasn’t gone away. It’s at the very core of our society and our history as human beings.

The answer is that we start creating new monsters–new dangers, new things to terrorize ourselves with–so that (ironically) we can feel safe because we’ve been able to avoid them. And, of course, we don’t let trivial things like logic of facts get in the way.

Turn on the TV, pick up a newspaper, read a blog or forum, and you’ll hear people talking about how crime is rampant and we must–simply must–do something about it! However… if you look at the facts, crime–especially violent crime–has been on a consistent downward trend for the past 30 years. Crime rates today–including violent crime–are the lowest they’ve been since the 1950s.

The news outlets love to talk about the “bloodbath on our highways”–despite the fact that the only viable method of measuring traffic deaths shows that they’re about ¼ of what they were in 50 years ago.

The Evil Empire (those filthy communist bastards) have been defeated (all hail the great and glorious Saint Reagan). The USA is the last great super-power…. which means we have no one left to fear. Enter the New Monster: The Terrorist! You can’t fight them with conventional weapons, you can’t defeat their country, you can never tell where they might be hiding! We’ll ignore the fact that there has been only one significant foreign terrorist attack on the US in the past century (if not longer). We’ll ignore the fact that we stood toe-to-toe with Russia–a nation that has stood against the greatest conquering armies of history and laughed at them across the ice, a nation that had a nuclear arsenal that could have bombed us back to the stone age, and a standing army that could have walked into the smoldering ruins and picked our bones clean. We need to be afraid! Because there are peasants with antique AK-47s and a few grenades! And they’re going to invade our country!

And let us not forget the the Ultimate Demon: The Pedophile! He can be anyone! He lives in your neighborhood. He’s after your children. He can even reach right through the computer screen! This, of course, ignores the fact that approximately 70% of sexual assaults involve a friend or family member. I’d quote statistics on child abduction and child sexual assault, but I can’t seem to find any–at least not any that come from anything approaching a non-biases source (you’ll forgive me if I don’t trust stats from a company trying to sell me “OMG! Keep your baby safe! products).

What does all of this have to do with BDSM?  Well… come back next month and I’ll tell you.