Perhaps the healthiest place for a tradition is not at either extreme, but in the hands of those willing to honour its roots without becoming captive to them.

There is a question that seems to surface with surprising regularity whenever people begin talking about the modern BDSM community. Sooner or later, someone asks where you stand. Old Guard or New Guard? Tradition or progress? Protocol or freedom?

It is presented as though these are opposing shores, and every one of us must eventually choose where we belong.

I've never found that particularly convincing.

The longer I have spent within BDSM, the more I have realised that the most meaningful relationships rarely fit comfortably inside someone else's categories. We inherit ideas from those who came before us, we reshape them through our own experience, and in time we leave something for those who come after. That feels far more honest than declaring allegiance to one philosophy over another.

Perhaps that is why I have grown comfortable standing somewhere in the middle.

There is much about what is commonly described as the Old Guard that continues to command my respect. Not because I believe it represented some perfect golden age, but because it understood that power deserved weight.

Dominance was not simply something a person claimed. It was expected to be demonstrated consistently through conduct. Submission was not measured by visible obedience alone but by trust that had been earned patiently over time. Roles carried expectations. Protocol reflected intention. Honour was not decorative language but something woven quietly into everyday behaviour.

Whether every community achieved those ideals is another matter entirely, but the ideals themselves still have something valuable to teach us.

I think we sometimes underestimate the importance of gravity.

Rituals matter not because they are old, but because they ask us to become deliberate.

Protocol matters not because someone centuries ago decided it should, but because it creates moments where intention becomes visible. Small acts performed repeatedly begin to communicate care, respect and commitment in ways words often cannot.

When everything is treated casually, eventually commitment becomes casual too.

That is perhaps what I admire most about those traditions. They encouraged people to understand that power exchange was never simply something you did. It was something you cultivated.

And yet admiration is not the same as nostalgia.

It would be easy to romanticise the past if we remembered only its strengths. Every generation has a tendency to polish its own history until the rough edges disappear.

The reality is rather more complicated.

The communities that became known as the Old Guard emerged during very different social circumstances. Privacy was often a necessity rather than a preference. Access was limited. Acceptance was uncertain. Many people lived carefully constructed double lives because exposure carried genuine consequences.

Those conditions produced resilience and discipline, but they also produced gatekeeping, rigid hierarchies and assumptions that reflected the culture of their time.

Not everyone was welcomed equally.

Not everyone was permitted to belong.

Not every identity was understood with generosity.

For many people today, including people I care deeply about, that world would not have offered the same sense of home that some remember so fondly.

It is entirely possible to respect what earlier generations built while acknowledging that parts of it deserve to remain in history.

Tradition is valuable.

Traditionalism is something else entirely.

That distinction matters.

When I look towards what many call the New Guard, I find much that gives me genuine optimism.

There is an openness that simply did not exist for previous generations. Conversations around consent have become richer, more explicit and more nuanced. Negotiation is encouraged rather than assumed. Safewords are understood. Emotional wellbeing receives attention alongside physical safety. Diverse relationships are no longer treated as exceptions waiting for permission to exist.

Perhaps most importantly, people are increasingly encouraged to build dynamics that reflect the individuals involved rather than forcing themselves into inherited templates.

That feels like progress.

Healthy relationships have never been produced by imitation alone.

Every Dominant and submissive eventually discover that no book, no mentor and no protocol can entirely define what exists between two people who have learned to trust one another.

The relationship must eventually become its own language.

The New Guard, at its best, recognises this.

It gives people permission to ask better questions instead of offering fixed answers.

But every strength carries its own shadow.

Sometimes I wonder whether, in our understandable desire to remove unnecessary barriers, we have also removed some of the structures that helped people develop depth.

Accessibility is a gift.

Instant authority is not.

There are moments when titles seem to appear long before understanding has had time to develop. Labels are adopted with enthusiasm while experience is still quietly catching up. Protocol becomes aesthetic rather than philosophy. Mentorship becomes optional. Commitment becomes something spoken about more often than lived.

None of this happens because people are malicious.

More often, it happens because modern culture encourages immediacy.

We have become accustomed to acquiring identities quickly.

Dominant.

Submissive.

Master.

Brat.

Owner.

Slave.

The words arrive almost effortlessly.

Becoming the person capable of carrying them responsibly takes considerably longer.

Perhaps that has always been true.

The difference today is that there are fewer voices reminding us that growth cannot be accelerated simply because the internet allows information to travel quickly.

Wisdom still moves at the pace of experience.

This is why I find myself resisting the pressure to choose sides.

I do not want a community frozen in its own mythology.

Neither do I want one that mistakes freedom for the absence of standards.

I want discipline that creates safety rather than hierarchy for its own sake.

I want protocol that strengthens relationships rather than performing tradition.

I want respect that flows naturally between people instead of being demanded by titles.

I want communities where newcomers are welcomed warmly while still being encouraged to learn patiently.

Most of all, I want a culture capable of remembering that the purpose of every ritual, every rule and every dynamic is ultimately the wellbeing of the people living inside it.

Everything else is secondary.

Over the years I have also become less interested in the language people use to describe themselves.

Titles have their place.

They can communicate experience, responsibility and intention.

But they can also become distractions.

A title cannot negotiate consent.

A title cannot comfort someone through vulnerability.

A title cannot repair trust once it has been broken.

Character does those things.

Responsibility does those things.

Consistency does those things.

Perhaps that is why I have never felt a particular desire to pursue many of the honourifics that others value deeply.

I do not need them to understand my place within my own relationships.

I am simply Herra.

That has always felt sufficient.

Not because titles lack meaning, but because meaning has never depended upon them.

If those who submit to me experience respect, consistency, patience and care, then the relationship already contains everything I consider important.

Whatever language we choose to place around it comes afterwards.

Looking back, I suspect the question was never really Old Guard or New Guard.

It was always something quieter.

How do we inherit without becoming imprisoned by inheritance?

How do we evolve without forgetting what made the journey worthwhile?

Perhaps every generation asks some version of that question.

Perhaps every healthy community must.

The answers will never be identical, nor should they be.

Cultures grow because people are willing to question them.

They endure because people are also willing to protect what remains valuable.

Standing between those instincts can sometimes feel uncomfortable.

It can also be the place where the most honest work is done.

I no longer see the space between tradition and progress as uncertainty. I see it as conversation. A place where respect for the past meets responsibility for the future, and where neither is allowed to silence the other.

If that leaves me belonging fully to neither camp, I find I have become entirely comfortable with that.

After all, perhaps the strongest roots are not those that prevent a tree from growing, but those that allow it to reach for new light without forgetting where it began.