Goodbye BDSM Museum

Admitting failure

Today, Monday 10th of April 2023, I finally admit the failure of setting up the BDSM Museum in Hamburg to you.
As there were many people with passion, support, and interest in the project I’m making public why I/we failed. As almost two years have gone by with little to no activity on the outside there were many attempts to get the project back on track again.

But now is the time for me to let go of this project that was, and in many ways still is, a deep passion of mine that I have to let go with regret and sorrow. I had to disappoint so many great people and there was so much energy and love for this project that I feel obliged to share some context of this failure that is in the end my responsibility to take.

Obstacles

Showing kink in public
From the onset we as a team focused on claiming a place in the public sphere, where the recognition of BDSM belongs aside other diversity and sexual orientation or identity topics. In our initial search for a tax advisor, we still legally needed despite being non-profit, we got two dozen rejections from local tax advisors in Hamburg.

That prompted us to make an experiment, writing 540 German tax advisors an email with a request for advising on setting up a non-profit museum for: A – Social media, B – LGBTQ+, C – BDSM. The emails differed only in two sentences describing what the project was about. A got 37,3% positive responses, B got 30,3% and C (BDSM) got just 19,9% positive responses.

There is still a stigma attached in the business world dealing with BDSM related professions in public. One that people in these professions feel and notice often on social media and when dealing with banks and other organizations they depend on and we felt it as well. People advising not to associate yourself with such a project publicly.

Reducing this stigma became our mission. Still, it was a huge step to associate yourself with this project let alone make yourself publicly known for it. Sex workers probably feel this stigma almost every time they are about, must, or are considering revealing their profession. Despite this, people like Matthias Grimme, and other have shown that you can publicly associate yourself with your profession and passion. I was ready to make myself vulnerable by standing for the Museum with my person, face, and name. Sadly, things have changed and out of private reasons I can and no longer want to do that.

Considerations and expectations
From the beginning it was clear that it would not be an easy task to navigate different expectations and set up an exhibition that would promote the fact that people into BDSM are (mostly) normal people like everyone else. Our aim was to focus on what BDSM means to people and not spotlight practices or sexual aspects of BDSM.

While in English personal designations such as actress, or seamstress became viewed as sexist and outdated, the German language has had the opposite and highly polarizing development, evoking a lot of debate, resentment, and uncertainty about what is the correct way to address people. Some feeling left out or not respected when using for one gender form for the personal designations or pronouns that others find correct and vice versa.

We found solutions to show respect for everyone and go along with progress and this was exemplary for the many polarizing topics and issues like inclusiveness and youth protection that we worked to find solutions for from the start on. I must admit it often felt strenuous and difficult to navigate different expectations and consider all needs to make everyone feel welcome and represent kink.

It is important to put in effort in any enterprise to think about others and how things you do affect them. Sometimes this burden felt hard to handle, and I now understand how many people on social media work hard to show respect and consideration for (almost) anyone. This made the already difficult task of setting up the exhibition even more challenging. Then add navigating legal obligations and requirements for setting up such a project and you have pressure adding up. It became too much for me and everyone directly involved noticed.

Content
We knew we had to showcase genuine stories and share sometimes intimate parts to evoke sympathy and understanding, show the cultural evolution of BDSM through the history as mankind progressed. And that was an intense undertaking only made more complicated as we were no professional curators and lacked the professional background. If we would not have had advice and some support from professionals in our initial phase the project, we would have stopped right after the start.

A year into the project we had a ton of stuff and people ready to share some stories and insights to promote our cause and set up the exhibition. I remember sitting around all the stuff, writing and exhibition plan, an item list, and creating a visual model of a demo exhibition and arranging all the stuff and content onto a virtual blackboard ready to fill in the missing pieces to set up the concept.

And that was when I got stuck. That was the critical moment where I did not reach out enough to other people for help and organize the needed help to curate and finalize a rough version of the initial exhibition. My partner MissSolea on the project, who dedicated countless hours and worked tirelessly to do her tasks had to return working on her normal job and simply had not the time resources as well as the knowledge that I lacked myself to piece together the rest for an initial exhibition in addition to her other responsibilities on the project.

The days with a mental blockade became more and more and the project took a toll on my health until I finally, after many attempts to make it work in some way or the other, had to give in and start pursuing other goals in live and find something to make a living and pay for the bills. And this is where we are now and where I finally must admit failure to many supporters and kinky people hoping for this project to succeed. It took some time to admit it to myself, and only now am I able to admit this to you but I am glad I am finally able to.

And now?
The non-profit is going into process of delisting and all its content will be returned to its owners and the rest of the organization is donated to an organization with a similar cause. Everyone who donated will be contacted for a reimbursement. In any case you can contact me for further information via email: info@bdsm-museum.de

Lisa from pleasepinchmehard (Instagram) made an incredibly powerful short video to promote our cause, she is an amazing person and more savy in promotion than both MissSolea and me were. Also many thanks go to Michael from depraved_eros who believed in us from the start and helped us with promotion and content. There were many other supporters I want to thank for their contributions and the work and time to put into this project at one point or another. The hardest thing is to have failed you.

It was a very special time working on this project and I will retain many memories of all you wonderful kinky (and some non-kinky described) people that fueled this project with so much energy and love. Thank you all for your contributions and believing in this project. I hope one day a project like this will succeed and BDSM will claim a rightful place as a cultural phenomenon like many other that enrich our lives. It still does with mine.

Ending this hurts,
C.