"Vanilla": dissection of a term
2009 8 Jan
One of my favorite people, who happens to be relatively vanilla, asked me to write a post on the term. Who am I to refuse?
On the most basic level, “vanilla” is just a word the BDSM community uses to designate “people who are not into BDSM”, or “sex acts that are not BDSM-related”. For me, when I use the term “vanilla”, I don’t feel like I’m insulting “vanilla people”. They’re vanilla; I’m not. Some people are gay; I’m not. We’re all friends here. … Which makes me feel a little puzzled, when some vanilla people feel bothered by the designation “vanilla”.
It gets a little more complicated when we consider the cultural connotations of “vanilla”, though. (Not to mention what happens when we start thinking about whether “vanilla vs. non” is a black-and-white thing, or whether there’s more of a continuum there.)
Let’s start with something most of us agree on: vanilla is delicious! It is a layered, complex and interesting flavor that can be used in many exciting ways. But, while there are lots of awesome things about vanilla, most people also agree that it’s not as awesome as richer/more exotic flavors (particularly the perennial favorite: chocolate!). Think about the way we talk about “plain vanilla” … it wouldn’t be “plain” if vanilla weren’t considered boring, expected, dull. The major cultural connotation of “vanilla” is “not as good as chocolate”.
So … if BDSMers refer to non-BDSMers as “vanilla” … does that mean we’re looking down on their sexuality? That we’re saying it’s “not as good”?
I’ve tried thinking about this from the vantages of other alternative sexualities. For instance, if “straight” weren’t such an established term — if it weren’t a word that I’d grown up using — I think I might feel slightly miffed that it’s the word for non-LGBTQ folks. I mean, I may primarily be interested in having sex with men, but must the word for that be “straight”? Am I “straight”? Is all of my beautiful unique snowflake personality a “straight” one? … How boring!
Obviously “straight” is only a descriptor of my sexual preferences and not my entire personality. But that’s not necessarily how it feels when I hear it. And from that perspective, it’s somewhat understandable that some vanilla people feel insulted when called “vanilla”. No one wants to be “not as good as chocolate”!
I don’t think vanilla people would find it insulting when I call them “vanilla”, if they perceived the term to be an expression of neutral preferences. Vanilla people who feel insulted by the term must feel insulted, not because they think I’m describing an unimportant difference, but because they feel that I’m saying something about them. Perhaps this points to an issue about how we think about sexual preference: perhaps we consider sexual preference as defining a lot about a given person. We probably shouldn’t. I don’t think that most people’s in-bed preferences actually correlate highly to other specific personality traits.
This also points to some larger issues. Specifically: this highlights the way that non-”alternative” sex — sex that isn’t BDSM, queer, multiple partners, etc. — is perceived by some as being boring and limited and “plain” by default. That sucks, because there are lots of fun things you can do with straight, vanilla, one-on-one monogamous sex! Straight, vanilla, one-on-one monogamous sex should not be seen as boring and limited by default!
Part of the problem is that non-alternative sex has not been forced to develop the same kind of self-consciousness, ingenuity, negotiation techniques, etc. that other types of sex require and facilitate. We all know that American culture too often shames its members into being unwilling to discuss or acknowledge their sexual needs. But even the liberal subcultures that teach kids to think that sex is a beautiful thing still don’t teach them how to talk to their partner or determine their needs — which means that even kids raised in sex-positive households often find themselves floundering and confused once they actually start having sex.
The only places that provide guidelines for those things are the sexual outlaw subcultures — because we’ve had to develop them. BDSM, for example, has been forced to invent very specific sexual negotiation tactics because if we don’t carefully work out our interactions, we end up violently assaulting our partners. That is, we’ve developed very careful communication practices because if we fail at sexually communicating, the consequences are arguably more serious than they would be for other sexualities. The BDSM community has an entire vocabulary — words like “kink”* and “squick”**, for instance — developed to help us parse our sexual experiences. Within the BDSM subculture, you can frequently find actual workshops or lectures to teach negotiating sexual preferences. You don’t find words or workshops like that in the “normal world”.
I’ve been reading a really great anthology called Pomosexuals; it’s a little old by now (1997), but so much of the commentary in there remains smart and important. It includes Pat Califia’s essay “Identity Sedition and Pornography”, and writing this post brought the following quotation to mind:
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Straight people blithely assume it’s their prerogative to write about us [queer people]; but we know a lot more about them than they know about us. We came out of them. Most of us made a rather extensive study of heterosexuality before leaving it behind. Even after we come out, we have to be experts in straight presumption, ignorance, and frailty in order to survive.
… We are not the only group of people dealing with a heritage of sexual shame and repression. Heterosexuals really need our help and inspiration, and I wish they’d admit it.
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Moral of the story: No one should look down on vanilla people for being vanilla. Nor should anyone think vanilla sex is automatically “plain” or “boring”. Conversely, vanilla people would do well to understand that they have a lot to learn from BDSM ideas about sexual communication (and from other sexual subcultures, on other relationship topics).
We’re stuck with the word “vanilla” now, along with all its connotations. It would be annoying and probably impossible to invent a different word for “people who aren’t into BDSM”. But, hey — we’ve reclaimed so many other terms in this modern era … why not reclaim “vanilla”? Let’s make “vanilla” mean “delicious, complex, layered and interesting”, rather than “plain”!
As a side note, one interesting thing that my vanilla friend pointed out is this: “I feel like we should have learned by now that all these things occur on a spectrum. Maybe I’m not gay but I am queer. Maybe I’m into handcuffs and blindfolds but nothing else. Maybe there needs to be language to describe that spectrum rather than trying to draw a line in the sand. My sense is that the grey area is vast. Embracing it could be a useful strategy.”
There’s a term, “french vanilla”, that BDSMers sometimes use to indicate people who are “kind of into BDSM, but not heavily into it”. It’s cute, but I don’t ultimately find this term very helpful, and here’s why: as soon as you start talking to BDSMers about their BDSM preferences, you quickly find that they are more into some things than others — and that there are many BDSM acts they just aren’t interested in.
Usually, I think about this in terms of “sliders”. On the most basic level, I envision several BDSM sliders: a Bondage slider, a Dominance slider, a Submission slider, a Sadism slider, and a Masochism slider. Frequently, these sliders overlap — for instance, many people with a high Masochism slider have a high Submission slider. You can get even more complicated and talk about the specific acts that people enjoy or dislike, but I tend to find that those sliders are a good place to start.
So basically, if we’re going to complexify the conversation by talking about the BDSM spectrum, then I think we might as well go straight for the sliders, and skip vague terms like “french vanilla”.
… I just had a startling thought. Arguably … what we’re actually describing, when we talk about “vanilla people” vs. “BDSM people”, is more about the way people think about these acts — how formally people articulate these acts — and less about how much, or how heavily, people actually do them. But this post has already gotten quite long, so I’ll have to explore that idea another day.
* “Kink” = “a specific sexual preference”. For instance, if I like whipping people, then you could say that I have a kink for whipping people.
** “Squick” = “a non-judgmental dislike of a certain sexual act”. For instance, if I feel really bothered by the idea of someone whipping someone else, then you could say that I am squicked by whipping.
The term “vanilla” is usually used in a derogatory manner, in my experience. It seems to be another way of saying “uninteresting.” I took my bottom to a friend’s wedding, and she described them as “vanilla.” They didn’t actually know what the term meant, and some days later asked me what it meant. The way they asked seemed to indicate they had the feeling they had been insulted, but weren’t quite sure. It made me pretty uncomfortable to have to answer that question, and I think my response was basically, “She just meant you all don’t seem the type to be into BDSM or other ‘out-there’ sexual activities.”
Though this is a rant for another time, it’s been my experience that most people are into BDSM to some extent — no one is a zero on all of those sliding scales you talk about. Do you like rough sex? Spanking? Dirty talk? Being tied to the bed? You’re into BDSM.
Do you think your bottom meant to insult them when she said it? Or do you think they just took it as an insult?
I definitely agree that most people are into BDSM to some extent, which is part of why I ended up at that thought about how “vanilla vs. non” may be based more on how formally a person identifies as into BDSM — and less on what they actually do.
I wasn’t there, so I’m not honestly sure. She had been drinking, so if I had to guess, I would say it was probably said with somewhat of a condescending tone. This post actually brought that to mind again, and I realize I had forgotten to actually ask her about it.
And re: formality, I think it varies. Some people I know in the lifestyle refer to anyone not into BDSM as “vanilla,” yes. But some I know wouldn’t refer to someone as vanilla if they were into, for example, anal sex. As with many things in BDSM and life in general, people tend to define things differently. The latter is more how I use the term, myself — to me, vanilla means non-kinky. Though I suppose the definition of kinky is, itself, vague. Some would probably consider oral sex to be kinky.
I had a conversation with a non-BDSM friend the other day where he mentioned being “kinky”, and I said something like, “Do you mean into BDSM, or just sexually alternative?” and he said, “Dude, ‘kinky’ really does just mean ‘sexually alternative’ at this point — you can’t pretend it only or mostly means ‘into BDSM’,” and I cried, “Noo, it’s our word! You can’t have it!”
Well I thought it was funny.
I wonder if people who see BDSM as more of an “orientation” are less likely to look down on people who haven’t tried it (or don’t want to). I feel like I can kind of see two threads in the BDSM subculture — people who are there mostly because they like feeling adventurous and trying new things (which is great! seriously, good for them!), and people who are there mostly because they don’t feel whole without including BDSM in their sexuality (I count myself in this group). These two groups do overlap, but I wonder if we could isolate different attitudes based on those two starting points.
Perhaps … as someone who tends to view my own proclivities as integral rather than chosen … I am less likely to think of non-BDSM people as “boring” or “repressed”, and more likely to think of them as “simply different”.
Maybe it’s just me, but I like vanilla. The ice cream, the essence, the sex. And I like other flavors of ice cream and sex also.
I don’t find the term offensive, but I would be aggravated to hear someone condescend to me simply because my sexual tastes aren’t theirs. It would be like me considering someone who practices homosexuality, which is not to my taste, deviant or disgusting.
That is to say, unacceptable.
I think “straight” and “vanilla” are political terms often used by the oppressed to describe oppressors or others who, themselves not oppressors, are not counted among the oppressed. Let me give an example with the term “straight.” “Heterosexual” and “straight” are not equivalent in meaning: A male presenting female having sex with a female presenting male form a heterosexual couple which can hardly be described as straight. (I credit Helen Boyd with this example). “Heterosexual” is the neutral term, “straight” is not. So too with “vanilla.” It’s a pejorative descriptor despite Clarisse’s attempt to distance herself from its negative connotation. The fact is that anyone using “vanilla” as a descriptor is implicitly making a negative judgment on those he or she applies it to. (That’s well understood by those who get so labeled). I think it’s best to simply admit that fact about the word (that is,that its negative connotation is unavoidable) and avoid the term unless you want to use it as a put-down. Which I often do defensively against people who take issue with my sexuality…
@ Roger: If “vanilla” is pejorative, then what’s the non-pejorative word? In your example, “heterosexual” is the neutral term while “straight” is the non-neutral. And, if you can’t come up with another word that means “vanilla” (I can’t), and yet you argue that “vanilla” is pejorative, then how are we supposed to talk about vanilla people and vanilla sex without being pejorative?
I would argue that while perhaps “straight” is slightly pejorative as compared to the clinical-sounding “heterosexual”, I really don’t think most people consider it an insult. I’m pretty sure that nearly everyone I know who’s straight or mostly straight, including myself, has used the word to describe themselves without the slightest hint of bother. Which isn’t to say that I don’t think there are pejorative words for heterosexuals … “breeder” comes to mind.
I guess all I can say in the end is that I flat-out disagree that anyone who describes a sex act (or a person’s sexual identity) as “vanilla” is being insulting. I certainly am not. I’ll buy that some people are. I did say in the post that I don’t think anyone should be thinking of vanilla folks as boring, repressed, whatever — so I definitely think that people who might use “vanilla” pejoratively, shouldn’t.
But I maintain that a lot of the insulting-ness of the term is in the ear of the hearers.
I’ll add that if you can think of a term that you do not consider pejorative that means “vanilla”, I’ll consider using it instead.
What it boils down to, I think, is that any term you use that indicates that someone (or some act) is regular/normal/not-a-unique-snowflake can easily be taken in a derogatory manner, because in their mind they will translate it as meaning “uninteresting.” And no one wants to be labeled that, especially when it comes to sex.
The insulting-ness is often in the ear of the hearers, yes. But in my personal experience, it’s often used in a semi-insulting manner. Most times I’ve heard the term used, it was without vanilla people around, and it seems a blanket term for, “Those who are not kinky (or perhaps just not into BDSM) and who are small-minded enough not to understand those who are. Those we have to be careful around, like frightened deer. Frightened deer with guns.”
Hmm. I can feel a new blog post coming on.
The question in my mind, then, becomes this: if people are thinking of vanilla sex pejoratively, then how do we discuss vanilla sex without being pejorative? Again — is there an alternate term for “vanilla” that might work better?
How can we get people to think of vanilla sex non-pejoratively? Yes, vanilla people are marginalizing us — but how do we convince our friends not to insult them in return? What can we offer them that might make them less scared / angry about us?
Well, maybe try to take the reverse tact. Let’s say that you have a friend who is into furries, and you’re into BDSM but not furries. That person calls you “vanilla” because you aren’t into furries. I’d personally disagree with being labeled thus. What sort of term could that person better use to label you in a way to indicate that you aren’t into furry sex?
“People who aren’t in the lifestyle” could work. Or simply “non-lifestylers.” Something to indicate not that a person is non-kinky, but rather that they aren’t into the same kinks that you are. Really, I think it is extremely rare for someone to be truly “vanilla.” And I also think that those that do act in completely vanilla ways in the bedroom (lights out, no noise, missionary only, nothing else) are repressing desires, but that’s neither here nor there.
Good point at the end about the possibility that folks’ degree of inclination to D/s doesn’t match, say, their inclination to S/m. There are a lot of us BDSMers who make a big point that some tops are not dominants and some bottoms are not submissives, for example — and, to my eternal frustration, there are a few people, primarily M/f oriented, who insist that all bottoms, including the purely sensation-oriented masochists, are really, really truly secretly subs looking for the right dom. (Those people are like fundamentalists; uninterested in the facts, agendaed, and impossible to talk to.)
Vanilla is a widely misused term, you are referring to vanillin a cheaper substitute and you should know that vanilla can sell for upwards of 2 hundred dollars a pound in 2003-2004 now its around $30 or so , an artificial vanilla substitute widely used in products, real vanilla is probably better and more taste worthy than chocolate with 200 different sensory agents.
Maybe real vanilla is good for foreplay and eating , I don’t know but now to the real discussion, should vanilla be replaced with generic or casual sex as a terminology, possibly, I mean we can get into “vanilla” bsdm or “vanillin” bsdm.
Did you ever get around to posting a followup on how “Vanilla” is more about thoughts than about actions? I’d like to read it.
Hi Calo! It’s a theme that has run through my work a great deal, although I haven’t written a post specifically about it. However, you would probably like my recent posts on “BDSM vs. Sex”: here’s part 1 (on political concerns), and here’s part 2 (on the bodily experience).
I’m being all late to the party here, but I just needed to say something. For cultural context, I’m born and raised across the pond, and knew of vanilla as a descriptor before I’d figured out my own kinks. And here’s the thing. I always thought ‘Vanilla’ had to do with the commonness of vanilla as a flavouring. Not that it’s boring, or not complex, just that vanilla happens to be the spice we humans tend to use when flavouring out treats.
Even good quality chocolate contains some amount of vanilla.
I thought it had too do with saying “Your preferences are in a realm that it’s likely others will like too.”
But well… Nevermind. Just figured that there are more ways to look at a matter, no?
/Oiture
“And, if you can’t come up with another word that means “vanilla” (I can’t), and yet you argue that “vanilla” is pejorative, then how are we supposed to talk about vanilla people and vanilla sex without being pejorative?”
It’s really not that hard: non-BDSM. The word vanilla is used to describe something plain, bland and non-exciting. It is insulting simply because sexual experience is subjective. What makes your sexuality so much better than adults who express their sexualities differently? Just because you like your super great sexuality doesn’t mean you get to take a crap over someone else’s super great sexuality. If people really and truly want to live in a non-judgmental world when it comes to the expression of sexualities, this sexual shaming needs to stop.
Way to remake my point for me, Kelly! Seriously, did you read the original post or did you just cherry-pick a comment to get mad about?