5 sources of assumptions and stereotypes about S&M
2010 19 Apr
Why do BDSMers often feel bad about being into S&M? Why do so many of us freak out once we discover our BDSM identity, or live in secret and repress our desires, or write only under false names, or fear openly joining the S&M community, or ….
Well, here’s a particularly sad example of how bad some of us feel. A BDSMer friend works as a therapist who does couples counseling. He once told me about a couple who had some random argument in his office — the argument, apparently, wasn’t even about sex — during which the wife lost her temper and turned away from her husband. “You know what this freak likes?” she snapped, and proceeded to describe her husband’s biggest fetish. Her husband looked humiliated and was quiet.
Now, from the perspective of my kinky counselor friend and my kinky self, the husband’s fetish wasn’t particularly weird — in fact it seems much tamer than, say, my own desire to have needles slid through my skin — but I can see how the fetish would seem weird to the mainstream. More importantly, it was obvious that this poor kinkster’s wife had been using his fetish as her ace in the hole — her secret back-pocket weapon — for quite a long time. Whenever she wanted to shut him up or shame him, she just mentioned his Deep Dark Fetish and he was silenced and shamed.
So. Obviously, there are a lot of poisonous assumptions and stereotypes surrounding S&M. There are so many of them that lots of kinksters have taken them into ourselves: not only do we fear society’s judgment, but we also feel tons of anxiety from internalized social norms.
And yet I’ve come upon people who tell me that the stereotypes around S&M “aren’t that bad”. I’ve had people (even other BDSMers!) tell me that all our anxiety is internal, that society is totally okay with S&M and if we’d just quit indulging our “victim complex” then everything would be fine. In fact, one person read my coming-out story — in which I wrote about the internal struggle and panic I experienced when I came into my BDSM identity — and snidely said that I was “just being dramatic”.
Then there are people who tell me that S&M is “mainstream”, which is just plain ridiculous. I can see the argument that very mild kink has gone mainstream, at least among young liberals: hickeys, silk scarves, mild choking, mild spanking, and furry handcuffs. Yeah, lots of people try those things, and you’d have a hard time finding a (young, white, well-educated) person who condemns them. But you know what’s not mainstream in any group? Needles in one’s back; blood. Screams for mercy; tears. What appalled me, during my coming-out process, was discovering my need for agony. And I assure you, my anxiety and my self-disgust were real. I wasn’t “making it up to be dramatic”.
Apparently, though, giving examples of BDSMers who feel (or felt) awful about ourselves isn’t enough, so I started thinking about how I internalized that disgust. How did I develop my stereotypes of S&M? I can remember people in my teens joking about how I’m so aggressive, I ought to be a dominatrix; I even remember a girl who brought a whip to summer camp and lent it to me for a costume party. And for years before my own awakening, I was aware that some of my friends were into “that stuff”. Given these positive messages, where did I pick up the negative messages? To put it in academic terms: where can I find instances of BDSM stigma?
Here they are:
Source #1) Radical feminists and/or conservative moralists. These examples are easy and obvious, so I’ll cover them first. Famous German feminist Alice Schwarzer has been quoted saying “Female masochism is collaboration!”, and I’ve received email from multiple Germans letting me know that Schwarzer recently published an essay about how BDSM desires don’t exist unless they arise from childhood abuse. (Sorry, Schwarzer, but that’s just not true.) And if you really want to read some sickening hatefulness, you can check out a now-infamous blog post by feminist Nine Deuce in which she asserted that sadists are morally obligated to either repress their sadistic desires, or commit suicide. Thanks, Nine Deuce, I’ll remember that next time I talk to an actual BDSMer who’s considered suicide (such as Jay Wiseman, who recounts his early temptations towards suicide in the kink primer SM101).
As for the moralists, these tend to be the same people who believe widespread acceptance of homosexuality indicates that the Apocalypse is just around the corner, such as Concerned Women For America and Americans For Truth. The money quote is from CWFA: “Homosexual activists have always been the largest supporters of, and the driving force behind, SM perversion among heterosexuals. That is because normal, healthy, monogamous, heterosexual, marital relations are the biggest threat to their ultimate acceptance.” I love how these words not only insinuate a “gay agenda” but also inform us that S&M “perversion” cannot possibly be normal, healthy, monogamous, or heterosexual. (If you’re the type to be amused by these things, you should read this bizarre essay whose author claims that the next step after gay marriage is … S&M marriage. Because, uh, it’s not like BDSMers are already getting married or anything.)
Source #2) Conversation. These examples are anecdotal and therefore questionable, but I do think they’re relevant, so I wanted to get them out of the way. One, I remember from my teens: I wrote a couple stories with rape scenes and someone who read them snidely dismissed as “rape fantasies”. “Really,” he sneered, “I don’t have a problem with your rape fantasies, but do you have to put them out where people can read them?” (Or something like that; it was a long time ago. I remember his tone better than the exact words.) Now, it’s possible that those stories were partly expressing my repressed rape fantasies — but they weren’t presented that way, firstly; and secondly, even if I had been explicitly writing a rape fantasy (rather than a fictional rape scene) then the dude was showing a lot of disgust over something that’s supposedly “mainstream”. I mean, he wouldn’t have said those things if he hadn’t been trying to shame me, right? (I reacted by getting very upset and saying, “I do not have rape fantasies!”; of course he just became gleeful that he’d gotten such a rise out of me.)
My second example is more straightforward. I used to work in a bookstore and one day, while I was sorting the sexuality section, my boss told me that “we don’t carry titles about sadomasochism or any of, you know, that stuff.” I wasn’t entirely sure what “that stuff” is, given that he carried titles about LGBTQ and even (gasp!) polyamory, but I never had the nerve to ask. I also noticed that although my boss turned up his nose at run-of-the-mill S&M books, he stocked a used copy of Wilhelm Stekel’s 1953 psychology text Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty. (Stekel was a Freudian, and his analysis shows it; Freud, of course, theorized that S&M arises from childhood abuse.)
Source #3) Ostensibly liberated sexuality books. I’ve written before about how, although I had a rather complete education on sexuality, that education didn’t really cover S&M — certainly not in a positive light. For instance, I don’t recall that my parents’ copy of The Joy Of Sex, which I filched at a tender age, mentioned BDSM.
Even BDSM porn isn’t always immune. A lot of BDSM porn, for example, falls into this idea that BDSMers can’t love each other; that BDSM isn’t about love or connection or intimacy. But I assure you, BDSM can be “love sex” too. (There was even a real live study once that found that consensual BDSM increases intimacy! They could have just asked us rather than doing a study, but, you know, whatever.)
A more bothersome example is Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, in which Friday collected women’s sexual fantasies and wrote them all up in an effort to show their diversity (ha!). That’s another book that I read at an early age, and it outlined precisely two fantasies with sadomasochistic overtones. One was from a woman who had been raped, who confessed that — although she had hated the experience and hated her rapist — she sometimes fantasized about him sexually. The other was from a woman who had been physically abused as a child, who herself physically abused children as an adult. I remember that I was so appalled, I showed the second fantasy to a friend and said, “God, that’s so sad, isn’t it?” The fantasies of those two women did not turn me on, though I remember that I felt compelled to read them multiple times; but I couldn’t relate to any of the other fantasies in the book, either. I spent years feeling perplexed about my apparent lack of internal sexual fantasy life (not to mention my inability to achieve orgasm). Both of those things changed in my twenties, years into my BDSM adjustment.
And during that BDSM adjustment? I spent ages thinking that I must have been raped or abused and repressed the memories. I mean, there’s no other reason I could possibly be kinky, right? I didn’t absorb that assumption from Alice Schwarzer or Freud. I absorbed it from Nancy Friday, who gave no other options in her landmark, sexually liberated text.
Source #4) Political jokes. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed how every time folks want to dehumanize or degrade a political figure, people start projecting S&M onto them. Especially women, of course; after all, questioning a female politician’s sexuality is already such a great cheap shot, imagine how much better you can do it when you stir in some S&M! Just Google Image search “Sarah Palin dominatrix” or “Hillary Clinton dominatrix”. You might also enjoy I Fucked Ann Coulter In The Ass, Hard (note: that link includes some serious explicit degradation fantasy action, so don’t read it unless you’re prepared for that).
I admit it: I laughed at some of the jokes in the Coulter piece. I did! But it’s still kinda creepy, and more importantly, it still exemplifies my point.
Source #5) Fiction. Ever watch “Men In Black 2″? I just saw part of it recently; remember how the villainess wears a leather corset and fights with an implement that looks suspiciously like a whip? Yeah. How about that show “Legend of the Seeker“, in which the villainess runs around in black leather and dominates the hapless hero to her evil will? Yeah. These wouldn’t be so bad if there were also lots of film examples of dominatrix types who aren’t Bad Evil Women Who Must Be Stopped, but … there aren’t. (I’ve heard of exactly one: Lady Heather from CSI, who got a CineKink award in 2009 for being a great sex-positive example.)
And at least dominatrixes are visible. Non-female doms, non-professional dommes, submissives of all genders, and switches basically don’t exist — at least according to popular culture. Unless you count abusers and abused, of course. As the incredible BDSM dominant and blogger Trinity once wrote, “what all the stories like this about D/s-y romance taught me was … ‘If you be your dominant self, you will never be happy. Dominance is for the villains, and the villains are always either vanquished or voluntarily give up what’s presented as their only chance for companionship because they realize they can never be themselves without doing harm.’”
Although there’s a surprising (and wonderful) amount of pro-SM fantasy and science fiction out there, mainstream literature pathologizes kink to hell and back. I recently read Judy Blume’s adult novel Summer Sisters, and I wish I still had the book with me, because there was a bit at the end that I’d love to quote explicitly: basically a Female, Hysterical, Disturbed character asks her husband to hurt her in bed; he, being a Good And Decent Guy, is bothered by the request and worries about what’s going wrong. Soon after that, she abandons her young child and runs away for a life of Damaged, Miserable, Irresponsible Hedonism.
And then there’s Mary Gaitskill, supreme exemplar. I confess, I’ve got a soft spot for Gaitskill, because when I was coming into my BDSM identity one of the first books I read was Bad Behavior (which includes the short story that inspired the movie “Secretary” — a very different story, let me tell you, and one that ends very differently from the film). And in those days, when I was miserable and confused and horrified by my desires, I loved Gaitskill’s work because it expressed my ambivalence very well. But recently, when I’ve read Gaitskill I’ve sadly noticed that she does the same thing as Judy Blume: she portrays BDSM as something alienated, lost, and sad. I was able to relate to her writing when I considered myself “broken”, but it didn’t help me learn to feel whole.
The Lessons. So now, what are the lessons we draw from BDSM stereotypes? Well, there are a lot — female dominatrixes are the enemy, sadists ought to kill themselves, etc. — but the most obvious is the abuse thing. As Freud, Alice Schwarzer, Nancy Friday, and tons of others have said or implied: “everyone knows” that kinksters wouldn’t be into kink we weren’t traumatized. This stereotype is not only emotionally difficult for people like me to come to terms with; it contributes to serious social problems for kinksters like sex activist maymay, who recently fielded scary accusations of pedophilia from the Salvation Army.
Given all this, you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe that there’s No Such Thing As Negative BDSM Stereotypes. There is an obvious need for art, sex education, and social norms that don’t portray S&M negatively. (Not to mention other kinds of stigmatized consensual sexuality such as sex work, etc.) I’ve got some posts coming up on How We Can All Contribute, but you probably already know the basics! Speak up, if you can, when you hear negative viewpoints; accept others’ sexuality without judgment; and if you yourself are a kinkster, reassure yourself that you are totally fine and awesome. Reassure yourself that it’s consent, not stereotypes, that really matter.
For super-shiny extra credit, those of you who — like me — enjoy thinking about concepts like “privilege” and “oppression” will love this old post from Renegade Evolution: Vanilla Privilege.
Tags: abuse, anti-BDSM, BDSM, books, coming out, feminism, stigma, storytime
I could add plenty of anecdotes under “Conversations” – the most direct one being sat with a group of volunteers at a charity shop and listening to one of them describing their contact with a couple next door who happened to be into BDSM, and the disgust that dripped off every word was palpable.
Also, I could add two more sources (at least for UKian folks):
Firstly, there’s the law. It is currently established case law that BDSM is illegal beyond “trifling and transient” marks – anything else is considered Actual Bodily Harm or worse. Although recently courts have ruled that it is not the business to rule on consenting behaviour in private (e.g. in a case of a branding) the precedent has not been overturned. As I’m sure you’re aware, the “extreme pornography” law recently passed is another reason why legal forces are a source of negative perceptions and self-perceptions of BDSM.
Secondly, there’s the mainstream media. I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere but it is still common to see even consensual BDSMers labelled “sick” and “perverts” when outed in the press, and lose their jobs and livelihoods as a consequence. When these stories come out (especially if linked to a celebrity or political figure) the jokes also come out (as your point 4 only more so).
SnowdropExplodes: oh yes. The UK may well be worse than the US in this though. For example, I can’t imagine a UK equivalent of Maymay.
Still, at least Justice Eady eventually put a stop to the whole Max Mosley press furore.
(For those not familiar with the Max Mosley business: he’s an ex-Formula One bigwig best known for being the son of the founder of British Union of Fascists, and for getting involved in kinky spanking events without his wife’s knowlege. This was exposed in interesting fashion by a British tabloid, the News of the World, complete with an entirely made-up Nazi element. It then went on to try and blackmail the women involved into selling their stories by threatening to out them. Several were outed, and at least one guy who wasn’t even that closely related lost his job as a result.
Oh, and the guy who sold the story to the NotW worked for MI5. This doesn’t really mean all that much, but it was incredibly embarrasing for them. He was also sacked for obvious reasons.)
I agree completely that in the young white liberal world, kinky sex is acceptable, but BDSM is still “out there.” I sometimes forget how narrow-minded people can be, liberal or not, so oftentimes I’m surprised by people’s reactions.
I think that the idea of S&M is mainstream, but that the reality of it is not. People are presented with glorified and twisted images of it. Many crime shows depict scenarios where really mentally fucked up people use S&M as an excuse to do harmful things. Lady Heather from CSI: Las Vegas was one rather sparkling exception to that though. We need more positive examples of S&M in the media.
I’d add psychology to your list, too. As you well know, it can be difficult to find a therapist that doesn’t say that S&M is unequivocally unhealthy. The DSM’s take on sadism and masochism is pretty anti-kink.
And holy shit did I think that the antagonist in Men in Black 2 was the hottest thing since… ever. I had a crush on the actress even before that role, so that sent me into glee-land. Hmm. Excuse me, I’m going to have to go, um, take care of something that’s just come up.
@Snowdrop Explodes
The case law (R v. Wilson on branding etc) is binding on England.
Us kinky folks North of the border have different precedents that render a lot of BDSM practices a moot point. Possibly illegal, but it may also be possible to consent to minor assaults.
I only wish Patrick Harvey MSP had been taken seriously the last time the Scottish Parliament debated the issue, then maybe we’d have some answers.
In some US states BDSM is illegal, in others not. Stigma varies from state to state, too. It’s not nearly as bad in California as it is in Texas.
I have a post in mind that outlines major S&M scandals, too … this post was already too long for me to include that!
@ Camper – Obviously, this is not really the place to debate the niceties of British law, but my understanding is that R v. Wilson is not a precedent that can be used in other cases; although the general approach of the English judiciary at the moment is as outlined in that ruling (i.e. “What consenting adults do in their own homes is no business of the courts”) this is not binding but rather advisory. The effective case law is still the precedent set by the Spanner trial.
I dream of the day that “mutual sexual gratification” is seen as a “good reason” (as per the Offences Against the Person Act) just like organised team sports, but somehow the stigma surrounding sex in general (and BDSM in particular) seems unlikely to allow that in the near future.
I’d like to ask a question.
Assume for a moment, that, indeed, BDSM/Kink indeed does arise from childhood abuse.
Conclusion, please.
OK, tomekkulesza0, I’ll try.
Conclusion: I can’t be kinky.
Whoops!
No abuse whatsoever in my childhood. As a girl, I had to retrieve all my sadistic fantasy material from fiction.
You might also be interested in this and this.
And at least dominatrixes are visible.
This is old, old, ancient news to you, Clarisse, but it’s worth repeating for those just starting out reading stuff.
Dominant women are invisible.
Prodoms are visible.
What I saw, as a girl, were stereotypes and advertisements of professional dominatrixes.
I knew, this could not possibly be me.
Conclusion: I can’t be dominant and sadistic. (Cue much confusion, ignorance, repression.) Whoops again.
I probably should simply say what i think, but let’s try again:
The conclusion: “I can’t be kinky”, means:
1. I am not able (it is physically impossible) for me to be kinky.
2. I should not be kinky.
Well, I’m not sure what you mean by this now. I’ll reformulate: I am kinky. No childhood abuse whatsoever. If, hypothetically, abuse caused kinkiness, I couldn’t be kinky. But I am. Which is merely a sample of one person. The two links are to sites where research about this assumption is discussed.
By the way and off-topic: Tomekkulesza0, if you know any BDSM information sites in Polish, could you let me know? I haven’t been able to find any yet. Thank you!
Damn. I actually noticed that i reformulated the connection, from :all kink is caused by abuse: into :all abuse causes kink:
Not that it matters for what i want to convery, what is, i feel, extremely important, and happens very often in our culture, where reactionary/conservative movement generally is not able to enforce it ideas and so has to use language of freedom, equality and englightement. Notice, that i am in fact on your side, which probably wasn’t apparent. But then, i should finally accept that Socratic method (asking question that lead the other person to the conclusion) don’t work on the web. Too bad.
And when it comes to Poland and BDSM… dude, i live in a country that makes Mississippi shine like a beacon of intellectual though, modernity, liberty, and all (no offense, Mississippi). I live in a country when mainstream people are so disturbed that no one even notices that they are because the majority is so fucked up. I live in country that i invite you to visit if you want to see how tribal societies taken directly from X century function.
So yeah, the best BDSM blogs/sites i found were mainly concerned what’s the proper way of doing BDSM. Sheesh, go figure.
But it wasn’t determined search, as i’m basically bilingual, and i don’t give a fuck about my country (not really true, as i am sort of a poly activist, so i guess i care aboutu the people). But yeah, if i find good sites, i’ll let you know for sure!
@Ranai — What I saw, as a girl, were stereotypes and advertisements of professional dominatrixes.
I knew, this could not possibly be me.
Conclusion: I can’t be dominant and sadistic.
Yeah, this is an excellent point that I probably should have made in the body of the post. I recall that I had trouble thinking of myself as a domme for very similar reasons! These days I do switch, but I’m mostly a submissive — still, I think I would have been interested in trying to be a domme much sooner if I’d known that there are so many other angles on it.
@tomekkulesza0 — It’s also worth noting that even if BDSM arises from childhood abuse, that doesn’t invalidate BDSM. BDSM is okay because it can be consensual and enjoyed by all parties — and its origins, fundamentally, have nothing really to do with whether it’s okay or not. If someone out there derives their kink from abuse? That’s fine with me as long as the person implements it consensually and enjoyably. But claiming that it always arises from abuse is a mechanism for stigmatizing BDSM (and as a side effect, confuses the hell out of those of us kinksters who were never abused).
I’m a sex blogger as well, and I enjoyed your coming out story so I posted some of your writing and a link to your blog and coming-out story on my blog. You can find the link at http://bdsm-sexperts.blogspot.com/2010/04/bdsm-bloggers-coming-out-story.html. I hope this is okay with you!
Thanks!
Yes, that was something i hoped to say, but sadly no one said it out loud here (BDSM from abuse, therefore BDSM is wrong and should not be practiced). Now, if it is said explicitly most people are able to see how dishonest and silencing is this message, and perhaps its purpose would become clear – because without being explicit, it tries to use wrongness of the abuse itself (which pretty much everyonme agrees on) to make impression that BDSM is wrong by associacion, and the speaker actually cares about the abused, to add insult to injury.
But when it’s said explicitly, the absurdity becomes clear, since even if it would be some sort of coping mechanism, or behavioral consequencce of abuse, or something like that, it would still have it’s place, it still wouldn’t be wrong because of that – on the contrary, it would be something positive, or needed even. So in fact they would be trying to silence the abused, stigmatize and re-victimize them.
I am not sure what is the real purpose of it. It reminds me of something else, the “homosexuality, nature vs. nurture”, the statement that society can’t allow gay adoption, teachers, lest they turn kids into gays, or in its most extreme form that gays should be “cured”. It also has implicit assumption, which flied under the radar (and triggered some LGBT organisations to take ‘nature’ position in defence, since if it’s nature it can’t be cured, and kids are safe, right?). Well, the similar problem is that there is underlying assumption that homosexuality is wrong, which is unspoken and thus sometimes taken as true, even by LGBT activists (speaking from Polish perspective here, mostly). Whereas the asnwer should be – “we do not think that homosexuality is wrong, so there is nothing wrong with kids being gay and there is no reason to “cure” anyone”.
I suppose that something else is going on here, and it is opinion that non-heteronormative sex life, and sex positivity in general is something wrong. And it is that what should be brought to light, and refuted on the basis of idea of liberty.
I hope what i wrote is at least somewhat clear, because i think it’s important (although i realize you actually think so, too)
@Sexperts — Thanks! I commented on your post.
@tomekkulesza0 — It’s a thorny issue, to be sure … I’ve thought about it a lot over the years; you might be interested in one of my previous posts in particular:
http://clarissethorn.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/bdsm-as-a-sexual-orientation-and-complications-of-the-orientation-model/
Clarisse,
Yes, after i wrote that commentary, i browsed your blog and found something that made me think that you already though so. Can’t remember where it was or how i got there, but it included a remark about the concept of “should or should not” (it wasn’t the post you linked above, i wasn’t aware of that one!)
(And you also seem to be very open-minded “societally”, and rather keen on questioning not assuming, so it wasn’t surprising)
But, reading this, and the links there (damn, i didn’t think so many people are aware of that. There goes my pretty little original idea i was proud of, sniff), i have some thoughs. I guess i’ll put it there, not under that linked post?
Well, to start, i do not think sexual orientation or BDSM is determined by genetics, hormonal disposition, some sort of brain structure (apart from the obvious fact that our personality is physically reflected in the brain), or any other thing people mean when they speak of “nature”. Now, i should admit that i am deeply in love with ambiguity, so i’d prefer it to be that way, and be glad if it turns out to be true. Perhaps because it would mean that there is no insurmountable barrier to fully relating to someone interesting to me just because zie has different orientation, kink, or whatever? Anyway, whatever the reason, i’m not going to be shattered if it’s indeed totally immutable, so i guess i’m not totally reject that possibility.
(and for the record, i know it sounds like i am making it binary. I know, it most likely isn’t. Actually, i even think it’s a false dichotomy)
Well, in a vain effort to make my comment shorter, to the point: I think, by nature, humans are extremely fluid beings, with rehally wide potential. Then, we get – and keep being- changed and shaped by environmental influences. And with in time our fluidity crystallizes into something solid, be it homo/heterosexuality, kinky/vanilla sex. It does not mean that we lose our potential to enjoy different things. That’s why i think you see people developing interest in kink, people that were quite unaware of that possibility. On the other thing you have people that had this interest, possibility since early age*, and in a way it is like something innate for them – because changing that would be repression, and it’s basically impossible.
What i think is that we develop interests based on what we experience*, we develop repulsion (like, homophobia) based on the same thing, and that’s what shaped – and continues to shape – our mature forms. Yes, this means we are all bisexual (pansexual, really), kinky**, or anything. Potentially***, if not actually. We can get interested in new things, we can even sometimes get over our prejudices (both thing happened to me so i am firmly in the “not from the birth” camp, so to speak), even if it’s not that straightforward (or gayforward, tee-hee :o).
It also explains why “curing” orientation is not possible. You can unveil something, but veiling it back is much harder, if even possible. Once you discover something that makes you happy you can’t make decision to forget it. You might ask why there are strictly homosexual people at all, but that’s not hard to answer. The answer would be long, though, so i’ll skip. But (:D), it’s influenced by the fact that forcing yourself to become hetero (and quite heteronormative, not some sort of genderbender, no!) is as far removed from freely developing interest as you can go. It’s influenced by the fact repressing a desire makes you obsessed about it. Or from the old, common misogyny. Or the simple fact that it takes influence to develop heterosexual attraction, too, it’s just that it’s quite common conception (and then it’s the thing that some people do it for really weird reasons, like obligation or conformism or fear of aloneness)
I am polyamorous (well, i could even say i am polyactivist). I was strictly monogamous 15 years ago, buying all the myths about One True Love, Till Death Do Us Part, That Conquers All, At First Sight (four, yes? I believe there are four of them…). In the long, 10-year long-process, i was lucky to have the opportinty to deconstruct a lot of my internalized concepts about relationships in general and love in particular. Concepts that flow really deep in our culture, concepts that are so complicated that usually we don’t even see what they stand for (like, the “orientation as nature” that stands for “they are morally wrong but let them live since they can’t help it”). I did not though i was monogamous before – i really was. Same goes for my sexual orientation that pretty much switched from hetero to bi. Or for the kink. The point is, nurture is there both to limit and realize the potential. You were probably lucky to experience things**** that sparked your kink imagination, i wasn’t.*****
Hmm, now when i’m reading my notes when i first read your reply (and the links) i see sentence that reads “your comments are right when it comes to LGBT community”, and have no idea what does that mean, but apparently, i was impressed by your comments somewhere :D
Anyway, i suppose that stressing the nature thing in LGBT is often caused by subconscious homophobia, and not deconstructed, internalized mainstream narration (that sex positivity is basically morally wrong), and it serves not only as political******, but also personal self-defence. Come to think of it, have you heard of IAT tests? Quite good tests for subconsious prejudices, available online, too (google IAT Harvard, first link)
I also read the thread on Trinity, and one comment of yours catched my eye. You said, in response what to use as argument if not nature when it comes to acceptance of kink/orientation/whatever:
(http://sm-feminist.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-on-feministing.html?showComment=1244162377006#c7995344547495303839)
“@Trinity — Right, exactly! But if that’s not what we say to our detractors, then what is?
Usually we fall back on the consent argument, and understandably so, because it’s the best argument.
But that, too, isn’t quite working. I’ve been trying to refine my understanding of their argument. I think it has something to do with the fact that these themes, these tropes, are not okay no matter what — consensual or not, orientation or not. And once we get to that place, I don’t know how to argue with them. Because I’m not sure how to argue about whether a theme or a trope is okay … except maybe to invoke free speech.”
I think i know. But, since the beginnig. I recently stumbled on some interesting table. It’s on some weird evangelical site, part of an misguided attack on atheists lack of morals (or rather, lack of obsession when it comes to controlling what other people do with their genitals), but one thing is particualarly interesting, and telling (and i assume it’s true, because it’s what i remember from other sources).
http://www.godandscience.org/images/morality.gif
See, all, even the most conservative people, when deciding what’s wrong and what’s right put more importance on harm and fairness than on things like purity or authority. And others, when it comes to that, basically believe in the idea of liberty as put by classical liberals, that you are all right when you do no harm to others, and the idea of equality, too. So, what’s the answer? Attack. Stress our values, you know people share them. Most of the time discussions are about spectators, not participants. Lurkers form the majority, and it’s they that matter. You don’t have to convince the other discuttant*******, you want to sway the folks that read in silence and didn’t invest emotionally in supporting either opinion. Use the values they find important, like right for self-determination, freedom, and basically ignore arguments of your opponents, instead attack them on the ground of their authoritarianism. Not many people like authoritarianism ;). You can use “land of the free” quote :D
Oh well. Sorry for the lenght…
*Really early age. The one that we don’t remember consciously, too. Also, i mean inflence the way kinkresearch mentioned foodstuff influence: “”This would be comparable to how food preferences and dislikes are probably learned. Such haphazard events would be much harder to predict, prevent, or promote than a specific causal factor. And since they would not be easily susceptible to any attempt at management, kink would be likely to re-occur under a range of political and cultural contexts.”, meaningn something often really unobvious, and not silly like “my parents bought me a doll with a leash so now i am dominatrix”. Not that there is something wrong with dominatrix dolls, obviously, now that i think of it :D
** Actually Kinky. I mean, all this inspires me to reply when i am asked about sexual preferences, next time “Oh, i’m incredibly kinky. I have this weird fetish, you know, missionary position PIV sex! Go figure!” (well, i don’t but for the sake of hilarity… i mean, isn’t it, objectively, as weird as any other form? Obviously it’s just another fetish, even though it’s common to the extreme, and we’re pretty much all exposed to it)
*** Funny, thing, that second, kinkreasearch, link mentioned Freud and his views on sexuality being determined by genetics. What makes Freud so interesting (apart from his great intuition), is that he didn’t become too attached to his ideas and progressed. So, when someone says “Freud though”, the right response is to ask “when”, and if it’s before 1920, you can safely assume he changed his minds/refined the concept (funny thing, he was basically a feminist in his late years). As it was with sexual orientation, to get back on topic.
**** Could abuse be one of them? No idea, i don’t really care much either, and for my gut feeling, see my (*) addendum above. Although on a somewhat related note, i think specific fantasies about “sex”, do have roots in individual emotionality, for example, i have this particular fantasy about semi-public sex while staring into each other eyes crying (boring i know), and it’s not really hard (knowing myself) that it’s there because of what i lived through. Same thing could go for fascination of needless, with neck, or something, i guess :D
***** On a side note, that probably means that the conservative fear (that stood and still stands behind marginalisation of homosexuals) of open and accepted presence and contact with gays will seduce the kids is actually true. Not that i mind it. And most likely not only kids :D
******Pretty crappy one, too. It (and the assimilationism in general) reminds me of what i recently read on rape. Basically, if the narration is that some men can’t help themselves, and rape women that do something acceptable (like, go out without male escort :p), because they feel “provoked”, shouldn’t we just eradicate those men, like we kill off/isolate dangerous predators that can’t change? (well, in reality we blame the victims, we don’t like the though that bad things we can’t control happen to good people, so let’s deride the victim!). But, back to the kink, it’s irrelevant, right? I mean, no one would advocate eradicating kinksters, gays, right? *whispers*Kenya, Iran, monotheist religious fundamentalists in general* whispers*
*******And it’s not really possible when you have audience, since most people are rather attached to their ‘face’ and don’t like admitting they are wrong, or shown to be wrong. So when someone opposes your beliefs with his firm beliefs, you don’t reveal yours, but ask innocent and honestly curious questions that allow them (god forbid you sound like you are trying to find holes in their argument, act meek!) to see contradictions in their beliefs for themselves. Or so called Socratic method ;)
Wow. That was even longer than i though! But, why wasn’t i able to log on with wordpress account?
@Tomek — Not sure why your login didn’t work … can you login to wordpress elsewhere?
The “should” post you’re thinking about was probably this one: [ http://clarissethorn.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/there-is-no-should-and-the-sex-positive-agenda/ ]
Interesting graphic. I like it, but do you know what it’s based on? Is it based on any kind of science or survey, or is it just someone’s random idea? And I certainly agree that we are often arguing to sway the lurkers. And one thing that has been really interesting about my long manliness thread has been the number of commenters who throw out links, and say, “I could never talk about my real feelings about that link in a comment over there — but I’ll say it here …” It really brings home how the environment of a forum, even just a blog, can stifle debate even when there’s little moderation — and how you just can’t know what the people who really disagree with you are thinking, as a result.
A lot of what you are saying will figure in some of my upcoming posts, so I don’t want to get into it too much, but I will say that I agree that there is a degree of fluidity to sexuality — it’s just hard to tell how much, and how we can activate / facilitate that.
No idea about the graphic, i didn’t even read all of that article (not worth it, really), and i believed it only because it was actually harmful to the agenda of that site. That, and because i had similar impression already. Actually, mostly because of that, as i though so earlier and stumbled upon that site yesterday. Unfortunately i can’t give you source, and i am no 100% sure it is true, but i always liked statistics, so i often read them, the years i spent studying sociology meant i had a lot of opportunities, but it also means i often don’t remember where exactly i got that particular memory from… (well, i already forgot where i read that “should” on your blog… yes, that was that post – specifically, this: But if I had to, I would summarize it this way: Among consenting adults, there is no ‘should’. sentence :))
Ah, the dreaded manliness thread i hope sometime i will be able to catch up with… it’s on the top of my to-read list now so there is chance ;) IIRC, it was this thread that i found at first here. I do agree with moderation, as i saw my share of, uh, rude, folks claiming free speech should mean there should be no forum rules. Uh, no.
Anyway, i anticipate your future posts, then! I actually left out one thing, i wanted to ask you how much your thoughts changed since that post you linked me to (almost a year), but i guess you mean you’ll be covering that too.
Lastly, when it comes to the ‘activation’… i think the easiest way would be to either have a chance to experience it in your own relationship, or having a chance to observe it in your, preferably close, friend’s relationship. And i think it’s important not to be pushed or even feel pressure, and to be safe there. So, in practice, i would think Kink would be easiery to explore inside existing relationship when one person is already kinky, and other doesn’t have strong dislike of it, but polyamory most often wouldn’t (as it touches the basic common concepts of what relationship should look like), friends examples are better for that. Dunno for sexual orientation. Perhaps similarly to the poly case – even if the “friend” in question is your metamour, making the distinction rather blurry (not that i think there is that much difference between “close friendship” and “love”, anyway. Or at all.)
Well, that were few fast thoughts, anyway :)
Oh, and apparently i have to be logged in to my wordress account.
The push/feel pressure thing echoes my own thoughts — damn I really should just write that post already. Give me a few weeks.
You’re asking how my thoughts have changed since I wrote the BDSM orientation post? They haven’t really, though I’ve refined my arguments a little bit. In essence, I’m still leery of defining BDSM as an orientation, but I recognize that the concept has massive political and interpersonal power in our current context. I’ve met some more people who feel it as an orientation, and I’ve met some more people who don’t but practice it for other reasons, and I’ve met some more people who don’t consider it an orientation for themselves and also think that anyone who does is just lying to themselves. :shrug: None of these inputs change the way I feel about it, so ….
If I can come in two weeks after the last comment and toot my own horn:
I once started to create a list of things vanilla people often seem to take for granted about sex and relationships that I don’t think kinky people can — a parallel to privilege checklists (unpacking the invisible knapsack and finding rope and paddles inside). I abandoned it because I didn’t feel it was that big an issue (note my reluctance in this very comment to assert that there’s such a thing as “vanilla privilege”).
Now I’m reconsidering that. Certainly the messages we get (and everyone gets) about kink are not remotely like the messges about sex in general (which is understood to mean vanilla). It’s all aspects of the same thing.
No worries about the lateness, Hershele. Welcome.
I agree that the phrase “vanilla privilege” is a bit much … perhaps because I’m unwilling to assert that kinksters experience anything close to the same degree of, for lack of a better word, oppression that most marginalized groups do. As you say, maybe it’s just “not that big an issue”. But we are a marginal community, and we do get slammed with a lot of stigma and stereotypes, and these things have real effects on our lives and perspectives. If using words like “privilege” can help people see that, then maybe those words are worth using.
The media is something that bothers me as well. I wonder how you feel about protrayals of non-consensual “BDSM” (mostly sadists). (I don’t know if you can call it BDSM if it isn’t consensual)
There are a lot of portrayals- either of sadists who *can’t* enjoy enthusiastically consented activities, sadists who hand someone an insanely long, unpronouncable safeword *after* tying them up and ignoring their attempts at saying it, things like that. Even in fanfiction, some people mark tories as “BDSM” to mean “unquestionably non-consensual torture leading to/involving rape”
I don’t know if they add to the sense of shame or not (which is part of what I wonder about)- but I’d imagine it definitely adds to stigma against kinksters and the number of people in BDSM who end up in bad situations because they think these things are acceptable or the “if you were REALLY X you’d do Y” idea that apparently crops up sometimes (ugh, it crops up *everywhere*).
@chartreuse — Yeah, I often wish that when BDSM came up in the media there was more talk of safewords and negotiation and stuff. It makes it hard to see the lines of consent sometimes. The movie “Secretary” is a great example of this. Not a bad portrayal of S&M overall, but kind of creepy in implementation. I liked the Mary Gaitskill short story much better, although (as I believe I noted in this post) it’s got a lot more stigma to it than the movie.
Love your article, came across it doing research on a play about alternative relationships and I apologize if this counts as off-topic.
I’m a fairly new (male) sub (a year, but it’s long-distance) but I wouldn’t say I’m into bondage (in fact a lot of the things that come to mind are fears of mine which arose from, drumroll, childhood trauma; ropes and whips, as a rule, scare the shit out of me). Even without that though, I could easily relate. I felt shame (and i guess i still struggle with the fear of being discovered) purely from the authoritative aspect of the relationship and societal pressures on men to “take charge,” and so far the only people who know I have a capital M Mistress are three cast-members.
Chaz, that’s not at all off-topic! The biggest point of my blog is helping BDSMers feel more okay about ourselves! Welcome.