… and it is as grotesque as one might imagine (I’m not going to link to it).
Just look at this:
BDSMers always go on about how they only participate in ‘consensual’ violence, but this person (who could well be training as a social worker, psychologist or some other type of medical professional), is getting turned on by descriptions of violence that leave us boring old vanillas ‘horrified’.
These people are so selfish, so self-absorbed, so indifferent to the real-world suffering of real people, that descriptions of the real abuse of women and children are stimulating to them.
(And note the priggish, self-righteous tone of ‘negative, vanilla connotations’; poor BDSMers, the real world keeps getting in the way of their kinky fun, except it doesn’t as they just get turned on anyway, but BDSMers love to pretend they are a persecuted minority.)
Anti-Porn Feminists 
Commentator is clearly male because he says ‘can’t help getting turned on (or is it in?). Innumerable sexually predatory males enact their pseudo male belief that women and girls aren’t human but merely exist to ‘sexually turn males on and to be males’ disposable sexual service stations.’ That is why innumerable males cannot recognise what exactly is pandemic male sexual violence against women and girls, because male supremacist construction of real male sexual activity is identical to what innumerable male sexual predators enact. Namely pseudo male sex right to female bodies any time any where. Plus females only exist to be mens’ sexual titillation.
‘Vanilla sex’ is what men define if the male sexual partner is merely enacting his pseudo male sex right to female bodies on his terms and the male is not simultaneously committing sadistic male sexual violence upon the female. Oh but wait – this defines BDSM – wherein one person overwhelmingly the male subjects a female sexual partner to sadistic male sexual violence – but it is always ‘consensual (sic) claim the males who enact BDSM.
Hmm wonder how this male commentator would react if a male subjected him to sadistic male sexual violence and male commentator was blamed because he indulges in BDSM.
I once posted Robert Jensen’s description of a pornographic scene of a young woman being ejaculated on by a group of men, being getting insulted and abused, and ending up broken with tears in her eyes, to a group of supposed feminists.
Quite a few of them weren’t offended at the male behaviour, rather they thought it was “hot”. BDSM eroticises male violence against women, so any male violence against women is going to be experienced as sexy. It’s a logical process, they just want to keep that part of the equation hidden.
It is frightening how normal BDSM has become, it is becoming ‘average’, how long before the majority of young women expect their early sexual experiences to involve being beaten and choked? Or are we there already?
Hey now people, really.
Imagine if it was a medical intern getting aroused by a their first examination of genitals, or something like that. I can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that, despite it being similarly inappropriate.
I can’t help but think the objection stems mostly from BDSM being just that – BDSM. Not the average, run of the mill sexuality that the folks at home are comfortable with.
Is it perhaps possible that – and remembering both males and females can be submissive – the people who find this sexually arousing,
Aren’t being manipulated?
Aren’t a victim of anything?
Perhaps the (slight) loosening of society’s sigmas has allowed people to become more comfortable with expressing what they think is truly sexually attractive. Maybe that’s the cause for the rise.
Also, there is a very, very big difference between sexual play and real life. I very much doubt the author of the Tumblr blog would condone the abuse of a child. Nor do I doubt that the author made a conscious decision to be aroused at the discussion. It is wrong to judge someone for being attracted to something, no matter how perverse.
This is a simple-minded apologia for the status quo.
Yes, I would have a problem with a doctor who got aroused while examining a patient’s genitalia, it would mean that they are incapable of controlling themselves and are potentially dangerous.
Remember, the person from the quote didn’t have an involuntary twinge of arousal at an inappropriate moment, they sat through a whole lecture (so that’s likely to be a minimum of 40 minutes), allowing them self to become aroused over descriptions of real abuse that had the rest of the class gasping in horror.
You say the person didn’t have a choice about getting aroused, but they weren’t sitting through hard-core pornography, it takes effort and imagination to get turned on by someone reading out lecture notes, that person chose to day-dream through their class like that, and didn’t see any ethical problem with what they were doing.
If a nursery worker got aroused while changing babies’ nappies, would you have no problem with that?
If a doctor examining a child’s anogenital region for signs of sexual abuse became aroused by the whole process (which would include the idea that the child had been abused), would you have no problem with that?
Yes, I do object to BDSM, because BDSM is eroticised abuse and inequality. Sexuality is not a sacred cow and it is not exempt from critical thought and judgement. We would judge someone who gained non-sexual enjoyment from the suffering of others, the presence of an orgasm makes no real difference.
Our sexuality is not created in a vacuum, it is a product of our society and our society is full of abuse and inequality. Sadism is so commonplace it hardly needs an explanation, and masochism, in women particularly, is pretty much just Stockholm Syndrome, a survival mechanism.
I’ve said it plenty of times before on this blog, but the existence of male ‘submissives’ doesn’t change the fact that BDSM is entirely patriarchal. I can’t even be bothered to re-word the same argument for the nth time, so I’m just going to copy and paste:
The fact that there are male ‘submissives’ and female ‘dominants’ is irrelevant, abuse doesn’t stop being abuse if it is perpetrated by a woman, or against a man. Such a ‘reversal’ is still patriarchal, because it is still eroticised abuse and inequality, a male ‘submissive’ is considered to be feminised, and ‘like a woman’, male ‘submissiveness’ wouldn’t work without the mainstream model of female masochism to feed off.
“I very much doubt the author of the Tumblr blog would condone the abuse of a child.”
Maybe not, but if they see their field of work as a potential source of masturbatory material, they are not going to be doing a professional job.
If I were the victim of domestic violence, I would not want to be talking to a counsellor who was getting turned on by the descriptions of my abuse, and making mental notes for later.
I’d be pretty worried about an intern getting sexually aroused at the sight of a woman’s genitals he was supposed to examine, but then it’s not a secret that there are plenty of rapists in the medical profession. All those unclothed sometimes unconscious female patients for men to help themselves to.
It’s absolutely right to judge people who are sexually aroused by harm to other people. There is something fundamentally wrong with them.
Exactly, it’s not like sexual abuse is actually rare at all.
TRIGGER WARNING
Speaking of which:
I was 3½ years old.
I had a cut on my head; he was the ER physician on duty. He ordered my mom and the nurse out of the examining room. They obeyed him; back then, you would never argue with a doctor. He stitched the cut on my head, then sexually assaulted me.
I didn’t tell anyone for more than 30 years.
And here’s another one:
There appears to be an important misunderstanding.
A distinction needs to be made between getting sexually aroused by something, and choosing to act on that arousal.
One is immoral, one is not.
I don’t know about you, but nobody I’ve met can just choose whether to be aroused by something. That seems ridiculous. To argue that would be to claim that any man suffering erection issues is just ‘not trying hard enough’. Also, I sincerely doubt he was intentionally fantasizing. Firstly, that requires more focus than is possible while listening to a lecture. Second, a boner is probably not something a young man wants while sitting in a lecture hall. If you have some detailed insight into the young male psyche that contradicts those two points, then feel free to argue.
If not, it would be nice if we could discount him choosing to get aroused as a subject of argument.
He Almost Certainly didn’t choose to become aroused during his lecture.
Second, even if he did – even if a doctor gets aroused by genitalia during an examination – heck, even if an adult is aroused by child – that can’t be said to be immoral in and of itself. Since a paedophile/hypothetical doctor/whatever doesn’t choose to be attracted by a particular thing, they can’t in any sense be blamed for that. They can, of course, be blamed for acting on that. But the arousal itself is not of moral concern. A person can’t be blamed for their arousal anymore than a rock can be blamed for falling 9.8m/s/s. It just happens.
BDSM is patriarchal?
Balls. Ballsy balls balls balls balls.
Heck, the suggestion of that is sexist in itself. If a man and a woman, or variations there upon, choose, I repeat /choose/ with proper consent and all, to engage in BDSM, then why the hell oughtn’t they? I’m predicting your argument here, so correct me if I’m wrong, but surely your only complaint is that proper consent from the woman isn’t given. That is, she has been either socialised or pressured into wanting it.
Fair enough I suppose. OH WAIT NO IT’S NOT.
That kind of attitude is completely demeaning to not only the women that practice BDSM, but women in general. In the minority of cases, and I stress the word ‘minority’, yes, women probably are being pressured. But to extend that across an entire sexual culture? Ridiculous. While it may seem impossible to you that a woman wants to be dominated without a form of coercion, the majority of participants would argue against that.
I’m not saying sexuality should be free from scrutiny. Not at all.
But two consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want.
That premise is the foundation of sexual freedom.
I’ve already made a distinction between spontaneous arousal, and deliberate fantasizing.
If the paediatrician mentioned before had a fleeting physical reaction, that’s one thing, if they then chose to dwell on what they had seen all day, or chose to use those images to masturbate to, or didn’t choose to stop masturbating if those images intruded, that’s something else. The first is an automatic physical reaction, the second is an active choice, one that a decent person would not make.
You talk as if arousal is an abstract thing that never leads to actions; nobody ever spontaneously sexually abuses a child, not without spending a lot of time thinking about it and masturbating to it (and often accessing child pornography of it) first – and the patterns of behaviour of abusers, starting off with ‘normal’ porn, which soon stops working, leading to more and more extreme porn use, then to action in the real world, also suggests that arousal is not something wholly separate from action.
Neither of us know exactly what was going on in the head of the student from the tumblr quote, not even if they are male or female, what we do know is that they wrote it up in a smug, self-satisfied, I’m-more-transgressive-than-thou manner for anyone to read on the internet, which makes me think they are not a great human being.
Your defence of BDSM is the same boring old story I’ve heard hundreds of times before, those magical choosy-choices that make all the problems go away; as if a women can never ‘consent’ to something that is harmful to them.
BDSM is harmful, it is abusive, and it is a product of our fucked-up patriarchal system. That some women can get off on their sub-human status under patriarchy, just demonstrates how fucked up the system is.
And I doubt that coercion or abuse only occurs in a minority of cases. Kitty Stryker said she has never met a submissive who wasn’t coerced or abused at some point within the BDSM ‘scene’, and I’ve read far too many account from women who’ve exited the BDSM ‘scene’ and say how they were manipulated and brainwashed, to believe that ‘safe, sane, and consensual’ is anything other than a white-wash.
In reference to the tone of the blogger.
I don’t think you can say (s)he was smug. And I certainly don’t think you can say (s)he was ‘more transgressive-than-thou’. He’s not apologetic, which I imagine is what you’re drawing on. But remembering that this argument is about whether or not (s)he ought to be. The wrongness of his/her lack of apologetic nature is contingent on your argument being the right one.
Anyway, if you could state this argument with direct reference to the text it would be easier to respond to. Currently I’m confused as to how you came to that conclusion.
Fleeting feelings.
Choosing not to dwell. Have you ever tried not to think about something? It’s impossible. At least for us normellows. Perhaps the patrons of this blog have abilities not yet extended to the general population. But for us normal folk, thought isn’t really controlled like that.
Again, not that it’s relevant to the discussion about the blogger. He could easily not have dwelled. He could have attended the lecture, been aroused, got home, saw something that jogged his memory, posted, and never thought of it again. There’s not really enough written to speculate with accuracy. So I say we give him the benefit of the doubt. The ol’ ‘innocent until proven guilty’. Good? Good.
Masturbation, and what not, lead to more.
Ok. Your point? People who are attracted to BDSM might engage in BDSM? Heaven forbid. Again, two people consenting. Let them do what they want. Boring? Maybe. But valid.
Your argument against this was at first, a general insult towards it without much merit or clarity. Second, that women in that majority of cases don’t actually give consent.
TO WHICH I SAY,
No. They do. You’re wrong. Just objectively, totally, completely wrong. And you wrongness is harming others. So stop.
Moving on, if a woman is being coerced (I’ll call it rape from now on because it’s easier and more accurate) then the other party is a criminal and probably also a jerk. What makes you think getting rid of the BDSM scene will stop their rape?
BDSM is, in that regard, no different from a normal relationship. Two people engaging in a consensual activities. If one party crosses a line, the other can withdraw. If the party continues, then it’s rape.
Your argument rests on abuse being more prolific amongst the BDSM inclined. As evidenced by Kitty Stryker. I can’t speak for Kitty Stryker, but I’ve never met a woman who hasn’t been abused by men generally. Rape, abuse, crude sexism and the like a prolific through all society. It may be more severe in the BDSM scene, given the greater opportunity for more severe abuse, but that’s no reason to demonise the men who are just having a good time. The focus should be on the men who abuse generally. It seems almost hypocritical to attack a group for such abuse when your own group is comparably bad. Why not relax your focus to jerks generally? Which reminds me.
Also, sidenote.
Why are you just focusing on the men in all this? Men are socialised just as much as women. If a woman is being raped because she is socialised into enjoying BDSM, then a man is too, even if he’s the dominant party in it. If your argument is that consent can’t truly be given by the woman, because she is groomed for the role, then so is the man. Both parties are victims of socialisation. Both parties are being ‘forced’ to do something that, but for socialisation, they might not have wanted to do.
To just isolate women is sexist. To both parties. So stop.
In reference to the tone of the blogger.
I don’t think you can say (s)he was smug. And I certainly don’t think you can say (s)he was ‘more transgressive-than-thou’. He’s not apologetic, which I imagine is what you’re drawing on. But remembering that this argument is about whether or not (s)he ought to be. The wrongness of his/her lack of apologetic nature is contingent on your argument being the right one.
Anyway, if you could state this argument with direct reference to the text it would be easier to respond to. Currently I’m confused as to how you came to that conclusion.
The whole ‘BDSM problems’ concept is smug, it’s in the same vein as ‘first world problems’ in that it pretends that minor occurrences and annoyances are big problems and/or victimisation.
Have you ever tried not to think about something? It’s impossible. At least for us normellows. Perhaps the patrons of this blog have abilities not yet extended to the general population. But for us normal folk, thought isn’t really controlled like that.
“Normellows” aren’t you cute! Using silly made-up words really makes your argument more convincing!
There is a difference between having certain thoughts and images intruding, and actively choosing to dwell on something. Masturbating to certain thoughts/ideas/images is an active choice.
You’re wrong. Just objectively, totally, completely wrong. And you wrongness is harming others. So stop.
I am not wrong, and you are certainly not going to shut me up.
And please do tell me how my opinions are harming others, more than, say, rapist men, and the men and women who cover up for them.
Your argument rests on abuse being more prolific amongst the BDSM inclined. As evidenced by Kitty Stryker. I can’t speak for Kitty Stryker, but I’ve never met a woman who hasn’t been abused by men generally. Rape, abuse, crude sexism and the like a prolific through all society. It may be more severe in the BDSM scene, given the greater opportunity for more severe abuse, but that’s no reason to demonise the men who are just having a good time. The focus should be on the men who abuse generally. It seems almost hypocritical to attack a group for such abuse when your own group is comparably bad. Why not relax your focus to jerks generally?
Nowhere have I claimed that there is no or little abuse within the mainstream, but the mainstream has yet to reach a 100% success rate for serving women up to abusive men, then disbelieving, silencing and ostracising them afterwards.
And non-BDSM men are not ‘my group’, there is no such thing as a ‘vanilla community’ and I feel no solidarity with any demographic of men.
Please try actually reading more than one post from this blog, you will then see that I spend rather a lot of time focusing on abusive men generally.
Why are you just focusing on the men in all this? Men are socialised just as much as women. If a woman is being raped because she is socialised into enjoying BDSM, then a man is too, even if he’s the dominant party in it. If your argument is that consent can’t truly be given by the woman, because she is groomed for the role, then so is the man. Both parties are victims of socialisation. Both parties are being ‘forced’ to do something that, but for socialisation, they might not have wanted to do.
To just isolate women is sexist. To both parties. So stop.
Oh my goddess! Are you actually claiming abusive men are just as much victims as the women they abuse!!
Yes, men are groomed to be abusers, and maybe, in some abstract, metaphysical, condition-of-their-souls way they are victims too, but to claim that a violent rapist is just as much a victim as the woman he rapes is preposterous, and a rape-apology. If you honestly believe this you are disgusting and an idiot.
Men and women are both conditioned into sexist roles, but those roles are not the same. To quote someone else:
“Okay, it’s totally true that gender roles put everyone in boxes, but we are not talking about equally restrictive boxes. Some boxes have built-in swimming pools and eight-car garages, and some boxes are filled with hundreds of angry bees.”
It’s interesting a guy turning up here, trying to persuade us that we shouldn’t make a connection between men’s sexual impulses and men’s criminal sexual actions. They’ve created a whole world where they can act out their sexual impulses on women and children with impunity. They have ensured that nothing stands in their way.
That’s the sexual freedom that Commenter is talking about.
Hi Delphyne,
‘Commenter’ uses an email address with a female name, which doesn’t prove anything for certain I know.
My guess is a young, ‘sex positive’ woman, who’s really invested in the concept of ‘agency’, and in magical choosy choices, and isn’t all that bright – hence the repetitive nature of her arguments, and her ‘conclusion’ from my argument that rapists are as much victims as the women and children they rape.
Unfortunately, the sexual fantasies and practices of BDSMers are becoming more mainstream and it is important people start speaking out. I wrote a piece about it on my blog that was inspired by the tragic death of a young woman that lived near my hometown and a recent debate I had with pro BDSMers. http://elle-fury.blogspot.ca/2013/02/bdsm.html
Hi Elle Fury,
Thanks for the link to your blog – but I would add a trigger warning, as some of the images you use to illustrate your post are potentially disturbing.
umm I stumbled on this post while looking for something else … and I have no intention of convincing anyone here (I know that it is not going to happen) … but as a male masochist who has and still is studying feminism and gender theory, I thought I d try giving a clarification on behalf of the tmblr post ….
S/he (I dont think it is possible to determine the gender of the person from the post) says that the use of terms like ‘dominance’, ‘ submission’, etc. turned him/her on NOT the acts of abuse being discussed. the terms mean different things and have wildly different connotations in the bdsm world than they do in the ‘vanilla context’. So the person did not fantasize about abusing someone. In simple terms you could say that s/he was in his/her own little world, in his/her own little context. Its kind of like why kids laughs when the science teacher says ‘Uranus’. They are obviously not laughing at the planet but at what the word and its usage signifies for them.
Also a bit about the difference between bdsm and abuse:
Bdsm is not abuse. Simply because it is consensual. The difference between Bdsm and abuse is the difference between sex and rape. So even though sex may look like rape coz there is penetration and moaning and fluids and other things, it is not rape because there is consent.
Also I can see that you have your agenda (anti pornography) clearly set out and I have no intention of turning you away from it, but just to add another perspective I am going to leave you with a quote of a feminist theorist called Ellin Willis:
“In the movement’s rhetoric pornography is a code word for vicious male lust. To the objection than some women get off on porn the standard reply is that this shows how thoroughly women have been brain-washed by male values… And the view of sex that most often emerges from talk about ‘erotica’ is as sentimental and euphemistic as the word itself: lovemaking should be beautiful, romantic, soft, nice, and devoid of messiness, vulgarity, impulses to power, or indeed aggression of any sort. Above all, the emphasis should be on relationships, not (yuck) organs. This goody-goody concept of eroticism is not feminist but feminine.”
p.s. i dont have the original source of the quote. I read it here- http://www.sutjhally.com/articles/whatswrongwithalit/
also a friend of mine who is a gay rights activist once told me that he has encountered people who say things like gay people should not be allowed to become doctors because they will get sexual gratification out of seeing their patients naked, etc, etc. I mention this because your projection of the bdsm community (in your comments) seems quite likely to develop similar stereotypes about them.
Another bullshit disingenuous apologia.
Your account for what was going on in the person’s head makes no sense, an individual who gets turned on and wanders off in to their own little dream world simply by hearing the word ‘abuse’ in isolation wouldn’t be able to function in the real world. They were in a class about domestic violence, they were hearing descriptions of abuse and violence that were making the other people in the class gasp in horror – if those were incidental details rather than the whole context of them getting turned on, why mention them at all?
And spare me the ‘vanilla context’ bullshit, as if your dorky hobby is sooo esoteric that us ‘mere vanillas’ couldn’t possibly understand what’s going on. BDSMers get off on violence and degradation, either inflicted on themselves or others, there really is nothing all that complicated to understand, it’s a fetishisation of the status quo, of patriarchy, it is the status quo in concentrate.
‘Consent’ does not magically make all the world’s problems go away. Just because someone consents to something does not stop it being harmful to them. Sheila Jeffreys calls masochism self-harm by proxy, and I think she is absolutely correct; if somebody cut themselves, they would be recognised as having a mental illness, but if somebody says they get sexual satisfaction from cutting someone else, or getting someone to cut them, suddenly it’s ‘sex’ and no criticism is allowed.
Also, we have to look at the context in which ‘consent’ is given, a ‘yes’ can be coerced, bullied, manipulated or tricked out of someone. Look at this recent case, under law, she consented to be abused, even though she really didn’t want it to happen, but she didn’t feel like she could say no, because she’d signed a contract.
The pro-porn ‘feminist’ you quote is setting up a straw-woman to attack; radical feminists are not anti-porn because we think sex or orgasms are ‘yucky’ or ‘unfeminine’ (radical feminists are against gender altogether, so we hardly going to criticise something for being ‘unfeminine’) or we think that sex should be ‘romantic’ (whatever the fuck that actually means – scented candles?), and I don’t have much time for ‘erotica’ either, as ‘erotica’ is simply what the middle-classes call their porn.
Radical Feminists are against pornography because it is the graphic representation and reinforcement of women’s role as the sex-class, it reinforces our subordinate status to men; it reinforces all the ideas of rape culture (that women say no when they mean yes, that women enjoy being forced etc); it reinforces male supremacy and warps our sexuality and body image; it is an industry that (for real, in the real world) abuses thousands of women and girls around the world, and fuels demand for prostitution which fuels demand for trafficking into sex slavery.
Your comparison between gay men and BDSMers doesn’t work; anti-gay prejudice says gay men can’t control their sexuality because they are gay, I am saying that people (and I’m talking about women as well as men here) who have already demonstrated inappropriate sexual behaviour shouldn’t be given access to vulnerable adults and children. People who practice BDSM have already demonstrated that they get off on other people’s suffering, I would no more want to receive medical ‘care’ from a BDSMer (male or female) than I would want to receive medical care from a man who was masturbating to violent gonzo porn every night.
It’s not as if sexual abuse is actually all that rare; current political events in the UK (and all over the world as well) suggest that all hierarchical institutions (churches, schools, colleges, hospitals, political parties, police forces, the BBC) allow men (and it is almost always men) to not only commit abuse, but to have that abuse covered up afterwards.
BDSM is the eroticisation of hierarchies, of inequalities, so it is, in that sense, completely conservative, and completely a part of the status quo.
“there really is nothing all that complicated to understand”
I wonder if the comments section is just to have people congratulate you on what you write, since you have already made up your mind that any disagreement to your opinion is already wrong.
This might be an odd request to make but the English department of my University is planning to conduct a seminar/discussion on the possibilities of writing alternate romances. Would you like to recommend any movie,novel,short story, etc. ?
Hi Antiplondon,
Thanks for the advice re: the trigger warning. I have added one.
Hi Elle Fury, you’re welcome!
Hey k-pax, if you think I’m wrong, then why not try proving it with a sound argument, rather than sulky passive-aggressive insults?
And what do you mean by ‘alternate romance’? ‘Queer’? Not horribly misogynistic? Not heteronormative (and no, that’s not the same as queer)? Radical feminist?
And why do you want my opinion anyway, since you’ve already decided I’m a big meanie who thinks I’m always right?
I asked for your opinion just out of curiosity. I ask for everyone’s opinion (even if they are “big meanies”). Its a personal quirk….. ‘Alternate’ to the traditional romance narrative of dominant/active man and submissive/passive woman. So we are hoping to look at pretty much everything that does not confirm to that norm including but not limited to the things you mentioned. We are still in the planning stage so any and all suggestions are welcome.
I did try arguing but I don’t know how to argue with someone who has already made up her mind that certain things are not possible.
“Your account for what was going on in the person’s head makes no sense, an individual who gets turned on and wanders off in to their own little dream world simply by hearing the word ‘abuse’ in isolation wouldn’t be able to function in the real world”
I wander off like that quite often (with things non-sexual as well) and I manage pretty well in the real world. Also the Uranus example was, I thought, quite suggestive.
But as I said I have no intention of changing your political ideology. My only intention of posting was to suggest an alternate view point. I have no reason to engage with all the unnecessary hostility (“Another bullshit disingenuous apologia”).
“I did try arguing but I don’t know how to argue with someone who has already made up her mind that certain things are not possible.”
Try being convincing.
I have not said that certain things are not possible, I have said that I am not convinced with the arguments that have been given, and I have put forward alternative, better, arguments using logic and reason. You seem to think that an argument involves holding every side as being equally valid, as if it were a polite dinner party conversation where nobody wanted to cause offense by disagreeing or expressing a strong opinion.
If you think I am wrong, prove it, back up your claims, offer logical arguments, don’t just call me names and act like you have some automatic ‘right’ to be agreed with.
“I wander off like that quite often (with things non-sexual as well) and I manage pretty well in the real world. Also the Uranus example was, I thought, quite suggestive.”
Really? You are saying you can get actively turned on just by hearing words like ‘sex’ or ‘penis’ or ‘vagina’ in a neutral context, so turned on that you go off into your own little dream world? Is that really what you are saying?
You seem to be bent on pissing me off and I am bent on not getting pissed off. (except for one only mildly curt comment I don’t recall anything offensive like “calling you names”)
And here is the jazz … I have nothing to gain out of convincing you and therefore I was being ‘suggestive’ and that was what the Uranus thing was supposed to be. Kids laugh at the word uranus, don’t they? I wonder how to explain that? May be adults do it too but for things other than ‘uranus’ ?
The larger point was that BDSM is not as simple as you’d like to believe and its unfair to call it abuse. People (men and women) enjoy BDSM with consent just as people enjoy ‘regular’ (whatever that means) sex with consent. There are male masochists and female dominants and vice versa. Its just doesn’t make sense to say that it is the same as abuse and if you compare the experience of those who have suffered abuse and the experience of bdsm practitioners you will see that very clearly (and I mean their subjective experiences, for example domestic abuse victims don’t tell you they enjoy it when their spouse beats them, they justify the violence “it was my fault”, “he is a good man” etc.) If you talk to someone who has suffered abuse and is now a bdsm practitioner he/she will tell you that too. Furthermore every bdsm practitioner wants to ensure safety and pleasure for all parties involved. And if in some cases things are not going the way they should then the sensible thing to do would be to make sure there is no compromise of the three rules of bdsm (safe, sane and consensual) by raising awareness, etc. However I understand that may have some clashes with your larger aim of anti-pornography for various reasons including but not limited to the way BDSM has evolved. Now I am not rude or stupid enough to come to an anti porn feminist platform and vehemently try to convince you that you should actually be pro porn. If you were expecting to have a life changing (yours or mine) debate since that would be the only conclusion of us arguing with full force, then I am sorry to disappoint you. Hence being suggestive was the best thing I could do. My purpose was to simply introduce a counterpoint to/ object to what I know to be a misrepresentation of myself and people like me. I gain no validation by convincing you. And I have no intention of forcing it through a wall of hostility. If you are curious however (which you clearly are not) I am more than happy to talk about something you clearly are unfamiliar with (atleast in terms of practical experience if nothing else).
and it doesn’t look like you are going to give me any suggestions for the seminar. so I don’t have much purpose here anymore. so goodbye. 🙂
“And here is the jazz … I have nothing to gain out of convincing you and therefore I was being ‘suggestive’ and that was what the Uranus thing was supposed to be. Kids laugh at the word uranus, don’t they? I wonder how to explain that? May be adults do it too but for things other than ‘uranus’ ?”
Oh please, nobody puts their opinion out there in the hope of having no effect, of not having any influence – you are taking passive-aggressiveness to a new level: I’m giving you my opinions but I don’t want my opinions to change your mind.
And where did I claim that children didn’t laugh at the word ‘uranus’? The argument here is whether someone can really wander off in to their own little dream world of arousal simply through hearing words like ‘abuse’ in isolation (as apposed to getting off on descriptions of horrific violence and abuse, which is what I contend the beedy-esemer above was doing).
I really cannot be bothered to repeat myself in the same thread regarding your defense of your dorky hobby. People can consent to something and it still be harmful to them … ‘safe sane consensual’ is just a white-wash to facilitate abuse … feminising men for sexual kicks is still patriarchal … etc etc ad nauseam.
“Now I am not rude or stupid enough to come to an anti porn feminist platform and vehemently try to convince you that you should actually be pro porn. If you were expecting to have a life changing (yours or mine) debate since that would be the only conclusion of us arguing with full force, then I am sorry to disappoint you.”
Ha Ha, now you’re arrogant and passive-aggressive, you think you can ‘change my life’ if you argue with me at ‘full force’, but you’re just not going to! Because you’re too polite! Boo hoo, I’m so upset!
“And I have no intention of forcing it through a wall of hostility. If you are curious however (which you clearly are not) I am more than happy to talk about something you clearly are unfamiliar with (atleast in terms of practical experience if nothing else).”
More passive-aggressive bullshit, you’re happy to talk to me, but you just wont (except that you keep coming back here to say that you won’t!)
Come on, prove me wrong. With logic and reason. I dare you!
“and it doesn’t look like you are going to give me any suggestions for the seminar. so I don’t have much purpose here anymore. so goodbye.”
And wah, wah! I won’t even do your fucking homework for you!
BDSM = Bloody Disgusting Sexual Manners, or maybe, Bunch of Douchey Sad Morons
You cannot unsee this now!
huehuehue
Ha!
can there be a time (if ever) where BDSM like practices may be accepted.
for example if the said patriarchy is removed and every man and women’s choice is truly their own and not influenced by a partial society.
Well, BDSM is pretty much accepted in the liberal mainstream already (in spite of BDSMers claims towards persecuted minority status), but I assume you mean acceptable to me as a radical feminist?
Without patriarchy eroticising violence, inequality, degradation and women’s second class status, why would anyone find torture sexually arousing?
Let’s not get into the question of why, I’m asking if in a world “Without patriarchy eroticising violence, inequality, degradation and women’s second class status”, would you as a radical feminist be willing to accept a person’s choice to indulge in BDSM.
Because then it would be just that, a choice made free from coercion.
[ I’m not trying to corner you into saying something you don’t want to say , i just want to know what your stance is]
But ‘why’ is the relevant question here.
I honestly do not believe that, in some far flung future utopia – with no violence or inequality, where war, torture, racism and misogyny are things only taught in history class – people would be reenacting such things for sexual pleasure.
Nobody had a Nazi fetish before there were Nazi’s, would anyone have a Nazi fetish when WWII is reduced to obscure ancient history and most people couldn’t even tell you what century it occurred in?
So let me get this straight,
You’re saying that since all of these weird fetishes exist because of the influence of the present toxic society, therefore in a non toxic egalitarian society , these fetishes won’t exist as there will be no such influence?
Yes
for a lot of people bdsm is problematic just because it has violence and/or power play in it. and I don’t speak for everyone who is into it (there are as many bdsms as there are practitioners) but for me bdsm does have violence and power play in it, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Infact for me the very appeal of bdsm is that it provides a space where I can express my anger, guilt and god knows what else without hurting someone against their will. for me the whole attraction is that both parties are enjoying it.
and before anyone says it … yes I do have a lot of anger and guilt and hate and other unfeminine emotions which need an outlet. SO yea maybe in some far flung utopia where everyone just pukes rainbows all day, and people don’t have emotions which are in excess of the prescribed standards … in such a world perhaps there would be no bdsm ….. but the world will always be “imperfect” when you apply such ridiculously utopic expectations to it … until then bdsm for me is a very useful strategy to not let all the violence,hate,anger and misogyny that I face/d in regular life get to me coz bdsm helps me turn it into a game where I and my partner can both enjoy and we both know that we can walk out or stop anything that is unwanted.
How about channeling that anger and guilt and hate, that energy, into doing something productive to change the world for the better?
Instead, you’re effectively giving up and flushing those resources down the toilet.
dude are you serious ??!! first of all you might as well have told me to meditate to deal with my issues .. that might not have made you sound like a total retard. secondly … channel my ‘energy’ towards what ?! a “far flung utopia where everyone just pukes rainbows all day, and people don’t have emotions which are in excess of the prescribed standards”. if that really is your aim … then you go girl!!
In case you you didn’t get it, bdsm is channeling my energy …. it “is a very useful strategy to not let all the violence,hate,anger and misogyny that I face/d in regular life get to me” by turning gender relations into a game. I don’t have walk around thinking men are superior or women are superior .. i don’t have to go around feeling self conscious or powerless because I can play with the power … its what you might call ‘subversive’. it takes gender relations and make a ‘play’ out of it (read JUDITH fuckin’ BUTLER and her concept of performativity).
and in case you are wondering where the hostility is coming from …. then damn you for telling me that my identity, my choices (being into s/m) is flushing my life and my resources down the toilet. and this coming from someone who thinks its possible to have a world where nothing bad ever happens. Shit happens. you deal with it on a daily basis by coming up with ways and identities that make you happy and help you feel good and confident about yourself. bdsm does that for me. it makes me feel like there is no reason for me to feel weak. It gives me confidence, and most importantly it gives me a shot at loving with some one. Fuck you if you think thats ‘flushing my resources down the toilet’.
“i don’t have to go around feeling self conscious or powerless because I can play with the power”
You’re still powerless; the ‘power’ you have only exists inside your BDSM bubble, nothing in the real world has changed, you have subverted nothing.
Also, “far flung utopia where everyone just pukes rainbows all day, and people don’t have emotions which are in excess of the prescribed standards” is your quote, not mine.
My theorising about utopia was just that, theorising, a thought experiment, it doesn’t mean I don’t live in the real world, I live in it far more than you do. I don’t slip off into make-believe worlds where I’m not powerless, I try to change the real world, to be powerful in the real world.
on the contrary… bdsm, being able to practice bdsm, has changed me (and isn’t that the point) and that has changed everything.
(oh and just in case … don’t assume that I am a dominant when in my ‘BDSM bubble’)
“(oh and just in case … don’t assume that I am a dominant when in my ‘BDSM bubble’)”
Gawd, you think that makes any of what you’ve said sound better?
yup your quote is so much different … totally changes everything …
“I honestly do not believe that, in some far flung future utopia – with no violence or inequality, where war, torture, racism and misogyny are things only taught in history class – people would be reenacting such things for sexual pleasure.”
you are actually trying to change the real world into this ?! you might as well try the puking rainbows thing …
Try reading up on what a thought experiment is.
oh god !! in a perfect world there would be no bsdm. that is why bdsm is unacceptable to you in this world. that is why you are opposing bdsm. that is why you are stupid.
or is that not what you said ? should i quote? (quibbles anyway)
unfortunately the world is not simple where you can just call everything patriarchal and hate it. that’s not politically active. that’s just grumpy in the guise of feminism. bdsm is not homogeneous and it is not homogeneously bad or wrong or evil just because it doesn’t fit into your aesthetic or ethical standards. it is a different orientation, a different ideology and can be empowering. what is needed is a healthy discourse about healthy bdsm,
BDSM doesn’t fit into my ethical standards, therefore I have every right to call it wrong.
Calling me stupid and grumpy isn’t an argument.
Saying the world isn’t perfect so your fucked-up coping mechanism is ‘healthy’ isn’t much of an argument either.
and well women working may not fit into the ethical standards of a conservative so he has every right to call it wrong … lets all be narrow minded and never try to understand things or people who are different in any respect … instead lets say that they are “flushing their resources (emotions) down the toilet” and are “fucked up” because they don’t agree with you.
and yes it is an argument.
the world isn’t perfect and therefore we develop coping mechanisms which may not always be pretty … thats what we do. instead of crying about how the world doesn’t fit into your absurd idea of perfection. it is what it is. youjust have to figure out ways to deal with the things you can’t change. and you can’t remove all violence from the world just as you can’t create a world where people puke rainbows.
and this too is a valid argument. just coz you don’t have a counter doesn’t meant the rules of logic or argumentation have changed.
You’re the one who doesn’t understand how logic and argument work; I was using the idea of utopia as a way to examine why BDSM exists for real, in the real world, you’re the one who keeps insisting that that thought experiment means I think I can magically create a world where “people puke rainbows”.
I don’t “[cry] about how the world doesn’t fit into [my] absurd idea of perfection”, I do a lot more to affect the world than you do, hiding inside your BDSM bubble and fooling yourself that you’re ‘subverting’ the status quo by acting it out in concentrated form.
I’m not calling you fucked-up because you are not agreeing with me (I don’t care if you agree with me or not), or because I don’t understand your lifestyle choices, I understand them completely – why did you come to a radical feminist blog that you knew was anti-BDSM and start demanding validation for your self-harming behaviour in the first place?
(And if disagreeing with you makes me narrow minded, then you are also narrow minded for disagreeing with me; you can’t try to have a debate with someone then cry foul when that person doesn’t automatically agree with you.)
I think there is some context needed.
What the people on this blog are saying (as far as to my knowledge) is that the idea is not to make do with what we have, as the world and society we are presented with to prosper in is a biased one to begin with. they want a complete overhaul/change of values and perceptions.
My main thought here is that people are strange and i do think patriarchy though complimentary is not essential to the existence and enjoyment of bdsm. It just may transpire that couples enjoy that kind of sex because it brings out those emotions which are conventionally avoided as they bring harm in the social world but in the bedroom can bring pleasure.
Bottom line, i dont disagree with bdsm on principle but i am concerned with the potential for it to cause further harm ( more need for violent pornography, and a dude trying to force his not so willing girlfriend because his best friend had enjoyed it with his girl so it can’t be all bad)
“It just may transpire that couples enjoy that kind of sex because it brings out those emotions which are conventionally avoided as they bring harm in the social world but in the bedroom can bring pleasure.”
Thank you for your comment, but I don’t agree with this statement. Anger isn’t harmful if you can act on it in a productive way (eg, if you are angry over an injustice, you act to remedy that injustice); people who are powerless cannot utilise their anger, so they turn it in on themselves and harm themselves instead, or allow others to harm them.
All the ritual and play-acting and dress-up and make-believe of BDSM is there to hide this.
Let’s not even talk about how degrading practices like being spit on, called a worthless whore, a toilet, a cum rag, a stupid slut and having that written on your body, being treated like literal trash, and etc are literally self-harm. People who try to justify these behaviors are not thinking of the psychology behind them. What separates a teenage girl calling herself worthless before she cuts herself for psychological relief from a masochist being called worthless before being furthered degraded for psychological relief? It’s a destructive form of emotional regulation. There is no logical way you can vindicate degradation and not also justify self-harm. By that logic, if I ask my boyfriend to cut my wrists, obviously consenting, then my consent makes the act justified. I could just as easily say cutting my wrist or burning my skin gives me pleasure. For many self-harmers, it does, because it’s how they express their negative feelings. But that in itself is negative, inherently. Wanting to degrade another human being is wrong, inherently. Having that desire in the first place speaks plenty about your psyche.
Brilliant comment Lila, you’ve just saved me the work of writing it myself!
@anne
“Shit happens. you deal with it on a daily basis by coming up with ways and identities that make you happy and help you feel good and confident about yourself. ”
“what is needed is a healthy discourse about healthy bdsm,”
The problem with what you’re saying is that releasing negative emotions on another, and (assuming that you do) humiliating another to make yourself feel better is well, not healthy. This is identical to what bullies do. Get bullied enough and you might even start to like it, because it’s what you know, it’s what you’re used to. The motivation is the same. In fact, you’re not following “safe, sane, and consensual” in doing anything to a sub in anger or disgust, so you’re argument is inane from the start.
It’s much easier to speak against degrading sex practices rather than painful or physical because that’s often based on biology. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. Some people do enjoy pain, but enjoying pain doesn’t mean being degraded unless you consider being submissive degrading. Some things, like pulling someone’s hair in the heat of passion, feel good in the moment but wouldn’t be a pleasant way of waking someone up in the morning. So that’s a bit subjective. Getting spanked CAN feel good and very physical, rough sex can be reminiscent of the high from playing sports (though I would be wary of someone who wanted extreme pain). But I will speak out against degradation as much as I can, because studies show a link between fantasy of all kinds and real life behavior and emotional states.
I would say that wanting to have violence inflicted on you is always problematic, and can’t be easily separated out from degrading behaviour.
Say we accept the premise that the person posting the original comment is evil, it still doesn’t provide any evidence against BDSM.
Also, does anyone here realise that BDSM, and more specifically D/s, isn’t just about sex? For me and lots of others, it’s a style of relationship. When i’m in love with someone, i’m submissive to them, it’s not a conscious decision, it’s just what i do.
I’m a submissive, masochistic lesbian. What the hell does patriarchy have to do with that?!
Oh please, the person is a BDSMer, their behaviour says something about BDSM.
Hierarchy and inequality and degradation outside of sex are still bad things (most people have an easier time understanding that they are bad things when there isn’t sex involved).
It doesn’t matter that you’re in a same-sex relationship, you are recreating and eroticising inequality, eroticising inequality is what patriarchy does. How can submissiveness be ‘just what you do’ when women have a life-time of conditioning telling them that’s what women should be?
I met an awful gay bloke once, it didn’t colour my whole view on LGBT* folks.
Of course they are!! It means white blokes get paid more than anyone else, it means police stop and search Black people more than any other race, it means i get catcalled just walking to work. But does asking a woman i trust and love to hit me have any real negative consequences? (other than the risks we’ve decided to take that affect ourselves, like with any other sort of sex).
I definitely don’t think that because something is sexy/funny/whatever it’s above critique, and i know nothing exists in a bubble. I’m saying it’s ‘just what i do’ in that submission, in my case, is something i would have to vehemently deny myself and partner if i wanted to avoid doing, and that would make me unhappy. I don’t know if i’m this way because of patriarchy, that’s something i’ve struggled with for years. I’ve had so much insecurity over lots of aspects of my sexuality, my submission and penchant for BDSM play/sex (which is a separate thing from submisson, and is obviously consciously engaged in) were as much a part of that internalised shame as my queerness, because i’m a feminist.
That;s why i ended up here, looking for sensible critique of kink. I recognise the problems with the stuff that turns me on, in the same way that i recognise the problematic elements of tv shows and movies i like.
If my sexuality was patriarchy inflicted throughout my formative years, what is the problem with using it to bring me and my partner(s) happiness? Do you suggest i avoid falling in love because this shit-stain of a social hierarchy has rendered me ‘defective’ ?
*i didn’t mean to sound at all like i was equating kink ‘shaming’ with society’s obression of LGBT* people, it knocks me sick when people do that. People are in no way oppressed for being kinky.
I just needed to think of an example where it’s ridiculous to judge a huge group of people on one arsehole individual, and the other bit where it might have sounded bad was when i was talking about my struggle with my sexuality, i mean’t purely the internal identity battles in my head.
Emily x
I’m not really in a position to give you psychological advice, and the field of psychiatry now has been invaded by a ‘kink positive’ mentality that means you would probably be told to embrace your masochism/submissiveness if you did go to a ‘professional’.
But you say you came here looking for a “sensible critique of kink”, which suggests to me that you are not entirely happy with the current status quo of your life.
Is there any reason why you have to fall in love with people who want to dominate/degrade/hurt you (even if it’s only done in a ‘sexy’ way)? It’s very easy to fall into self destructive patterns, alcoholics and people who are addicted to gambling, for example, come up with all kinds of justifications and excuses for their behaviour, is ‘needing’ a degrading relationship any different?
Umm… I hope you realize that there is a huge market for the sub- genre of BDSM known as “femdom”, short for “female domination”. It’s presence on the Internet seems to be similar in size to that of websites depicting violence against women, and certainly WAY larger than any that may depict violence against children. Also, calling the content on many of these “kinky” S&M sites “violence” is a stretch, even if it may satisfy the literal dictionary definition the activities have a very different scope than the connotation of the word violence ordinarily has. These websites cater to men who enjoy being sexually dominated by a woman, and naturally feature this sort of material. The “violence” is usually not serious but only there to arouse the audience and the recipient by emphasizing the power exchange, which is what fans of the genera find so arousing. For example [EDIT: Eww keep your dorky hobby to yourself, no one wants to know!]. Many of the women involve, the “dominatrix” in the scenes, process to enjoy BDSM in this sense as much as their submissive males seem to. I just find it odd and disturbing that so often feminist writers, as you just did in your post, attempt to ignore approximately half the BDSM scene when analyzing it. From my experience males who are into S&M, or BDSM as a whole are just as likely to be the opposite of your description… They want to be dominated, often sexually, by women, not the other way around. And there are more women who enjoy dominating men this way than you may think. Yes, I am one of these men, although I am more moderate in my interest than the “hardcore” crowd. So why, if you will indulge me, did you chose to not mention about 50% of the BDSM scene and in doing so WAY over generalize? Just from your quotes of your featured article written by the guy who was turned on by the discussion of BDSM one cannot determine if he is was aroused by the idea if dominating women, or BEING dominated BY women (and I think it is very inappropriate how you just threw children into the mix when describing BDSM… that is as far out of the mainstream there as sex with children is for people only into “normal” sex).
“Umm… I hope you realize that there is a huge market for the sub- genre of BDSM known as “femdom”, short for “female domination””
Umm … did you bother reading the comments thread? I have, more than once, addressed why men being dominated/abused is still patriarchal, and I have addressed it in other posts on this blog.
“It’s presence on the Internet seems to be similar in size to that of websites depicting violence against women, and certainly WAY larger than any that may depict violence against children.”
You have some kind of citation to back up that claim?
“Also, calling the content on many of these “kinky” S&M sites “violence” is a stretch, even if it may satisfy the literal dictionary definition the activities have a very different scope than the connotation of the word violence ordinarily has.”
Oh PUR-LEASE, every BDSMer out there thinks their fucked-up dorky coping mechanism is so different, and so special, and so subversive, and it’s not really violence, because someone gets off on it!
BDSM is violence and domination for sexual kicks, that’s all it is.
“These websites cater to men who enjoy being sexually dominated by a woman, and naturally feature this sort of material. The “violence” is usually not serious but only there to arouse the audience and the recipient by emphasizing the power exchange, which is what fans of the genera find so arousing.”
So?
“I just find it odd and disturbing that so often feminist writers, as you just did in your post, attempt to ignore approximately half the BDSM scene when analyzing it.”
I haven’t ignored it, you just haven’t bothered reading what I’ve written properly before leaving this comment.
“Yes, I am one of these men, although I am more moderate in my interest than the “hardcore” crowd.”
You’ve just contradicted yourself by admitting that it’s not all ‘vanilla’ in the ~femdom~ scene.
“So why, if you will indulge me, did you chose to not mention about 50% of the BDSM scene and in doing so WAY over generalize?”
If you’d actually read the original post properly, you would have noticed that I didn’t use ‘he’ or ‘she’ once; I didn’t claim the person was male or female, and in the comment thread I said it was impossible to tell.
“Just from your quotes of your featured article written by the guy who was turned on by the discussion of BDSM one cannot determine if he is was aroused by the idea if dominating women, or BEING dominated BY women (and I think it is very inappropriate how you just threw children into the mix when describing BDSM… that is as far out of the mainstream there as sex with children is for people only into “normal” sex).”
How do you know it’s a guy? Aren’t you WAY overgeneralizing now?
Did you even read the original quote!? It wasn’t about a discussion of BDSM, it was about descriptions of “domestic violence in a child and family development class”, descriptions of violence that had the rest of the class ‘gasping in horror’ – the majority of the most severe domestic violence is committed by men, against women and children; the BDSMer admitted to getting off on descriptions of violence against women and children, I didn’t ‘throw children into the mix’ the BDSMer did.
It is very obvious that you haven’t bothered reading, or been able to understand, a single thing from the original post, the comment thread, or this blog generally, but you were still so arrogant that you decided to vomit up you worthless opinions here anyway.
Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
“BDSM is entirely patriarchal” Moar on that later…
[…] https://antipornfeminists.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/there-is-a-bdsm-problems-tumblr/ […]
Sexual violence or violence is NOT the same as BDSM. The huge variation of human sexuality includes many different sensations. What many of you are saying is that my sexuality is “invalid” because it’s not sanctioned by you. That’s no different than me saying that your sexuality is boring and not valid because it’s so much like what the Puritans sanctioned. Western culture, for some reason, has a very slim definition of almost everything.
I’ve been raped (as I get older, I realize that a majority of women have been) and know the difference between giving my lover permission to give me “alternative” sensations that my nervous system translate more efficiently into sexual response than the abuse many of you reference. The statistics of prior abuse in BDSM is about the same as the general population.
I am no doormat and my lover respects that, wants that. I have no problem if missionary style once a month for 5 mins makes you ecstatically happy. Life if too short for me or anyone else define your valid sexual experience. Safe, sane, consensual is the rule for every sexual encounter. Anything outside of that is abuse and should be reported.
Your likening BDSM to abuse is like calling every gay man a pedophile. Pedophilia and homosexuality have NOTHING in common and neither does BDSM (done between consenting adults) have anything to do with abuse.
Please don’t judge my desires and I won’t pass judgement on yours.
You don’t know what my sex life looks like doofus, or any other radical feminist’s. We’re the ones who came up with the term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ so get yourself a clue.
“The statistics of prior abuse in BDSM is about the same as the general population.”
You got a citation for that? I invite you to read Kitty Stryker’s article; rates of abuse are high, full stop, but the mainstream has yet to get to 100% effectiveness at serving up women to abusive men.
What’s with this ‘validating’ crap? Why do you need me to ‘validate’ you? Why do you think I want you to ‘validate’ me?
Sexuality is as open to examination and criticism as any other area of human life, sexuality does not develop in a vacuum, it is not sacred.
And pur-lease, female masochism is entirely sanctioned by western society; female masochism is practically compulsory.
The only difference between a ‘sub’ and the straw-woman you set up in your comment, is that the sub has learned to like it.
Isn’t it funny how much BDSMers like to make things up about me (and radical feminists generally)? I’m not making anything up about BDSMers, I’m taking what BDSMers say about themselves and applying some critical analysis to it.
And what an idiotic dichotomy to set up: if your not being tortured for orgasms that means you must be doing “missionary style once a month for 5 mins.”
The joke is on BDSMers if they really do believe that these two options are all there is to sex.
(And, once again, I really do have to say: thanks sex pozzers!)
I am sometimes aroused by things that shouldn’t rightfully cause me to feel that–most prominently, women in vulnerable and/or submissive positions.
This is definitely not something I chose. It was actually something I shamefully hid for over a decade. It didn’t resonate with the rest of who I am and what I’m about–a person who tries to do the right thing, who picked a career focused on helping the underprivileged, who considers himself a feminist, and who promotes a just and equal society over almost all else. And so I buried my shame and told nobody about what needed to have go through my mind to have a sexually fulfilling experience.
Now, I’ve discovered the BDSM community. I’ve learned the joy and satisfaction–emotional, sexual, and everything in between–that one can gain by giving submission to another person.
I’ve also learned to share that joy with others, by accepting their submission in ways that make us both feel fulfilled and closer to each other. Everyone I play with understands I have the utmost respect and care for them. We are all equals.
So if I’m understanding what I’m reading in this thread:
1. I am a bad person for having these thoughts
2. My partners are actually victims, because some people on the internet have read enough feminist essays to be “enlightened”, and therefore know what’s best for my partners better than they know themselves.
3. I should probably go back in the closet. I should deny these thoughts in the futile hope that they’ll go away, and failing that, I should just never speak them out loud again.
You’re right. Let me go get started on that….
You’re right, you are a bad person, and you have no right what-so-ever calling yourself a feminist (and if you, as a man, actually understood anything about feminism, you wouldn’t be calling yourself a feminist in the first place).
“failing that, I should just never speak them out loud again.”
Suits me fine.
Bdsm is a novelty. Some people do it, some people get carried away with it but even in the industry and around the people I’m with…. I’ve never ever met anyone in the lifestyle. My 7 years in the adult movie industry most people who I have met who admit to doing such a thing, the furthest they got was buying a leather anything and spanking. Or even the use of a single toy is a rush to a couple who isn’t used to anything other than themselves (because they are enough for each other!) and just looking to try something new.
In 7 years the closest I ever got to that sort of thing was candle wax. It was poured from pretty up high, making a trail along my abdomen and didn’t burn. Might as well have used very cold water from up high. The anticipation was the kink, not really burning me. Needless to say I laughed and ruined the scene.
Isn’t sex about fun? If you can’t laugh while having it, you’re doing it wrong.
Now needle play and all that crap… No. Just no. That should be illegal. Anything that breaks skin you can’t be right in the head to do, willing or not.
“I’ve never ever met anyone in the lifestyle”
In which case your comment is entirely irrelevant.
“Now needle play and all that crap… No. Just no. That should be illegal. Anything that breaks skin you can’t be right in the head to do, willing or not.”
And yet elsewhere in the comments you are defending the same industry that has deliberately prolapsed anuses as a trending theme.
Ugh, creepy. And look at all the creeps showing up to defend it. Normal people don’t trust someone who enjoys the suffering of others (in a non-sexual way) so it should not be any different when an orgasm is involved. Actually, I might be slightly less wary around someone who is just petty and cruel as opposed to someone who gets a boner from learning about child abuse in school.
I would guess this person is male, but there are an alarming number of female sex pozzie cheerleaders who think they can fuck their way to freedom by being into the most depraved things out there.
I think some individualism philosophy is a good thing, but it’s the “me, me, me” attitude that results in shit like this getting defended.
The disturbing thing about sites like tumblr is that in the name of being enlightened, people will actually encourage teens (usually girls of course) who were victims of rape to use BDSM as a way to heal.
Hi. I had commented here some years ago (as k-pax) and inadvertently found myself on this page again. And this time I have to say that I agree with your argument. I still do have a problem with the tonality and the judgemental language simply because I don’t think it helps anyone.
The way I have started seeing things now (and I think you will agree with it but do correct me if I am wrong) is that sex in general (like normal movie vanilla sex or what have you) in most societies is and has been used as a method of enforcing male dominance over women. But at the same time it pretends to be some kind of magical/spiritual thing.
Bdsm takes what was hidden and under the covers, what was unsaid and makes it part of the process. It turns the symbolic into the literal. Which is why people in the bdsm community find it to be such a relief. It feels more honest and better than ‘regular’ ‘vanilla’ sex.
I suppose one could call bdsm a fetishisation of abuse, but to my mind better would be to call it the fetishisation of abuse inherent in normative relationships. To call it abuse itself would I feel be a grave error coz that would create a situation where you can’t differentiate between someone who is bdsm sub and someone who is stuck in a violently abusive relationship. That difference needs to be made coz both would need different kinds of help.
If there is anything that I have said so far that you disagree I d love to know. But on the other hand I am also afraid this might seem like what you have been saying all along. And i wish I had been able to understand you or atleast engage with you when I read this post the first time a few years ago. But I was younger and a little less mature. I was still trying to understand many things that now I have a better grasp on. One of this happens to be radical feminism and their stance on sexuality.
It’s really dishonest to comment here as if BDSM is something separate from yourself, something purely of academic interest, when you link to your old BDSM blog where you describe yourself as a ‘dom’ (or at least a wannabe ‘dom’). Such dishonesty and underhandedness characterised your last set of comments here.
I have said repeatedly on this blog that BDSM is just the mainstream in concentrate, and lots of BDSMers didn’t like that, they want to believe that their fetishisation of inequality and violence has some deeper, esoteric meaning. Your characterisation of BDSM as ‘turning the symbolic into the literal’ may appeal to some, but it’s the same old excuses to me.
“To call it abuse itself would I feel be a grave error coz that would create a situation where you can’t differentiate between someone who is bdsm sub and someone who is stuck in a violently abusive relationship.”
I tend to use the term ‘harmful’ now, rather than ‘abusive’, to avoid being bogged down in just such an argument, but really, given the massive rates of ‘real’ abuse in the BDSM scene (ie, things that a BDSMer would recognise as abuse, such as ignoring of safe words and violations of boundaries), there is no clear-cut distinction between the two.
Also physiologically and psychologically, your body and your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between ‘regular’ violence and a BDSM scene, your body doesn’t know you have a safe word – this is the whole point of BDSM, the release of endorphins, opiates your body produces to get you through an emergency situation; talk of ‘sub-drop’ and ‘dom-drop’ is testament to this.
This is why I think BDSM is harmful regardless of ‘safe, sane, and consensual’ or ‘risk aware consensual kink’, it is, all of it, in and of itself harmful.
“It’s really dishonest to comment here as if BDSM is something separate from yourself, something purely of academic interest, when you link to your old BDSM blog where you describe yourself as a ‘dom’ (or at least a wannabe ‘dom’). Such dishonesty and underhandedness characterised your last set of comments here”
What are you talking about ??
The blog is an old one. Something I haven’t bothered with in years. And I don’t know where it says anything about Dom. The first line of the about me page says that it is about trying to understand my masochism. But more more importantly wth man ?! At this point I can’t figure out on my own a way to have a reasonable discussion around this subject without having to fight through the it. One way or another it’s the path of insanity.
Dude, you freely chose to comment here under that log-in, you can’t link me to an account of yours then complain that I’m using out of date information.
I didn’t look at the about page, I skim-read through the main blog, and it was all about women, also a poem called ‘the reluctant dom’, I skimmed back over your comments on this post, but obviously not right to the top where you described yourself as a masochist.
But honestly, so what? What do you actually want? I have replied to the points you made, you haven’t even acknowledged that, just whined about the fact that I read some of your old blog.
If you want a reasonable discussion, start behaving reasonably yourself; for a self-described masochist, your attitude is incredibly demanding and entitled, maybe you should think about that.
“If you want a reasonable discussion, start behaving reasonably yourself; for a self-described masochist, your attitude is incredibly demanding and entitled, maybe you should think about that.”
^^you are truly a great advocate for reasonable discussion. very mature. not at all judgmental and looking to insult someone god knows for what joy. i am not sure what reply you want me to give when i am saying that i agree with you. i would have asked for you to elaborate on somethings you said, i would have asked for your help in translating your ideas into a language that would perhaps reflect feelings and apprehensions of someone who has first hand experience of the bdsm world but has come to or would like to agree with and understand the ideas of radical feminism. but thanks to your sage wisdom i am trying to avoid situations which seem unwelcoming whether in intent or action or both. i dont see the point dealing with your sarcastic jibes. i dont know what in my recent comment prompted you to start your reply with calling me ‘dishonest’ when throughout the comment i maintained a respectful and open minded tone. you saw a blog about bdsm and assumed whatever you needed to launch an attack. why you felt the need to do so i dont understand (perhaps anyone who has any association with bdsm is not welcome on your post criticizing bdsm. sorry my bad). when you found out that the information is wrong you chose to make sarcastic comments about what a demanding masochist i am. lol so funny. and then you accuse of not being reasonable.
Dude, I replied to all the points you made in your first (new) comment, that’s two comments in a row from you now where you have failed completely to acknowledge that. Instead you whine and whine at great length over the fact that I haven’t addressed you in the exact tone you feel you are entitled to. You are not being reasonable, you are being an entitled wind-bag – you want a discussion, make a point already!
The BDSM comment was written distastefully to say the least.