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Bullies Versus BDSM
Apr. 21st, 2009 03:49 amPreamble:
It doesn't surprise me that there are people who are against BDSM.
I mean, it doesn't surprise me that there are people who aren't into it. Andrea Dworkin is supposed to have said that it's amazing that anybody isn't into it considering all the signals we get from society, but really, as somebody who's into BDSM, I'm consistently baffled by its existence, and that's without getting into specific kinks which may seem more or less outre compared to each other.
I could explain the ways in which certain things appeal to me, but to try to answer a greater why... why me, why these particular things, why not him or her, why not these other things... it both beggars and buggers the imagination.
So, allowing that there are people who aren't into BDSM, being opposed to a form of sexual expression that doesn't trip one's triggers is hardly outside the realm of human experience. And to people who don't enjoy BDSM, elements of it can trip a lot of other triggers. Triggers labeled "OW!" and "GROSS!" and "INAPPROPRIATE!"
All in all, I can't really say I'm shocked that there are people who are against BDSM. I'm not overjoyed, but I'm not shocked. There are things people oppose fervently on more obviously frivolous grounds, right?
Amble:
What does surprise me about some of the most vocal critics is how downright sadistic they are. I don't mean in the sexual sadomasochistic sense. I mean in the sense of being a bully... the essential bully, a typical schoolyard bully type bully.
I just got told by a woman who fancies herself a crusader for women's rights a little story about men trolling for what sound like abusive relationships on Craigslist, under the guise of BDSM. And I agreed with her that some of it sounded abusive and that I would not have anything to do with those men and I would caution anybody who was thinking of contacting them to try to clarify their intentions first, making sure they weren't already "in character". I don't know from Craigslist. Maybe it's the norm to initiate a scene in the first ad. But it sounded sketchy to me.
And her response? Rather than seizing on common ground to build an understanding, she came back with:
"But you people believe that if it's consensual it's okay. How can you say it's wrong when it's not against BDSM morality?"
Now the answer to that is that "BDSM morality" (or better, BDSM standards... my morality is my morality, and while it governs my sexual expressions they are not part of each other) require more than "WELL SHE SAID IT WAS OKAY." The prevailing community standard is safe, sane, and consensual. If the activity is safe and it is sane, then it can be consented to meaningfully. If it's not safe and it's not sane, consent means nothing.
But that's beside the point. Look at how she responded.
D'you ever see the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian and the kids are taunting her and saying she loooooves vegetables and somebody (I think one of the twins) asks her if she wants to marry a carrot, and when they keep badgering her she grits her teeth and mutters, "Yes, I'm going to marry a carrot." and the other kids skip away singing that as a refrain as if they'd proven some great and telling point about the folly of vegetarianism?
That's what I pictured in my head when I read that. That and dumbass jerks at my high school, after I came out (identified as a gay male), asking me "SO IF YOU'RE GAY THAT MEANS YOU WANT TO SUCK MY DICK? BECAUSE GAY GUYS LOVE TO SUCK DICK AND I HAVE A DICK SO YOU WANT TO SUCK IT, RIGHT?"
Bully tactics.
That's what so much of the radfem posturing on BDSM (and other unapproved sexual practices) is. It's a high school mentality. They're not reaching out to anybody outside their circle. They're not engaging anybody. They're not changing minds. They're saying outrageous and provocative shit about the uncool kid nobody's going to stand up for and they're slapping each other high-five.
And yes, we are that kid. Part of the justification for the non-consensual abuse that gets dumped on us is that we're supposedly part of the system, mainsteam, uber-Patriarchy... but BDSM characters in pop culture are stock: stock punchline for a comedy, stock victim for a drama, stock villain for an action piece.
We're in the same box as all the non-Patriarchy approved sexual variations. No, we aren't oppressed in equal measure, but we are lumped. Social liberals often say "c'est la vie", social conservatives lump us in with Teh Gay, nobody really wants to deal with us, and being "outted" can be a source of embarrassment and the ruination of family and career.
BDSM doesn't fit the standard model, at all. Feminist theory acknowledges that society does train girls to be sexually available, to submit to sex, but this is not the same thing as submitting in sex, much less to a partner of one's fully conscious choosing. In the heteronormative model, women are consenting to heteronormative sex, which is not BDSM, not even male-dominating-female flavors of it.
This is the reality that radfems ignore in order to feel guilt free, in order to feel like they're making a bold stance instead of joining in with the rest of the mob.
Post Amble Bran (With Two Scoops Of Amble In Every Box):
Earnest feminist opposition to BDSM is one of the things I've let consume me as a person, because I'm not the sort of person to experience a desire blindly without picking it apart, because I've had a hard time reconciling some of the things that excite me in fantasy with my beliefs as a feminist in reality, and because unlike most women I was socialized as a male and I have the ability with minor variations in my presentation to go out and be accepted as male or female... I'm aware of how my experiences differ from the typical woman's and I worry over whether I'm "qualified" to judge where the line is between harmless fantasy and destructive misogyny.
It's the sort of thing that can eat at me just fine without any outside help, in short.
And when I see somebody who identifies as a feminist, and/or as a progressive, I don't expect them to try to erase my identity. I don't expect them to practice slut-shaming, to divide the world into Good Women With Good Desires and Bad Women With Bad Desires that must be repressed for the good of society. I don't expect them to rob me of my agency in defining my sexual relationships. I don't expect them to define my sexual relationships.
And so I try to engage with them, I try to reach out. I try to argue. I try to reason. I try to scream "I am here, I feel this, I EXIST. I have always been like this. I have always felt these things. I don't know how it started but it wasn't taught to me. I don't know where it came from but I know it is here now and I know it is mine."
I've never been good at walking away from arguments. I've never been great at picking which hills are worth dying on (precious few are, on the internet.) I've gotten better at that, and it's helped my time management immensely, but this has really been the one last topic that keeps grabbing me, for all the reasons outlined above... but what I'm realizing now is that the vocal opposition isn't the same thing as earnest opposition.
The pages I keep tripping over and the people I keep arguing with, aren't being earnest. The woman who threw the Craigslist question at me wasn't new to this argument... she had to have had "safe, sane, and consensual" explained to her before, and she just didn't care. She wasn't willing to examine her premise or even adjust her tactics. It doesn't matter what I say, "LISA'S MARRYING A CARROT!"
They are looking for an easy target. They're looking for someone lower on the hill than they are to throw dirt clods at and they're seeing us.
The word for this kind of behavior is "sadistic", in the non-sexual and non-consensual sense.
And every time I go back to them to try to argue, I'm giving my consent to them anyway. I'm giving into a masochistic impulse in an unhealthy and non-productive way. I'm not being safe and I'm not being sane.
So I'm done with it.
It doesn't surprise me that there are people who are against BDSM.
I mean, it doesn't surprise me that there are people who aren't into it. Andrea Dworkin is supposed to have said that it's amazing that anybody isn't into it considering all the signals we get from society, but really, as somebody who's into BDSM, I'm consistently baffled by its existence, and that's without getting into specific kinks which may seem more or less outre compared to each other.
I could explain the ways in which certain things appeal to me, but to try to answer a greater why... why me, why these particular things, why not him or her, why not these other things... it both beggars and buggers the imagination.
So, allowing that there are people who aren't into BDSM, being opposed to a form of sexual expression that doesn't trip one's triggers is hardly outside the realm of human experience. And to people who don't enjoy BDSM, elements of it can trip a lot of other triggers. Triggers labeled "OW!" and "GROSS!" and "INAPPROPRIATE!"
All in all, I can't really say I'm shocked that there are people who are against BDSM. I'm not overjoyed, but I'm not shocked. There are things people oppose fervently on more obviously frivolous grounds, right?
Amble:
What does surprise me about some of the most vocal critics is how downright sadistic they are. I don't mean in the sexual sadomasochistic sense. I mean in the sense of being a bully... the essential bully, a typical schoolyard bully type bully.
I just got told by a woman who fancies herself a crusader for women's rights a little story about men trolling for what sound like abusive relationships on Craigslist, under the guise of BDSM. And I agreed with her that some of it sounded abusive and that I would not have anything to do with those men and I would caution anybody who was thinking of contacting them to try to clarify their intentions first, making sure they weren't already "in character". I don't know from Craigslist. Maybe it's the norm to initiate a scene in the first ad. But it sounded sketchy to me.
And her response? Rather than seizing on common ground to build an understanding, she came back with:
"But you people believe that if it's consensual it's okay. How can you say it's wrong when it's not against BDSM morality?"
Now the answer to that is that "BDSM morality" (or better, BDSM standards... my morality is my morality, and while it governs my sexual expressions they are not part of each other) require more than "WELL SHE SAID IT WAS OKAY." The prevailing community standard is safe, sane, and consensual. If the activity is safe and it is sane, then it can be consented to meaningfully. If it's not safe and it's not sane, consent means nothing.
But that's beside the point. Look at how she responded.
D'you ever see the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian and the kids are taunting her and saying she loooooves vegetables and somebody (I think one of the twins) asks her if she wants to marry a carrot, and when they keep badgering her she grits her teeth and mutters, "Yes, I'm going to marry a carrot." and the other kids skip away singing that as a refrain as if they'd proven some great and telling point about the folly of vegetarianism?
That's what I pictured in my head when I read that. That and dumbass jerks at my high school, after I came out (identified as a gay male), asking me "SO IF YOU'RE GAY THAT MEANS YOU WANT TO SUCK MY DICK? BECAUSE GAY GUYS LOVE TO SUCK DICK AND I HAVE A DICK SO YOU WANT TO SUCK IT, RIGHT?"
Bully tactics.
That's what so much of the radfem posturing on BDSM (and other unapproved sexual practices) is. It's a high school mentality. They're not reaching out to anybody outside their circle. They're not engaging anybody. They're not changing minds. They're saying outrageous and provocative shit about the uncool kid nobody's going to stand up for and they're slapping each other high-five.
And yes, we are that kid. Part of the justification for the non-consensual abuse that gets dumped on us is that we're supposedly part of the system, mainsteam, uber-Patriarchy... but BDSM characters in pop culture are stock: stock punchline for a comedy, stock victim for a drama, stock villain for an action piece.
We're in the same box as all the non-Patriarchy approved sexual variations. No, we aren't oppressed in equal measure, but we are lumped. Social liberals often say "c'est la vie", social conservatives lump us in with Teh Gay, nobody really wants to deal with us, and being "outted" can be a source of embarrassment and the ruination of family and career.
BDSM doesn't fit the standard model, at all. Feminist theory acknowledges that society does train girls to be sexually available, to submit to sex, but this is not the same thing as submitting in sex, much less to a partner of one's fully conscious choosing. In the heteronormative model, women are consenting to heteronormative sex, which is not BDSM, not even male-dominating-female flavors of it.
This is the reality that radfems ignore in order to feel guilt free, in order to feel like they're making a bold stance instead of joining in with the rest of the mob.
Post Amble Bran (With Two Scoops Of Amble In Every Box):
Earnest feminist opposition to BDSM is one of the things I've let consume me as a person, because I'm not the sort of person to experience a desire blindly without picking it apart, because I've had a hard time reconciling some of the things that excite me in fantasy with my beliefs as a feminist in reality, and because unlike most women I was socialized as a male and I have the ability with minor variations in my presentation to go out and be accepted as male or female... I'm aware of how my experiences differ from the typical woman's and I worry over whether I'm "qualified" to judge where the line is between harmless fantasy and destructive misogyny.
It's the sort of thing that can eat at me just fine without any outside help, in short.
And when I see somebody who identifies as a feminist, and/or as a progressive, I don't expect them to try to erase my identity. I don't expect them to practice slut-shaming, to divide the world into Good Women With Good Desires and Bad Women With Bad Desires that must be repressed for the good of society. I don't expect them to rob me of my agency in defining my sexual relationships. I don't expect them to define my sexual relationships.
And so I try to engage with them, I try to reach out. I try to argue. I try to reason. I try to scream "I am here, I feel this, I EXIST. I have always been like this. I have always felt these things. I don't know how it started but it wasn't taught to me. I don't know where it came from but I know it is here now and I know it is mine."
I've never been good at walking away from arguments. I've never been great at picking which hills are worth dying on (precious few are, on the internet.) I've gotten better at that, and it's helped my time management immensely, but this has really been the one last topic that keeps grabbing me, for all the reasons outlined above... but what I'm realizing now is that the vocal opposition isn't the same thing as earnest opposition.
The pages I keep tripping over and the people I keep arguing with, aren't being earnest. The woman who threw the Craigslist question at me wasn't new to this argument... she had to have had "safe, sane, and consensual" explained to her before, and she just didn't care. She wasn't willing to examine her premise or even adjust her tactics. It doesn't matter what I say, "LISA'S MARRYING A CARROT!"
They are looking for an easy target. They're looking for someone lower on the hill than they are to throw dirt clods at and they're seeing us.
The word for this kind of behavior is "sadistic", in the non-sexual and non-consensual sense.
And every time I go back to them to try to argue, I'm giving my consent to them anyway. I'm giving into a masochistic impulse in an unhealthy and non-productive way. I'm not being safe and I'm not being sane.
So I'm done with it.