Though I am not a feminist, and I do not believe a patriarchy exists, I also find ritualized dominance and submission to be abhorrent…and I’m a sexual sadist, even. In my opinion, dom/sub as a lifestyle shits in the face of true freedom, and the free human spirit. I think freedom and individualism are things humanity should strive for, not condemn and take for granted. It’s already become enough of a stigma in our society to think for oneself…why should people turn it into a way of life?

Some might say freedom can only be found in dominance and/or submission. This is, to put it plainly, bollocks. There is no freedom in surrendering yourself to another person, nor is there freedom in controlling another person. These sort of power games are the antithesis of being a liberated human being. Though it may feel liberating to take responsibility for yourself off your shoulders, all you’re doing is digging yourself deeper into a rut of ignorance. It’s the same with dominating another…all it does is get you further from self-awareness.

“I further suggest that BDSM, like most counterculture “scenes,” is perhaps overly self-congratulatory on its supposed transgressivitude, since its constituents clearly demand the most banal ritual conformity, to a degree that possibly surpasses even that of junior high school. Which school, as you know, wrote the book on banal ritual conformity.”

Too true. I’m glad you pointed this out. I’ve seen the “mistake” made of breaking the unspoken conformist rules in various online BDSM communities, and I know for a fact that anyone who doesn’t fit between the lines they’ve drawn is in for a torrent of insults and name-calling. This does not bode well.

Running the risk of sounding like a jaded wacko on a personal revenge mission, I will say that it’s been implied many times in these communities that I am sick-minded for my particular sexual practices. I find this ironic. Which is more sick; intercourse that involves cutting, biting and various other bodily hurts, or a lifestyle that involves comparatively little physical harm, but which revolves around one person dominating the other? When you consider how fast skin heals compared to cognition, you might see my point…but above all else, dom/sub is rarely a good thing.

Hi. I’m a roleplayer, though I don’t do much “D&D” (AD&D is a pretty lame rpg in my opinion, not least because the “good” guys — the player characters — tend to go around finding “monsters”, killing them, and stealing their stuff. This is “good”?).

I’ve played in plenty of LARPs (though the ones I’ve been in tend to be oneshots). The planned ones are also sometimes called IL games, btw. Interactive Literature.

I was in SCA all through college. I was the Herald for our group for two years, and Seneschal (that’d be president to y’all) for one. I learned all sorts of things about onomastics, foods of a number of cultures, dances, clothing…

I am nearly 30. I act. I write. I roleplay. I have — GASP — an imagination. And — DOUBLE GASP! — I’m not ashamed to use it. I never have been, and gods willing I never will be.

I think it’s telling that most of the people who seem to be equating roleplay (oh, I’m sorry, “D&D”), SCA, and the like with BDSM are apparently not involved with any of the above. If they were, they would know that, first of all, ONLY BDSM is a sexual thing! The others are what are known as creative outlets and social hobbies. :P

Despite the fact that I find it problematic that something in our culture so sexualizes inequalities of power as to create fetishims around them, I have no problem with other people doing BDSM if they’re all consenting and that’s what does it for them. However, it does NOT do it for me. Further? I do not construct authentic 15th century Italian names to get off. Nor do I attempt to prevent mad scientists from ending the world, nor do I call my husband’s wang his 2 broadsword.

I mean, really, people:
“D&D, SCA, BDSM, fetishists: Sometimes I wonder if all of these people have to play make-believe to enjoy sex because they’re embarrassed or guilty about enjoying sex at all.”
“Yes, yes, yes to the anachronism acting troops being all SM and D&D.”
“Glad to see that I’m not alone in my character associations. I would have to add SCA, because all the SCA people I’ve met are all into D&D, etc, so it wouldn’t surprise me that they were into BDSM.”

All the football watchers I’ve met are all into basketball, etc, so it wouldn’t surprise me that they were into fetishistic voyeurism. I mean hey, they all involve “watching physical exertion”, right? I guess their sex lives are so boring they need to watch big guys getting sweaty to get off.

Does that sound uninformed and ridiculous to you? Because that’s how these comparisons sound to me.

I “play make-believe” because I enjoy thinking about how people think, what forms their attitudes and influences their reactions, what makes them who they are. I “play make-believe” because I enjoy social, creative, cooperative interaction with my friends. I do not, however “play make-believe” to compensate for a boring sex life any more than a gardener gardens for that reason or a pianist plays piano for that reason. Some roleplayers are also into BDSM. Some gardeners are also into BDSM. Some elementary school teachers are also (very, very quietly) into BDSM. That doesn’t mean you can consider it a common attribute of elementary school teachers, any more than Socrates’ ability to swim makes him a fish.

I’m outta here as well. I hoped I might engage some folks thoughtfully, but no one’s responding, so never mind.

>Twisty said: As somebody who has had an orgasm, I believe I am qualified to opine that it is scarcely the pinnacle of human achievement.

No, it’s not. Can’t argue there. But it seems to me that there’s so much miserable shit to focus on in this world that something as happy-making as an orgasm can take on a lot more importance. At least it does for me. Dinner is good, too, (“much depends on dinner”) and I’d really hate it if I suddenly couldn’t enjoy that anymore either, God knows. I also wouldn’t much care for it if I don’t know a group of PETA activists suddenly popped up in a group I was otherwise enjoying very much and starting saying all kinds of crazy crap about how meat eaters all hate women and fantasize about killing puppies and milk gives you cancer and…

There’s so much that I *don’t* want or like, sometimes I just want to focus on the things I unequivocally *do* want and like, you know?

Right on. To every word you typed.

I think porn and “alternative sexualities” and so on are just reflective of, or at least shaped by, the larger misogynistic (corporate, racist, xenophobic, unconscious), culture. It’s impossible not to be, to one degree or another. That doesn’t mean porn and BDSM *shape* the culture in any way proportionally more important than, well, a lot of other things. Not to me, anyway. Probably less so than a lot of less uhh exciting subjects that outraged people could focus on. (Is working as a professional domme or porn author really more “degrading” than working at Burger King?)

Belledame, you’ve hit the nail on the head here. I have never refused to analyze anything I do. I personally, actually, DO consider myself a radical feminist… but of course, it’s presumed that I don’t the moment I say that for me, erotic pain is a ball o’ fun. *shrug* It’s presumed that because doing things that involve it is pleasant for me, I’m somehow constitutionally incapable of reasoning about it. And that’s ridiculous. Are anti-BDSM people incapable of reasoning about their sexual pleasure? Clearly not; many examine it quite often. Why should we be unable to do so as well?

As far as how much focus on M/f relationships there is: are you talking about in the public BDSM scene, or on this thread? Personally I have very little interest in M/f relationships. I have little interest in men in general, and what interest I do have is in topping them.

I mean in the public scene. I don’t have any abiding interest in them either, though there’s one very dear guy friend of mine I will sometimes bottom to. (I’ve seen some stuff linked from here that suggests “all women are switches” and that our topness isn’t real, because we’re still buying into the idea that women must bottom eventually — oops, guess I just handed them ammo by saying one relationship with a close friend, in fact, with the fellow who introduced me to feminism, is an exception… whoo.) It depends very much on which segments of the community one runs in, but I’ve definitely seen groups that were very unbalanced on that score, and I’ve seen those dynamics become uncomfortable.

I think it’s better to recognize that that can happen and that some of why it does probably IS about compulsory heterosexuality than it is to worry that saying that gives the other side ammo. In my opinion that still doesn’t prove anything except that many people can’t really break free of suspect norms… and that, to me, hardly incriminates BDSMers more than it does non-BDSM folks (including gay ones, for that matter — I do think cultural norms influence everyone.)

Perhaps I should have picked something else to critique though — here’s another: “pansexual” spaces. In my experience these spaces are very often full of straight men and straight and bisexual women. There’s a very heterocentrist bias to a lot of them, and leatherdykes and gay leathermen, I find, tend to avoid them. (One woman I dated was very ambivalent about returning to the club where she met me because of this.) I think this too has to do with compulsory heterosexuality and straight privilege. I don’t think that means no one should go to them, that they are evil and contaminated, or that anyone is being purposely bad. However, I think it is something that our subculture as a whole needs to look at (unless things are different elsewhere, though I suspect not.) I think straight organizers need to make a serious effort to involve queerfolk of various kinds in the organizing of these groups and events if they really want them to be welcoming of gay leatherfolk. I think part of why they’re often not does eventually spring out of the heterosexism of the culture at large, even if no individual straight person wants to be unwelcoming.

although, again, in general: difference between fantasy and reality! really important! play-acting is a part of fantasy! BDSM is about erotic play-acting!

Yup. Discussions like these remind me of nothing so much as debates about video games, actually. At the core is the question “how much does playing at something influence your outlook in general?” That’s never easy to answer, though I think it’s better to assume people are not mere sponges, personally.

There are many ways to go on power trips.

Indeed.

I try not to have a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of critiquing BDSM, period. It would be nice if I had a better sense that a lot (not all) of the people doing so had some idea of what they were talking about. Or that the people who keep hectoring pro-BDSM folk to search their souls and find out what REALLY drives us, REALLY REALLY (hi: six years and counting of therapy here, not to mention training to go into psych myself) have done such work themselves.

I have much more of a knee-jerk reaction to the general notion that “the personal is the political” means that you (general you) know better than I do what’s good for me, yeah. I do have a big problem with that. Particularly when combined with the above point (i.e. when critiquer really doesn’t know what s/he is talking about) and doesn’t seem to be listening, at all, when I try to explain “look, this is how it is in my experience.”

As far as how much focus on M/f relationships there is: are you talking about in the public BDSM scene, or on this thread? Personally I have very little interest in M/f relationships. I have little interest in men in general, and what interest I do have is in topping them. Rape’s never really done it for me, either, even in fantasy (although, again, in general: difference between fantasy and reality! really important! play-acting is a part of fantasy! BDSM is about erotic play-acting!) It seems to me that it’s a chunk of the anti-factor here (not the original post, either) which keeps bringing up “rape fantasies! rape fantasies!! Bad, bad, bad!”–so, yeah, people respond to the gambit.

There are many ways to go on power trips. Many many. The fact that one doesn’t dress up one’s drive to chastise and punish in black leather and chains doesn’t mean that the desire isn’t there, or even that one isn’t acting on it.

anyway, trin, that was an insightful and thoughtful post, and thank you.

As far as “I’m so radical and transgressive,” well, yes, there is a certain amount of that among some leatherfolk. But, with all due respect, calling your brand of feminism “advanced” or “radical” could also be construed that way, neh?