From the It’s Horrible, Yet I Can’t Look Away Department
Also from the I Mock Your Corny BDSM Lifestyle Department
You know how when you’re gaily traipsing along the World Wide Web, enjoying, say, a blog post about how antisocial and subversive it is to be a woman with biceps, or looking up a synonym for “crushing malaise,” when the the bell on your inbox chimes and you click over to see that someone has sent you a link to a website, and you follow the link, and what unfolds before you is so antithetical to truth and beauty that you sense it must either be a harbinger of the psychotic break you always knew would come one day, or some kind of—god forgive them—parody?
[thanks, Veronica]
If it’s paraody it’s extremely subtle.
I’m afraid to look. Is it work safe?
I feel my barfometer going waaaayyyy over into the red zone…
looking up a synonym for “crushing malaise,â€
Oh man, I would KILL for a copy of the Twisty Thesaurus and Style Guide. Whom would I kill? Oh, I don’t know, probably Sarah Cavendish, Ayn Rand and God. (Why yes, in fact The Fountainhead IS one of the “Taken In Hand” books. How’d you guess?)
Now excuse me, I have to go lose my breakfast.
omg, that’s beyond hideous. What a bunch of crap, poisonous dangerous crap.
That’s sexual fantasy - it’s not “rape”. It’s play acting, roll-playing, whatever you want to call it. The website author is a submissive, and she’s speaking to people who share her predilection, not advocating rape as fun! to society at large.
Frankly, sexual freedom is important. If that’s what turns on two consenting adults, whatever. So long as you’re not hurting anybody (what did Pierre Trudeau say? Something along the lines of “staying out of the bedrooms of the nation”?)
There’s too many pages on that site for it to be a parody. People making parodies usually give and after getting bored fairly quickly, or push the boundaries further and further until it’s obvious they’re joking.
Unfortunately it has to be scarily real. Someone needs to change the “how do you tell you’re in an abusive relationship” article to be “your partner reads and agrees with this site”.
Quoting: “I don’t usually think in terms of rape imagery, because I believe so strongly in my husband’s right to my body. It is not possible for him to rape me because he has automatic consent.”
Yeah, right.
I’m confused. Actually, I’m with doggerelblogger; these people are into sexual fantasy big time. Now, they aren’t necessarily everyone’s tup of cea, but some people like it. I know some people who like the B&D stuff, and it seems to me that rather than the sex they like the ritual. And the paddles and the whips and chains. Personally, I’m into pleasure, plain and simple. No pain, no little games, I want him, he wants me, we have a certain amount of mutual affection and respect, let’s have fun! But I’m just a simple person, I guess not intellectual enough for all those rationalizations and rituals. I can’t blame the patriarchy, here, my sex life is mine own. But I will blame later. Pushing the button now.
I second Liz’s craving for Twisty’s style guide!
I was going to quote-and-admire the same phrase she did.
Also, “corny BDSM lifestyle” is right - this site sounds like a parody of one of those awful “bodice ripper” romance novels - with all the heaving throbbing whatnot going on. Embarrassing and ridiculous.
This is as far as I got on the main page before I fled back to patriarchy-blaming safety:
“I don’t usually think in terms of rape imagery, because I believe so strongly in my husband’s right to my body. It is not possible for him to rape me because he has automatic consent. I can’t get into rape fantasies because they involve imagining that I would withhold myself from my husband and that is too disturbing an idea for me. However, now I have a better grasp of its appeal. Rape is the ultimate in forceful, dominating sex.”– Comment, by one “LadyK”
Jigga wha?
1) Husbands have no rights to their wives’ bodies. Well, okay, in the patriarchy, they DO, since women are meat, but, really: no.
2) Nobody has automatic consent EVER. EVER EVER EVER. No still means no, even after 20 years of marriage.
3) The idea of withholding her body from her husband is more offensive and disgusting to her than the idea of being raped.
4) And yet, her brilliant rhetorical conclusion is that rape re-enactment is a lovely addition to her relationship.
Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be bottoms.
When submissives leave their bedrooms and start posting tripe on the internet about all the women who want to open a big box full of rape for Christmas, then it stops being sexual fantasy and starts being really political. She is advocacting rape as “fun” (or her version of fun) and it’s got major implications.
Sexual freedom is important but it’s almost non-existant for women who live in the Patriarchy. The desire to be mock-raped by your boyfriend does not begin and end with the idea that forced penetration might be a jolly-good time. Play acting sexualized violence is not freedom in a world where one out of every four women is raped in her lifetime. It’s fetishizing your own oppression. And if that’s what a woman needs to get off, well I understand how that can happen when you don’t have many healthy alternatives. But let’s not wrap that up in shiny paper & a bow and call it sexual freedom. “Gift” my ass.
if i had come across that post/blog and didn’t have this beautiful site to turn back to, i don’t know what i would have done.
i loves me the blamers!
I am a gushing fount of admiration this morning!
All hail to Apophenia’s concise and smart summation of the myriad idiocies of Lady K’s comment.
Sadly, I often appear stupider than I really am; possibly it’s my wide-set pig-eyes and halting, uncertain gait, both of which contribute to my failure to adequately convey facetiousness through the written word. But I know the site is not really a parody. And sadly, I also know what the author/advocate of the “male-led” relationship is. Of course, when posting a link to a spanking site, there is always the danger of an ensuing discussion on BDSM, which discussion will more or less bore me painfully, since I have nothing but contempt for patriarchy, and so decline to give a free pass to “lifestyles” that fetishize it.
I’m sorry to have to jump in again, but it sure seems to me that everyone is very busy patting themselves on the back for being suitably disgusted by the website under discussion while COMPLETELY IGNORING the issue of sexual freedom. Consenting adults have a right to do what they like in their own bedroom. As Sharoni said, “they aren’t necessarily everyone’s tup of cea[sic],” which is fine, your option is to not participate (that’s the “consenting” part).
And really, are we so downtrodden by the patriarchy that some of us can’t engage in a little taboo sex play? Is our position so fragile, and we, so weak, that something like this threatens all women, everywhere?
I, for one, am a little tougher than that.
(and no, since I KNOW you’re wondering, I am NOT into that sort of thing. I just think others have the right to be if they so choose).
This reminds me of a play I saw in college in which one character tells another that her ultimate sexual fantasy is for him to take her against her will. Much drama ensues. If I remember correctly, he refused to fulfil the fantasy, which she interpreted as rejecting her.
doggerelblogger, did you even READ my post??
Yup, freedom.
Just like I have the freedom to wear 5 inch heels, miniskirt and a halter top, and giggle stupidly at anything a man says. Hey, I *like* the attention.
Thankfully, since everyone lives in a vaccuum, our decisions to play along and/or celebrate patriarchy has no effect on anyone else or even on other aspects of our lives.
I agree with doggerelblogger about sexual freedom, but weren’t the remarks about the rape-fantasy enthusiast’s belief in her husband’s absolute right to her body a little troubling?
A wee bit diagnostic as to a certain lack of autonomy?
OK, I will now step away from the coffee. Stop me before I comment again.
“Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be bottoms.”
I bet you thought it would be cool to say that because nobody who reads this blog would even be a bottom, anyway…’cuz why would a bottom even know or care about blaming the patriarchy and stuff…so I bet you thought you could get away with it.
I’m a bottom. I don’t see how it’s any of my mother’s business.
are you saying “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to buy into fucked-up ideas about femininity and have these ideas poison their brains and make them do things that are stupid?” ‘cuz I could get behind that.
but I’m mystified (and a little insulted) by the assumption that every bottom is somehow damned to a life of pitiable misery simply based on how s/he processes the sexual experience.
Crap, I am at work and under deadline, and I still consider myself a novice Blamer, so even tho I so want to answer doggerelblogger’s questions, I have neither time nor expertise.
Please go to the blog Den of the Biting Beaver for your answer. If you don’t want to do that got back in the IBTP archives less than a month for a very long (hence Twisty’s boredom with the subject) and revelatory (to me because I was of the same opinion as you) discussion about just this topic. Look for comments by “dim undercellar” and “biting beaver” especially, but there is plenty of other cogent discussion going on, too.
Let’s just say that when others define and limit your options, taking one is not a choice.
Puffin, you just made my day. Thanks for saying that so well. And now, I blame.
Thank you, robin, but I in turn bow down to Puffin. Word.
Doggerelblogger, I’m not for one second saying people don’t have the right to do whatever the hell they want as mutually consenting adults. I’m not going to impede anyone’s ability to do that.
HOWEVER. I don’t think that just because it’s mutually consensual means that whatever they’re doing is automatically good, or necessary, or even, y’know, interesting. Or useful.
(Also, there’s the big question of whether or not someone of the sex class can ever give full, autonomous consent, which is possibly a big, fat: NO. This is another can o’ worms.)
I’m not offended by any particular aspects of BDSM acts, or, to that end, any other “deviant” or “taboo” sexual acts (sucah as the patriarchy defines them)–so long as they remain far the fuck away from me until I expressly give consent that I want to see/hear/read about/participate in said events. Having had the experience of being in situations where I did not give consent to be witnessing what was in front of me, I learned two things: a) consent is a serious nuclear-meltdown issue, and b) I don’t think I’ll be doing any of those things anytime soon. They are not for me. And yet, I would not try to exert influence on anyone’s legal ability to do those things. I might try to persuade them to adopt another, less patriarchal perspective, but may my fellow patriarchy-blamers take away my blaming privileges if I ever start siding with bloviating politicians just because we happen to dislike certain sexual practices. Especially since the mental processes and knowledge bases that may lead myself and some godbag to some coincidental conclusion could not be more different.
To get back on point, because I didn’t post what I did about “LadyK” because I wanted to condemn what people do behind closed doors: what I find offensive is the attitudes of “LadyK” and her self-deprecating notions that her body is her husbands and that consent is always automatic. THAT is a serious fucking problem, not whatever someone’s wearing or who gets spanked. This is something that is not merely vaguely behind-closed-doors; this is a present and pressing issue in political life, not to mention Western “culture” as a whole.
Twisty, it’s just another link in glorifying rape. No, the rape fantasy bullshit is just that, a big, squishy pile of steaming bullshit.
What I hate about these conversations is that it always tends to drift to “Well, there ARE women who have rape fantasies” and then I’m forced off the path to explain to some patriarchy defendin’ commenter the error of their ways. By the time I’m done, the men who are doing this sort of thing are, once again, completely on the sidelines and they have won the ‘Project Much?’ game once more.
A site like this is hideously dangerous for it promotes the idea that you can give a ‘gift’ to your partner through raping them.
Excuse me whilst I go scream.
antiprincess, no, I didn’t think that no one on this site is a bottom. You phrased it much better: mamas, please teach your children (of either gender) to relinquish control of their bodies and think others are granted automatic consent under any circumstances, especially the damaging ones espoused by the website.
I apologize for causing offense. In my haste to fire off an alliterative comment, I used a term that I realize is claimed with pride by fine patriarchy-blamers.
Oh, hell.
it’s supposed to be: “mamas, please DON’T teach your children (of either gender) to relinquish control of their bodies and think others are granted automatic consent under any circumstances, especially the damaging ones espoused by the website.”
The author regrets the error.
Sorry, Puffin, I was composing as you were posting - see the timestamps.
I’d like to point out that traditionally, MEN have been submissives in most S&M scenarios (finding a submissive woman was actually pretty unusual). Why? Because it was such a taboo for a man to give up his power, and so very exciting (or whatever) for the participants. I can’t help but wondering if, “since we’ve come a long way, baby”, websites like this aren’t a little bit about that notion for women as well.
And the lady talks about giving her body to her husband, not yours. That’d be choice, and it seems like we’re all for that, except when we don’t like the choices people make, hmmm?
it’s cool, apophenia. I got a little overly jacked-up and defensive about it, which was probably unnecessary. peace?
I don’t blame my mama for making me kinky. I blame the patriarchy… ;)
I repeat what wheelomatic says: “Let’s just say that when others define and limit your options, taking one is not a choice.”
We’re allowed to not like the choices people make without restricting their ability to make them. I find the notion of “automatic consent” repellent and dangerous; were it not so intrinsic to the very fabric of patriarchy, we could consider it an interesting and even transgressive practice between two people. But I don’t.
antiprincess: yes! peace. Your “jacked-up”-ness is understandable, when even well-meaning patriarchy blamers like myself throw the term about for (admittedly limp) comedic effect.
I, too, blame the patriarchy! On general principles.
The first link was fun (though I am a bit over-defensive towards all terribly fit people). My gym actually has a poster on ‘Women and Weights’ to try and persuade women to use them, which is all ‘oh no, you don’t have to have nasty horrible biceps if you use weights, you can just use them to be a thin sexbot!’
I’m not that fit, but I’m a natural muscle builder when I excercise (’built like a prop forward’ is the general description of me). And men tend to get terribly stressed when they’re on the excercise machine next to me. Must go faster than the woman! Must lift more weights! However, this may be used in an evil plan - if all women my size and bigger were to get really buff, we could go to gyms around the world and workout at top rate. Hordes of middle aged men would try and keep up with us, and have cardiac arrests. All self-inflicted, not our fault, oh no. But since I haven’t been to the gym in a fortnight and have just eaten a whole packet of biscuits there may be major flaws in that argument…
Amayita, I don’t think she’s saying everyone’s husband has “automatic consent,” I think she’s saying her husband has blanket consent. Which I wouldn’t want unless it was because my partner was genuinely always up for it, but hey, whatever makes her happy.
In fact*, I think a couple of commenters appear to be conflating “has resolved not to say ‘no’” with “may not say ‘no.’”
Now to switch sides, at the risk of sounding like an anti-feminist’s image of the late Ms. D., exactly what has led her to resolve not to say “no”? If she’s really eroticized this, I don’t think it’s useful to tell her to stop. If she thinks this really his how men and women — in general — are, then yes, she’s got some fucked-up ideas about a lot of things, and it needs to be actively counterargued. Doggerelblogger, there is a practical difference between “choosing” to accept your socially-assigned role and choosing to have a facially egalitarian or female-dominant relationship. I’m curious, too, as to where you got the idea that there used to be a wealth of male subs in heterosexual BDSM
*A self-described feminist once told my mother that using the phrase “in fact” is sexist, and subordinates women. My mother either never got or didn’t pass on the explanation of this, although I note “fact” and “cunt” share two letters.
I know if I had a wife who asked me to rape her, I would bend her over my knee right then, give her one real long spanking, and make sure she never took the idea of rape for granted again.
My head hurts. It hurts, I tell you. I wonder if the above quoted poster read the entry in Roget’s that lists contempt as a synonym for irony?
Perinteger
Once you’ve noted that fetishizing rape in a patriarchy encourages the worst excesses of male assumptions and privileges you’ve really said it all; Puffin simply said it all, as plain as calling the sky blue or noting the sun in the sky.
The hue and cry over sexual freedom is disingenuous at best, and often taken up with slavering jaws by the very lowest and most evil of male sexual predators, such as child molesters and serial killers. I wouldn’t want to align myself with their kind. How can there be this talk of sexual ‘freedom’ in a society where women can write and say out loud that they know they fucking belong to their fucking husbands, as if they were pieces of real estate with vaginas?
I have an insight for those who are afraid of losing their sexual freedom: You’ve already relinquished it if you think you are a submissive, and thus must allow those of us who don’t buy into it to feel free to condemn or criticize the sick and twisted society that presented this lifestyle to you as a legitimate choice, rather than what it is, which is something more along the lines of an obsession or a fetish rather than healthy desire. Not that I think it should be against the law. I just think you should be a little more self-critical.
Strong and self-destructive sexual excitement is not some god-given right, it’s something you learned thatt ignited your desire for whatever reasons. The sick and horrible state of sex today is not some utopia of freedom and love, but is motivated and managed by male adolescent fantasies come horribly to life, fantasies that have their shallow and obvious roots in male desire to control and hurt you.
At some point, anyone with a shred of self-respect has to examine their sex life and ask themselves if they have really been as satisfied by slaking their raw desires as much as they would like to fool themselves into thinking.
Sorry, but I haven’t taken the time to read all the posts on this one, but has anyone posited the theory that the website author in question may actually be a male hiding behind a female name?
I guess I’m having a hard time believing that any woman would ever fantasize about rape…
Oooh! Twisty linked (albeit indirectly) to Krista’s site which, incidentally, I’ve always loved.
The hue and cry over sexual freedom is disingenuous at best
What do you propose as an alternative?
Doggerelblogger, perhaps I’d be more inclined to agree with you if I actually bought that there was this magical bold line between fantasy and real life. And I don’t mean the part about manifesting fantasy in real life, but more, what in real life cultivates these fantasies in the first place? Theoretically, the argument about keeping it in the bedroom is great (though practically, it seems like the author could be suggesting that her partner leap out of the shadows in a dark car lot for all I know: “such as by creeping up on her in the dead of night when she thinks you are on a business trip two continents awayâ€, which I can’t see anyone defending), except how the hell did this little skit get into the bedroom in the first place?! Unless you’re one of those who go in for that “rape is a tool of evolution†crap, I’ve got another suggestion, and it starts with a “p”.
So no, I guess it doesn’t directly affect me if some want to act out their rape fantasies in the comfort of their own bedroom, but I do think that the glorification of the domination fantasy, which we see all around, is a brainwashing tool designed by the patriarchy to maintain the balance of power just as it likes it- and that happens to affect me a whole lot, whether it be in more subtle ways, like been chastised for not wearing heels to work, or in less subtle ways, like making it necessary to carry pepper spray with me everytime I go for a walk in a badly-lit road at night. So whether you agree with it or not, let’s not pretend that it’s just a ‘personal’ thing, because rape fantasies did not emerge from a vacuum, they emerged from the patriarchy.
isn’t inciting violence a crime? telling stupid rapists to go ahead fits that bill.
i wish this were silly bdsm, with cuddly safety words. but there’s no indication that the woman or child involved gives any consent at all. this type of thinking is how dirty old men end up forcing their dicks down their 14-year-old stepdaughters’ throats.
but of course she wants that. who wouldn’t?
Jami, or raping their stepdaughter as she lays dying from a head injury.
I am most astonished at the ability of some people to completely and thoroughly understand that website author’s desire; the deep-seated issues that surely must have given rise to it, what enflames it, what motivates it, why it’s so fucked up and, ultimately, why it’s wrong for her and everyone else, without exception.
Amazing, really. I had no ideait was so easy to pare the human psyche down to the bare bones. I thought we were more complicated than that, our desires and motivators more complex and difficult to understand?
Whereas I am completely dumbfounded by the ability of some people to assume that women live entirely in a vaccuum, their agency and desires untainted by anything around them.
Seriously. Next you’ll be saying “Some women just LIKE doing all the housework! Otherwise, they’d just stop!”
Right on Tony Patti.
I have no problem with what people do behind their closed doors, but once you’re publishing on the internet, it ceases to be behind a closed door and as jami noted has a distinct possibility of inciting violence. I don’t give a shit if you think this is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice, it isn’t one we should encourage people to perpetuate.
Yes, I think it’s really messed up to equate pain with pleasure, but there are plenty of messed up people in the world and I certainly don’t advocate locking them all up or anything. I also don’t support them spreading their messed up ideas and will try to stop them from spreading and being accepted. Sorry if you feel like I’m impeding your whip and chain play (although I don’t see how I could possibly be doing that over the internet), but I’d like to see a generation (both sexes) somewhere down the line that doesn’t confuse rape with sex and doesn’t equate sex with pain and I don’t see how encouraging people to talk about how they love to be raped and how pain gets them off or not speaking up when they do talk about it furthers the goal of eventually seeing that generation of people who equate sex with consent and fun rather than rape and pain. In other words we need to get the message to the kids that this stuff is not a healthy view of sex, whether you enjoy it or not.
Woops! Forgot to mention that this is WookieMonster, changing my handle, just an FYI.
Oh my god. I can’t figure out if I’m happy I haven’t eaten yet or if I want to say it’s too early for this. Either way, I must go and scream now.
“When Rape Is A Giftâ€
see also: Swine, Airborne
There’s just a basic contradiction in the idea of “asking him to rape you.” Rape is defined by a lack of consent, so the act of “asking” makes it not rape, but “rape,” i.e. a fantasy. What’s so fucked up about the Taken In Hand post is that it–and not the blamers here–blurs the line between consensual sexual fantasy and real world sexual violence by using one word, “rape,” to refer to both.
I also find it really creepy how the post gradually switches from a generic address at the start to, at the end, an imagined on-the-fence male who needs to be reassured that his act of “rape” is not only OK, but an act of possession: “Hold her. Stroke her hair. Kiss her softly. You have taken her. She is yours.” Yecch. If you wanna get off on play violence, by all means do so, but couching it in this New Age garbage language is refusing to call a spade a spade.
“But it’s not rape and it’s not immoral if the woman wants it. Is it?” Well, no, it isn’t. But then rape isn’t ever a gift, either.
Dubhe, there’s no way of knowing what I will or will not say without insight into who I am and how I got here (and even then it’s not possible to predict my behaviour or motivation with 100% accuracy).
However, something I would never dream of implying is that when someone makes a choice I don’t like, it’s simply an indication that they’re too numbed by all that’s bad in the world to make a rational, intelligent decision.
And just because someone else makes a decision that I haven’t, I should just say “whatever floats your boat, man”, even when it is absolutely appalling?
Rape does not equal sex. Rape fantasies do not equal rape.
And the belief that your partner has access to your body whenever and wherever they want is truly appalling. I don’t care if it’s suppossedly willing or not. That is seriously fucked up.
And Kat, I just saw that story too. Let’s say we round up a mob and grab some rakes and torches and go give that guy an orchidectomy.
Using the words ‘rape’ and ‘gift’ in the same sentence is ghastly. Automatic consent = rape, also ghastly. “I want her/him to fuck me hard, scare me a little” is not necessarily rape, so why use the most vicious tool of the patriarchy to define your sexual “play”?
Also, could someone define “freedom” for me, the kind which has “sexual” as its modifier? Seems like this might be co-opted, at best, under patriarchy, and no amount of pretending at being a charter member of the Orgasm Liberation Front is going to temper patriarchy’s stranglehold on power differentials.
“no amount of pretending at being a charter member of the Orgasm Liberation Front is going to temper patriarchy’s stranglehold on power differentials”
I so need that on a T-shirt.
Do women really fall madly in love with their rapists?
Do women really mean yes when they say no?
It’s impossible to rape a woman unless you beat her senseless because you cant stick you finger in a moving coke bottle.
Thousands of patriarchy approved romance novels say yes.
When I was ten and reading far beyond my age level this stuff sounded kinda strange to me, but what did I know. After all, I was only ten and had only been sexually abused a couple of times. I hadn’t been raped yet.
I so totally thought we would be way beyond this shit by now. I blame the patriarchy.
thebewilderness–
I just realized something. I started blaming the patriarchy for romanticizing rape back in 1979, when Laura “fell in love” with Luke–her rapist–on General Hospital. I’d just turned 16, and I was utterly aghast at that plotline.
God. Damn. I’m sorry, thebewilderness.
I, too, thought we’d be way beyond this by now. When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to be the age I am now (double that), because — get a load of this! — sexism would be over. Kaput. Finito. Not pining for the fjords, this bird would have ceased to be. The Arc of Progress, the impact of social justice movements, the glacial, eventual change in consciousness, how could it not? Sigh.
Damn, where’s that blame button?
Reading the comments here is what allows me to stay somewhat afloat after reading that horrific website and then the stepfather BBC report, on this day when the South Dakota Senate tells women we are the moral equivalent of dust. I wish the level of thought and general respect here were pervasive. (Along with that thesaurus.)
Doggerel, I’m so terribly sorry to be the bearer of inconvenient news for you, but yes, if you say/advocate FUCKED UP SHIT, people will look at you fish-eyed and say that you are FUCKED UP. And no, you don’t get to compare the desire to beat the hell out of someone or get the hell beaten out of you to someone else’s lefthandedness or homosexuality. I’m so SICK of that “it’s innate” bullshit that I can’t even believe it.
Pedophilia and lefthandedness both appear to be innate, and clearly one is harmless while the other is NOT, so just as clearly, the old “it’s not my fault I can’t help it” argument ain’t worth shit. You can’t distinguish anything’s worthiness based on whether it’s hard-wired or not.
The way to distinguish worthiness is to LISTEN TO PEOPLE, LOOK AT THEM, and THINK ABOUT WHAT THEY SAID. To your face. On their website, even. I don’t have to get to know each individual person in the KKK in order to read their website (I’m sure they’ve got one) and come to the conclusion that they are some fucked-up sumbitches.
What, you want to go through life doing whatever without ever being subjected to the examination of judgment of your peers on ANYTHING? You want to pretend you’re the only human on the planet? I mean, I’m seriously missing WTF your problem is, here.
This woman said that her husband has an absolute right to her body at all times, whenever he wants it. You’re goddamned fucknig right I’m gonna jump on that as some fucked-up shit, just like if I go to an Aryan Nation site and find out that Jews are descended from rats, I’m gonna think they’re fucked-up, too. I judge people by what they say and do, and based on “the content of their character.” Your character, and ANYONE who advocates this sort of shit, needs some serious help. Deal.
And the lady talks about giving her body to her husband, not yours. That’d be choice, and it seems like we’re all for that, except when we don’t like the choices people make, hmmm?
It’s a “choice” for women to enter abusive relationships. It’s a “choice” for women to develop eating disorders. It’s a “choice” for women to do proportionally more of the housework. It’s a “choice” for women to get hooked on drugs, become prostitutes, wear clothing that causes nerve or organ damage, never speak unless spoken to, continue to work in places where they know they’ll be sexually harrassed or worse.
Unfortunately, being born into the patriarchy isn’t a choice. And when being born into the patriarchy gives women the choice between a shit sandwich and two shit sandwiches, you’d better be damn sure I won’t like it when women choose to eat more shit and not less, all the while smiling about it.
“Pedophilia and lefthandedness both appear to be innate, and clearly one is harmless while the other is NOT, so just as clearly, the old “it’s not my fault I can’t help it†argument ain’t worth shit. You can’t distinguish anything’s worthiness based on whether it’s hard-wired or not.”
Hear, hear, oh vehement one!
I question the idea that an attraction to dominance and submission is ever hard wired in anyone or if it is learned behavior. It’s one of those things that’s impossible to prove. Homosexuality, which I remember observing in pre-school aged kids when I was that young, is something I have an easier time accepting as hard wired.
The patriarchy is all about teaching us to do as our masters tell us, even better, to anticipate our master’s potential desires, to whore it up as garishly as we can or be consigned to oblivion, or to delightful blogs like this.
OF COURSE the most slavering, balls-out, ugly males on the planet will claim sexual freedom over all. But so will I! If some disconnected ditzy woman wants to “intellectualize” pain as sex, that’s her privilege and I would defend it. Yes, to me such sex is disturbing. Yes, such sex does not appeal. BUT THAT’s HER RIGHT and HER PROBLEM. I just don’t deal with it in daily life, is all, and I figure no one else has to either. If they WANT to, that’s another matter. I blame the patriarchy anyway.
Without getting into a fight about BDSM, it seems only fair to point out that the “Taken in Hand” folks are very clear that they’re not, not, not into BDSM because it is role-play. They see what they’re doing as something completely different and, I think, deliberately patriarchal, folks.
Tony, my take on it is that we’re also “hard-wired” to drop our pantas and take a shit where we’re standing, but we manage to shoehorn that little instinct into a socially acceptable shape.
It’s my INSTINCT to reach out to someone else’s plate, grab their slice of chocolate cake, and cram it into my gob, too. I don’t do that.
We all enter this world as squalling blobs of id, and through a variety of things liek parenting and socialization, we will ideally learn things like the consequences of our actions, our own autonomy and self-worth, and the existence and validity of other human beings. Where we FAIL to learn this, this is behavior that shouldn’t be enabled.
I’d like to hear one of these people justify the KKK’s desire to hang black people from trees by saying that “tension between blacks and whites” is a fundamental part of humanity, and that we need to be able to “accept” these things.
Funny how, when you say it in that way, it sounds a helluva lot like JUSTIFYING RACISM, doesn’t it? And racism may indeed be as much of an inbred, hard-wired human state as anything else: the distrust of the stranger. But we don’t fucking glorify it. We say out loud, in the open light of day, that if you have an “innate” tendency to dislike or mistreat people based on their skin color, you’ve got something between your ears that needs some working on.
BTW, anyone who wants to pull the rationalizing game — tell me that it would be perfectly okay for the KKK member to beat the hell out of the black person, just as long as they manage to find a black person with such a fucked-up self-image and low sense of self-worth that they think it’s okay and positive to let a white racist beat them up. Go ahead. I dare your ass.
I really didn’t think I’d chime in on this one, but here it is:
A couple of people have questioned whether being sexually submissive is innate or whether it’s learned, and cited preschool-aged children as evidence that homosexuality is hard-wired. If that’s the case, then my submissiveness is hard-wired as well. I spent a lot of time convincing friends to tie me up and/or playing damsel-in-distress as a child. My parents and all the adults around me were (and are) very loving and supportive, and didn’t have any idea that I was playing games like that.
Once I was out of college, I found out that people actually did the things I’d fantasized about forever, and I met a lot of them to finally participate. Some of the people were great, and some were assholes, pretty much as often as non-kinky folks. I participated for just a few months before I decided to quit with it. I believed, like several of you, that thinking that I was “submissive” sexually must mean that I was messed up in some way.
So I left it. I got into some therapy, had a couple of relationships (one horrible, one good), made a new set of friends, was successful and liberal and didn’t put up with anyone’s shit.
I am still submissive. I still want to feel dominated in bed, and even sometimes in regular life as well. I don’t talk about it much, because I don’t want to advocate that type of a relationship when there are people who are actually being abused in the name of bdsm. As long as there are people who actually could get past being submissive, they should probably do so, to avoid being in a relationship with someone who will not honor their limits.
I know people who are not wired this way don’t understand/appreciate/like it. If the people involved are self-actualized and emotionally healthy, however, why not just let it be? Yes, if you see someone in an abusive relationship, try to help her get out of it. If people are saying that all women should have to have sex with their husbands whenever they want it, yes, call their dumb shit out. But if someone is appreciative of being in a relationship in which her husband feels free to fulfill her sexual desires? Maybe lay off for a second and go fuss at her dipshit commenters.
Caveat: I don’t think she should have used the word rape either. Anything that desensitizes people to what rape is in any way should be criticized for that alone.
Oh, Puffin. You are wonderful.
I’m going to quote Germaine Greer on this one:
“One man’s sexual freedom is a woman’s sexual thraldom.”
Precisely. See, the notion of ‘choice’ is null and void in a culture where the only two choices women have are ‘foetal incubator’ and ‘fuckbot.’ The government, the law, even the very notion of ‘consent’, have all been defined by and in the interests of the penally equipped.
As for that public/private horse puckey, you do know that’s just a patriarchal division that was historically designed to hide things like wife-beating from the public eye, right? And that conservative libertarians were the ones who constructed this division which has you waxing poetic over ‘choice’…right?
Don’t you get it? This is a PATRIARCHY. EVERY relationship is a sadomasochistic one! The only difference between the BDSM crowd and everyone else is, you guys like dress up in leather and advertise it.
“no amount of pretending at being a charter member of the Orgasm Liberation Front is going to temper patriarchy’s stranglehold on power differentialsâ€
I so need that on a T-shirt.
Me too.
It wasn’t that long ago that I pretty much accepted the line of argument that if someone chooses something, and providing they are a consenting adult, then that’s okay. Through reading Twisty (amongst other sources) I’ve realised that I bought the patriarchy’s line, hook and sinker.
Puffin managed to articulate perfectly exactly why that line of thought is a dead-end. Not all choices are equal. Not all choices are helpful and useful. Not all choices are good. Some choices are downright rotten and damaging and no amount of “but they like it” can convince me that anyone who talks about rape fantasies is anything but seriously damaged.
I also heart stumptuous.com and that first link was awesome. I can only wish to be as strong as that woman.
I’m not very well informed on BDSM theory, however I’d like to suggest that perhaps submission/domination games can be a powerful way of working through ones psychological issues regarding power. In a hierarchical society all of us have our own issues with “power”, be it a lack or an excess of it, and most of us have probably experienced a great deal of confusion and frustration about it. Power relations are obviously extremely complex and there are a lot of tools that can be used to explore them.
I am into the idea of role playing power games in a sexual context, but really would like to see traditional roles reversed and messed with. Switching back and forth between which partner is submissive and dominant could be a powerful way to break through our conditioning and barriers. Power play can be (but isn’t inherently) empowering and challenging.
When I was younger and much more passive, awkward and terrified I had a male partner who made it clear that he was willing to play however I wanted and put me in full control of our sexual encounters. I was too still too shy and passive to express interest in power play, but it was infinitely valuable for him to have volunteered that power to me when I was too submissive and scared to take it for myself. It helped me grow into my own power, and I’m glad to say I’m much more assertive than I used to be. No longer a terrified little girl.
Having said all that I have some pretty big reservations about women and rape fantasies. There is potential in even the most sketchy sounding fantasies for empowerment, but that potential is certainly not manifest in every rape fantasy scenario. If the goal with the power play is to become empowered and find strength and independence than play on! My reservations are for any activity whatsoever that does not attempt to unravel oneself from servitude and subjection. Exploring those concepts as a means of deconstructing them is valid.
slagging on submissives is not going to get anyone anywhere. what - do you think you’re going to shame us out of getting our disconnected, ditzy, sick little jollies this way? (laying on the shame will only make it more perversely exciting, for some of us…)
I’ve spent the past twenty-some years trying to make peace with my weird little secret, wrestling with my despicable, pitiful, sicksicksickness. talk about self-criticism - believe me, I’ve faced down an entire North Korean re-education camp’s worth of self-criticism, and its attendant self-loathing, self-disgust, self-destruction. I’ve thought long and hard about it, and come to the conclusion that I’m just fucked up that way, and the less I obsess about how pathetic and dirty and sick I am, the more functional and normal I’m able to be.
so what should I do? I want to be progressive and politically aware and fight oppression, all of that - and yet you’re telling me that the way I process the sexual experience is so screwed up that I can’t blame the patriarchy like the cool kids.
Tony Patti, LMYC - what would you suggest I do with myself, now that I’ve been enlightened? Do I go to the doctor and “correct” the way I process the sexual experience? do I seek therapy for my character or behavior defect? pray to god to remove the stain from my soul? maybe I should just not even try to be sexual at all, lest I call the wrath of the patriarchy (or the patriarchy-blamers) down upon us all. do I sacrifice my orgasm for the revolution? I mean, I might if you convince me that’s what I have to do to end the patriarchy.
First link, awesome. Second link? I feel physically threatened and unwell, just having read it. Ugh. Absolutely, revoltingly pornographic.
OK, guy posting in feminist territory here, I know, dangerous territory .:)
I am a switch, with some tendancy towards Dom, but more out of habit than prefferance. So is my girlfriend, though she tends towards sub. This works out rather well for us. I’ve even been encouraging her to be the dom more often.
The woman who wrote the article in question really shoudl ahve used a different word, perhaps ‘ravish’, which Could be defined (for the purposes of the BDSM community) as being forceful, dominant sex with pre-arranged consent, but with the guise of non-consentual sex.
Now, some of you may have issues with the fact that she and I enjoy these sex games. Well, how ever much it may not appeal to your personal tastes, you don’t get to tell us it’s wrong. What ever the balance between hard wired and coping with past issues may be, dom/sub play can lead to a stronger emotional bond. And to be clear on a point: Yes, I’ve played the part of the ‘victim’ before. It was fun.
antiprincess -
You deal. You cope with it however you need to, I don’t think anyone is arguing that. You do what we all do living in the patriarchy, we do whatever we have to to get by, we all compromise on what we know is right because we only have a choice between something fucked up or nothing at all. But to present (or defend) rape as a gift is wrong, full fucking stop. Do you really want to encourage anyone to grow up live a life as vulnerable to abuse in every sense of the word that being a sub makes someone? If this inner quirk has really led you to self-loathing/disgust/distruction, why the hell would you advocate it as an OK lifestyle instead of acknowledging that yeah, something fucked you up bigtime and no one should have to go through the same thing?
It seems a lot to me like people who grow up with domestic abuse. Some people will grow up and completely repudiate the kind of life that made their childhoods living hells. Others grow up and repeat the cycle because they don’t know any other way. I sure as hell think that the ones who break the cycle are better off for having done so, don’t you? Even if you can’t break out of the cycle, don’t you think that maybe encouraging others to break it rather than continue it is a worthy goal?
I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, but you need to understand that we aren’t railing against subs, we are railing against the culture that creates subs in the first place. Just like blaming the patriarchy is not blaming individual men, but the culture that creates the hero/archtype/dom swaggering machismo bullshit and the damsel-in-distress/sub useless feminine bullshit. The culture needs to change and glorifying rape no matter how much it may flip someone’s switch isn’t helping anyone.
I echo miscellanneous re praise-the-lord for the level of discourse here. And thank you also Puffin, Tony, LMYC for putting it straight.
I had to go check out doggerelblogger to see WTF, to as She said, try to get some insight into Her comments. Yeah, duh, first I assumed it had to me a male. sorry you guys out there. alas, just a happy mum.
truthprincess: how about try the little exercise of substituting “pedophile” for your ‘weird little secret”. What do you think a pedophile should do, get into ’self-criticism, and its attendant self-loathing, self-disgust, self-destruction’ so long as (he) is not asked to “sacrifice my orgasm for the revolution’?
And yes, you could, maybe should, get some help. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is proving to be incredibly successful, and you can use a book or online. Instead of whipping your own self with ‘how pathetic and dirty and sick I am.’
Frankly, I continue admiring you respondents for analysis in spite of the heat of the moment. Moi, a bit hopeless at that. I see how much I want to tear strips off these women, as in When The Fuck Will You Wake Up?? What is it that makes these apologists come to this site?? Now, of all times, when violence is escalating and freedoms diminishing, excusing actions that look like, sound like, smell like, feel like misogyny as fun and games is not only sick, but propping up all that is worst in society. And yes, unfortunately much of the global human project right now has to do with hard-wired tendencies. I believe for women to submit to and reinforce alpha male behaviour (patriarchal values) instead of honoring and supporting our own hard-wired collaborative approach is cowardly and societal suicide.
And re sex and submission: there is another sort of sex that almost never gets mentioned. Most fully developed in tantra, the ‘valley orgasm’ has to do with being receptive. Not passive, not submissive, not Hollywood style. Open, accepting, allowing, like post-minimalist music, building note upon note. and so on.so that if it’s feeling ‘taken’ that you want, you can be filled with it through layers of gentleness. My body loves the feeling of being that open and relaxed. Choice would be sex education that educates.
I hold a Jungian view that we all carry many archetypes within us. We’re aware of some of them some of the time. Others constitute our unconscious, which I don’t think we’ve yet analyzed out of existence. Especially in sex these energies are released. Believe me, I’m well aware of my Inner Bully, but it doesn’t make me want to act it out during sex. I’m hardly a moralist. But to justify cultivating the nastiest human traits in the name of freedom…well, bottom line is first blame the patriarchy. Then, take responsibility for your mental hygiene. truthprincess, you ‘want to be progressive and politically aware and fight oppression, all of that.’ Well then, the personal is political. Getting over your submissiveness and your self-loathing would fight oppression at its very root.
“Getting over your submissiveness and your self-loathing would fight oppression at its very root.”
Which pretty much says it all, really.
I also wish these pro-BDSM types would, when they engage in arguments with the rest of us here, at least be willing to question exactly WHY it is that “sexual freedom” has had those special little velvet ropes put up around it, something that no other facet of human behaviour is allowed.
Well duh: because getting rid of the bullshit and hatred and sickness and power games surrounding sex is precisely the key to being able to begin the dismantling of the rest of oppression–particularly the oppression of women, though other oppresssions as well. So that must not be allowed to happen. We must all be brainwashed into thinking that sex is somehow “special” and set apart from other behaviours, so we don’t look at it critically and we don’t call each other out on it and, consequently, no real progress is ever made.
If you’ve been convinced that eliminating dominance/submission from sex will somehow eliminate or reduce the pleasure or intensity of sexual experience, it’s time to think about *why* you’ve been convinced of that. If you’ve been taught that these things are “liberating” or “hard-wired” into some people, or that it “helps people who’ve been abused process/deal with their issues,” it’s also time to question *why* that would be, and, especially, to ask yourself exactly who those beliefs really benefit.
I’ll contribute to the gastly, kudzu-like growth of the BDSM thread. Here goes:
I’ve been involved the BDSM scene in the past, and don’t really have any regrets about it. But there is no way in hell I want to be associated with this “taken in hand” crap. It’s creepy, it’s sexist, and I’m kind of horrified to see all the other BDSM people here defending it. Is my corner of the world just a weird anomaly pf harmless dorkdom* in the otherwise sexist perniciousness of things that go by the name of “BDSM”?**
*Twisty is definitely right about the dorkdom. But I figure that if “dork” is the worst thing anyone can truthfully call you, then you’re well ahead of most people.
**Maybe any harmless corner of the world is a weird anomaly. God, what a depressing thought.
Long time lurker here - love the site.
Have to admit though, these BDSM discussions usually leave me feeling…not so good. dd and antiprincess’s comments especially made me want to comment.
dd’s comment that such sexual proclivities being hardwired in - I am supporting this idea. Myself, I was raised in a forward-thinking, liberal household that was so ‘humans are equal’ it took me going to university to discover that society doesn’t view men and women equal.
I have never, ever been into ‘vanilla’. I’m a dominant by nature. I like to hurt - and let us make this very clear, hurt those who themselves like being hurt. I like being the one in charge. I like tying my partner up.
I struggled with this for years. The fact that I had sadistic as well as masochistic tendancies I thought made me a horrible, messed up person, and a bad feminist. I have a partner who is a submissive, and likes the attentions I want to give him. We fit very well together, but I still have trouble with the fact that I enjoy it when he is in pain. I don’t know why this is, or where I got this idea from. In fact, I find male domination themes make me very uncomfortable, sometimes even within a careful, mutually decided upon scene.
I’ve had to accept this aspect of myself. There wasn’t any other option. However, this aspect only ever is displayed with someone with whom I have discussed everything with first. Consent is so important to me I can’t even think of fondling my partner of 2 years before he is awake, even though he likes the idea of being woken that way.
Forgive the long post, but this is something important to me. While we don’t live in a society free of influence, we still can make choices. Nothing made me into sadist/dominant - I discovered this aspect of myself through entirely innocuous means. (If anyone thinks this can’t be true, I will tell you what they were, but it’s kinda irrelevant).
I guess what I’m saying is that while being a female sub in this society can be seen as supporting a patriarchal worldview…how does the female dominant fit into this?
Ah shoot. The bit about feeling uncomfortable with male dominant themes? I mean such in literature/music/movies/whatever, not stuff I have done myself. As I’m not into that sort of thing, I don’t do it. Needed to clarify that.
AdamB, there are men who comment at this site, just as there are men who are feminist. All thoughtful people are welcome, provided they’re advanced blamers. Do please think about your statement:
Yes, I’ve played the part of the ‘victim’ before. It was fun.
“Getting to play the part of the victim” is a luxurious choice for the dominant class. Unlike you, most women cannot turn this victimization on and off by “choice” or with a pre-arranged safe word, etc. Your choice of role, as you play it, is a replication of the prevailing power structure as we live it. Aye, there’s the rub.
Veet, #74 was articulate, insightful, and brimming over with well-made thought-provoking light-shedding points. Thanks. Well said.
it doesn’t bother me much any more, y’all. I’m over the self-flagellation I experienced in my young adulthood. now I’m just old and kinky. I’ve made my peace - maybe I didn’t make that clear.
however, it bothers me that it bothers y’all. it bothers me that you think I’m damaged and dirty and sick and contributing to what we all hate, just by my being human and having a sexual experience.
I want to be liked. I want to be useful. I want to feel like I’m a valued member of the community when I speak out against what I feel is wrong, when I help others, when I contribute in a positive way to society.
but if I know that y’all think I’m defective, and worse than that, unenlightened, and the next worst thing to a pedophile, well, that makes me sad. and it gets me thinking all over again that yeah, maybe I am just not ideologically pure enough to participate in your revolution. is that the message you’re trying to send?
I’ve gotten help. Help said I was okay, just kinky. now what?
antiprincess, no one here has said anything that even slightly resembles what you’re accusing us of saying or thinking so what’s with the theatrics?
Let me clarify for you, since you obviously haven’t read Twisty’s novice blaming clause: “patriarchy is a tyrannical but nearly invisible social order based on an oppressive paradigm of dominance and submission fetishizing class and status. Patriarchy’s benefits are accrued according to a rigid hierarchy at the top of which are rich honky males and at the bottom of which are poor women of color.”
I honestly don’t think any person here cares at all that you personally enjoy being a submissive. I think most of us can grasp and even empathize with why some women do embrace such a sexual role. What we ARE saying is that your “choice” to be on the receiving end of a can of sexual whoop-ass is part of the system of oppression outlined above. It’s a “choice” that is indicative of all women’s subordinate status within the Patriarchy and it’s a “choice” that ultimately affects more than just you - especially when your submissive compadres start singing the praise of sexualized violence all over the internet.
As far as the revolution goes, I’ve always found that to be a revolutionary, you have to be willing to think about more than just your own personal liberty. Revolution is about the common good. It’s about fighting for something bigger than your orgasm, for instance.
ha - basically, antiprincess, we can’t be feminists - we have sex wrong.
Can we all step away from the “look, it’s another BDSM thread!’ for a second, and at least point out possibly a source of agreement?
That rape in actuality is VERY VERY VERY COMPLETELY different than a rape fantasy.
That someone who believes that their partner has more rights to their own body than they themselves do might have some, oh, “issues”.
And can we get off of the “hardwired” crap? “Innate” is a lousy word to use. How about “congenital” (found at birth)? Even hand preference may be related to in utero experience. Saying something is “hardwired” is like saying “that’s it, it’s over, I can’t control myself!” Bullhooey, I say to thee, bullhooey.
Societies demand that their component members conduct themselves in certain ways. Sometimes by doing things that we may not be otherwise biologically disposed to do. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
But we, as members of a society, 1) can point out what the heck is wrong with it, and 2) try to change it. Alas, the patriarchy is almost everywhere, which helps make it invisible. Like air.
And props to LMYC, I lurves your posting.
Puffin - just speaking truth to power. I feel slagged on. I’m saying so.
and unless you’re the same age or older than I am, I’ve it’s just as likely that I paid my feminist dues while you were still combing the manes and tails on My Little Pony. I’ve done my time in front of clinics at 4 in the morning, I’ve gathered with the herd on the Mall, I’ve waved my signs and done my homework and chanted along with the best of them. I am no novice blamer. (mind you, if you are my age - late 30s - or older, I take that back. not the novice part - the part where I’m deliberately mean and snide and attempting to punk you.)
as I read this thread, I got the sense that while lots of folks had strong opinions on submissive women, very few had actually spoken to one. I mean, that makes sense, because why would you lower your enlightened selves and associate with people like me anyway? but I wonder if maybe people you know, and deal with every day, and maybe even like, and stand next to arm-in-arm united in struggle, are kinky like me.
would it ease your troubled principles any to know that the first community of BDSM people I encountered IRL were a group of leather dykes, and that the first book I read on the subject was Coming To Power?
I never said I was a heterosexual submissive woman. does that change things? should it?
someone brought up an interesting question upthread - why the “velvet rope” around issues of so-called sexual freedom? Well, I don’t really know, but I’ll think on it. are you asking why everyone just immediately says “it’s my own business what I do in my bedroom! I have sexual freedom! get off my case!”, thus shutting down further discussion?
Bullsh*t antiprincess. How in the hell can you possibly think that we can get through our lives without knowing submissive women, you aren’t in some rare minority that few people have interaction with. Submissive wome are the norm in this society, and I think that’s wrong. I don’t think there is much that can be done about the submissive women currently in existance (therapy, whatever, and BTW do you think maybe it’s possible that the “help” you’ve seen has told you you’re “okay, just kinky” might have, you know, bullsh*t patriarchal reasons for thinking it’s “okay, just kinky” for women be submissive. Nah all therapists are paragons of virtue who live above the patriarchy even as some of them use their power to screw as many of their patients as possible, so that couldn’t be it.), but I sure as hell think that we can fight for a future where women are allowed to be equal rather than sumbissive or dominant.
Get over yourself, nobody is telling you you aren’t feminist, stop being so self-absorbed and look around, actually read our posts and realize that we aren’t asking you to do shit but stop promoting “rape is a gift” type bullshit just because you feel you have some sort of personal investment in it. Maybe you should spend the time you’re spending trying to tell us that we shouldn’t support the revolution because it makes you feel icky reflecting on why you have such a personal investment in the statements like “rape is a gift” and what that says to you about yourself.
And once again, no one cares what you’re doing in your bedroom, once again it’s messed up in principal, but you do what you have to to get by. What we care about is the sh*t you’re pulling here in this public space, defending the idea that rape is a gift and that women who think their bodies belong to their husbands are making a valid choice. That’s messed up beyond reason, and yeah you defending it pretty much makes you severely messed up in my mind, not what you do in your bedroom.
I’m still waiting to hear why sexual practice, out of all human behaviours, is the one that we are not allowed to question, let alone criticise.
me personally? not promoting or defending anything. I just don’t like the condescending attitude towards kinky people (esp. bottoms) that I interpreted from some of the posts. I don’t recall proffering any opinion on the relative merit of rape as a gift.
I’ve been real-raped. No fun.
I’ve engaged in highly-staged and carefully orchestrated “scenes†involving rather histrionic struggle and heightened tension and drama and the illusion of dire peril. Much fun.
re the famous Taken In Hand woman: I think she’s read a few too many pulp-grade bodice-rippers, and it’s gotten a little out of pocket, I’ll allow. But thinking that she’s speaking for all submissive women is of course nonsense.
“but nobody said she was speaking for all submissive women! why do you have to take things out of context! god! you people!…”
yeah - well, the discussion around it led me to believe that it didn’t even occur to people that there could be diversity in the BDSM community. it was so pervasive a thought that it didn’t even have to be expressed.
I think you do care what I do in my bedroom. you care very much. I think that the idea that some woman (say, for example, me) somewhere (my bedroom, maybe) has this sexual experience that you find disturbing makes you angry and sorry for the woman (me), and frustrated that she (I) won’t let go of patriarchal patterns, and perpetuates oppression right there on her (my) own body, while you’re out there slaving away fighting The Man on her (my) behalf. sure it bothers you what I do in my bedroom. we wouldn’t be having this discussion if you didn’t care.
re the public space - if Twisty wants me to shut my piehole, then Twisty will tell me. until then, I’m enjoying the discussion.
crysT - see post #86 above.
and another thing - y’all are saying that women who engage in submissive sexual fantasies are tools of the patriarchy. how could I be a feminist at the same time that I’m being a tool of the patriarchy?
yes, you’re saying that I can’t be a femininst and kinky.
I happen to disagree.
The important thing in a situation like this is to look past the incendiary rhetoric to the underlying meaning. When you do that to tis particular piece of writing, you find…well, that’s equally repulsive.
Never mind.
Ok, antiprincess, I’ve read #86, sorry for missing it first time round.
Well, in part I am asking why people seem to think they can say, “It’s sex, therefore sacrosanct, so you can’t say anything!” and, yes, shutting down dialogue.
Also, what is it that people who feel that way believe sets sex apart from other parts of life. I mean, if you’re trying to say that female submissiveness or male dominance in a sexual context are not political issues, if they are protected by the maxim “between consenting adults” in a way that other behaviours aren’t, well, WHY?
Crys T: bear with me - I want to be sure I’m giving you a thorough and thoughtful answer. so please don’t think I’m ignoring you. I just don’t want to shoot my mouth off without thinking carefully first.
anti-princess: “just by my being human and having a sexual experience.”
That statement is exactly as obfuscating as saying “People rape” rather than “Men rape”.
At the moment, the type of “sexual experience” is rather important. You have to admit that your “sexual experience” of play-acting the most brutal types of rape our society has to offer is a bit different from the “sexual experience” of, say, two teenagers necking in the park. To use the generic, vague “sexual experience” term is to intentionally elicit pictures much more like the latter than the former, when the former is what we’re really talking about.
No, they’re NOT the same. No, they’re NOT equivilent. No, they’re NOT equally “safe” or “sane”.
The first link was fun (though I am a bit over-defensive towards all terribly fit people). My gym actually has a poster on ‘Women and Weights’ to try and persuade women to use them, which is all ‘oh no, you don’t have to have nasty horrible biceps if you use weights, you can just use them to be a thin sexbot!’
Have you seen stumptuous.com? It’s a women’s weightlifting (among many other things) site, a real one with real routines, operated by a feminist. And she has a lot to say about the sexbot workouts.
Puffin: “antiprincess, no one here has said anything that even slightly resembles what you’re accusing us of saying or thinking so what’s with the theatrics?:”
Veet said, regarding post 81, “truthprincess: how about try the little exercise of substituting “pedophile†for your ‘weird little secretâ€. What do you think a pedophile should do, get into ’self-criticism, and its attendant self-loathing, self-disgust, self-destruction’ so long as (he) is not asked to “sacrifice my orgasm for the revolution’?”
I interpreted that as saying that BDSM participants are as sick as pedophiles. Did I interpret that incorrectly?