BDSM (reposted comment from Alas)
[This is a comment I wrote on a thread on BDSM and patriarchy on Alas, but I'm pretty pleased with it, and comments are a fragile thing, so I thought I'd repost it here as a well. I think it stands okay on its own, but here it is in context.]
Is BDSM better, equal-to, or worse than non-BDSM sexuality. Actually, that is a crappy way of phrasing it, and much less productive and nuanced than the way bean actually phrased it. Bean's point was much more complex than that, but I think I can say something useful with this simplified version, so here goes.
I think that BDSM sexuality, independent of any other criteria, is a more harmful sexuality than non-BDSM sexuality. Specifically, I think that an eroticization of mutuality is a better and healthier sexuality than an eroticization of power dynamics (power-over, powerlessness, violence and pain). Furthermore, while I can see other sources for an eroticization of power dynamics, I think the overwhelming source of the eroticization of power dynamics in this culture is patriarchy (actually, I think the triple alliance of sex oppression, class oppression and race oppression are heavily implicated, but sex oppression is most heavily implicated). I think that if you have, or are able to develop, a sexuality of mutuality, then you should value it highly. I think taking up BDSM practice because it is cool is a bad mistake if you have or are capable of developing a truly mutual sexuality. I think in the ideal world, there would be no eroticization of power dynamics, and no BDSM sexuality. I think in a moderately ideal world (one where people still suffer through a childhood of relative powerlessness (but not abuse), where people still suffer from painful diseases, where people still fear death and loss, but where sex, class, and race oppression is banished) that eroticization of power dynamics would be far more rare.
I think that the best safe-sane-consensual, active-consent, egalitarian-based BDSM sexuality is still a product of a sick culture, and I think anything less than that ideal is probably harmful to its participants.
That said, I think safe-sane-consensual BDSM practice is vastly better than the current alternative. If I eroticize power dynamics, I am going to play with them for sexual gratification. If I deny this desire, all I end up doing is pushing it underground. I’m still going to play those games, I’m just going to lie to myself and my partner and pretend that’s not what I’m doing. As a result, I’m going to have to play with the real thing, rather than being able to play with the fake thing. If I want a D/S experience, I will have to actually dominate or submit to someone. If I want a S/M experience, I will have to actually torture someone, or find someone to torture me (D/S is much more common in this culture, I think, but there are way too many sadists too, coming up with some excuse to inflict pain).
To my mind, this is what most people in this culture do. Most of them aren’t extreme in their practice, but I see the basic cultural construct of romance as implicit D/S, and I think most people who do romance do it in large part because they eroticize D/S.
I had a friend long ago who explained to me that it offended her that her boyfriend (a better friend of mine) explicitly refused to be possessive, and while he was perfectly happy to be faithful if that was her preference, refused to request that she be monogamous. She explained to me that she actually usually cheated on her boyfriends, but that a non-possessive boyfriend was both insulting and meant that the cheating sex wouldn’t be nearly as a hot. While she was impressively honest, I really don’t believe her desires were at all strange for this culture.
To my mind, she would have been better off if she hadn’t found betrayal and being a possession hot, but I think those structures of desire are hard to reconstruct. If she wasn’t able to reconstruct them, I think she would have been much better off accepting those desires as hers, accepting them as malign, and finding ways to funnel and restrict them, so that she could extract their hotness without getting as badly burned (and without burning her boyfriend). I think that safe-sane-consensual BDSM is a way of doing that.
I have met (to a little extent, I have been one) BDSM supremacists, who believe that BDSM sexuality is more honest than non-BDSM sexuality, because everyone’s sexuality is actually an eroticization of power dynamics. I think they have a point (I think most people in this culture do eroticize power to some degree), but I think they are basically wrong. I think honest egalitarian sexuality, for those who can reach it, is better than power dynamics sexuality. But I think safe-sane-consensual BDSM practice is a better, less harmful expression of eroticizing power dynamics than either non-SSC BDSM or implicit BDSM. And, for those who strongly eroticize power dynamics, I think that SSC BDSM may be either a useful end point, or a useful way point on the way to an egalitarian eroticization of mutuality.
This last point is one that both Thomas and mythago have expressed here and previously. Good SSC BDSM culture emphasizes the critical point that active consent and communication are themselves hot, and that sex that moves away from both of those is bad sex, and is not at all hot. When BDSM practitioners reach the point where they eroticize active consent and communication, they are actually moving into an egalitarian sexuality.
I’m going on way too long, so I’ll stop.
Is BDSM better, equal-to, or worse than non-BDSM sexuality. Actually, that is a crappy way of phrasing it, and much less productive and nuanced than the way bean actually phrased it. Bean's point was much more complex than that, but I think I can say something useful with this simplified version, so here goes.
I think that BDSM sexuality, independent of any other criteria, is a more harmful sexuality than non-BDSM sexuality. Specifically, I think that an eroticization of mutuality is a better and healthier sexuality than an eroticization of power dynamics (power-over, powerlessness, violence and pain). Furthermore, while I can see other sources for an eroticization of power dynamics, I think the overwhelming source of the eroticization of power dynamics in this culture is patriarchy (actually, I think the triple alliance of sex oppression, class oppression and race oppression are heavily implicated, but sex oppression is most heavily implicated). I think that if you have, or are able to develop, a sexuality of mutuality, then you should value it highly. I think taking up BDSM practice because it is cool is a bad mistake if you have or are capable of developing a truly mutual sexuality. I think in the ideal world, there would be no eroticization of power dynamics, and no BDSM sexuality. I think in a moderately ideal world (one where people still suffer through a childhood of relative powerlessness (but not abuse), where people still suffer from painful diseases, where people still fear death and loss, but where sex, class, and race oppression is banished) that eroticization of power dynamics would be far more rare.
I think that the best safe-sane-consensual, active-consent, egalitarian-based BDSM sexuality is still a product of a sick culture, and I think anything less than that ideal is probably harmful to its participants.
That said, I think safe-sane-consensual BDSM practice is vastly better than the current alternative. If I eroticize power dynamics, I am going to play with them for sexual gratification. If I deny this desire, all I end up doing is pushing it underground. I’m still going to play those games, I’m just going to lie to myself and my partner and pretend that’s not what I’m doing. As a result, I’m going to have to play with the real thing, rather than being able to play with the fake thing. If I want a D/S experience, I will have to actually dominate or submit to someone. If I want a S/M experience, I will have to actually torture someone, or find someone to torture me (D/S is much more common in this culture, I think, but there are way too many sadists too, coming up with some excuse to inflict pain).
To my mind, this is what most people in this culture do. Most of them aren’t extreme in their practice, but I see the basic cultural construct of romance as implicit D/S, and I think most people who do romance do it in large part because they eroticize D/S.
I had a friend long ago who explained to me that it offended her that her boyfriend (a better friend of mine) explicitly refused to be possessive, and while he was perfectly happy to be faithful if that was her preference, refused to request that she be monogamous. She explained to me that she actually usually cheated on her boyfriends, but that a non-possessive boyfriend was both insulting and meant that the cheating sex wouldn’t be nearly as a hot. While she was impressively honest, I really don’t believe her desires were at all strange for this culture.
To my mind, she would have been better off if she hadn’t found betrayal and being a possession hot, but I think those structures of desire are hard to reconstruct. If she wasn’t able to reconstruct them, I think she would have been much better off accepting those desires as hers, accepting them as malign, and finding ways to funnel and restrict them, so that she could extract their hotness without getting as badly burned (and without burning her boyfriend). I think that safe-sane-consensual BDSM is a way of doing that.
I have met (to a little extent, I have been one) BDSM supremacists, who believe that BDSM sexuality is more honest than non-BDSM sexuality, because everyone’s sexuality is actually an eroticization of power dynamics. I think they have a point (I think most people in this culture do eroticize power to some degree), but I think they are basically wrong. I think honest egalitarian sexuality, for those who can reach it, is better than power dynamics sexuality. But I think safe-sane-consensual BDSM practice is a better, less harmful expression of eroticizing power dynamics than either non-SSC BDSM or implicit BDSM. And, for those who strongly eroticize power dynamics, I think that SSC BDSM may be either a useful end point, or a useful way point on the way to an egalitarian eroticization of mutuality.
This last point is one that both Thomas and mythago have expressed here and previously. Good SSC BDSM culture emphasizes the critical point that active consent and communication are themselves hot, and that sex that moves away from both of those is bad sex, and is not at all hot. When BDSM practitioners reach the point where they eroticize active consent and communication, they are actually moving into an egalitarian sexuality.
I’m going on way too long, so I’ll stop.