My 50SoG rant
50SoG rant
Many people far more eloquent and educated than I have written about how awful Fifty Shades of Grey is as a depiction of BDSM, as an example of a relationship, and as a use of words and paper.
However, some thoughts have been brewing and I thought I would try and write them down in some form or another. I’m not going to try and take on the whole thing, as that is far beyond my capabilities, but this is just a few things that I’ve been feeling recently.
Most of it, interestingly, is to do with the backlash against Fifty Shades, as people clamour to say how ridiculous it is and how harmful, and so they push back further than they need to. I’ve seen a few comments on FB that have made me cringe and feel uncomfortable: ‘lol she calls him “sir” who would ever do that?’, ‘he hits her, how could that ever be sexy’ etc. And in the context of bad BDSM as in the book, they are quite right, but in a Risk Aware Consensual Kink context, I have experienced those things, and they have been positive and powerful things. But I feel that I can’t argue against those comments without giving too much of myself away, and I don’t feel comfortable doing so when I feel that I am already being judged and would be thought much less of if I were completely honest.
A very good example of this is Victoria Coren’s article for The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/29/victoria-coren-fifty-shades-of-grey , which manages to flippantly miss the point, make some smaller points and insult/erase a large number of people.
The shining pinnacle of this is this quote: “No woman could possibly find this [submissive and dominant behaviour] arousing. She'd have to be turned on by the idea of canes and chains - without being turned off by pernickety contracts, nerdy "safe words" and puns that Roger Moore would have blushed at in 1983.”
So. Two things:
Hi. I, in a RACK context, find all the things you just described arousing. I like puns, know that contracts/agreements and safewords are damn important and am very turned on by canes and chains.
You don’t get to decide what people do and do not find arousing.
Another “choice” quote: “After all, women no longer need the excuse of obedience to express their sexual selves (apart from real submissives, for whom, plus ça change). The charade's over. We need no longer pretend that those clothes are coming off against our better judgment.” Wow. Just….wow. Obedience is not a fucking excuse or dishonest way for me to express my sexual self. It is the fulfilling and terrifyingly honest and open truth of what I want and desire. It took me years to work it out, and I’m still having to work on not being ashamed of it so fuck you for adding to my shame and discomfort.
(The Guardian also offered another article about Fifty Shades from some “BDSM enthusiasts”, by which they meant two (males) doms and a switch…:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/15/fifty-shades-of-grey-bdsm-enthusiasts )
My worry is that this sort of broad-stroke backlash will only gather momentum. It’s not what’s depicted in Fifty Shades that’s necessarily the problem, it’s how it’s carried out and depicted that’s wrong and dangerous and harmful. I am not broken or helpless or damaged because of my submissive desires, and I definitely exist. People who hurt me because I ask them to are not abusers or exploiters or sick.
I just hope that we can make it through all this without further misunderstanding or the “norm” being pushed too far either way towards condemning or accepting what happens in that book/film, and that people’s discomfort will not turn into BDSM-hate or sub-shaming in the meantime.