Running in the same circles as a lot of radical feminists on Tumblr and other facets of the internet, i have come across my fair share of women who i simply do not agree with. There are women who say that trans women are not real women, there are women who say all heterosexual intercourse is rape. There are women who say that femininity is inherently sexist, and there are women (whom i am addressing in this writing) who would argue that kink is inherently an expression of patriarchal culture normalized for female consumption.
i myself am
kink-critical. This means that i have thought about the origins of my attraction to what i am attracted to because it is true that kinks do not exist in a vacuum. i took time and analyzed the origins of my kinks, what i get out of them, why i seek them out, etcetera. Kink is a healthy part of my life. Feel free to disagree with me, but my desire for submission has nothing to do with internalized misogyny and more with the fact that my life is so laden with responsibility and stress and i must be so in-control and strong all the time that to me it is cathartic like nothing else to relinquish responsibility in my free time. Additionally, my masochism is intrinsic to my sexual identity. It has been a part of my sexuality since before i knew what sex was. The fact that i experience pleasure while receiving pain has nothing to do with socialization as far as i know, and only through a degree of sexual masochism can i find satisfaction. This is simply fact about me.
It is important that, as thinking kinksters, we are all kink-critical. Why do we find what we find attractive attractive? Why do we seek out things that make others cringe? Why does this appeal to us? We must analyze if our darker desires are healthy or coming from a place of violence or self-hatred. If they are, we must seek out counseling. An unhealthy person should not seek out a situation where they are at liberty to be hurt or to hurt others. That is dangerous and irresponsible for everyone involved.
Similar to male feminists or white or straight allies, we must address the actions we partake of that are problematic. We must understand that we are not to blame--except when we are. And when we are, rather than denying responsibility entirely, we must seek out ways to rectify our behaviors. The BDSM community must self-groom.
The believes of kinkshamers (i do not mean kink-criticals; i will get to that later on) are that kink:
- Appropriates consent
- Normalizes and sexualizes abuse and hides abusers
- Contains a "no true Scotsman" logical flaw
- Is inherently sexist--FemDommes are not excused
- Is racist
- Is anti-compassion
- Promotes self-harm and self-hate
- Promotes power imbalances, which are inherently unhealthy
- Is not "freely chosen"; rather, it is engrained in us by society
i will be addressing all these issues. If you have an opposing viewpoint and would like to express it, please do. i am trying to fully understand this disparity--how some of us can fight for all the same things and yet yell at each other for what we do in the bedroom--and your contributions are helpful, cherished, and necessary. i would really appreciate if any potential debate did not devolve into name calling and immaturity, but i suppose that i am not at liberty to enforce such an expectation. Anyway, i feel i have railed on long enough and should just get to talking.
1. "BDSM appropriates consent. BDSM cannot be consented to."
i grew up hating submissive women. my mother, the only member of my family who i ever loved, was incredibly submissive, never raising a word against my father, even when he physically, sexually, and verbally abused me. i hated my mother for staying quiet, i hated that to me she seemed weak, unable to make her own choices. Of course, in retrospect, i realize the fallacies of my thoughts and the real danger involved with standing up to an abuser--an abuser she still loves fully and lives with today.
What my father does to me is abuse. He hits me without warning, denies me food, taunts me into depression and used to encouraged my suicide attempts. He makes sexually-charged comments about me, and encourages my younger brother to do the same. Living with him is hell. Each day i think, if he were to die, i would be so, so much happier. i know what abuse is.
What kinkshamers would have me believe is that i cannot possibly know what abuse is. Kinkshamers try and tell me, who's first sexual experience was molestation when i was 5 (not by my father) and second sexual experience was molestation when i was 13, that i do not know the difference between BDSM and abuse, or even that there is no difference. This is false and honestly incredibly offensive. When i first came across the argument that BDSM cannot be consensual, my first thought was this:
"How DARE you tell me my consent isn't good enough?! How DARE you tell me that I am incapable of consenting?"
BDSM does not appropriate consent. If you give someone consent to do something, you are giving them consent to do something. In my opinion, it is that simple. If i consent to having oral sex, then i am responsible for understanding that my "yes" means that i will go through with it. If, at any point in the ordeal, i should say "stop, i don't want to do this" or if i had said "no" originally, then that is the end of it. Consent is not valid or invalid on a case by case basis. Consent is answered with yes or no. Consent is not a gray area. You don't get to tell me when i am consenting and when i am not consenting. You do not have that autonomy over my body. No one has that autonomy over my body, not you, not my parents, not my doctors, not the law, not a Dom. The only person who gets to decide if i am consenting is myself.
There is another point often made in BDSM critiques that is that it gives real rapists and abusers excuses for their actions. If they are able to say that a woman "likes it rough" to justify their actions, BDSM is capable of hiding abusers. Unfortunately, this is true, and unfortunately, this issue will persist even if all kinky communities on Earth are destroyed. Rapists and abusers will always find ways to justify their actions--but wether it is in the name of kinky sex or not, we should not blame the submissive (or alleged submissive) for the actions of the abuser. If we tell abusers that they CAN blame BDSM and kink for their actions and get away with it, than they WILL. If you say that BDSM is a reasonable justification for abuse, you are advocating that women have no agency and that their consent means nothing if they are having a kind of sex you do not approve of. You are saying that promiscuous women, prostitutes, polyamorous people, and sexually liberated women are all inviting abuse and rape by virtue of their lifestyle. While i understand the sentiment of compassion and fear behind your argument, i disagree with its logical progression. i do not believe that it is fair to ever blame the victim for the actions of the attacker, no matter what their sexual history may be.
2. "BDSM normalizes and sexualizes abuse and hides abusers."
From what i've seen in my (albeit limited) participation in BDSM events and talking in the community, BDSM practitioners are very good at spotting abuse when they see it and are ruthless about making sure that it ends. Of course my personal experience is irrelevant.
i freely admit that this is a tough point for me to argue. i volunteer at a local women's shelter. When i see a woman who comes in with broken limbs and a purple face, i don't think, "Damn, that's sexy!" or "i want that to happen to me." What i think is usually more along the lines of, "Tell me where your douchebag of a husband/boyfriend/father/etc. is so i can end his miserable life." To me, real abuse is disgusting, as a human being and as an abuse survivor. For me, however, there is a line that absolutely separates the abuse i work to end and the physical relationship i desire in a sexual capacity. That is because what occurs in my BDSM world is not abuse. i will reiterate that i KNOW what abuse is and i KNOW what it is not. The """"'abuse""""" that i receive in my D/s relationships is not abuse. When i am spanked, it's not because i deserve it--it is because i ask for it. With my words. i communicate to my Dom/me, "hey, spank me!" And it happens. This is because i have enough agency over my own body to decide what happens to it.
Here is where my kink-critical side comes into play. i believe abusers must be more actively rooted out of the kink community. There are a whole hell of a lot of assholes in this community, like it or not. Most of them are harmless, "garden-variety" assholes--the kind that send you lewd messages or unsolicited dick pics. But there are also horrible, horrible, manipulative people who are fucked up in so many capacities, both in kink and out of it, who must be actively weeded out and forced out of the community. This does not strictly apply to BDSM. Most abuse happens outside of D/s contexts. BDSM hides abusers no better than FaceBook of groups of friends do. There will always be a safety net for abusers, and EVERYONE must be more vigilant in order to remove them from situations in which they can continue to be abusers.
3. "BDSM practitioners try to remove blame from themselves via a "No True Scotsman" mentality separating BDSM from abuse!"
This most often happens when charts such as this one:
Or this one:
is used as defense against the notion that BDSM = abuse. The general idea is that kinkshamers and even kink-criticals are tired of hearing kinksters saying that a case of abuse that has BDSM undertones "is not BDSM--it's abuse!"
Both parties, in my opinion, are wrong in this situation. This is because BDSM and abuse are not the same thing but they are also not mutually exclusive. Vanilla relationships can be abusive. BDSM relationships can be abusive. Let's get one thing clear. Just because someone is tied up, it is not immediately made BDSM. If it is non-consensual, it is just abuse. BDSM CAN TURN INTO ABUSE, BUT THE TWO ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS. i cannot stress this enough.
This is not me saying that kinksters cannot be abusers. But i think I've reiterated myself more than enough times. Next point?
3. "BDSM is inherently sexist, as it normalizes female submission. FemDommes are also being sexist because they treat their potential male submissives like women, indicating that it is believed across the board in the BDSM community that the natural place for a woman is on the bottom."
Let's get the Domme thing out of the way real quick. This is not necessarily true. For some male submissives it is true, which is in most cases inexcusable and definitely something that must be addressed, both by these male submissives and by the Masters and Mistresses who would indulge them. This is the same for men who are aroused by cross dressing. i do not understand nor know the foundations of this particular kink. i could not speak to wether or not it is sexist. i freely admit that i do not know. But ultimately, cross dressers are a small percentage of the population, as are male subs who get off on feminization as a means of submission or becoming "lesser than" a """masculine""" Domme. Most male subs i have talked to have been interested mainly in Financial Domination, your usual bondage/flogging, and most notably, edging--the denial of orgasm, and possibly the most universally sought out fetish among male subs which has (surprise!) absolutely nothing to do with the expectation that females are natural submissives.
However, by making the claim that ALL Mistresses dominate ALL subs by putting them in a "female position" is both heterosexist and sexist in general. By implying that the natural position of a women is submission and that all acts of submission are mimicking expected female behaviors, you are advocating the very ideal you fight so hard against.
As i mentioned at the beginning of the article, i once had a hatred for submissive women. Though you may argue that i was further socialized to believe that women are supposed to be submissive, nothing could be further from the truth. i am an ardent feminist, and that is to say that i believe that a woman should be allowed to act submissive if she feels submissive. It would be sexist, incorrect, and deplorable of me to say that all women are suited to being subs. It would be wrong of me to suggest that all women must be professionals, or even independent if they do not wish to be. To suggest that there is a place where women should be and a place where women should not be is inherently sexist.
i am one of the hated "CEO subs," and to this i freely admit. This is not because i am a CEO or anyone of particular power, but simply because the stress and responsibilities of my life are such that it is comforting for me to temporarily relinquish my anxieties and exist as a comfortable, sexual being. A particularly thought-provoking dissertation on the wrongs of BDSM i read argued that this is because we live in a hierarchal capitalistic system, and with this, i absolutely agree. For kink to dissipate (as well as other less savory aspects of human nature and society), we must dissolve hierarchy and we must do away with capitalism. i am an 18 year old girl. i am in high school. i have no power to dismantle capitalism. Would i love to see it done? Absolutely. Will i be the first to dance on capitalism's grave the day it dies? Absolutely. Will it die tomorrow? No. Will i be free of the stresses of forcible capitalistic participation which partially fuel my desire for submission tomorrow? No.
Additionally, as i mentioned previously, my masochism is just as important to my sexual identity as my bisexuality. i'm sorry to the kinkshamers who are put off by this comment, but for me, it is simply true. It is the way my brain is wired--i could not change it if i wished. And often times, i do wish.
Anyway. i have seen a handful of women (out of hundreds whom i have had at least menial correspondence with) in the BDSM and kink communities that are anti-feminist in nature, who believe that it is a women's natural place to submit and a male's natural place to dominate. These people are the type that need to be cleansed from our community. These are the people who disgust me. Their submission is the unhealthy kind, and they will only breed unhealthy relationships with their Doms. Personally i am repulsed by any man, woman, or other, who holds this belief. This belief is absolutely anti feministic and offensive on many fronts. This much i will agree with the kinkshamers on. These people are outliers, but they are continuously rearing their ugly heads in the kink community. These people are simply wrong and they do not represent the opinion of the whole kink community, though i do fear that their words are harmful to female submissive credibility.
The adoption of the theory that all submission is inherently linked to female submission is sexist, transphobic, homophobic, heterosexist, and binarist.
4. "BDSM is a breeding ground for racism."
Unfortunately, this is absolutely true. This is the nature of any community which provides a forum for racial fetishization. Any discussion of any sexual nature (vanilla, sex working of any variety, porn (as much as i hate it)--absolutely anything of a sexual nature can venture into racism and racial fetishism, as well as cultural appropriation. Hey ho, now you know!) can accomplish this, but yes, it is particularly distressing in the BDSM community.
BDSM is not a perfect community. Far from it! One of the most intolerable, abhorrent aspects of the community is definitely the racial fetishism, and this must be ended, and furthermore, it CAN be ended.
Like many kink-criticals, i firmly believe that kink does not exist in a vacuum. Just becomes someone finds something arousing does not mean it's immune to criticism. The following things are things i have had first hand experience with or have heard first hand stories of, all of which are breeding grounds for disgusting sexist, racist ideologies that we as kinksters and as human beings must weed out of both our communities and other communities that exhibit these same signs.
- A woman dressed as a Nazi toting around her female submissive, dressed as a Jewish prisoner at a concentration camp.
- A blog, dedicated to white male domination over black female submissives which posted photographs of my black friend in lingerie with a caption along the lines of: "This ****** was good so her master bought her new lingerie to be pretty for him." When she demanded that he take it down, he denied her and told her to "learn her place."
- Asian fetishism is rampant--the idea that Asian women are inherently submissive and virginal.
- The fetishization of the burqa, hijab, chador, and other Islamic head scarves is also rampant, as racist culturally self-absorbed morons believe it is a direct statement of submission to men, like a collar that marks someone everyone's property.
Essentially, i'm agreeing with the kinkshamers here. BDSM is not inherently racist but there are so many fucked up, racist people in the community that it seems to foster it. These people must be annihilated from our community. They must be shamed and we must shun them, full Amish style, in order to protect the oppressed minorities who are just beginning to find voice in the world of kink.
5. "BDSM is anti-compassion. It fosters a need for power-over and apathy."
This is entirely false. i have few other logical ways to back this up besides my own personal experience and the experience of others and what has become standard procedure for most people who are entering into consensual kinky relationships.
My first girlfriend broke up with me because i couldn't put out. At the time, the wounds from my second bout of sexual abuse at age 13 was still raw and i was for all purposes asexual. The first time i talked to a Dom, i was just starting to recover my sexuality. When i approached him for the first time i mentioned being disinterested in sex. i told him that i was so disinterested in sex because of my abuse that for years i had felt asexual, entirely repulsed by the culture of entitlement and sexual violence that surrounded me. His response was far from what i had expected. He told me that he had the utmost respect for me and what i'd been through. He said that he would never want me to feel uncomfortable or unable to express my emotions. Though nothing ever came of the relationship, he was incredibly respectful and in-control over himself and his id and ego in a way i had never seen from a vanilla boy.
Every time a Dom requests something i am uncomfortable with, i have told them right-out "i'm not going to do that." Never once have i gotten a "do as you're told, slut." So far, i have only gotten things akin to, "that's alright. We'll do something else instead, then, unless you'd feel more comfortable just stopping altogether." When i tell someone, dating or not, Dom or not, that i am uncomfortable with something they have asked me to do, i expect this kind of treatment exactly. And yet, i have never gotten it from vanillas.
Essentially, the crux of my argument is that what someone wants to do to someone or have done to them in a sexual capacity is not necessarily a representation of what they want to do in the rest of their life. Again, i do not believe that kinks exist in a vacuum, yadda yadda yadda, but i also know that when i have vanilla sex, i like my partner to lick my collar bone. But if that happened in a nonsexual capacity i would be weirded out as fuck.
my most compassionate, caring, mutually beneficial relationships have invoked D/s aspects. my most unhealthy (ones of abuse and pain) were with vanillas.
To reference an amazing address i found of a similar position to mine on Tumblr, if someone acts as a Nazi in a movie, we do not fear that they are going to become a Nazi. If someone plays a murderer, we don't accuse them of being an actual murderer. That is because fantasy is not reality.
6. "BDSM fosters an attitude of self-harm and self-hatred that's unhealthy."
For me, my D/s relationships have improved my life. i have discovered my strengths, improved my outlook, and been able to make decisions and love myself in ways i never could before exploring my submissive nature. BDSM helped me out of my anorexia. BDSM helped me out of my self-harm.
Abuse, however, does foster self-hatred and suppresses self-love. Equating BDSM and abuse despite the clear differences makes this entire argument a fallacy. What i can say, however, is that if you feel unloved and worthless in a D/s relationship, for the love of God, do not feel obligated to stay! BDSM is not for everyone, and if something makes you unhappy, then don't do it. You deserve all the love and respect in the world and if you are not getting it through D/s, then fuck D/s.
7. "BDSM promotes power imbalances which are inherently unhealthy."
BDSM provides an illusion of power imbalance. In all non-abusive cases, the submissive has just as many rights as the Dominant. Any "power imbalance" is just play, like how when we all role-played being Warrior Cats as children on the playground, some of us were the clan leaders and some of us were the medicine cats. Of course, neither of us were really in danger of losing ourselves to our roles. There was an imbalance of power, but both roles had power in different capacities--the clan leader could call a council but the medicine cat was the only one who could make salves that the clan leader may someday need... Silly metaphor, i know.
The submissive, in some ways, is the one in true power, as most have the ability to veto any order given, end the relationship at any time, etcetera. Obviously there are flaws with this theory. But the general idea is that any power imbalance is a purposefully created illusion. If hierarchy in society goes away, as it hopefully will, it will inevitably be replicated on a smaller scale, as is done in every single other animal species. The concepts of superiority are intrinsic to evolution. This is not an argument in favor of power imbalances or social hierarchy. This is just my belief that power imbalances and, well, pissing contests between people are unavoidable, even if we do away with bureaucratic capitalism.
8. "Being kinky is not a choice or an aspect of our personality. Being submissive or dominant is forced upon us by society."
The argument could be made that free will does not exist. Yet, the kinkshamers want to make the argument that we actively chose to be kinky. This to me is difficult to work around, but regardless, i will try.
As a "CEO sub," i am not blind to the way society has shaped my sexual tendencies and the way that the capitalistic rat race has supposedly forced me to seek out danger and outlandish sexual practices. i know that if i lived in Sweden or was homeschooled or unschooled or was not the anal-retentitve person i am, my submissive nature would be optional, or at least, easy to ignore. i am able to trace my kinks back to the source. i am able to locate where and why i became the young woman i am today. But the same goes for all my traits. i write this post because i myself am a feminist. The roots of my feminism began when i was 7, and i began to notice the preferential treatment extra and intra familial boys received over me. i fear going to sleep tonight because i have a one-on-one meeting with a friend tomorrow, which i fear because i am a special blend of introvert who fears social interaction and extrovert who loves it and craves groups and parries. The roots of my so-called introversion came from my oversocialization with introverts and my lack of extroverted friends, despite being a natural extrovert and social butterfly. Theses are just examples. Kink is of course influenced by the world we live in, but so is everything else. At best, this argument is lazy. Every decision we make, every though we have, every thing we know or like or buy is directly influenced by the experiences we have living in society. It is unavoidable. All we will ever know is our own experiences and our own speculations are limited. We make every decision and have every though based on the knowledge and experience we have picked up, artificially and naturally, living our daily lives. This is unavoidable fact.
Anyway. It is now 3 AM, and i am tired. i hope this post finds you all well. i look forward to any responses i may receive and i hope you all have wonderful days!
