I have a friend who is into torturing girls. It totally gets him off. He tells stories that start out, "So, I was torturing this girl...."
I really hate this word, as applied to BDSM. Torture is perpetrated on non-consenting people. It's something you do to someone whose life and health don't matter to you, someone whose body and mind you are okay with fucking up permanently. I don't really want my sex/play partner to think of me as her torture victim.
Okay, I know that my friend is not actually torturing anyone. He's putting his partners through a series of intense sensations, many of which they probably don't like very much, but all of which they have consented to, because having these things done to them turns them on. He may even be doing some sort of torturer/torture victim roleplay with them. This isn't torture, just as rape play is not rape.
The problem here is in the word itself, as it so often is in BDSM. (Seriously, this is the kind of irresponsible use of language that would make Orwell spin in his grave. Or emerge from it, with vigorous Orwellian re-education on his mind! Zombie Orwell!) I have a big fucking problem with rape, but I don't have a problem with rape play. People can play with the idea of non-consent as much as they'd like. Ditto race play. People are playing with their experiences with, and the presentation of race - which is why it is not called "hate crimes". (Race play seriously squicks me out, but that's neither here nor there. In fact, I'm going to guess that my feelings of squicked-ness have something to do with my discomfort with the heaping piles of white privilege that are my inheritance from birth.) I would not have a problem with someone telling me that they were into torture scenes, because that implies that everyone is playing.
I don't even necessarily think that this is something that one needs to be rigorous about in the bedroom. If you turn to your partner and say, "Lover, I'd like if you'd torture me," I won't think less of you, because at that point, both of you will, I hope, have an understanding of what that means. And a safeword. I do, however, think that people should be cognizant of what they say in public, especially in front of people who are new to the scene. Saying that you're going to go home and torture your lover implies that you think of your lover the way a torturer thinks of his victim. Most people are going to understand what you mean, but do you really want to be responsible for the person who doesn't?
So remember: "I am really into torture scenes."
Friday, June 25, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Rage less, Mary B.
A couple of nights ago, Mina, Miranda, our friend Jack and I went to a play party. [Moment of self-congratulation: Jack is named for Jack Pumpkinhead, of the Oz books - a character who is, essentially, a walking innuendo. I think he'd appreciate that.] Mina and I have been hanging out with Jack a lot lately, often to practice rope ties, and at the last party we all went to, we asked Jack to play with us. This was a really good decision. Jack is a big rope enthusiast and a big goofball: as soon as he had tied my wrists to the legs of a sawhorse, he took the first opportunity to tickle me. He's a lot of fun, very careful about limits, and respectful of my relationship with Mina.
Disclaimer time: I don't want this to turn into one of those blogs that's about my sex life and how totally awesome it is, and how the other night I did this thing that made me feel sooooooooo submissive, and isn't pain super fun? Still, I think that a few concrete details are going to be important for illustrating my point. So: I'll try to keep it tasteful if you try not to get too titillated.
Based on Jack's general awesomeness, we asked him to play with us again at this last party, which was hosted by a group that I hadn't interacted with before. It was a very chill group of people - dorky in the best possible way. In fact, this party seemed like the perfect setting for Mina and me to try out something that we'd been hoping to do for a bit: Mina and Jack got me tied down on a bed, and then Mina scoped out the room and asked a man (a stranger) who was watching us if he would like to get a few hits in. As the session went on, Mina invited a couple more people (both men) to join in as well. Then blah blah edited for content, and I had a really good time.
I was actually surprised by how smoothly things went. I expected to enjoy it, and I felt safe with Mina running the show, but there were quite a few things that could have gone wrong and had to be dealt with, and none of them did. I am interested in enumerating as many of those as I can and trying to pinpoint what we did right, since that's going to be useful in the future. And! It means that I get to write about good things! You want to read about abuse? Read Fugitivus! (No, really, do it.)
Okay, first of all, there is always a danger that I will feel unsafe and vulnerable, and that the bad feelings will completely take over. There was even a brief period during the party where that could have happened, but Mina and I stepped outside and had a little chat and a cuddle, and then things were excellent again. So, to state the obvious: communication is good. We did that right. Being able to be neurotic in front of each other is good. Then, once the actual play started, I not only felt safe in general, but I'd been recently reminded that Mina is totally prepared to handle any freakouts/triggers/neuroses, so I felt safe on that score in particular, and thus a lot less likely to panic.
Next, I reminded myself that we play like ourselves, and not like anyone else. Yes, I am the broken record for the concept album Obvious Things in Obviousville (1973). We had just watched a young couple we know hit the hell out of this girl. There was blood, tears, and intensity. When Mina and I play - and particularly when we play with Jack - there is a lot of laughter, punning, and me swearing elaborate vengeance. This other scene was pretty lovely, and I began to worry that I would be unimpressive in comparison, since I was pretty sure that nobody was going to make me bleed, and certain that nobody was going to try to make me sob. As it turns out, there is an audience for giggly, masochistic exhibitionists, and I'm glad that I didn't let myself get hung up on wanting to be someone I'm not. (This lesson has been brought to you by the letter G.)
In terms of our play partners, Mina chose remarkably well. I couldn't always see them, but I found out later that she went for older men who weren't trying to look tough and domly. (The idea was to find people who wouldn't try to take over with their big domly egos.) She made it clear that she was in charge of the operation and stated a couple of ground rules. Girl's got some poise, basically.
Most importantly, everyone - Mina especially - paid close attention to my reactions. I could tell that they were, because every time I started to feel uncomfortable with something, or like I legitimately disliked a sensation, or like I needed a different intensity, they changed what they were doing to accommodate me, even before I felt the need to articulate something being wrong. When they tried something very different, they would check in with me. The strangers would ask Mina about my likes and limits. The play went on for a long time, and then Mina stopped it while I was feeling very good and very exhausted, before I had to ask them to stop. The whole experience was obviously about making me feel good, and I couldn't have asked for more conscientious people to do it.
This really boils down to: it is good to find partners you can trust, and whose judgment you trust.
I'll go back to being rageful soon, I'm sure.
Disclaimer time: I don't want this to turn into one of those blogs that's about my sex life and how totally awesome it is, and how the other night I did this thing that made me feel sooooooooo submissive, and isn't pain super fun? Still, I think that a few concrete details are going to be important for illustrating my point. So: I'll try to keep it tasteful if you try not to get too titillated.
Based on Jack's general awesomeness, we asked him to play with us again at this last party, which was hosted by a group that I hadn't interacted with before. It was a very chill group of people - dorky in the best possible way. In fact, this party seemed like the perfect setting for Mina and me to try out something that we'd been hoping to do for a bit: Mina and Jack got me tied down on a bed, and then Mina scoped out the room and asked a man (a stranger) who was watching us if he would like to get a few hits in. As the session went on, Mina invited a couple more people (both men) to join in as well. Then blah blah edited for content, and I had a really good time.
I was actually surprised by how smoothly things went. I expected to enjoy it, and I felt safe with Mina running the show, but there were quite a few things that could have gone wrong and had to be dealt with, and none of them did. I am interested in enumerating as many of those as I can and trying to pinpoint what we did right, since that's going to be useful in the future. And! It means that I get to write about good things! You want to read about abuse? Read Fugitivus! (No, really, do it.)
Okay, first of all, there is always a danger that I will feel unsafe and vulnerable, and that the bad feelings will completely take over. There was even a brief period during the party where that could have happened, but Mina and I stepped outside and had a little chat and a cuddle, and then things were excellent again. So, to state the obvious: communication is good. We did that right. Being able to be neurotic in front of each other is good. Then, once the actual play started, I not only felt safe in general, but I'd been recently reminded that Mina is totally prepared to handle any freakouts/triggers/neuroses, so I felt safe on that score in particular, and thus a lot less likely to panic.
Next, I reminded myself that we play like ourselves, and not like anyone else. Yes, I am the broken record for the concept album Obvious Things in Obviousville (1973). We had just watched a young couple we know hit the hell out of this girl. There was blood, tears, and intensity. When Mina and I play - and particularly when we play with Jack - there is a lot of laughter, punning, and me swearing elaborate vengeance. This other scene was pretty lovely, and I began to worry that I would be unimpressive in comparison, since I was pretty sure that nobody was going to make me bleed, and certain that nobody was going to try to make me sob. As it turns out, there is an audience for giggly, masochistic exhibitionists, and I'm glad that I didn't let myself get hung up on wanting to be someone I'm not. (This lesson has been brought to you by the letter G.)
In terms of our play partners, Mina chose remarkably well. I couldn't always see them, but I found out later that she went for older men who weren't trying to look tough and domly. (The idea was to find people who wouldn't try to take over with their big domly egos.) She made it clear that she was in charge of the operation and stated a couple of ground rules. Girl's got some poise, basically.
Most importantly, everyone - Mina especially - paid close attention to my reactions. I could tell that they were, because every time I started to feel uncomfortable with something, or like I legitimately disliked a sensation, or like I needed a different intensity, they changed what they were doing to accommodate me, even before I felt the need to articulate something being wrong. When they tried something very different, they would check in with me. The strangers would ask Mina about my likes and limits. The play went on for a long time, and then Mina stopped it while I was feeling very good and very exhausted, before I had to ask them to stop. The whole experience was obviously about making me feel good, and I couldn't have asked for more conscientious people to do it.
This really boils down to: it is good to find partners you can trust, and whose judgment you trust.
I'll go back to being rageful soon, I'm sure.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Abuse? Abuse!
At some point, I should actually talk about abuse, if I'm going to bitch about people not talking about abuse. Ugh, responsibility.
Okay. Abuse.
Like I've said, I was involved in an abusive D/s relationship. I'm going to call the abusive fellow Arthur, because when you want a name for an abuser, just ask a Bronte. (Gals, which one are you? I'm an Anne.) My abuse narrative will sound familiar to anyone who's spent time in Fetlife's groups for submissive women. In fact, after typing the whole thing up, I've opted not to include it here, because I think that anyone who actually knows me will be a lot happier if I omit the details. In very brief, the relationship (not a romantic one) was abusive because Arthur was into maintaining control over me by pushing my hard limits and by guilt tripping me if I used a safeword. I walked around feeling completely fucked up for way too long, and when it hit the point that I was sobbing about it every day, I got enough objectivity to realize, "Wait, this is not how this should go. I don't feel good about this at all." Finally, all of the Are You In an Abusive Relationship? pamphlets that had been stored up in my brain since high school got to have their say. "Holy shit," I thought. "This relationship is textbook abusive."
Now, I do not think that Arthur is a bad guy. I think that he was young and troubled, and completely unprepared for the responsibility of having someone give so much control over to him. I think also that he really believed himself to be acting in my best interest. I think this in part because I've heard some of the views that he espoused from other sources as well, all around the kink community here. They go like this:
- What every sub really wants is to be good. If she isn't striving for this, then she isn't a real sub. [Oh, yeah, I'm going to use female pronouns to talk about subs and male pronouns to talk about doms, because that's what I'm talking about right now.]
- "Being good" means having no boundaries whatsoever, so as to be most available to your dom.
- It is the duty of the dom to help his sub achieve ultimate goodness by breaking down her boundaries.
This is the Father Knows Best model of D/s relationships. I know a lot of people who subscribe to it. Shockingly enough, I think it's extremely dangerous. This philosophy of D/s did a great disservice both to Arthur and to me. (Fucking people up isn't one of his kinks.) Like I've said - or at least implied - before, I think that it's important to maintain a clear boundary between what we actually want and believe and what we pretend to want and believe. I wanted to pretend to believe that Arthur knew what was best for me, and I ended up relinquishing so much control to him that I had to behave as if he actually did know what was best for me.
Here's the thing that separates D/s relationships from vanilla ones: one person is explicitly relinquishing power to another person. That makes abuse all the easier to perpetrate and all the harder to identify. That said, why don't we warn people about this as soon as we find out that they are new to the scene? Why is this topic so taboo? I guess it goes back to this fear that if we tell anyone that anything is wrong with BDSM, that he will pull off his fake mustache and reveal himself to be a secret member of the Vanilla Police, here to take us away (haha hoho) for indecent acts. To which I say, grow up. You are not Oscar Wilde. The worse persecution you will probably ever experience because of your naughty proclivities will be at the hands of a partner who thinks that your sadism/masochism/dominance/submissiveness/balloon fetish is kind of icky. Oh please. You have so little to lose from warning people about abuse and so little to gain from shaming me for warning them.
If I had been told that what I was experiencing was abuse, and not just par for the course, I might have gotten out of that situation a lot sooner. I want to tell everyone that, but I don't, for fear of losing the community that I have. Because, like, this shit is heavy. It's not fun to hear about. It's terrible PR. And now I'm a little ashamed for posting this for the benefit of a few people, instead of saying it really publicly, because it should be heard. I don't know. Maybe it's best not to drop the "a-bomb" because that's, like, totally humorless. Maybe it's better just to point out that not everyone that can tie a knot or wield a knife deserves your trust. Maybe you're better off being hyper-vigilant about safewords until you know for sure. Maybe we bottoms have to look out for each other. Just a thought.
Okay. Abuse.
Like I've said, I was involved in an abusive D/s relationship. I'm going to call the abusive fellow Arthur, because when you want a name for an abuser, just ask a Bronte. (Gals, which one are you? I'm an Anne.) My abuse narrative will sound familiar to anyone who's spent time in Fetlife's groups for submissive women. In fact, after typing the whole thing up, I've opted not to include it here, because I think that anyone who actually knows me will be a lot happier if I omit the details. In very brief, the relationship (not a romantic one) was abusive because Arthur was into maintaining control over me by pushing my hard limits and by guilt tripping me if I used a safeword. I walked around feeling completely fucked up for way too long, and when it hit the point that I was sobbing about it every day, I got enough objectivity to realize, "Wait, this is not how this should go. I don't feel good about this at all." Finally, all of the Are You In an Abusive Relationship? pamphlets that had been stored up in my brain since high school got to have their say. "Holy shit," I thought. "This relationship is textbook abusive."
Now, I do not think that Arthur is a bad guy. I think that he was young and troubled, and completely unprepared for the responsibility of having someone give so much control over to him. I think also that he really believed himself to be acting in my best interest. I think this in part because I've heard some of the views that he espoused from other sources as well, all around the kink community here. They go like this:
- What every sub really wants is to be good. If she isn't striving for this, then she isn't a real sub. [Oh, yeah, I'm going to use female pronouns to talk about subs and male pronouns to talk about doms, because that's what I'm talking about right now.]
- "Being good" means having no boundaries whatsoever, so as to be most available to your dom.
- It is the duty of the dom to help his sub achieve ultimate goodness by breaking down her boundaries.
This is the Father Knows Best model of D/s relationships. I know a lot of people who subscribe to it. Shockingly enough, I think it's extremely dangerous. This philosophy of D/s did a great disservice both to Arthur and to me. (Fucking people up isn't one of his kinks.) Like I've said - or at least implied - before, I think that it's important to maintain a clear boundary between what we actually want and believe and what we pretend to want and believe. I wanted to pretend to believe that Arthur knew what was best for me, and I ended up relinquishing so much control to him that I had to behave as if he actually did know what was best for me.
Here's the thing that separates D/s relationships from vanilla ones: one person is explicitly relinquishing power to another person. That makes abuse all the easier to perpetrate and all the harder to identify. That said, why don't we warn people about this as soon as we find out that they are new to the scene? Why is this topic so taboo? I guess it goes back to this fear that if we tell anyone that anything is wrong with BDSM, that he will pull off his fake mustache and reveal himself to be a secret member of the Vanilla Police, here to take us away (haha hoho) for indecent acts. To which I say, grow up. You are not Oscar Wilde. The worse persecution you will probably ever experience because of your naughty proclivities will be at the hands of a partner who thinks that your sadism/masochism/dominance/submissiveness/balloon fetish is kind of icky. Oh please. You have so little to lose from warning people about abuse and so little to gain from shaming me for warning them.
If I had been told that what I was experiencing was abuse, and not just par for the course, I might have gotten out of that situation a lot sooner. I want to tell everyone that, but I don't, for fear of losing the community that I have. Because, like, this shit is heavy. It's not fun to hear about. It's terrible PR. And now I'm a little ashamed for posting this for the benefit of a few people, instead of saying it really publicly, because it should be heard. I don't know. Maybe it's best not to drop the "a-bomb" because that's, like, totally humorless. Maybe it's better just to point out that not everyone that can tie a knot or wield a knife deserves your trust. Maybe you're better off being hyper-vigilant about safewords until you know for sure. Maybe we bottoms have to look out for each other. Just a thought.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
What We Talk About When We Talk About Kink
This one's going to be short and ranty. And in list format!
Sometimes I just get so unhappy about the terms people use, and then I have to monologue about them to anyone who will listen (Mina and Miranda, basically). Now I'm going to do that to you, imaginary readers! For your extreme, almost-overwhelming pleasure, I present... A List of Terms That Piss Me Off:
Subby - Or maybe it's with an "ie". If someone self-identifies as a subby/ie, that's fine with me. Anyone who thinks it's cool to use that as a blanket term for submissives, though, hasn't thought about what the word "submissive" means. It does not mean "into humiliation". Plenty of subs are into being demeaned, but even among those, most of us aren't into being demeaned all the time, by anyone who thinks they know anything about BDSM. Demean me - if I ask you to - but respect my sexual identity, please.
Domme - "Dominant" is a gender-neutral word. "Dom" is a gender-neutral abbreviation. The only reason to make the word feminine is that it is abnormal for women to be dominant, which is, even statistically speaking, untrue.
The Lifestyle - Oh come on.
Do not even think for a minute that this is the end of me being angry about terminology! However. I am about to go to a party, where I plan to be happy, which is more fun. Goodnight!
Sometimes I just get so unhappy about the terms people use, and then I have to monologue about them to anyone who will listen (Mina and Miranda, basically). Now I'm going to do that to you, imaginary readers! For your extreme, almost-overwhelming pleasure, I present... A List of Terms That Piss Me Off:
Subby - Or maybe it's with an "ie". If someone self-identifies as a subby/ie, that's fine with me. Anyone who thinks it's cool to use that as a blanket term for submissives, though, hasn't thought about what the word "submissive" means. It does not mean "into humiliation". Plenty of subs are into being demeaned, but even among those, most of us aren't into being demeaned all the time, by anyone who thinks they know anything about BDSM. Demean me - if I ask you to - but respect my sexual identity, please.
Domme - "Dominant" is a gender-neutral word. "Dom" is a gender-neutral abbreviation. The only reason to make the word feminine is that it is abnormal for women to be dominant, which is, even statistically speaking, untrue.
The Lifestyle - Oh come on.
Do not even think for a minute that this is the end of me being angry about terminology! However. I am about to go to a party, where I plan to be happy, which is more fun. Goodnight!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Macho Doms
I've been putting off writing this entry: it is far too big already. I want to write about how doms and subs interact outside of a clearly-negotiated play context - when the lines are blurred, and what people's expectations seem to be. I can tell that this is going to be terrifyingly long, and that I'm not going to explain myself nearly as well as I'd like to.
So I'm going to stall a little longer. I'm going to talk about names. In the proud blogger tradition, I'm using aliases for myself and the people I write about. In the proud nerd tradition, they are, so far, all literary references. Specifically, I have named myself Susan and my roommate Miranda after characters who had problematic relationships to magical worlds. Susan is the unfortunate Pevensie sibling who stops believing in Narnia - and starts showing a little too much interest in stockings and boys - and is thus barred from the Kingdom of Heaven (I mean, of Aslan). Miranda is Prospero's daughter in The Tempest, who gets to be on the receiving end of her father's magic quite often, and who gets to spend some serious quality time with the creature who attempted to rape her. Yes, I thought a lot about this. Yes, I am very pleased with myself.
Of course, I had to come up with a nickname for my ladyfriend as well, and since she's just as critical as either Miranda or myself, I needed one in the same vein. Wendy was the gimme, but Lost Girls has pretty much ruined that one for me. When I asked Miranda, she - without missing a beat - suggested Bella; I value my life too much to use that one. I'm sure there are better ones that I'm not thinking of, but I'm going to go with Mina. (You know who I mean, I know you do.)
Ok. Onward.
I am so tired of doms who posture. I mean when a group of a certain kind of macho dom gets together and has a pissing contest. Not that they're showing off skills, which is cool, or passing around pictures of their rope work, which is also fine (although after a bit it begins to feel like looking at pictures of someone's pet. It's really for their benefit, and you have to love the pictures because they do.) I'm talking about the doms who constantly need to one-up each other with stories about their exploits in kink, and about their own domly prowess in particular. Something like this:
Master Beelzebub: I once left this girl hanging from my ceiling for two hours while my friends and I played Halo in the next room! She totally yelled at me afterward, until I told her what she could do with her mouth! [Heyo!]
Lord Dom-Dom Pop: Yeah, well, this one time my girl was being a brat, so I spilled my drink on the floor and made her lick it up!
(Ok, I should probably have more respect for the monikers that people choose for themselves, but it's too much fun to mock! A friend of mine refers to pushy doms with an inflated sense of their own importance and impressiveness as either Lord Flashpants or Zeus Thunderthighs. It makes me so happy.)
So, I'm bothered by these conversations not just because they are annoying, although they are. It's not just that they always have to happen at a loud volume, designed to attract the largest possible audience, at the expense of the most possible other conversations. I can put up with these posture-fests with only mild irritation as long as they are about scenes that sound like they were designed for everyone's enjoyment. What really bothers me is when I hear a conversation like the one above, wherein the participants are describing doing things to their partner(s) that the partner(s) don't want or like.
Okay, okay, I get that a lot of play is about just that. I personally enjoy being made to do things that I don't enjoy doing. I might enjoy being made to lick up Mina's drink, and I would even be fine with her telling people about it, as long as she didn't tell them that she forced me against my will to do something I didn't want to do.
This is the difference for me. If, during a scene, Mina spills her drink and tells me to lick it up, I tell her no, and she shoves my face into the puddle, that's fine. We are adults who have agreed to play together, agreed to the terms of the play, and agreed to a safe word, should anything go awry. We know that we are participating in a scene about power play: we are pretending that Mina has the right to push me around. We are pretending that I am unable to retaliate, should she do something really cruel. We are pretending that I am not pleased as punch to have a face full of, well, punch. Even if I'm grossed out, humiliated, furious, I am still enjoying myself, because I like to be pushed around. That is, after all, the point. When we do these things, we are playing. This is pretty 101.
It would not be okay if Mina then told a group of people about it, saying "I shoved Susan's face in a puddle of punch. Bitch hated it."
Never mind that Mina and I have an egalitarian relationship outside of the bedroom, and in public she can call my by my name or by the appropriate pronoun. It would be a problem even if we were D/s all the time. It would even be a problem if I wanted her to tell everyone I hated it. This is because she would still be pretending. And in pretending, she would be asking everyone in earshot to pretend along with her.
When Lord Dom-Dom Pop announces that he made his bitch sleep in the doghouse all night, that she hates his guts but she can't do a thing about it, he is asking us to acknowledge his power and his ladyfriend's helplessness and misery. Essentially, he is making us part of the scene, without the prior negotiation, trust, precautions, etc. He is playing with me without my permission. I am absolutely not okay with that.
I'm realizing that a discussion about power dynamics outside of scenes will have to be broken up over several entries, otherwise I'll never post anything and eventually end up with a book. I think I'll wait until I've been doing this for awhile, write a book about my blog, and wait for someone to make a movie about the book about my blog. God, I hate Julie Powell.
So I'm going to stall a little longer. I'm going to talk about names. In the proud blogger tradition, I'm using aliases for myself and the people I write about. In the proud nerd tradition, they are, so far, all literary references. Specifically, I have named myself Susan and my roommate Miranda after characters who had problematic relationships to magical worlds. Susan is the unfortunate Pevensie sibling who stops believing in Narnia - and starts showing a little too much interest in stockings and boys - and is thus barred from the Kingdom of Heaven (I mean, of Aslan). Miranda is Prospero's daughter in The Tempest, who gets to be on the receiving end of her father's magic quite often, and who gets to spend some serious quality time with the creature who attempted to rape her. Yes, I thought a lot about this. Yes, I am very pleased with myself.
Of course, I had to come up with a nickname for my ladyfriend as well, and since she's just as critical as either Miranda or myself, I needed one in the same vein. Wendy was the gimme, but Lost Girls has pretty much ruined that one for me. When I asked Miranda, she - without missing a beat - suggested Bella; I value my life too much to use that one. I'm sure there are better ones that I'm not thinking of, but I'm going to go with Mina. (You know who I mean, I know you do.)
Ok. Onward.
I am so tired of doms who posture. I mean when a group of a certain kind of macho dom gets together and has a pissing contest. Not that they're showing off skills, which is cool, or passing around pictures of their rope work, which is also fine (although after a bit it begins to feel like looking at pictures of someone's pet. It's really for their benefit, and you have to love the pictures because they do.) I'm talking about the doms who constantly need to one-up each other with stories about their exploits in kink, and about their own domly prowess in particular. Something like this:
Master Beelzebub: I once left this girl hanging from my ceiling for two hours while my friends and I played Halo in the next room! She totally yelled at me afterward, until I told her what she could do with her mouth! [Heyo!]
Lord Dom-Dom Pop: Yeah, well, this one time my girl was being a brat, so I spilled my drink on the floor and made her lick it up!
(Ok, I should probably have more respect for the monikers that people choose for themselves, but it's too much fun to mock! A friend of mine refers to pushy doms with an inflated sense of their own importance and impressiveness as either Lord Flashpants or Zeus Thunderthighs. It makes me so happy.)
So, I'm bothered by these conversations not just because they are annoying, although they are. It's not just that they always have to happen at a loud volume, designed to attract the largest possible audience, at the expense of the most possible other conversations. I can put up with these posture-fests with only mild irritation as long as they are about scenes that sound like they were designed for everyone's enjoyment. What really bothers me is when I hear a conversation like the one above, wherein the participants are describing doing things to their partner(s) that the partner(s) don't want or like.
Okay, okay, I get that a lot of play is about just that. I personally enjoy being made to do things that I don't enjoy doing. I might enjoy being made to lick up Mina's drink, and I would even be fine with her telling people about it, as long as she didn't tell them that she forced me against my will to do something I didn't want to do.
This is the difference for me. If, during a scene, Mina spills her drink and tells me to lick it up, I tell her no, and she shoves my face into the puddle, that's fine. We are adults who have agreed to play together, agreed to the terms of the play, and agreed to a safe word, should anything go awry. We know that we are participating in a scene about power play: we are pretending that Mina has the right to push me around. We are pretending that I am unable to retaliate, should she do something really cruel. We are pretending that I am not pleased as punch to have a face full of, well, punch. Even if I'm grossed out, humiliated, furious, I am still enjoying myself, because I like to be pushed around. That is, after all, the point. When we do these things, we are playing. This is pretty 101.
It would not be okay if Mina then told a group of people about it, saying "I shoved Susan's face in a puddle of punch. Bitch hated it."
Never mind that Mina and I have an egalitarian relationship outside of the bedroom, and in public she can call my by my name or by the appropriate pronoun. It would be a problem even if we were D/s all the time. It would even be a problem if I wanted her to tell everyone I hated it. This is because she would still be pretending. And in pretending, she would be asking everyone in earshot to pretend along with her.
When Lord Dom-Dom Pop announces that he made his bitch sleep in the doghouse all night, that she hates his guts but she can't do a thing about it, he is asking us to acknowledge his power and his ladyfriend's helplessness and misery. Essentially, he is making us part of the scene, without the prior negotiation, trust, precautions, etc. He is playing with me without my permission. I am absolutely not okay with that.
I'm realizing that a discussion about power dynamics outside of scenes will have to be broken up over several entries, otherwise I'll never post anything and eventually end up with a book. I think I'll wait until I've been doing this for awhile, write a book about my blog, and wait for someone to make a movie about the book about my blog. God, I hate Julie Powell.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
These are the things that I wonder.
I cannot sign on to Fetlife without running into an announcement for a class or demonstration by a famous dom. Various groups are forever heralding the arrival of Master Jean-Paul Satyr and his excellent knife play technique, or Sir Cruelteeth, here to talk to us about biting, all the way from New York! I have never heard of any of them, but I haven't been around that long, and other people get excited enough about them that they seem to have achieved some measure of legitimate fame. A lot of these events sound exciting, and like things that I would go to if I had a spare thirty bucks a week just lying around, but after umpteen invitations to see Mistress Faerie Venom discipline some worthless whores, I began to wonder:
Where are the celebrity submissives? Are there any celebrity submissives?
I know that the profusion of celebrity tops versus the seeming lack of celebrity bottoms makes sense; after all, tops have more badass - not to mention teachable - skills. I know, however, that I have also been invited to classes and seminars about various kinds of service, but those were always taught by local folks, not anyone imported for their expertise and the strength of their name. I wonder, too, that I have never been invited to see a celebrity bootblacker, since bootblacking is certainly a tangible skill, and once that I hear is totally hot (having had no personal experience with it). But no, I can think of none, given that Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn't count. Joss Whedon also does not count, although he has apparently admitted to being really into femdom. I'm looking for someone who is famous for their skills as a sub.
I asked around a bit, and a friend of mine mentioned Madison Young. I have to say, Madison Young occupies sort of a gray area for me. On the one hand, she is indeed famous, and I really do admire her. I like so much that she writes about being a feminist sub and a vegan in a culture of leather, that she makes her own porn (including a porno version of Macbeth, my god!), and that she runs a gallery for art by women. Madison Young is extremely cool, and I do not at all attempt to deny that. However. She did get famous as a porn star. She still is primarily famous as a porn star. I would really like to see a celebrity sub that can be famous without being preternaturally gorgeous, which Madison Young is, I mean it's really boggling, and without being objectified.
I don't know what that would look like at this point. I can only think of a couple of really awesome skills that a sub might demonstrate for an admiring crowd: bootblacking is one, and self-suspension another. I'm sure that I can think of more. The other alternative, I realized, is for a submissive to be admired and sought-after for his or her mind - for being an excellent public speaker, say, or for publishing something really excellent about BDSM, or service, or the nature of bottoming or whatever. I told Miranda, jokingly, that I was going to have to get famous, for the sake of submissives everywhere.
And that is how I came up with the title for a blog, and it is the blog you have just read.
I started this post off meaning to talk about hierarchy within the BDSM community - how relationships in the bedroom leak into everyday life - but I am frankly exhausted. I'm going to let this go now, while I'm still coherent.
Where are the celebrity submissives? Are there any celebrity submissives?
I know that the profusion of celebrity tops versus the seeming lack of celebrity bottoms makes sense; after all, tops have more badass - not to mention teachable - skills. I know, however, that I have also been invited to classes and seminars about various kinds of service, but those were always taught by local folks, not anyone imported for their expertise and the strength of their name. I wonder, too, that I have never been invited to see a celebrity bootblacker, since bootblacking is certainly a tangible skill, and once that I hear is totally hot (having had no personal experience with it). But no, I can think of none, given that Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn't count. Joss Whedon also does not count, although he has apparently admitted to being really into femdom. I'm looking for someone who is famous for their skills as a sub.
I asked around a bit, and a friend of mine mentioned Madison Young. I have to say, Madison Young occupies sort of a gray area for me. On the one hand, she is indeed famous, and I really do admire her. I like so much that she writes about being a feminist sub and a vegan in a culture of leather, that she makes her own porn (including a porno version of Macbeth, my god!), and that she runs a gallery for art by women. Madison Young is extremely cool, and I do not at all attempt to deny that. However. She did get famous as a porn star. She still is primarily famous as a porn star. I would really like to see a celebrity sub that can be famous without being preternaturally gorgeous, which Madison Young is, I mean it's really boggling, and without being objectified.
I don't know what that would look like at this point. I can only think of a couple of really awesome skills that a sub might demonstrate for an admiring crowd: bootblacking is one, and self-suspension another. I'm sure that I can think of more. The other alternative, I realized, is for a submissive to be admired and sought-after for his or her mind - for being an excellent public speaker, say, or for publishing something really excellent about BDSM, or service, or the nature of bottoming or whatever. I told Miranda, jokingly, that I was going to have to get famous, for the sake of submissives everywhere.
And that is how I came up with the title for a blog, and it is the blog you have just read.
I started this post off meaning to talk about hierarchy within the BDSM community - how relationships in the bedroom leak into everyday life - but I am frankly exhausted. I'm going to let this go now, while I'm still coherent.
Throwing Down the Gauntlet
This being the very first entry (!), I'm going to treat it as an introduction, both to me and to the project. This is not just because leaping right into a critical analysis of, say, the situations in which we do or do not use the word "play" would be terrifying, and I am stalling. I am, of course, terrified, and stalling, but (liberal arts kid that I am) I also think it's important that my (imaginary) readers know where I'm coming from. Here goes:
I'm Susan. I'm in my early twenties. I have been involved in the scene (i.e. munches, parties, events) for as long as I've lived in a place with any scene to speak of, which is about six months. Before that, I'd been doing kinky things with partners for nearly four years, including spending several months in a non-romantic, but pretty all-encompassing D/s relationship. I identify as a submissive and a masochist.
When I first moved to this city with my roommate/amazing friend Miranda, we were beyond thrilled - I mean really over the moon - to be going somewhere with an active BDSM community. You have to understand, we were coming from a small college in the middle of nowhere, which, in spite of its reputation for being a stronghold of free-thinking, free-loving liberals, was the most prudish place I have ever spent any significant portion of time (and that includes Catholic middle school). This was a shockingly sexless campus, and even when people were having sex, they were not talking about it, and certainly not openly, and certainly not as though it was fun. There were of course, a few exceptions, and I am beyond grateful for my kinky - and just cheerfully slutty - friends, but in general the landscape was pretty bleak and devoid of sex toys. Miranda and I tried to throw a play party once, and it was a complete bust. Weeks of planning, shopping, inviting, explaining, explaining again, explaining again, and reviewing the guest list to make sure that all of our invitees would be comfortable with all of our other invitees concluded in a gathering that consisted of the two of us, my girlfriend, our roommate and his girlfriend, and our roommate's best friend. As it turned out, there was just too much platonic friendship in that room to allow play. C'est la vie. We talked and drank juice.
Given all of that, Miranda and I were so ready, oh so very ready to get somewhere with a scene. We both cheerfully created Fetlife accounts and joined all of the groups specific to our city. We found a weekly TNG munch that happens not too far from our apartment. We also spent enough time on some of the other Fetlife groups that we decided that if we went to said munch and met just one person who was not a complete creeper, we would count it as a win. As it turned out, the place was creeper-free, and we have since become regulars ourselves. We have also each been to a few events, some of which have been really lovely. (Getting hit in public is awesome.)
That said, I have had some problems with the community. It can be hard to tell, for instance, when someone is playing, and when they are just a big old sexist. Some of the terminology really squicks me out. There's quite a lot of dogma in place about how doms or subs always are, and what is always permissible. In fact, some of these are problems that I have with individuals, or with certain segments of the community, but the overarching problem is the implicit gag rule against talking about points of discomfort. When I have done this, either on Fetlife or in person, I either get brushed off ("It's just play, so why does it matter?" "If you don't like it, don't do it.") or vilified ("Don't we get enough shit from outside the community?"). I understand the drive to make this kind of community a safe space, and I do agree with it, but I don't think that it really is a safe space if I can't even bring up the aspects of it that make me feel unsafe, for fear of offending someone.
This is probably a good time to bring up my prejudices, since my (imaginary) readers are bound (heh) to notice them anyway. Lists are always good:
- I am a feminist. Actually, I'm one of those angry feminists. I see misogyny everywhere because it is everywhere.
- I am bisexual, which has made me hyper-conscious of how people see me in relation to the person I'm with. (Most obviously, queer groups tend to be a lot friendlier if I'm actually dating a girl.) It's been interesting (and sometimes icky) to be a bi sub dating a gay switch. More on that later.
- I was in an abusive situation with a dom some time ago. This has had a few different effects: First, I am sometimes still triggered, which is no fun, so I have been very careful with myself in joining the scene here. I didn't go to a party until I was sure that I was good and ready, and even more sure that I could trust myself to leave if things got scary for me. Second, I know that I am sometimes apt to project my own experience onto other people, so that someone who is a dom, and also a bit pushy, gets filed away as Probably An Abusive Fuckbrain, when in fact he or she may just be a dom who is a bit pushy. Third, the fact that I do not feel comfortable mentioning the abuse thing (my own, or in general, because it really is rampant) around fellow kinksters that are not Miranda, because my previous experience has been that the people I mention it to will immediately say "But we are not all like that! Surely you are not saying that I am like that! DO NOT TALK ABOUT THAT BECAUSE IT IS NOT FUN AND I AM NOT LIKE THAT AND MY FRIENDS ARE NOT LIKE THAT AND I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN AAAAAAIIIIEEEEE!!!" is a big part of what prompted me to start writing this blog. This is my safe space, and I will say whatever I damn well want about abuse, because someone really ought to be talking about abuse.
I think that's about it for an introduction. I'll get into specifics next time. It will remain to be seen how personal I want to get with this, and how much of it will be mini essays about things that bother me. We shall see.
I'm Susan. I'm in my early twenties. I have been involved in the scene (i.e. munches, parties, events) for as long as I've lived in a place with any scene to speak of, which is about six months. Before that, I'd been doing kinky things with partners for nearly four years, including spending several months in a non-romantic, but pretty all-encompassing D/s relationship. I identify as a submissive and a masochist.
When I first moved to this city with my roommate/amazing friend Miranda, we were beyond thrilled - I mean really over the moon - to be going somewhere with an active BDSM community. You have to understand, we were coming from a small college in the middle of nowhere, which, in spite of its reputation for being a stronghold of free-thinking, free-loving liberals, was the most prudish place I have ever spent any significant portion of time (and that includes Catholic middle school). This was a shockingly sexless campus, and even when people were having sex, they were not talking about it, and certainly not openly, and certainly not as though it was fun. There were of course, a few exceptions, and I am beyond grateful for my kinky - and just cheerfully slutty - friends, but in general the landscape was pretty bleak and devoid of sex toys. Miranda and I tried to throw a play party once, and it was a complete bust. Weeks of planning, shopping, inviting, explaining, explaining again, explaining again, and reviewing the guest list to make sure that all of our invitees would be comfortable with all of our other invitees concluded in a gathering that consisted of the two of us, my girlfriend, our roommate and his girlfriend, and our roommate's best friend. As it turned out, there was just too much platonic friendship in that room to allow play. C'est la vie. We talked and drank juice.
Given all of that, Miranda and I were so ready, oh so very ready to get somewhere with a scene. We both cheerfully created Fetlife accounts and joined all of the groups specific to our city. We found a weekly TNG munch that happens not too far from our apartment. We also spent enough time on some of the other Fetlife groups that we decided that if we went to said munch and met just one person who was not a complete creeper, we would count it as a win. As it turned out, the place was creeper-free, and we have since become regulars ourselves. We have also each been to a few events, some of which have been really lovely. (Getting hit in public is awesome.)
That said, I have had some problems with the community. It can be hard to tell, for instance, when someone is playing, and when they are just a big old sexist. Some of the terminology really squicks me out. There's quite a lot of dogma in place about how doms or subs always are, and what is always permissible. In fact, some of these are problems that I have with individuals, or with certain segments of the community, but the overarching problem is the implicit gag rule against talking about points of discomfort. When I have done this, either on Fetlife or in person, I either get brushed off ("It's just play, so why does it matter?" "If you don't like it, don't do it.") or vilified ("Don't we get enough shit from outside the community?"). I understand the drive to make this kind of community a safe space, and I do agree with it, but I don't think that it really is a safe space if I can't even bring up the aspects of it that make me feel unsafe, for fear of offending someone.
This is probably a good time to bring up my prejudices, since my (imaginary) readers are bound (heh) to notice them anyway. Lists are always good:
- I am a feminist. Actually, I'm one of those angry feminists. I see misogyny everywhere because it is everywhere.
- I am bisexual, which has made me hyper-conscious of how people see me in relation to the person I'm with. (Most obviously, queer groups tend to be a lot friendlier if I'm actually dating a girl.) It's been interesting (and sometimes icky) to be a bi sub dating a gay switch. More on that later.
- I was in an abusive situation with a dom some time ago. This has had a few different effects: First, I am sometimes still triggered, which is no fun, so I have been very careful with myself in joining the scene here. I didn't go to a party until I was sure that I was good and ready, and even more sure that I could trust myself to leave if things got scary for me. Second, I know that I am sometimes apt to project my own experience onto other people, so that someone who is a dom, and also a bit pushy, gets filed away as Probably An Abusive Fuckbrain, when in fact he or she may just be a dom who is a bit pushy. Third, the fact that I do not feel comfortable mentioning the abuse thing (my own, or in general, because it really is rampant) around fellow kinksters that are not Miranda, because my previous experience has been that the people I mention it to will immediately say "But we are not all like that! Surely you are not saying that I am like that! DO NOT TALK ABOUT THAT BECAUSE IT IS NOT FUN AND I AM NOT LIKE THAT AND MY FRIENDS ARE NOT LIKE THAT AND I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN AAAAAAIIIIEEEEE!!!" is a big part of what prompted me to start writing this blog. This is my safe space, and I will say whatever I damn well want about abuse, because someone really ought to be talking about abuse.
I think that's about it for an introduction. I'll get into specifics next time. It will remain to be seen how personal I want to get with this, and how much of it will be mini essays about things that bother me. We shall see.
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