Here’s another way in which the Religious Reich and the Patriarchy Blamers are eerily similar. They both have extreme difficulty understanding a very basic concept: consent. The Patriarchy Blamers conflate BDSM with rape, and the religious fundies conflate homosexuality with (take your pick) bestiality, pedophilia, and/or incest, depending on their degree of craziness. Oh, and they probably conflate BDSM with rape, too.
Consent isn’t a very difficult concept to grasp, which is why it’s puzzling that so many people in each camp grapple with it so. Rape victims did not consent to sex. Animals and children cannot consent to sex. What’s left to discuss? And, preemptively: don’t try some bull like, “Well, what if they consent to go out and start a bar fight?” If anyone involved didn’t consent, then your argument just died an early death.
It also amuses exasperates me when people say things like, “But BDSM is dangerous! They might think no means yes, and end up really hurting someone!” Anyone who says that obviously doesn’t know squat about BDSM; otherwise, one of the most basic elements - safe words - would render such a statement moot.
And for the record (because I know plenty of you are wondering, even though you won’t admit it), I think BDSM is kind of silly, but why would I give two shits about what other consenting adults want to do?
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19 Responses to "The similarities keep stacking up"
I don’t think the concern of the Patriarchy Blamers comes from an inability to comprehend that consent, but rather from revulsion at what they perceive to be the psychological and sociological basis of BDSM and that sort of thing. They see it as the sinister reproduction of oppressive gender paradigms, subtexts, and discourses, which is of course yet another manifestation of the insidious patriarchy.
It’s a more deterministic view of consent. Sure, the consent is there, and it’s authentic, but the motivations that give rise to it are essentially misanthropic. Consenting to a “submissive” role, no matter how “voluntary,” is not held to be a life-affirming, dignified impulse that a truly actualised, liberated human being could rationally entertain.
Or that’s the thought, anyway. I mean, there’s definitely some grounding for it in the intellectual heritage of feminist — and in a larger sense, progressive — thought. After all, didn’t many women in the 1950s (or through any other time in history) authentically and voluntarily consent to their limited and subordinate roles? Someone had to come along and invalidate that consent; it may be authentic, it may be sincere, it may be conventional, whatever you want to call it, but it still issues from a framework, a superstructure that is defined and dominated by patriarchal assumptions, terms, and observational language.
Caroline and I had a related discussion a while back about the whole “schoolgirl” role-playing fantasy in sex. I argued what you’re arguing now, that it’s simply a device to satisfy the psychosexual compulsions of consenting adults who make informed consent to its invocation in their sexual life. Caroline argued that even so, it’s an oppressive — or at the very least, disturbing — compulsion to have, and thus, not very reasonable or particularly attractive.
I happen to agree with you on this, but at the same time, I do recognise that it’s part of a much larger question: “Where do we draw the line on the authenticity and validity of individual agency?”
So, just to condense that down a bit: It seems, in the view of the Patriarchy Blamers, that when a woman consents to a BDSM role, especially a submissive one, she is still dancing on the strings of the patriarchy and doing the sort of thing that domineering men want her to do. If she just had more self-respect than that, she’d see right through this humiliating farce and wouldn’t play.
The argument is that BDSM is fetishized patriarchy. And it’s not a bad argument. And no where in any of those threads does anyone say that BDSM should be outlawed. I’m trying to figure out what your arguement really is? That BDSM is above critical analysis? That all feminists have to applaud any choice a woman makes in this country, just because the woman chose it?
Like, say… Kay O’Connor, the state rep from Kansas… using your logic, I should totally approver her *choosing* to believe that women shouldn’t have the vote? I just… don’t get it.
valeko,
I understand your point, and theirs, about the possible psychosexual origins of BDSM. And I believe it’s valuable to examine such issues surrounding sexuality, so as to better understand its role in society as a whole as well as our lives. But, even if BDSM is “fetishized patriarchy,” does that make it wrong? In one of the IBTP threads, our very own eponymous made the point that jazz music arose out of the Jim Crow era South; I quote:
Futhermore, the black-and-white attitude they hold of “BDSM is a manifestation of patriarchial structure and is always bad” is overly simplistic and pretty insulting to the wide spectrum of human sexuality.
Moving on… the comparison about women in the 1950s consenting to their subordinate roles doesn’t hold water; the crucial difference there is that those women did not have a choice (which, as I emphasized in my post a few days ago, is the foundation of feminism). Also, women at that time (and many, many others) were held as truly subordinate to men in all aspects of life, as opposed to playing a submissibe role during one type of sex.
aldahlia,
You wrote:
No. I thought I made this point excrutiatingly clear in my post a few days ago, but I’ll reiterate:
So, no, you don’t have to “applaud” any and every choice a woman makes, just because it’s a choice. I certainly don’t. In fact, I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about what choices I think are stupid and why. I have that right just as much as the people who make retarded choices have the right to make them.
Amber,
OK, so maybe the example is defective for that reason. Doesn’t really undermine the point, though; the Patriarchy Blamers are interrogating the validity and legitimacy of someone’s “consent,” while certainly acknowledging that it’s there, in some sense.
Perhaps a better example would be a woman today that chooses to play a more traditional role in a household that feminists today would find offensive. Or, for that matter, a poor person from a crumbling ghetto that makes poor choices to further problematize his life and burn further bridges to education and economic advancement, in some scenario where it can be plausibly supposed (there are many I can think of) to do one or the other. The overriding theme is the same; the fact that someone “chose” something means nothing, without at least some consideration of the surrounding context and process crystallised in that choice and in the thoughts that led up to it.
I agree with you, and with your criticism of unsophisticated views of BDSM. At the same time, though, wouldn’t you be just as willing to say that informed, educated women today making reasoned choices to lead a very 1950s-type life (as many women from conservative Christian families do) have a ring of illegitimacy in their so-called choices, and were obviously manipulated into the frame of mind that would lead them to do that by a repressive subculture? The point is, you have to ask why people sometimes make retarded choices, and to Patriarchy Blamers, there is a clear answer when it comes to women choosing “demeaning” or “humiliating” roles for themselves.
Oh, yeah, and it probably doesn’t help that nobody really knows what BDSM is, and suppositions vary wildly. On the one hand, you’ve got people who think it’s at most a kind of teasing, joking sensual role-playing affair, and on the other, that it means being violently assaulted with a cat o’ nine tails by a master dressed in tight goat leather/PVC smeared with exotic whale. Whilst having a small cactus continuously rotated inside your colon at 26000 RPM on the bit of an industrial power drill. Fellating the exhaust pipe of a running automobile. While suspended upside down. For six hours.
Be careful with the blanket statements. I don’t think that you meant, “all feminists, everywhere, all the time” when you said, “…feminists today would find offensive.” It’s impractical and (should be) unnecessary to always take the time to spell out, “No, I don’t mean all [insert whatever group] across the board.” However, there are people out there who actually believe that what you said applies to all feminists. Of course, that’s because their knowledge of feminism is limited to a pamphlet they picked up at an anti-choice rally, but it’s worth pointing out nevertheless.
I most certainly wouldn’t. As I’ve said countless times (and for some reason I have to keep saying it), all people have the right to make choices about how to live their lives. If a women chooses to be a stay-at-home mom, that’s her choice. Why am I going to get all up in her grill and tell her she made the wrong choice, when I don’t even know jack shit about her? That would be awfully presumptuous, and would be just as bad as right-wing fundies telling me I made the wrong choice by pursuing college and post-graduate education, working in the technology industry, getting divorced, having non-marital sex, and so on and so forth. It’s just as presumptuous as the 3 girls who looked at me with the eye of judgement at a UGA Women’s Studies Group meeting several years ago when they found out I was married.
I’m not touching that, except to say that its practitioners seem to be pretty damn clear on “what BDSM is;” with the caveat that (as with most anything in our complex, non-black-and-white world) the definition is not a hard and fast one that applies across the board to all practioners, everywhere.
Ya know, over here in Portland, OR, there’s a heavy demand for prodommes. In fact, I’ve generally thought of BDSM as featuring dominatrices far more than the male counterpart.
True. But you could still argue that the “hierarchical” relatedness BDSM perpetuates is “oppressive” somehow. You can do that with anything, really, which is my issue with the Patriarchy Blamers sort of claim.
“It means that you won’t always like or agree with the choices other women make. But, as Nikki said (I’m paraphasing here), “That’s the shit thing about being free; you can’t control other people’s lives.”
But, you would silence the “Patriarchy Blamers” for sullying what you think feminism “really” is? You wish they would shut up and sit down, because you think they’re fucking up the image you want feminism to posesses.
By using a “freedom” argument?
I mean.. do you see the snake eating it’s own tail there? Can you get why I’m confused by the fact that you’re totally offended that a group of total strangers don’t approve of your “Sex Positive” version of “equality.” Even though, you (and they) know that as an ideology the “sex positive” line is an well-known point of contention?
Djur - “In fact, I’ve generally thought of BDSM as featuring dominatrices far more than the male counterpart.” And, if you watch TV it’s only female teachers that have sex with with male high school students.
Is that what you got out of my rant? That I want to “silence” them? Well, if you mean in the sense of, I want them to pull their heads out of their asses and realize how idiotic they sound, and change their tune accordingly, then yeah. If you mean, I think THEY MUST SHUT UP NOW BECAUSE I SAY SO AND WHAT I SAY GOES!! then… no. We do still have that whole 1st Amendment thing in this country, tenuous though it may be these days.
I’ll continue to say it: people are free to believe whatever fucked up shit they want. The Patriarchy Blamers can have a big patriarchy-blaming party 24/7 - but don’t drag me into it. Don’t claim to represent “all feminists.”
Do they have the RIGHT to say, “We represent all feminists!!!!” Yes. Do I have the right to make it as clear as I possibly can that they DON’T? You bet.
And anyway, all that aside… ranting/bitching about something on a blog is hardly the end-all, be-all of everything. That’s what blogs are FOR. You have one, so I know you get it. Throw me a bone here.
I don’t ask them to “approve.” This is a long the same lines of the commonly misunderstood difference between tolerance and endorsement.
I don’t get your point there. Huh?
As to the last thing–the media presents bdsm as the Femme Dom with the Whip in the stillettoes, when in all actuality, they’re not the norm in the scene. (And, most of the “lifestyle” female doms I’ve met collared other girls, to tell you the truth.*)
(*Spent a lot of time at the goth club in earlier years.)
Amber, I certainly didn’t mean to characterise “all feminists” or anything like that. I more meant to express my claim with an inflection of “a quintessential example likely to be anticipated in a well-known conception of feminism.” Of course, almost no ideological genus is truly monolithic (I say almost, because I can probably think of a few that actually are), and seldom is it the case that everyone, or even a substantial bloc, all think the same thing.
Amber wrote:
Very well. In that case, I withdraw my allegation and apologise for the misconstruction.
I still think my general point applies, though, which you haven’t touched on. It is possible to contextually interrogate the overarching sense of social justice (or lack of it) in one’s expressed beliefs or consent, rather than merely contenting onesself with the fact that some form of consent is there and that’s all there is to it. That’s what the Patriarchy Blamers and others who psychologically deconstruct various individual choices are doing.
As to whether that’s applicable or desirable in this particular scenario, that’s another question. But I think that’s what’s going on. I think aldahlia hit it pretty well here:
But if you’re going to get hung up on her choice of the word “applaud,” then just replace it with something like “respect” or “take seriously” or “honour.” Oh, and neutralise the logical consequences of “all feminists,” if that’s going to cause yet another round of nitpicking churn.
Thus, I think, you have something more closely resembling in semantics the essence of the matter.
Well, I am going to get “hung up” on her use of the word “applaud,” because it’s integral to the meaning of the sentence and the comment as a whole. Change the word, you change the meaning. Even “respect” and “honour” aren’t appropriate. “Tolerate” would be more like it.
More to come.
I suppose it’s integral to the meaning in a literal, empirical sense, but not a social one. Sure, you can sit there and nitpick aldahlia’s statement for problems with literal meaning or word choice, but it’s probably more useful to reflect on the general direction of the ideological thrust. To do otherwise invites the metaphysical error of conflating the trivial with the significant. The essence of aldahlia’s point is made relatively clear, and it’s the same one I made explicit above with the following statement:
For all of your critical talk about ignoring significant extant discourse and presumptuously subsuming it in one’s own skewed narrative …
*sigh* BDSM is such a complicated subject. I understand the viewpoint of a lot of radical feminists against it, and there’s a lot of people I really respect who happen to hold certain views on the subject which I really don’t agree with…and I think they’re not completely getting it. I definitely think sexual attraction and arousal aren’t outside of the realm of critique, but, that said, so often these discussions come dangerously close to name-calling and insults. As if any woman who chooses to participate in this is stupid and can’t think for herself just because they don’t agree with you. (er, general “you”, not…you.)
I think, a lot of the time, yes, the actual practice of BDSM is problematic. This can be said for basically anything people do in the real world, ever. That some people use it to justify sexism, oppression, or abuse. But to imply that certain people are incapable of dissecting what turns them on and critically analyzing it (but mostly only if you don’t like the same things they do) rubs me the wrong way. I do know people into the BDSM thing who have definitely thought, long and hard, about what they’re doing and why they enjoy it, and I don’t think they’re just being duped by the patriarchy.
I also know people, particularly a few submissive women, who I think are totally being duped by the patriarchy. But I think a lot of women who do a lot of things (wearing makeup, shaving, wearing heels) do so for the same reason. Unfortunate, definitely, and I think that work needs to be done to try to communicate to these women that they have other alternatives. This doesn’t make it a personal failing or make them bad people.
Meh. I’ve been avoiding this topic since it just seems to turn everyone’s blog into a big, sometimes ugly debate, but since I keep seeing it brought up, like, everywhere, constantly, I need to organize my feelings on the subject enough to write something coherent.
I don’t know what your point is (okay, I’m pretty sure I do know what your point is, but I was being rhetorical) - but just hold the fuck on and I’ll address everything I haven’t yet responded to as soon as I get time. I have a job and several extracurricular obligations, and they leave me with precious little time to be commenting on blogs, even my own.
All righty then. :)
We’re all, for the most part, fairly busy. I was questioning your discrimination of what to address (sometimes at length) with the time that you do have.
Well, I don’t knnow what you think I intentionally left out or how I practiced “discrimination” - I write what I have time to write at any given time, usually going either sequentially or hitting on the stuff that requires the least amount of brain power from me, if I’m really pressed for time. I usually don’t have time to write long drawn-out theses, although if I could find someonme to pay me to blog, that would be awesome. So what do you want me to address that I didn’t? Out with it.