For approximately a jillion weeks now, I’ve been working on a post about why I believe BDSM can be (and is for me) feminist. For some reason, work has been slow on it . . . I’ve got so many ideas, and I’m having trouble reconciling them and laying them out in a coherent form.
Bleh.
Anyhow, one of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot is the origin and nature of BDSM desire, spurred in part by a number of really excellent posts over at the Let Them Eat Pro-SM Feminist Safe Spaces blog.
Of course, I’m interested in where my desires come from . . . and I want to understand BDSM desire more completely, but the more I think about it, the more I think that it’s sort of irrelevant. We get turned on by what we get turned on by, and whatever the reasons are, I don’t think that we’re necessarily able to change it.
Does that mean that we shouldn’t examine our desires? No, not at all, but . . . well . . . well, let’s just say that Trinity puts it far, far better (and snarkier!) than I ever could:
WHAT CAUSES VANILLA?
How long have you been vanilla?
Are you sure that you’re not simply too nervous to submit or dominate because past traumas make you too nervous to relate to others on a truly intimate level?
Have you ever really examined your vanilla desires?
The vast majority of sexuality depicted in the media is vanilla. Are you sure your desires now don’t stem from not seeing alternate models much in the media?
How can you experience true intimacy with someone if you’re afraid to share erotic pain with them? Aren’t you missing something?
It’s really a shame that our screwed up vanilla-normative society ruined you like that.
Oh, I’m not telling you what to DO. I’d never do that. But it’s such a shame that you HAVE to.
Oh, I’ve been involved in some vanilla things myself, but I’m better than the rest because I realize that when the SMers say we should question, they’re right! I try not to get too involved.
I’m not trying to diss those who want to create egalitarian relationships for themselves, but it’s so played out and socially normative. I’m going to go create my own communities wherein we strive to create truly hierarchical relationships. It really saddens me to see people stuck invested in the same old eroticization of sameness.
When people tell me that I’m just saying all of this because my own proclivities are sadomasochistic it makes me so SAD. Don’t they see that this is BIGGER THAN THE PERSONAL?
Even I have vanilla fantasies now and then. It’s impossible not to in a society like this one. I’m not the enemy!
;)
This is the point.
I don’t mind examining the dynamic behind polyamory or BDSM or whatever, but when it’s asked from the outside, and when the subtext is, “oh, you poor dear, have you tried to figure out how you got broken?”
Well, then . . . screw you. I’m not broken. How about you open up your life to public critique, hmm?
