Freedom & Autonomy part 1: All places are not alike

Sinclair @ Sugarbutch Chronicles is going to be the next host for the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy, and has set contributors the questions:

What does “sexual autonomy” mean to you? What does “sexual freedom” mean to you?

Are there any particular stories you want to tell about gaining (or losing) your own sexual freedom or autonomy?

How does your knowledge of feminism play into the concepts of sexual freedom and autonomy?

How does your sexual autonomy or freedom conflict, interact, or engage with your feminist beliefs?

Any other questions or ideas you might have about these concepts?

One thing that struck me in particular was this passage from her call for submissions:

Google helps me out with the definition of “autonomy”: personal independence; the capacity to make an informed, un-coerced decision; a person’s ability to make independent choices.

I’ve thought a lot about autonomy and choice, especially in terms of gender roles, of butch/femme, and the ways that exploring these gender dynamics often appear to be reproducing a compulsory gender hierarchy. One particular thing about choice that I want to reiterate is that I believe that all options have to be empowered and equally valued in order for it to be a real choice. The consequences to both choices have to be comparable.

This had me puzzling about my own sexuality, in particular, this concept of "all options have to be... equally valued", and "the consequences to both choices have to be comparable". Because in this sense at least, I don't know that I can ever describe myself as sexually autonomous.

It will always make a BIG difference to me how I express myself sexually, and it is quite clear that all choices are not equal in value or comparable in consequence.

I describe myself as a "natural" or "orientational" Dominant in sexual terms. I also have the ability to submit, and enjoy doing that with someone I trust completely - but it certainly is not natural to me to do so. But "vanilla", non-D/s sex and sexual expression, is meaningless to me. It is alien, and the consequences of it are totally different in my mind and my body and my relationships from those of D/s sex. Whatever it is about me that is wired differently so that power exchange is such an important part of connecting intimately with another human being on a sexual level, it most definitely is not indifferent to how I express myself.

And the same goes for that part of me that drives my sadism: whatever it is is as near as makes no difference to being innate. It is not optional for me, it is not a free choice but who I am.

These musings lead me to the first of Sinclair's questions that I am going to attempt to answer in this post: "Are there any particular stories you want to tell about gaining (or losing) your own sexual freedom or autonomy?" In my answer, I will also start to build some ideas about another question: "What does 'sexual autonomy' mean to you? What does 'sexual freedom' mean to you?"

Regular readers will already know of the turmoil I went through as I grew up with my sadist Dominant sexuality in my bosom, and the conflict between that and my firm humanitarian beliefs. To recap briefly for those who are new here: as I grew through my teens I was surrounded with images and representations of sadist sexuality that were extremely negative: sadists were psychopaths and serial killers who had to be hunted down by the cops before they did any more sick and evil torture-murders. And I thought I was growing up to be one of those sick evil torturer-murderers, and I really really didn't want to be like that. I just didn't know I had a choice.

So my journey to sexual freedom (and autonomy?) is synonymous with my discovery of consensual and safe BDSM sex, and of consensual D/s relationships. This story is covered in such posts as "Porn and Me", and I have probably referenced it many times in comments threads around the sex-positive blogging world. Key moments in that journey were discovering online BDSM, reading The Story of O and finding BDSM porn.

Some thoughts that are relevant (and probably constitute a fairly comprehensive explanation of what sexual freedom and autonomy mean to me) can be found in "Owning your Sexuality".

With reference to my own past, it is clear that I had no freedom or autonomy as I grew up, and it was only when I came to understand other ways of seeing what was innately in me that I came to have any sense of having control over my own sexuality - that I could own it in every sense of the word. However, to my mind there is a clear distinction between the freedom this gave me, and the concept of autonomy. As I suggested earlier, the idea that I could view all options as equal seems not to apply, which puts some kind of limitation on my sense of autonomy. However, I am now (as I was not when I was growing up) free to be who I naturally am sexually. The fact that I know myself and how I relate to those around me means I can choose my own path through the maze of unequal options.

At this point, I think that it is proper to clarify that I do understand that the terms "consequences to both choices have to be comparable" and "all options have to be ... equally valued" refer more to social than personal values and consequences. With such things as the "extreme" porn law that comes into force on the 26th January, for example, is a clear way in which the social consequences of my sexuality are unequal to those of a vanilla person's sexuality. This curtails my sexual autonomy. In British law, sadomasochism is very risky because of such rulings as the Spanner judgement (if it leaves more than "trifling and transient" marks, then both the sadist and the consenting masochist are liable to a prison sentence). On a more social than legal level, I do not feel that I can go out as my crossdressed self - the fact that I know I cannot pass as "genuinely" female means that there will be consequences that are undoubtedly negative; depending on my luck, they could be pretty severe, too.

However, reflecting back to my initial comment, it is reasonable to point out again that my sexuality is NOT a choice, it is not something picked with free and autonomous decision-making. It is who I am. That is why such social curtailments of autonomy and freedom are so costly to so many.

I will close with a reference to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. I am particualrly fond of The Cat Who Walked By Himself, who represents a free and autonomous spirit (compared to the enslaved spirits of the other animals), and his repeated phrase is, "I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me". Much as I admire that spirit, for me when it comes to sex and sexuality, all places are not alike.