In defence of the male sadist (LONG)

This has turned out to be much longer than I imagined when I started it; I originally thought I would just post a few links and a few words explaining how they hang together; in the end those "few words" have turned into an essay each time!

Clarisse Thorn guest-posting at Feministe made a discussion of feminist anxieties as a bottom-ing BDSM woman, which sparked some lively debate. I have a few comments to make about that post myself, but for now I'm taking off from one or two of the responses.

Ms Thorn (in a post drawing parallels between prejudice against BDSM, and sexual assault taking place in Leftist movements) reports that among them was the charming:

In my opinion defenses of male sadism and brutality have no place on a feminist blog. It’s not as if millions of women are suffering and being destroyed by those things every single day of the year. Feminism was created to fight male harm towards women, not defend it. It’s shocking that feminism has been so perverted that this is seen as acceptable.

That remark will be addressed in short order as I go along, and I'll come back to it towards the end as well.

My main taking-off point here though is a reply post made by Joan Kelly @ Chicks Dig Me, entitled I see it differently (found via Ren Ev, where there's also some interesting discussion going on). I would venture to say not perhaps, "You see it wrongly", but that, "At the very least your vision is not as clear as you think it is".

There seem to be three main theses to Joan's post, which I am paraphrasing in slightly snarky fashion because - well - they annoy me a little:

1. BDSM isn't oppressed! And anyway, us poor, powerless feminists aren't in any position to oppress you perverts so don't tell us not to!
2. BDSM is similar to abuse and your line about consent, consent, consent is bogus because I know y'all fantasise about non-consent, like, ALL the time!
3. People who are angry are just hurting inside, man, so just chill the fuck out and don't bug them with your problems, m'kay?

Thesis 1:

Quoth Joan:

"The whole world is in favor of women submitting to males, why is that now a “cause” in liberal feminism"

And here we see the first way in which the contradictions that Joan says cant be resolved, can be resolved. You see, the above statement is a generalised, social comment. "Women submitting to males". All women, to any male. In practice, of course, it looks a bit more like "All women submitting to any male of a similar or higher social class, and similar or more highly privileged race to herself".

But what M/f (that's Dominant-male/Submissive-female) BDSM tends to look like is "one woman submitting to one man whom she has chosen and her own free will, and most decidedly NOT submitting to any other arsehole who comes along and thinks that her identity as kinky makes her an easy lay. Submissive women tend to be among the msot able to stick up for themselves in social situations, in fact!

Yes, there are problems within BDSM, and I think Clarisse touches on a few of them - and there are more, because no one is an island and because we live in a Patriarchal society still, even BDSMers are infused with it as much as anyone else. But most decidedly, BDSM is NOT about "women submitting to males". Yes, there are some male Dominants within the community who insist even beyond the posturing of roleplay that "all women are naturally submissive", and a few I suppose of the young or new to the scene might be influenced by them - but most of the time when gender essentialist crap like that is raised, it gets smacked back down because - look - there are both male AND female Dominants in our community (it seems like for every "women are naturally submissive" male Dom, you'll find a female Dom at least pretending to believe that all men are inferior - and plenty more male subs pretending to believe that all women are superior because they think that's how they'll persuade one to give them what they want - and all of them get told off by other members of the community for being blind to other people's kinks).

So, is BDSM oppressed? Specifically, are female Submissives oppressed by society? Well, on the more general front, I refer my honourable readers to this discussion of oppression from 3 years ago, over at "Pro-SM Feminist Safe Spaces". That will give my view of the situation in the UK, and a careful discussion of what it means for some group to be oppressed and whether the ways in which society impacts on kinky people measure up to that.

Specifically, I have heard examples of female Submissives being denied work because of their sexuality. Again, in the UK for anything involving work with children, there is quite an extensive background check - nowadays it will include unproven allegations and gossip as well as actual criminal convictions. Women who have trained all their life for social work or teaching or whatever may, on the basis of being kinky, will be considered not eligible to work in their chosen field because employers are afraid that "if it came out it would look bad". Not just work with children either - whole swathes of public sector service work can be denied. Some local authorities ask on their application forms "are you aware of anything that could bring the council into disrepute?" A kinky person (Dominant or Submissive) will have to think very carefully whether their kink could be considered in that light, and whether it would be by the employer.

In comments at her post, Joan remarks, "I definitely don’t believe people need to put themselves in harm’s way by outing themselves ... I wasn’t thinking of how it could sound like I’m saying kinky people owe it to the world to out themselves at their jobs, in custody battles, to their landlords, etc. They don’t."

But, seriously - if being outed puts you in harm's way? THAT'S FUCKING OPPRESSION RIGHT THERE!!! Or are you now suggesting that LGB folks aren't oppressed by DADT? That they aren't oppressed because they can just keep quiet about being gay?

QED.

So, is feminism just a powerless irritant with no ability to oppress BDSMers?

I think there is a difference between:

I don’t agree that female submission is an oppressed sexuality. I don’t agree that anti-BDSM feminists are oppressing perverts, by being anti-BDSM.

and

I personally have no defensiveness about the judgments of other feminists about my sexual behavior. Sometimes it’s because I understand and agree – for me, life is not so much always about clarity or correctness as it is about living with the reality of contradiction. Sometimes it’s because what I see is: judge-y feminists don’t have the power to prevent me from perving out anyway, nor are they granted the social power to oppress me under white male supremacy, so, not in a fuck-them way, but just factually speaking, what difference does it make what they think of what I do or don’t do?

Because, of course, feminists who stake out sex shops to photograph and shame the men who shop there are just harmless nuts, right? But why would they do it unless they hoped to cost someone their job or relationship or something?

Feminist pressure groups do have a lot of weight in this country when it comes to making laws about sex (their input has been valued over that of BDSMers in a number of recent discussions including about censorship of sexual material). What I hear from the US is that anti-sex work and anti-BDSM feminist groups will ally themselves with the most rightwing Patriarchal power structures such as the organised rightwing Christian churches because they think it will get them what they want in terms of laws passed.

It makes a difference as well because they are supporting the pre-existing prejudices and oppression of BDSM kinks that is present in society (or should we say that it doesn't matter if feminists say racist things because feminists don't have any power to enact racist laws?) It matters as well because a lot of feminists try to put an intellectual spin on their hatred of BDSM kinks and provide some sort of reasoned justification for their responses. This gives fuel to those who wish to persecute and criminalise kink. It certainly serves to add to the cultural kinkphobia that exists, that gives rise to vanilla privilege and so it does contribute to (though not directly responsible for) the oppression that BDSMers do live with.

Thesis 2:

Quoth Joan:

So to me, I appreciated that Clarisse said what she did, about consent being complicated. Because I feel like, that does not get openly acknowledged much, or at least what I heard in what she was saying – that sometimes things are blurry in kink sexual encounters without feeling bad, while, in fact, feeling pleasurable. Blurry, I mean, on the consent front. I don’t want it, it’s not what I like, I’ll try it with you, fuck you for asking I’m out of here, will they stop wanting to do this (which I am enjoying) if I say no to that…

And I think the fact that this is a real thing that is experienced, by even the most consenting consenters, I think that gets used sometimes by those taking the dominant role, to camouflage or elide, or something I’m not sure how to articulate, the fact that they know it’s not really okay but they’re going to do it anyway.

The shortest way to answer this is to direct my dear readers to read Consent is still sexy to the forced-sex fetish (link NSFW and potentially triggering content - in fact, most of these links will be in this section). You see, I do talk about this stuff, I do work it through, and you know what? I don't think "it's not really okay but I'll do it anyway". I think it totally is okay, and that the people who made me feel that my sexuality wasn't okay are the ones who are at fault here.

Joan says that "I don’t have any way of holding that contradiction comfortably, or even tentatively, inside me. It’s something that is reality, and feels wrong to me, feels horrifying at times, and continues to exist as reality anyway." I am sure that is true for her, and if she can live that way then all well and good. But I couldn't so I have found a way to deal, and I have managed to do what Joan says is impossible, namely, to "make it not-a-contradiction", and "separate it from what it looks and acts like but somehow isn’t like – assaulting non-kinky victims". I haven't done the other impossible thing ("explain how it can simultaneously be true that I don’t want to hurt anyone and I am still turned on by seeing someone hurt."), but then - I don't see a need to explain that because there is no contradiction when the former "hurt" implies harm but the second, doesn't. Joan says, "[can't explain that] I don’t want to be harmed and I sometimes am turned on by things that cause trauma to my body, and sometimes cause I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck to my brain." But trauma is not the same as harm. No one would call a (planned, consensual) surgical incision "harm", but it is still a bodily trauma. Maymay (a male Submissive) has as his blogging title, "Maybe maimed but never harmed".

These things are only insoluble conundrums when viewed on one plane. Just as one cannot connect 5 dots on a piece of paper so that all of them are connected and no lines cross one another, it looks like an impossible puzzle. But if you allow another dimension, there is no need for lines to intersect. Similarly, if you can understand the different levels of consent, and the difference between "harm", "hurt", "trauma" and so on, then the apparent contradictions are resolved. It is still paradoxical, but it is not insoluble any more. Indeed, using these terms to create these apparent contradictions in language is part of the fun of explaining kink, because we know and understand the different levels. It's wordplay, it's not a tricky problem!

Quoth Joan:

And that’s all in addition to the fact that it is an express, clear, definite lack of consent that fuels a huge number of BDSM fantasies and virtually all BDSM related porn. It’s not exactly that no means yes in BDSM scripts (literal and figurative), it’s that no means we are turned on to see it happen anyway. We are turned on BECAUSE there was a no, not actually in spite of or anyway.

...

I don’t know how even BDSM’ers could NOT be freaked the fuck out by this, by consciously going “hey, what I like about spanking porn, the reason I’m able to watch it and only need 20 seconds of it at a time online, hence the ability to get it for free because all I need are the sample clips from the real videos, is because all of the scenes are non-consensual.”

To answer this, I find I am going to one of my most potentially triggering posts ever (although indirectly) - Interview With A Sadist (link NSFW and also, as mentioned, could well be triggering to some people). To save people clicking that link, I'll pick out the relevant (and hopefully less trigger-y) bits here.

To set the scene:

Dana, who regularly comments on my blog, A Femanist View, recently had some questions for me about some of the more extreme posts I have here, and how they relate to what I'm like as a person. The resulting interview-by-email is reproduced here with her permission in the hopes that it will also be useful for others.

This interview dealt with a lot of the questions raised by Clarisse Thorn's commenter, and by Joan Kelly.

I was wondering if you had some self-analysis or insight to your sadism that would help me understand where you're coming from. Because the fantasy about [W]ing and [X]ing, [Y]ing and [Z]ing a woman also disturbs me. But at the same time I believe from what I see of you online that you're a good person, better than most.

The best analysis I have is that it comes down to the fact that a lot of my kink revolves around extreme emotions, and works in terms of the mind rather than the body of the person in the fantasy (or indeed, in real-life, although the real-life is a lot different from the fantasy). So concepts and ideas that involve desperation, fear, pain, helplessness, terror, humiliation, anxiety, denial, and so on, are right alongside lust, passion, need, tenderness and warmth for me as erotic responses in a partner.

Now, I am sure Joan would want to say something about figuring out why, or say that nobody can explain why, I kink on those emotional responses. I don't honestly think it matters, although I know that trying to figure it out, and torturing myself (in a totally not-fun way) with those questions led nowhere good. There are dark places there, and stuff that frankly is no business of anyone else but me, and those with whom I choose to share it privately.

So the fantasy about [Y]ing a woman was not about the act of [Y] per se, but rather, about rendering her helpless. The [X] fantasy is not about [that], but about her emotional reactions to it in the context of a storyline.

The fantasies are all just storylines that exist to present a conclusion wherein those extreme emotions are combined with a sexual setting.

And porn is just one source of, or medium for the presentation of, fantasies. Yes, it is live-action, and the fucking and acts are real, but the storyline is acted, created.

In real-life, I also enjoy toying with a partner's emotions, as part of BDSM play. About the only emotion that I can't reproduce safely in a real-life BDSM setting is "terror", and I don't consider that a big loss.

I hope this helps you to understand about the clear distinction I make between what goes on in my mind and what I do in real-life, and I hope it helps to explain why I have the fantasies I do.

As you see, the aim of this was precisely to address those questions that Joan seems to think are insoluble! As it happens, yes, it is freak-out stuff, but then, horror movies are supposed to be as well, and yet people enjoy watching them - they enjoy it because of the freak-out-ness, and because they know that they are in no danger. My fantasies are no danger to anyone. My love of consensual non-consent is not, in fact, a danger to anyone. Why should they bother me? The reason I don't spend all my time freaked out by who and what I am is because I have examined and thought about this stuff! Even so, knowing who and what I am is quite scary stuff at times (and people think I'm safe and sweet and "placid" - that scares me even more!)

Thesis 3:

In Clarisse Thorn's OP at Feministe, she quotes Michelle Tea writing in a memoir about sex work, discussing that some clients would want to hear about a sex worker's abused childhood because it got them off, and asking whether in fact it is true that sex workers roleplaying fantasies for men are preventing or encouraging rape, or what's going on? Clarisse Thorn writes of her sexual submission:

How to reconcile being an S&M submissive?

Encouraging the worst of men. Fucking would-be sex criminals. Empowering them to go and do just anything they want.

Those words have their teeth in my heart. Have always haunted me whenever I thought of BDSM, sex work, sometimes even sex itself … things that can be warped into something so very damaging.

Joan Kelly focusses on the quotation from Michelle Tea's book, but seems by context to be talking about Clarisse Thorn's concerns and about BDSM in general, as well:

But I felt a reflex of protectiveness towards Clarisse around that part when she mentioned it, when she mentioned it without saying “and oh my god fuck everyone who is doing this!” about it. Because I did used to do stuff like that with clients, and pray that it was making it so they wouldn’t do it to anyone else.

But I can also hear, without taking it on as an attack on me, people’s criticisms about that. And their disgust, and anguish. I think to do anything else is to deny the validity of that hurt and anger. Hurt and anger that comes not from being anti-sex or anti-my-orgasms or anti-perverts, but comes from the fact that there’s a shit ton of rape of women and girls going on in the world, and apparently always has been.

The problem isn't with the hurt and anger. I think most sex-positive campaigners appreciate and acknowledge those emotions and accept them as valid responses. Certainly valid responses to the problems of rape, violence and hatred towards women. Disgust and anguish, too, are perfectly valid personal reactions to weird shit. This is, after all, why BDSMers repeatedly remind one another, "don't squick the 'nillas" (and why SF/fantasy nerds remind one another "don't freak the mundanes").

The problem is with what people do with that stuff. The quote from Clarisse Thorn's comment thread (I haven't tracked down who the author of the comment is) equates BDSM sadism and masochism with "male sadism and brutality" that "millions of women are suffering and being destroyed by those things every single day of the year." Now, out of a population of 6 billion and growing, I dare say there are indeed millions of female BDSM Bottoms in the world, and also millions of male BDSM Tops, but really, I think most of those are definitely not destroying or being destroyed. No, this commenter refers to the truth that women are being destroyed by rape and non-consensual violence (both of which can have elements of or be wholly influenced by criminal/psychopathic sadism), but this commenter seems unable to distinguish between the pleasure of sadomasochism within consenting BDSM arrangements, and the violence of, say, the war crimes in Vietnam. So the comment is completely out of place on a thread about consensual BDSM.

And this is just one example of what people do with their squicks - their "anger and hurt" - that ends up hurting other people, trying to influence lawmakers (and sometimes successfully, as in the UK), and generally teaching other people to hate themselves for who they are.

Joan Kelly doesn't hear the reactions as an attack on her. That's very good. I don't hear them as an attack on me in and of themselves, but I do hear the ways in which they are expressed as an attack on me. Don't forget, some feminist bloggers (I'm looking at you, Nine Deuce) have said in so many words that they wished I would go and commit suicide (and then "oh no, that was only a joke!" when it was pointed out that that was an extremely brutal and nasty thing to say). Most people talking about how evil male sadists (hello, that's me!) are don't put in quite such vicious terms as that, but the fact remains that my sexuality is hated, and I am told I should not exist. Female Submissives are told that they are enablers and evil, or else just fucked in the head and don't know their own minds, because of their sexuality.

And every time people say "I think what you are doing is wrong", I don't hear just that one person's voice. I hear the law that wants to send me to jail, I hear the censor who thinks that my fantasies and ways of having sex are too evil and corrupting to be seen by anyone in Britain, I hear the weight of social stigma that says that kinky people can't be trusted to control themselves around vulnerable people, I hear all the people who can't tell the difference between "upset" and "harmed" so that simply causing them offence is excuse to censor others' lives. And very often, I find that when I am reading the feminists who are saying they don't like what I do, their comments go on to make it explicit that they are among the people who think like that.

Joan continues:

And if I can’t honor that disgust, anguish, and fury, if I instead proceed to hide or deny the existence of what is causing those feelings, or tell people they just don’t understand, or they’re being judgmental and shaming, well why on earth would they be obligated to cheerlead the sex I’m having?

Nobody is obligated to cheerlead anyone else's sex lives! But by saying "what you are doing is hurting me, it's denying my existence and my reality" I am not disrespecting their emotions, or their lived experience! I've rarely seen any kinky person who debates these things denying that there are some issues about how kink looks, and how those things can be problematic. I have heard them explain about what's going on, about that extra dimension, those different layers, and how it all fits together messily but consensually.

But I look at what people say, and their words and forms actually are based around shaming others, around judging and condemning others. When people do that, is it not fair to point it out? And when they are not using shaming or judgemental language, then equally I accept it is not fair to accuse them of it.

Just as MRAs' disgust and fury at women is horribly misdirected, since women are NOT the source of men's oppression (other men are), for people to direct their disgust and fury at BDSM is just as misguided and just as harmful.

I'm not asking anyone to cheerlead my sexuality. I do ask them not to hate me or my girlfriend, or to wish either of us a horrible death or a prison sentence or whatever, because of it. I do ask them not to confuse what we do with what violent psychopaths or mobs (mentioned in Joan Kelly's comments thread) do.

Joan says, "I am not going to set us against each other, to say you are hurting me for having feelings and expressing them, about something as fucking muddled as all this." But to me that just sounds like "I'm not going to get mad at people who hate gay sex or tell them they are hurting gay folks by saying those things, because I know that there are some weird things about gay sex", for example (see again those homophobic and kinkphobic assumptions that people who are not straight/vanilla can't control themselves around other people). Of course, Ms Kelly doesn't see the parallels because she thinks that BDSM is not an oppressed sexuality. But to me, this is like "I'm not a racist but..." only in reverse, it's more like a PoC saying to a White dude, "you can say racist things, it's okay, I won't think you're a racist".

Clarisse Thorn's post linked earlier quoting the Feministe commenter in fact answers these issues, or at least, discusses them in a way I find to be more helpful:

I’m willing to discuss the mechanics of my writing and I always aim to be careful with it, and I obviously don’t want to be widely misinterpreted as promoting non-consent. But let’s be clear here: BDSMers — members of a marginalized sexual identity — should not be thrown under the bus because some people think that’s going to be better for feminism. There has to be a way to discuss and defend BDSM that is compatible with feminism.

In the same way, as Hugo wrote, abused people — who are often marginalized — should not be thrown under the bus because some people think that’s going to be better for whatever movement they’re part of. There has to be a way to discuss and defend abused parties that is compatible with the movements they work in.

In many ways I think it is saying something similar to Joan Kelly's piece - that BDSM folks can't simply sweep the awkwardness under the carpet - but where Joan Kelly makes the awkwardness the whole of BDSM, Clarisse Thorn deals with a practical issue that we can address directly.

Yes, there are discussions to be had, and that need to be had, about the messy edges and the tricky boundaries of consent. I think you'll find after considering the types of links to my own words, and to SM Feminist Safe Spaces (an excellent resource for this type of thing) that some kinky people do have them, and have even found answers that satisfy them to the questions that Joan Kelly says are unanswerable.

Joan Kelly says:

No one can explain it, no one can make it not-a-contradiction, no one can separate it from what it looks and acts like but somehow isn’t like – assaulting non-kinky victims – but if you speak about the striking resemblance between the two and especially if you do this and you’re not a pervert yourself, you are somehow causing harm yourself to kinksters.

The "how" of "somehow" being discussed already in this post, I will skip over that. I am not going to skip over the use of the word "pervert", which in my experience is a word used to lump BDSMers in with paedophiles, rapists and abusers (and is therefore an instrument of oppression - although some BDSMers are happy to claim the name). So if you're not kinky yourself, but you're trying to discuss the complex relationships of mind, body, society and activity that create the thorny issues of kink, then I'd say you're taking a HUGE risk - just as a dude trying to explain women's experiences to feminists is taking a HUGE risk. Is it surprising that kinky folks would resent that and very quickly tell that jerk to piss off?

And then "looks and acts like". No. Just no. SM play just does not look or act like assault, unless assault is frequently preceded by negotiated consent, discussion of how consent is communicated during the assault and careful preparation to make sure no lasting damage is done; and followed by care and concern to ensure the victim's wellbeing, the victim giving enthusiastic and gleeful response and perhaps begging for more (or talking about next time). And if you want to talk about fantasies - well, fantasies don't look or act like anything because they aren't real.

So in my space, I’m just going to make sure it gets said. Just because things are not the same does not mean they are unrelated, or that they have no bearing on each other. And it is not anti-sex or anti-perverts to notice those connections and wonder about them, or be bothered by them, or talk about them, or fear them, or hate them.

To my mind, BDSM and assault are about as closely linked as sport and assault, or medical procedures and assault (to use the two common examples in British law where consent is deemed adequate defence against accusations of ABH).

Now, in nature things can look similar and yet have completely different genetic heritage. And there are many reasons why that happens. A hoverfly is not even of the same order of organism as a wasp or bee, but it has evolved a similar appearance to exploit the fear response that larger animals have towards the stinging insects (but it is itself pretty harmless compared to the stinging insects). There are creatures that look very similar but have evolved separately in completely different parts of the world and have completely different genetic heritage; it is just that they faced similar evolutionary pressures from their surroundings and thus evolved similar solutions to them (which is also a favourite explanation for science fiction writers for why aliens look recognisably humanoid!). Conversely, every breed of domestic dog has evolved from the grey wolf and is therefore very similar genetically to all other domestic dog breeds, despite the vast range in appearance that can be found between breeds; indeed, as long as the sizes are sufficiently similar, any dog could mate with any other dog and produce viable and fertile offspring.

So when we talk about whether or not things that look similar are related or not, we need to think very carefully about what the relationship is. One possible relation between BDSM and abuse is that BDSM imitates abuse to produce a thrill response but in a safe way (that is, it is like a hoverfly imitating a wasp or bee). I think that is a very simplistic explanation, and one that for a wide variety of kinky folks is just not true. Or it might be that the reasons for producing pain etc are very different, but have evolved similar solutions to the problem of how to do that. Or maybe it's something else, or much more complex than either of those two (guess which I'm going for!)

As for whether talking about this is anti-sex or anti-kink (no, I won't use the hate-speech term in discussing passages where it has been used) - in and of itself, of course it isn't. After all, I have done so and many other kinky folks have done so. But it is anti-sex and anti-kink to reach simplistic conclusions that a) ignore kinky folks' lived experience and b) implies that BDSM is evil and should be banned. It is anti-kink and anti-sex to fear and hate people because of their sexuality. I gather that Joan Kelly, when she talks of "fear them or hate them" (them being "the connections between BDSM and assault) she is talking of her internalised fear and hatred of the connections in her own sexuality. But that means something very different from fearing or hating those connections in someone else's sexuality. If you fear or hate them in someone else's sexuality, it is very hard not to end up fearing and hating that person hirself, and blaming hir (or shaming hir) over hir sexuality. And how much of that fear or hatred, I ask myself, comes down to not understanding? (Something that apparently, we're not supposed to point out or try to explain to others, because that's "try[ing] and shut[ting] down anti-BDSM critiques with accusations of oppression or anti-sex-ness" - but when someone open to the question asked me, I happily explained, as referenced in one of the NSFW links above.)

I could write and write about this. I could write an essay or two about each point that Joan Kelly raises. But I have run out of steam, and I think I've explained (I've tried to do so carefully and clearly, but I couldn't swear to how well I managed that) just why I think her position is just plain wrong.

I may have more kink-based stuff, taking my starting point much closer to Clarisse Thorn's original piece at Feministe. Until then, darling reader, goodnight! [ETA: For further entertainment and thought provocation, check out Ren's piece @ her place, In Defense of *Sadists.]