And this is why I will never get tired of fencing analogies. It’s a quintessential controlled, lower-risk way to engage in age-old violence and domination behaviors. And it’s infinitely adaptible to different discussions, since it comes in flavors like:
Fictional, romanticized swashbuckling in books/movies/plays
Kids whacking each other with sticks in the backyard and pretending they’re swashbuckling
Adults whacking each other with DIY padded sticks in the backyard, pretending they’re swashbuckling, and calling it “boffing” or “LARPing” or "screw you, adults still get to have fun”
Idiots whacking each other with real swords for fun and ending up in the hospital
Stage combat techniques used to act out fictional swordfights more-or-less safely for an audience
A codified sport with specialized equipment, vocabulary, rituals, a well-established enthusiast community, and a lot of rules about Taking Safety Very Seriously
A historical martial art that also had rules/traditions, but whose end goal was still Stabbing Motherfuckers For Real (and/or Theoretically Nonlethal Dominance Pissing Contests Where You Might Still Get Stabbed For Real)
That aggro asshole who challenges you to a duel with a GoT replica he’s had hanging around since last year’s Renn faire and will absolutely put out your eye if you go along with his dumb shit
That aggro asshole who’s got a long history in for-real street fights and starts threatening you with a knife he actually knows how to use
Other excellent analogies when metaphorical sword-whacking doesn’t fit the discussion: D&D, horror movies, and haunted-house attractions for heavily narrative/psychological kinks based on things “no one should want.” Grueling feats of endurance, groups that enforce a “no pain no gain” ethos on their members, and hazing (in benign, malignant, and outright dangerous forms) for voluntarily participating in physical/mental sadism and masochism. Military service, colleges with highly structured residential life, and personal trainers for voluntarily signing up to have someone else impose control on your life. Roller coasters, extreme sports, and various thrillseeking activities for flirting with the experience of danger at varying levels of actual risk. Hockey, American football, and many other sports for violence/dominance games that can be made low-risk, but whose established communities are rife with abysmal, institutional, deeply-rooted indifference for safety.
Honestly, human societies have all kinds of structures set up to engage with danger, power, control, pain, fear, and horror in voluntary, partly-neutralized ways. For all kinds of reasons. With all different kinds and levels of risk-reduction–attempted, achieved, and (truly or falsely) claimed. We have ways to talk about and judge them. It’s just that, well, human societies are also really fucking neurotic as soon as you toss sexual anything into the mix, and we either forget all our ways to talk about play or we pretend they don’t apply. Because Sex Is Uniquely Dangerous And All The Pretend Dragons Are Real And Going To Eat You. Or, on the flip side, Sex Is A Uniquely Liberating Magical Playground Where Fire Will Never Burn You If You Perform The Right Rituals And Say The Magic (Safe)words To Turn It Into Pretend Fire. Both are nonsense, but as long as there are camps who circle wagons and treat every argument like a cannon blast aimed at one or the other extreme, it fucks up everyone’s ability to use the structures, contexts, practices, and judgments we already have. And, yes, to bring them to bear on the actual, specific, concrete ways that power/danger play can raise different considerations when it involves erotic desire and intimate partners. Because every kind of power/danger play raises a different set of considerations, and Sex. Is. Not. Exceptional.
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