I don't understand. You seem to realize that kinky sex or BDSM is dangerous, yet you seem to think that telling people to stop is a waste of time. You think that teaching them to live out their fantasies in the safest way possible is far more reasonable, is that correct? Kind of like allowing drug addicts to minimize the risks (i.e. by providing them with clean needles) instead of stigmatizing their problem.
Yes, I’m talking about harm reduction. In fact, I’m pretty sure I explicitly said “we need models for self-awareness, productive therapeutic processing, and harm reduction" in my original comments to you. You sound a little bit like you meant that as a rhetorical question. Are you unfamiliar with the concept? If you’d like to learn more, here’s the Wikipedia page, and here’s an article in the Journal of Social Work in Mental Health about the effectiveness of harm reduction strategies over prevention-oriented strategies in the context of self-injury. But I’m also not talking only about harm reduction. Like I said above, we need models for self-awareness and productive therapeutic processing as well. This is not simply about teaching people to “live out their fantasies” in increasingly safe and ethical ways (although that’s a good start) — but also encouraging them (and ourselves) to critically engage with our fantasies and intimate behaviors on a continuous basis, understand the relationship of those fantasies and behaviors to our own internalized oppression and to oppression culture at large, acknowledge the complex tensions between the need for satisfying human intimacy and our desires to be ethical and politically conscientious people, make considered decisions about which of our own wounds vs. our society’s wounds to concentrate on healing, and work hard to grow, explore, and evolve our desires/behaviors so as to bring them more and more into line with our liberationist ethics, while also having the self-compassion to acknowledge that is fucking difficult to achieve. Also, please keep in mind that everything I’m talking about here — gradual harm-reduction, increased self-awareness about our complicity in oppression, and paced therapeutic healing and recovery — is directed at people who identify as submissives only. (Or people who don’t identify on the BDSM continuum anywhere.) We are absolutely telling “Dominants” that if they are concerned with being ethical people, they should stop identifying with dominance and stop attempting to sexually dominate people immediately, right now, today. That if they find they’re unable to do so, they should get themselves into therapy ASAP. And that they should stay far the fuck away from us and anyone else who experiences submissive tendencies until they have. Notably, this exhortation seems to have a much more powerful impact coming from us than it does from you. I know a large number of former-Dominants who have stopped identifying as Dominant and started seriously reconsidering their relationship to erotic intimacy since coming into contact with rolequeer theory. I don’t know of a single person who has ever quit being a Dom because a radfem yelled at them and told them they were bad. I’ll respond to your public post here, too, just to keep everything in one place. And I do appreciate you having the integrity to actually make it public.
Why shouldn’t I tell BDSM practitioners to stop?
Because, empirically, that doesn’t work? If your interest is in legitimately making a difference — rather than in feeling morally superior — your priority should be on supporting survivors through their recovery process and compassionately offering them whatever encouragement and resources they need to get out of an abusive relationship with the BDSM Scene safely, not telling them they suck because they’re not leaving their abuser fast enough for you.
BDSM contributes to rape culture.
True. So do heterosexuality, monogamy, the gender binary, and capitalism. I’m not saying that to make excuses for BDSM. Fuck BDSM. Also fuck heterosexuality, monogamy, the gender binary, and capitalism. My point is simply that telling people to stop being straight, monogamous, cisgender capitalists “cuz rape culture” has absolutely zero impact on their behavior in 98.9% of cases. ‘Cause, duh. They have absolutely no context from which to be able to understand such a critique much less enact its implications. You have to get off your high horse and actually work with people. Sometimes, people who are having complicated, intractable, even disturbing psychological experiences that you don’t entirely understand.Don’t mistake me; I am not saying you shouldn’t try to stop people from doing BDSM. I think everybody should stop doing BDSM. I’m saying that you should try to stop people from doing BDSM in ways that work, rather than ways that do little besides win you radfem social capital.
Degrading sex acts are becoming more and more acceptable.
That’s pretty debatable. I mean, marital rape was legal in parts of this country until 1993. That’s a pretty degrading sex act. I think the acceptability of degrading sex acts is an inextricably constant artifact of patriarchy. The details of which degrading sex acts are fashionable this decade or that will mutate over time, but the underlying situation remains the same. Stamping out BDSM won’t stop rape culture. It’s the other way ‘round. Only when we successfully stop rape culture will we really see the end of BDSM.Again, I still think stamping out BDSM is a worthwhile project. I’d just like to see that happen because the Scene stops being attractive to/the only available option for vulnerable people struggling with complicated sexual desires…rather than because a bunch of vulnerable people get stamped on.
Why does BDSM need a nuanced approach? So as not to scare away participants who are critical of it? Does self-harm need a nuanced approach? Do eating disorders?
…Yes, of course? Do you think self-harm or eating disorders are so simple and volitional that you can just shame people out of engaging in them? As someone who has recovered from both of those things, as well as from a “submissive” identification, it blows my mind that anybody would be so naive as to assume you can get people to quit engaging in deeply psychologically satisfying, nigh-physically addictive, self-destructive coping behaviors by mocking them, belittling them, and telling them they have bad politics. Like, why on earth would that ever work?But, even more than that, it seems obscenely egotistical to assume that you, a stranger with an opinion, know better than the person in question what they need for their recovery process — or whether it’s even safe, sustainable, or appropriate for them to be prioritizing a recovery process at this time. That’s the primary reason “you shouldn’t tell BDSM practitioners to stop.” It’s not your prerogative to tell anybody to do anything. You are not in charge. You are a concerned bystander. Act like it.
Of course, victims and sufferers deserve to be treated with compassion. I never said they didn’t. Is that what you refer to as a “nuanced approach”?
Yes. Exactly.In short: For someone who claims to be as concerned as you are about the relationship between BDSM and rape culture, I think your compassion for survivors of BDSM-related sexual violence could really use some fine tuning.
