“I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member”
Groucho Marx
In a comment on I, Sadist’s post “Sorry, it’s already been decided for you” Shelby left a link to her to her post What’s Your Flavor? It’s worth a read. I also caught an interesting exchange between two doms on twitter discussing the fairness of considering every masochist as submissive by nature. Someone else posed the question ‘Is there such a thing as a sadistic submissive?”
(Well, yes, as it turns out there is. ‘Nuff said.)
It occurs to me that we’re very busy classifying each other. I, Sadist’s description of feeling alienated even within a community that is supposedly ‘open-minded’ and ‘sex positive’ really crowns the issue.
Information chunking is, of course, part of cognitive assonance. If we didn’t classify and group our sensory input, we’d go nuts. In fact, one of the primary diagnostic factors in autism is an inability to do this. Every piece of information is unique and carries equal weight. It overwhelms the brain’s capacity to cope.
However, we are not incapable of making fine distinctions. And we are not unable to look within classifications and recognize disparities when the need arises. I’d like to propose that when it comes to understanding our fellow creatures, it’s not acceptable to be mentally lazy and ‘chunk’.
Humans are not fit subjects for syllogysms, no matter what Aristotle says.
In a way, both Shelby’s and I, Sadist’s experiences are the same. In a world where people resort to being mental slackers and ‘chunk’ each other, a lot of us are going to feel dehumanized and alienated. It’s easy to demand no judgement, but in fact we all DO judge. For in each of the groups they encountered themselves in, Shelby wanted ‘too little’ and I, Sadist wanted ‘too much’. That, in essence, was the judgement of the group. Kink taxonomy.
I hate to keep bringing this up, but I think the rise of a money-focused culture has substantially contributed to our casual acceptance of being described within a demographic group. We simplify each other because we’re used to being simplified. We are no longer offended at being described as a ‘target market’ and we’ve come to think of others in the same way. In fact, we’re subtly encouraged to commodify each other because that will keep the machine running smoothly. Buyers, sellers, products. It’s all so much less complex when we see each other in those terms. And of course, aligning our worldviews to that mentality allows us to be excellent consumers of, not only products, but each other.
I’d like to propose that removing sex from the equation makes this practice of classification even more likely. Because ultimately, sex between two people does have a tendency to strip us down to our individual selves. It’s very hard to find a place to pin your membership badges when you’re naked.
I think, in retrospect, this is one of the things I attempt to revisit over and over again in my erotic writing. I try very hard not to use words like dominant or submissive or sadist or masochist or spanking fetishist. I try to let the emotions and the actions of my characters speak for themselves and reflect their desires in a humanized way. And I’m torn, even when the story is finished and I’m posting it on my stories page, about classifying it. Certainly I wouldn’t want someone to jump into a story that might not be to their taste. But then again, why am I so worried? If a reader begins to realize the subject matter is offensive to them, can’t I simply trust them to stop reading and close the page?
It appears not. Because this is yet another negative part of dependance on ‘chunking’. In acclimatizing ourselves to having everything made simple for us, we believe we’re safe from being offended. As if somehow all this grouping is going to ensure that we never encounter anything that is distasteful to us. God forbid we should be faced with a product we don’t want, or a fetish that doesn’t turn our crank, or a person we don’t find desirable.
I fear this is making us very weak as a culture. Unable to cope with what displeases us.
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