This morning when I woke up, I found this email – I’m subscribed to Tutivillus’ World of Hurt newsletter – in my inbox:
My DNA along the timeline of this species is fairly long and varied. I am a self-declared bastard-child and outcast of the “Swingers”. I’ve been the reviled “single-male”, “bisexual male” and the oft-feared “Dominant Male” that creeps like a wolf among the couples, threesomes, plus-somes. I have been parts of couples too. In the “Kink” lifestyle I’ve been single, married, coupled, Open and Poly…hell, now I’m even Monogamous! I’ve been submissive, bottom, switch, Dom, Daddy, Master and now I’m just Sadistic Me.
I’m not a stranger to sexuality on all levels and there isn’t much that daunts me…even if I choose not to participate in much beyond what my partner and I share.
When I first entered the BDSM scene of Utah I was amazed by the buzz undertone of diverse sexuality. Sex acts were common from room to room and no one was all that shy or afraid. It was as intrinsic as the flogger and as practiced as a knife. Those who chose to make it part of a scene weren’t so much “getting off” as they were enacting another piece of a Scene. Even while I was gone and doing it on my own, my submissives/bottoms were eager to make sex part of the act…or not. It didn’t really matter either way to me or them, but no one shied away from it.
I came back some years later and that had faded, but there were still rooms dedicated to sex and sexual play.
Then somewhere the doors slammed shut.
Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t lament for me, I’m not looking for “partners” to swap my fluids or someone to sink myself into. I’m simply dismayed at the hypocrisy.
On Fetlife I see many in my community who jump on the first person suggesting a “hookup”.
Did they forget that they use that same damn Site to find their own play partners? Many of them found relationships there!What the hell is going on? Why is one hand casting a stone while the other beckons?
Many are my friends, but I’ll still be critical. Were I single or looking I wouldn’t hesitate to use that Site to find what I’m wanting. I use it to find scene bottoms and models. That can be perceived as dangerous too! What would we all be doing if there weren’t an Internet? Reading Forum and fantasizing about the words or placing obscure messages in rags hoping for some clandestine adventure with someone that was less than mysterious?
And let’s remember that our beloved Fetlife is breaking the very sites we’re telling these people to use for their hookups. It is a “social” site after all!
I look at friends in more “open” communities and remember “THAT is how this used to be” and I am sad. Some good people have left, migrated. Others have simply gone underground, again. More of us are just tired of preaching to self-righteous.
Fuck! Play! Have adventures.
Tomorrow you will not have the freedom you do now. Trust me on this…I’ve gone full circle here. Be safe, but be free.And leave your judgements to yourself.
Tutivillus.Sadist
(Tutivillus provides this link but you can also follow him on Twitter at @tutivillus )
There are a lot of issues being touched on in this post. I think the main one for Tutivillus was the emergent hypocrisy in making BDSM spaces that prohibit or at least discourage people from looking for potential partners. The other is the privatization of the sexual experience in kink environments.
First, I’d like to qualify my stance on this. I am not and never have been a member of a BDSM club. A long time ago, I was a sex worker in one. I did a very short stint, at a very early age, as a pro Domme. It was a wholly depressing experience, which contributed significantly to my inability to emotionally relate to submissive men later in life. It cemented my understanding of performance vs authentic experience. When I came to understand my own sexual proclivities (ironically, much later in life) I understood how I was never going to fit in to the club.
So, to put it bluntly, I have been flogged in public exactly once in my life. And I’ve engaged as a recipient in public rope bondage once. The flogging experience was horrific. I realized that I haven’t got an exhibitionistic bone in my body, sexually and that I simply have no interest in receiving pain from or giving pleasure to someone with whom I don’t have a deep emotional bond. The other thing I learned was that getting tied up is essentially boring unless someone is going to fuck you in that position afterwards.
All this is simply to explain that I’m not an expert when it comes to being an active participant in ‘the scene’.
I do, however, know a considerable amount about both the history and the theory of drama: from the religious uses of ancient Greek Drama, the political satire of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht’s destruction of the barrier between the stage and the audience, the Situationists and Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. I know something about the evolution of performance art and the locative concepts that underpin it. The 20th century saw diverse movements in the shifting of power from performance by the authoritative few for the ignorant many to a democratization of experience in which the audience became an essential and creative part of the performative act. It happened in theatre, literature, music, and art.
For those of you who found this last paragraph a bit confusing, let me boil it down. Baby, you’re a fucking star. All of you. Every single one of you. With the rise of post-modernism, the commodification of experience and the normalization of the transgressive (not to mention our individual entitlement to 15 minutes (strike that – hurry it up, we’ve got to take a commercial break for our sponsor – 5 minutes) of fame, you neither have to be talented, accomplished or skilled at anything to be a fucking star. And in the freak show world of BDSM – yes, I get to say that because I AM intensely freakish and because it is neither socially normative nor biologically effective to orgasm when experiencing pain – you don’t even have to be a freak. You can just dress up and pretend to be one for an evening while enduring nothing more than a ritualized spanking administered by a stranger.
The irony of such songs as ‘I Kissed a Girl and I Liked it’ or Rhianna’s ‘S&M’ is that you no longer have to actually cream your panties messing up a femme’s lipstick or turn into a trembling, craving wreck at the lick of the lash. As long as you can appear to be having tremendous fun playing your part in the diorama and look passably photogenic while you’re at it, Baby, you’re a star.
Personally, I kinda miss the old days when the bulk of society judged me as a mentally sick fuck for getting off the way I do. I didn’t have to worry about how I fucking looked while I was bleeding or screaming or gagging or coming. I didn’t have to watch parodies like the Rhianna video or listen to obviously vanilla people tell me how kinky they are because they’ve been brainwashed into believing that they aren’t cool if they aren’t into a little spanking. But now that all that dress-up is mainstream, everyone takes it up the ass, and they’re lining up for a light flogging, apparently getting genuinely overcome with desire is, as Tutivillus points out, a social faux pas.
Honestly, I cannot even contemplate allowing someone I care for to hurt me physically and not having the closure of expending body fluids (even though they require careful disposal). The fundamental definition of kink and fetish is that it IS the inappropriate sexual excitement at what in essence is not a sexual object or act. Conversely, I find the prospect of someone reducing me to a crying mess and leaving welts across my backside and NOT having the overwhelming urge to fuck me…. physically revolting. If that sequence of acts does not leave you in a barely controllable state of desire, then YOU, buddy, are not wired kinky enough for me and you have no business even setting eyes on my bare ass, let alone witnessing my pain.
Let me step away from the personal and try to pull my thoughts on this together.
When I wrote my post on why I found the Rhianna video offensive, someone commented that perhaps it was a good thing that she was bringing S & M into the mainstream. At the time, I thought that was a reasonable response, but I’ve since changed my mind.
The danger of mainstream acceptance is its immediate commodification, its monetization, the literal disembowelment of what lies beneath the act of kissing a girl, caning someone raw or a corset piercing. It’s stopped being a deep and sometimes life-changing experience and has become an interesting photo-op and the possible meme by which to market something.
And it goes right along with obscenities like anal bleaching. It took me ages to figure out why I had such a negative reaction to the rise of anal in porn and its normalization in mainstream sexually explicit materials. There’s absolutely nothing transgressive about anal sex once you’ve made it clean, hygienic and groomed the orifice to the point where it looks like another, tighter cunt. It’s Disney sodomy.
The appeal of anal sex for me has always been that 1) it’s NOT a cunt. 2) It’s NOT clean and 3) It’s NOT comfortable. But in the pursuit of greater profit, the pornography industry has reduced it to a perfectly acceptable and natural sex act, so that people who haven’t got a transgressive bone in their body will accept it, buy into it, purchase the DVDs and jerk off to it. Well, here’s a piece of news. People have been taking it up the ass for a long time. But never once did they mistake it for normal.
Ultimately the paradox is that for a very long time, people wired like me kept our proclivities pretty quiet. And personally, I never had a problem with doing that. I had far more problems with self-acceptance to even conceive of demanding that the rest of the world accept me.
Well, now it seems the world just can’t wait to be entertained, persuaded of the life-style benefits of and be marketing to with a glamorized, sanitized theatrically honed version of my perversity.
So glad to know I’ve been welcomed back into the fold of ‘decent’ society.
Notice that I didn’t take Tutivillus’ advice and keep my judgment to myself. But then, I’m an elitist cunt. And I do what I please.
Okay, so it’s not just ME then. Reading the snide comments about hook-ups and such irritates me, to be honest. “There will be no sex at this gathering, BDSM play only please.” Why would I get naked with someone and allow them to do those things to me unless I could be assured of some sexual payoff? That’s a blunt way to put it, I suppose, but it just tells me that there is nothing new under the sun, that in every gathering there MUST be a few who get off on “putting everyone else in their place” and telling them why their inmost selves are wrong wrong wrong. Am I to ONCE AGAIN deny and downplay what I want because of the vocal minority? Am I to stop exploring and experimenting to keep someone from attacking me?
Whew, okay. Calm down. *deep breath* It’s just that, especially today, but every day I have to keep reminding myself “to each his own”. Trying to live up to others’ expectations is killing, and I’ve watched a beloved die under the strain, so to watch others hand down ridiculous edicts and still others jump in response and ask “is this high enough?” makes me gag. To know yourself is the hardest, but most important task of your life. To constantly second-guess yourself because you don’t conform to others’ guidelines only hampers the process.
Well, I don’t think you SHOULD be apologetic about it. For FUCK’S sake…. since when did BDSM become some weird sterile form of ‘fight club’? Fuck the expectations of others. We’re freaks. We GET to do that.
As someone who has always found it odd that folks separate kink from sex, and as a life-long kinky fucker, I have long been baffled by the self-righteous folks who look down on sexual gratification during public play. And by those who get involved with name-calling of those who do, or use names like “Predator” for those who use kink venues and social media to find casual partners.
I have not been able to put my finger on it until reading this. It is amazing how you have sussed the mainstreaming of kink as a cause. In reflecting I could not agree with you more.
It seems by the dilution of kink through broader acceptance we have experienced the creeping disease of judgmentalism.
I have to mention that you are my favorite elitist cunt, and I love you for it.
“I have long been baffled by the self-righteous folks who look down on sexual gratification during public play”
Well, my initial response to that is that we blinked, and the Jesuits took over. But actually, and more seriously, sexual gratification is what makes public play unpublic, inasmuch as that bonded involvement between the participants is what enables the phenomena of shutting out the world in public.
“…names like “Predator” for those who use kink venues and social media to find casual partners”
Okay, who in the hell thought I was wearing this itchy little red riding hood for FUN, for fuck’s sake. Hehe
I wonder if Tutivillus isn’t missing the point. I’m on FetLife. I like sex. But that doesn’t mean I want to have sex with everyone on FetLife. In fact, I don’t want to have sex with ANYone on FetLife. I’m FINE, FINE, FINE with other people using the site to find partners. But the thing is, if you’re female (which I’m assuming Tutivillus isn’t), then you get a ton of solicitations. A few a month, OK. But a few a day? It gets exhausting. You can ignore them, sure. You can ignore mosquitoes too, but they’re still irritating. If you respond to say “As my profile says, I’m not looking for a partner,” you risk verbal (well, typed) abuse. Sometimes you get that for not responding, too. What worked for me was changing my location (FetLife requires you to post a geographical location with your profile) to Bhutan. I see other women change their age to 81, or choose Antarctica.
But it sounds to me like Tutivillus is somehow assuming that if I don’t appreciate unsolicited (even obliquely–go ahead, check my FetLife profile, it’s under Sharazade, and tell me if in any way that seems to be hinting at finding a partner) hook-up attempts, that I’m somehow “anti sex” or “anti others having sex.” Or anti-people-finding-a-partner. Not at all.
It seems to me that men–and yes, honestly, it DOES seem to be weighted by gender–favor a barrage approach that I don’t think they did “back in the day” when we didn’t have the Internet. They might have approached a few women in a bar, but not EVERY woman in the bar, and not every woman in an entire shopping mall, on the off chance that one of them might also be looking for a sexual relationship. So I think the people on FetLife berating others for their “hookup attempts” are basically cautioning against a stupid approach. If you hit on everything female that shows up, not only will you not be successful, but you’ll make the atmosphere unpleasant for females and they’ll stop participating. (Plus the hookup attempts are white noise that drowns out the discussions.) Men don’t have to choose Antarctica or Bhutan as their locations. That really has nothing to do with BDSM or the presence of sex in kink. That’s basic relationship stuff. You’d think people would intuitively sense it, but if you’ve spent any time online, especially on social networking sites or forums, gosh, you know that’s not true.
I’m a big girl. I don’t get “offended” by hook-up attempts; but I do get annoyed. It’s a time waster. I feel reluctant to participate in conversations online sometimes because I don’t want to deal with a spate of messages from guys convinced that even though I’ve said I’m not looking for a partner, I must not have meant them. And that I probably lied about my age and looks, too, so I’m probably REALLY a 25-year old nubile bisexual who’s into whatever they are. I don’t like being put in the position of turning people down all the time, because guess what, that doesn’t feel good. It’s wearing.
If I WERE looking for a partner on FetLife, I’d still be annoyed by uninformed solicitations. I mean, I’d probably give out more biographical data, say what I was looking for, and then get messages all the time from people who were very much NOT what I described. That, Tutivillus, is what’s pissing off people on FetLife, I’d warrant, not the mixing of sex with BDSM.
My experience with clubs is limited, but the few I’ve visited did not seem to have any “looking down on” the mixing of sex with any other activities. So there too, I wonder… is there a confusion, perhaps, with assuming that someone who doesn’t want sex with *you* doesn’t want sex at all? I’d certainly have a problem with someone assuming that my mere presence at a club was an indication that I’d have sex (or even a conversation) with anyone else there. No. It’s still negotiated, with each and every person. Is that really “new”? I don’t think “predator” is used to mean “a guy who happens to enjoy mixing sex and kink.” Anyone who takes it that way is missing some HUGE social cues.
I had lots I wanted to say about RG’s points too, but … sorry, I got too annoyed by the original letter! So I apologize for this sort-of sidetrack. And now, I’ll go delete some messages on FetLife. I’ve been getting them from a guy in India, who assumes that since I’m in Bhutan…
Funny. I’m on Fetlife, and I never get them. I do get friended by readers, occassionally, but that’s it. See? It pays to be ugly.
And then my first thought on reading your response was “Well, I must be doing something wrong.” And I hate that I had that response. Because no, I’m not doing anything wrong. I don’t even think that previously listing my location as Colorado or Washington was “wrong,” though it certainly brought a level of hassle I couldn’t take.
Maybe all profiles don’t get that. But I still think that what Tutivillus was seeing–the reaction to guys trying to hook up–had to do with unwanted pestering, and not a general outcry against mixing sex with bdsm.
No, I’m sure you’re not doing anything wrong. You just happen to have extremely attractive legs. What red blooded man in their right mind would not at least say hello.
Oh, and I don’t think it’s pretty versus not, either. You’ve seen me–I’m pretty average-looking, and menopausal besides. I suppose I could go through my profile with an analytical eye and try to figure out what it is that’s attracting people and remove it, but why should I have to? Why should any woman have to? Are we really still at the “She was wearing a short skirt, she was asking for it” level?
Well, bringing this down to earth… I don’t think you can equate being messaged electronically with rape, which is what the ‘she was asking for it’ refers to.
But I have often wondered why women post pictures of themselves that clearly show them to be desirable, and then get offended when people express their desire. Between your legs and your cute little trussed up in red rope self, I would never say you were asking to be raped, but you ARE asking to be admired.
I’m just really glad I’m not a man.
Mmmmm… A side issue, I think, although again it’s saying that I have no right to be annoyed if I participate in a community and draw attention in a form I don’t want. I don’t feel raped. I feel annoyed. But apparently if I express that annoyance, it gets read as “Women don’t like sex” or “Sex is no longer welcome in the bdsm community” or (as I sometimes get) “You’re a frigid bitch.”
OK, so I participate less in “the community” all the time, because to me, the annoyance isn’t worth it. I personally think that’s a shame, but I can’t force anyone else to think so. 😉
I still see YOUR point as separate from the one the original letter was making. I think what he’s seeing is frustration with people trying to have one kind of interaction and being pestered for another kind of interaction; and I think he drew an incorrect conclusion. That’s just my opinion.
Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps there aren’t many women on FetLife that enjoy sex with their kink, and that is somehow different from how it used to be at whatever time it was when sex and kink went hand in hand. That’s not my belief, but of course I can’t prove it. I was trying to explain what those complaints about hook-up attempts might mean. If my explanation is rejected, all I can do is shrug, of course.
I really can’t speak to the origin of Tutivillus’ letter, other than I know it came from an open solicitation someone made for a hookup. Not sent to someone’s account. Just open to anyone. I doubt very much that he would defend anyone who was privately messaging you when your profile so clearly states that you aren’t looking to hook up.
I’m pretty sure no one thinks you don’t like sex. I guess there are people who wish you might like sex with them. And I guess that’s irritating for you. Being revolting, I have little understanding of how that might feel.
Well, everyone deals with annoyance in his/her own way. Some protest and write messages all over FetLife denouncing hook-up attempts, some put “You must message my Dom first” on their profiles, some (me) stop participating. It’s an individual choice. What I was trying to get at, though, was that I don’t think the conclusion drawn should be that people no longer mix sex with kink. If that is true on its own, fine (although I don’t see it), but I wouldn’t draw it from the data presented. I think those data mean something else.
I also don’t like putting things in extreme terms–it’s rape, or it’s perfectly OK. It’s Hitler, or it’s Jesus. I don’t have to feel raped to feel annoyed. I would hope that other people who get a lot of hook-up attempts don’t feel raped either. But they probably do feel annoyed. Is it not OK to express that? (that’s a rhetorical question, not a question to RG personally)
I have plenty of male friends, including ones I’ve made solely on FetLife, and who knows, maybe some of them want to have sex with me. That’s fine. Again, my being annoyed at badly expressed intrusive messages doesn’t make me a man-hater or a sex-hater, or a don’t-mix-sex-with-kinker. It’s an entirely separate issue.
Tutivillus was not suggesting that you should have sex with everyone who propositions you on Fetlife and that if you don’t you must not like sex. What he is getting at is that there are some on Fetlife who berate others for looking for a hook-up or searching for a potential long term partner when all the while they were either doing the same or had met their current significant other on Fetlife.
As RG pointed-out, this originated from a public posting on Fetlife about meeting people and potential hook-ups and the verbal beating this person took from some self-righteous, self-proclaimed saviors of kink. All the while these folks exposing their big brains and BDSM morality to the world have done, and are doing the same thing. Lets face it, Fetlife is a social site and social sites are for being social. If you were looking to meet someone for whatever reason you’d go to a social site. They are after all, the single bars of the new century, whether you like it or not.
As RG also pointed-out, if you post alluring photos of yourself you are going to get admirers and trolls. Trolls suck, but you can minimize that by making your provocative photos private only to those on your friends list.
As far as sex at play parties go, I think Tim gave a good reason for the current “no sex at the party” rule. I think another reason locally is that so many have abused the hospitality of the host of the party (we don’t have BDSM clubs in Utah so parties are hosted at private residences) and have left a mess behind, such as used condoms, that the host should not have to clean-up the next day. Everything I’ve encountered has been more about bodily fluid issues than sex in public play spaces issues. Nobody is against sex, they are just worried about other people’s bodily fluids they have to clean-up.
The “No Sex” phenomenon in the BDSM scene stems largely from legalities. In many cities, there is significant danger in having sex in a building where you paid to walk in the door. At least here in Los Angeles, for a long time that was the fear. It’s still legally true, although people seem to care less. So, for a long time, BDSM club parties consisted of hours of kinky foreplay, after which we’d go home and fuck like bunnies until dawn. Somehow, with the advent of social media, the ‘no sex’ rules got warped into the belief that BDSM play is somehow less pure if there is sex involved. That’s just plain silly. Those rules were simply a matter of not getting arrested, never a matter of ‘keeping our SM pure’ or whatever it has become. We’re having kinky, sexy fun, and if you don’t want to actually fuck in public that’s fine (I rarely do myself these days) but I agree wholeheartedly with the original posts, let’s not go judging people who dare to admit that what we’re doing in our dungeons actually turns us on. Isn’t that why we’re there???
I think you’ve sort of made my point for me. Why is anyone having to pay at the door? Now suddenly it’s a commercial transaction and legal issues apply.
Incredibly well written and spot on. I’ve been sitting here for 15 minutes trying to think of something to add but I think you’ve covered it all.
I can, and sometimes do, use service tops to get me to the mental place I want or need to be when there’s no one in my life with whom I have a better connection, but it’s almost always pretty unfulfilling. Plus there’s that “I want sex afterwards but can’t have it” thing that adds an additionally frustrating layer. I see why people avail themselves of service tops but that’s a last resort for me.
The thing that frustrates me the most about how mainstream kink has become is how further misunderstood the people who enjoy hardcore BDSM are. I don’t often tell my vanilla friends about my kinks, but sometimes I have to vet potential dates so neither of us waste our time. Men usually say, “Oh, that’s fine, I can spank you a little.” Ha! Yeah… that’s SO not gonna work on a masochist like me. They hear bondage and think, “Oooh, baby, let me tie you to the headboard.” Right, sure… that’s not even close to tripping my trigger.
I don’t expect people to understand my proclivities but I don’t want to spell them out for every potential partner either. What they see in mainstream media (and now mainstream porn) is nowhere *near* what it takes to interest me, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to explain to them where the disconnect is. Then it dawns on them that I’m a *really* freaky bitch and the conversation just goes downhill from there.
@Saynine says, “I have long been baffled by the self-righteous folks who…use names like “Predator” for those who use kink venues and social media to find casual partners.”
I agree with the premise here, but with an important distinction. At least at the local level, I see far too many “Doms” who use these venues to pluck new submissives from the herd — the ones who don’t have the experience to know when someone’s running a game on them or using the D/s dynamic to get in their pants. It happens far too often for my comfort and I’d love to see these shitbags hunted down to get some special attention from a sadist’s toolbag.
I am not going to defend Saynine, because he’s perfectly capable of defending himself. However, I think he was talking about people who are upfront in their desire for something casual.
As far as plucking ‘new’ submissives from the herd. We are talking about adult women here, right? And like in any other sexual situation, they’re perfectly capable of saying no if they’re not interested. There are just as many (and probably many more) shitbags in the vanilla community. Whether a woman is a sub or not, that is simply the social dance we do and the risks all of us take. There will always be cads and psychos. Personally, I’ve met far more of them masquerading as ‘perfectly nice and normal guys’.
Point taken. 🙂
Yeah, we’re talking about adult women but, hey, you see the same stuff on Fetlife as I do. New, um… “submissives” who are twisted in knots because a Dom has gotten all up in their grill and is questioning their “twoo submission-ive-ness.” I wish these girls would grow a pair of balls and a hair of common sense, but not all of them do and end up getting taken advantage of, then leave the community all together.
That said, there are jackasses at all ends of the dating spectrum so it’s not as if the BDSM community has the market cornered on douchebaggery.
Noomi? In what world – straight or kinked – does this not occur. It’s part of the learning process of negotiating your way through life as a woman. And taking responsibility for yourself. Just because you’re kinky doesn’t mean you get a pass for being stupid or deserve to be protected from your own lack of good sense any more than if you’re vanilla.
But also, and I have to say this. And I probably SHOULD have said this on the post. Look… what we want… isn’t safe. No amount of rules or boundaries or laws are going to make it safe. They can help, but ultimately, life isn’t safe. And living a life as a freak is less safe. And that… is that. Freedom has its risks. And it has its casualties. Life simply isn’t all about being safe. The sort of things we like make it intrinsically LESS safe.
And have a care for the poor kinked male, who is TOLD that she’s a kinky girl only to be accused of battery for too hard a slap. Happens all the time. We’re not the only ones at risk.
Have you ever tried to measure how much you’re hurting someone? Have you any idea how hard that is? It takes time, and experience, and being with someone who has a good sense of humour and propensity for forgiveness. Because that pain can happen a lot faster than you can remember your safeword. Doms & Dommes risk a lot too.
Looks like this comment isn’t lining up properly on the page with your reply, sorry.
This kind of crap does happen all the time in all kinds of settings and I find it reprehensible no matter where it occurs. Furthermore, because I’m a switch and engage in both sides of the kink coin, I do have a sense of the risks tops assume. I definitely didn’t mean to imply that girls should get a pass for behaving in an unsafe and stupid manner. In fact, and this is sure to be an unpopular comment, I am far more sickened by the multitude of women who:
1) Claim to be submissive when, in reality, they don’t have a fucking clue what that entails and treat it as a game. “Oooh! Let’s poke a Dom!” “Oh, how funny! I shot my mouth off to the Dom. Boo, hoo! Now he’s being mean to me!”
2) Use “submissiveness” to catch a guy who they think will take care of them in exchange for a willingness to be face-fucked at random intervals.
Neither gender or role is absolved from misconduct or stupid behavior in my eyes. In retrospect, I should have followed up my “predatory male” comments with a nod to the stupid and/or predatory females.
“Use “submissiveness” to catch a guy who they think will take care of them in exchange for a willingness to be face-fucked at random intervals.”
Hahahahahha… oh, that’s just so good. I had to put it in quotes.
Look, I’m so not standing up for bastards. Or manipulative women either. I’m just saying… it’s got very little to do with the vanilla/kink divide.
I think everything you’ve said about the mainstreaming of kink (which isn’t exactly what Tutivillus was talking about) is absolutely accurate, and my first reaction was the same as that of your first commenter: so, it’s NOT just me who sees this.
One of the more unfortunate consequences of this mainstreaming is that so much gets lost in the homogenization process. So many men, especially young men, now think kink equates only to rough sex or abusive behavior; none of the framework that’s guided the kink community – consensual sex, for instance – gets passed along with the flogging.
I’m also in complete agreement with you on separating D/s or BDSM from sex. A dominant friend once told me that sex was the sine qua non of D/s and for me, that’s an absolute truth.
Good points and WILD generalizations…and more than a few folks trying to put words in my mouth.
RG – you have taken my itch and expanded on it beautifully.
Shar – men get a lot of personal traffic on Fet too. It’s not a women’s club.
I have said a lot, and hint at a lot, about Mainstreaming. I think it’s an ebb and flow, but I believe RG has nailed down a lot of great points here.
You’re right, it is “a little more sinister”.
More later… When I have a keyboard. 😉
If what you took from my comment was that I believe FetLife to be a women’s club, then clearly I expressed myself very badly.
I did not take your comment to mean that. I really don’t have much opinion at all about Fetlife, per se. But you may, in fact, have to suffer the irritation of being lusted after for the rest of your life, Shar. I’m quite sure if you were on a vanilla sex site, you’d have the same number of irritating trolls. More, in fact.
I certainly agree on a vanilla site being similar! That’s why I caution against a conclusion such as “Women not liking hook-up attempts on FetLife means that women don’t want to mix sex with bdsm.”
It isn’t even that women don’t want to partner off or hook up, either. It’s the form/content (I wanted to say “thrust,” but…) of the message, more than the fact that a message was sent. I don’t think that’s going to change, though, unless the senders of those messages get why their messages aren’t getting them what they want.
If I did want to find a partner on FetLife, I wouldn’t do it by sending a 2-line, badly spelled and punctuated message to every person of the desired gender living in my geographical location. I’m just not that fond of rejection.
I think you might make that clear on your profile. That would probably scare a lot of them away. ‘Please… no grammatically incorrect or shoddily punctuated messages.” *snicker*
“Anyone sending a message will be given a grammar test.” Now then I might welcome the messages!
Except the people who send messages don’t read profiles anyway.
@Shar – No, I get what you’re putting across (although I haven’t read below this line, yet). There’s an art to putting up a “wall” and an art to not letting it get through your skin.
But that’s not the point of all this.
Great. It’s lovely to see that my point on performativity, post modernism, and the marketization of kink have somehow devolved into messages we don’t like to get from trolls.
*sigh*
I give up.
This:
..glamorized, sanitized theatrically honed version of my perversity.
Is the part of the phenomenon of mainstreaming the more erotic is what bothers me. There is one part of me that snickers at the tidied up kinky images, thinking oh if these fucking people had ANY idea what the reality is. On the other hand it’s become such a weak media device to be “kinky” hurts the actually kinky people in the world. I think that this mainstreaming causes more panic and more anti-everything people into already fraught situations.
Which is essentially what Saynine already said.
Further, I personally have found that my interactions with people who think the Rihanna video is the best thing since sliced cheese those are the people I know who will read my writing and come back to me clutching their pearls because the things -I- like to do and write about aren’t buffed polished and presented along with a shitty pop music hook.
I honestly find it exhausting. I do hope that this mainstreaming tapers off.
Except perhaps in fashion. I’ll always be a sucker for kinky tidbits in fashion.
I have often bemoaned to my kinky friends that you if you’re peeking into the world of kink only through major internet sites, you’d think all kinky ladies are size 4 nymphos with perfectly shaped boobs and perfectly smooth asses. And although there might be a few female Dommes out there, smothered in latex and always ready with the whip they seem to keep hidden in their three-foot-high hair, the vast majority of females are weak hungry subs ready to beg men to play out that rape fantasy they’re too scared to admit they have.
And don’t get me started on on the men.
But that’s what happens when any idea becomes mainstream, I think. All nuance and complexity is stripped away until all that’s left is the most basic marketable image people can mass produce and profit from. And the thing is, it works. But that’s true of every marketable idea out there, not just kink. Kink is no longer just a lifestyle, it’s a brand, and I don’t think there’s any going back.
How the hell does one separate kink from sex anyway? Whether or not Subject A and Subject B’s genitals are touching they’re engaging in the act because it turns them on and they derive some form of gratification from it. That’s like saying “you can eat the food, but tasting it’s a no no.”
(Granted, I have no actual experience with kink whatsoever but I’ve seen that Rhianna video too, and if that doesn’t make me an expert on the subject I don’t know what will.)
hahahaha! Marvelous.
It’s a very strong trend towards ‘display’ kink: i.e. ‘display bondage’, ‘display flogging’, ‘display needleplay’. ‘display shibari’. I’ve seen quite a bit of it. There’s always an entrance fee and the ‘master’ usually has a lot of promotion materials or points you to a pay site. It’s very little about sex, except for in innuendo, and a lot about commerce.
Hey RG. I think what you’ve said is very accurate but I haven’t read all the comments following so if this doubles up on anyone else’s please feel free to delete it.
I want to comment as a non-BDSM person. While I don’t describe myself as vanilla I wouldn’t say I’m kinky. Possibly caramel, you know a little sweeter than vanilla when it comes to sex. I like intimacy, passion, a connection with my lover. If I don’t have that they aren’t getting me naked let alone touching me sexually.
Having said that I have to agree with you about the pitfalls of main streaming kink. I despise that every porn video now contains anal sex, (usually followed by oral which is just gross for anyone whose studied microbiology). I don’t even watch porn, I’m not visually stimulated and I find porn sex to be fake and pathetic with its lack of emotion.
But now every guy expects a girl to give up her arse even in cyber play and usually within the first couple of sessions. I doubt 90% of guys even realise the prep work that goes into anal sex and therefore couldn’t do a satisfactory job of it anyway resulting in the female hating it.
The thing is, to me anal is one of the most submissive acts going so I’m not going to give it up to the next guy in my bed. And it’s not just Anal. Spanking, tying someone up, all the things which used to be conceived as kinky have become perceived as the norm and it’s not.
Now I’ve dipped my toe across the line of kink, in fact I’ve god damn left my little toe there, not purposefully but I’m damaged and there is just certain things that will have me wet and needing a hard fuck which to society, even to most of the BDSM scene is unacceptable. But while I’ve found a legal way to deal with my kink, in the bedroom, more and more I’ve found myself craving good ol’ Garden of Eden variety sex just because it’s so rarely on offer.
I miss the days where just visiting a sex shop required a scarf over your head, dark glasses and possibly a book to hide your face in. Now you go into one and it’s treated like a library or church. Don’t believe me? Just get someone to ring you while you’re there and see the dirty looks you get for having your mobile on while you browse for a new dildo. To be honest, the openness and acceptance has taken half the fun out of it for me.
Can we go back to the 50’s? I mean I would have been a real rebel and extremely kinky back then just for enjoying sex. Plus the fashion was so much better.
On the note you made about pain and no sex. I’m with you RG, in fact for me they need to be happening simultaneously.
Sorry if this is well off base with what you’re all saying but it’s all I can add to the conversation.
While I don’t think bringing the shame back to sex is the way to go the process we’re seeing isn’t making sex less shameful as much as removing the shameful aspects of it so as to make it consumable for the sheltered masses. RG’s example of anal sex in porn demonstrates this really well, we haven’t come to think of anal as acceptable, we’ve sterilized it. We’ve removed the unpalatable elements by shaving and bleaching so that it most closely resembles an orifice we’ve already come to accept. This isn’t exclusive to sex/pornography either, look at the way the legalization of marijuana is going in the U.S. We throw the “medical” label on the front to make it palatable to the people who disapprove of others enjoying themselves (read: getting high) in the manner they see fit. We haven’t removed the stigma, we’ve simply found a way to dodge it.
yes. and wow.
There are so many ways to do sexuality. And so many WAYS to WANT and desire.
And every society and culture knew that sex sells… and we know how to control it and package it and we know that singing about it is WAY DIFFERENT than doing it… and also… lots of times clubs themselves have far different “nights” and different flavors… even cities have different scenes – so sometimes you have to go to a different CITY to experience the flavor that you crave bc there is more or less “open.”
I’ve seen play parties where a woman was criticized as “being too loud”… during a scene. And it was her top who was insisting on the demonstration… It is the population of leather/kinky people (bdsm) populations who get to define and control and write ourselves into ourselves into or out of the margins. Yes?
Identity politics have ALWAYS become a problem. The moment there is “acceptable” or not there is questionable.. or not… and then there someone else to “police it” or judge it or put power on it. YAY. SEXUALITY. Yay the politics of sexual fringe.
Lovely article. Lovely insightful comments.
x
M
– Individuals who do not embrace an ethic underlying their behavior will always borrow judgments of that behavior from the prevailing ethic of the day, and the prevailing ethic is illiberal and anti-sexual.
Put another way, if you’re going to choose a set of behaviors that set you outside the mainstream, you had better know why it is right.
Leave the explicit right-wing out of this: the gendarmes of conformity are not wearing swastikas, they are your friends and relatives. And 99% of your “liberal” friends and relatives believe that sexual behavior is a child to be indulged at best. On Saturday nights. In Vegas.
I feel somewhat conflicted about deviant sexual acts becoming mainstream: I know enough people who suffer for their unusual kinks to see the benefit of it being mainstream.
But then I lose my thrill. Almost all the kinks I enjoy, I enjoy because they are not normal. The whole point of kink for me is to feel that I’m doing something that’s wrong or transgressive. And on the anal thing, I really do agree with you, wholeheartedly. I hate that it’s mainstream.
So I guess, because of my own desires, I have to agree with you; it was better when it was more taboo.
Oh RG, how we could talk if I’d just been smart and made time.
“Performance versus authentic experience.” There’s a vast topic contained in those four words.
KB