Arguments that cannot be used to call #BDSM morally acceptable. WTF??

In a blog entry I recently discovered, written by a single Christian girl ( who claims to want to understand the" objective truth") I discovered an entry regarding BDSM, it's morality and acceptability.

Quick reminder that this is the 21st century.

I found this 'persons' viewpoint of BDSM offensive. Totally uninformed, erroneous, clueless, nescient, uneducated, ignorant, agnostical, naive, lacking in factual evidence...I could go on, but I think I'll spare her any more of my linguistic revilements, for now.

Below is the article to which I am referring to. 

I suggest reading it. 

I suggest commenting on it. 

I suggest informing the writer of her erroneous ways and here is the link to the article if you so wish to comment on her Blog.

Arguments that cannot be used to call BDSM morally acceptable

Is there anything good about BDSM?: Arguments that cannot be used to call BDSM morally acceptable

May 17, 2013 at 7:44 pm

I have previously argued that BDSM, (SEE BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE) whatever the participants want to say of it, is morally reprehensible.

 Here I will argue how my opposition could – and could not – defend their view if they disagree.

Arguments that cannot be used to call BDSM morally acceptable

1) “What you described is abuse, not BDSM:”

Here is a definition of domestic abuse:

“Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members. This can encompass, but is not limited to, the following types of abuse: psychological, physical, sexual, financial, emotional. Controlling behaviour is: a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour. Coercive behaviour is: an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.”

BDSM often include “physical and other forms of violence”. (Participants in this sexual kink may not like the word violence, but per definition it fits.) It is no surprise that it does, because sadism is part of the name of BDSM, and thus a component that may or may not be part of such a relationship. It includes many types of “acts to make a partner subordinate”, it often include bondage which obviously “deprive”, for the time of bondage, “of the means for independence, resistance and escape”. Dominance often amounts to “regulating the sub’s everyday behaviour”. Much of BDSM include acts to “punish”, and many subs describe feeling fear (being “frightened”) during scenes.

Some warning signs of abusers include: Controlling behaviour, “playful” use of force in sex, verbal abuse; rigid sex roles (man above, woman lower); a sense of entitlement (many doms say they “deserve” the treatment the sub gives them); and hierarchical self-esteem (needing to be “better” than another to feel good about himself). Most of these warning signs of potential abuse are present in what I hear of almost every BDSM relationship.

As such, BDSM and abuse are not mutually exclusive.

I can imagine a relationship with no bondage ( no “depriving of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape”); with discipline or punishments that cannot be called “violent” at all and does not amount to “control” by the dom because the sub has to ask to get it; no dominance that controls the behavior of a partner – but the partner in “submission”  by wanting to generally please and be loyal without there being control; no sadism (violence) or masochism (taking of violence to fulfill needs). But will such a relationship, deprived of anything that counts as abuse, still be a BDSM relationship?

2) Sub: “But I do not see it as abuse”:

Many abuse victims do not know they are being abused. Their communities or the abusers tell them that it is not abuse, that they should be thankful for what they have, etc. To quote one abused woman:

Sometimes it takes time away from “normal” to see that it is indeed not normal after all. After 3 months of separation from my husband, I have new insight as to what normal is. When you are in a mentally or emotionally abusive marriage, sometimes you don’t know that your normal is not normal after all.

3) “It is consensual”:

Consent is not enough to make something right. Many employees, for example, choose to keep their jobs even though the boss is a bully, thereby consenting to be treated the way the boss treats them. Treating your workers badly is still not morally right. (And many child molesters get the child to “consent”- but the consent do not count as the child is too young.)

However, I agree that doing something to another without consent would normally be immoral. Consent is probably part of the utter minimum of decent behavior under most circumstances. If BDSM is consensual it avoids one type of very immoral behavior, but so does “we don’t rob money during scenes.”

But even with such a small yardstick, BDSM is ambigious. BDSM acts may exploit and worsen the kind of personality flaw that makes someone consent to things that is not good for him or her.

4) “But my relationship is not like that”:

This blog post is not about your relationship. It is about BDSM. For example, one sub could say:

He is very concerned when I have a backache … he likes to cane me during scenes.”

Concern during backaches is not BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Domination/ Submission, or Sadism/ Masochism). Caning during scenes, however, is one of the many things that counts as a BDSM practice.

If there are BDSM aspects to your relationship that are morally positive, you are welcome to describe those, so I can add to my understanding. But mentioning the non-BDSM aspects of your relationship to defend BDSM is like saying “He is opposed to stealing TVs and hi-fis” to defend someone who steals computers.

What is more, I have never spoken to a BDSM participant who – if (s)he gives any evidence to study the truth of his claims by – actually speak the truth about their relationships. They will say things like “we have a mutually respectful relationship” – and when I go to their blogs, one of the most recent entries has him calling her a [semen receptacle], and her crying bitterly because she wants to be loved, not a mere [semen receptacle] – and she really believes this is his actual view of her, that she is nothing more to him. If your partner sees you as an object, you are not in a mutually respectful relationship.

Or they will testify things like: “he will never hurt a fly” with the next sentence “he likes to induce pain on me, but I like it” and somewhat further in the conversation “I get punishment beatings which I do not like, and they hurt more than what I like.” If he induces pain, he hurts you. If there are pain in your relationship that you do not like, it is not wholly true that you like the pain he brings into your relationship.

5) “But I like it/ crave it”:

1) Desiring something does not make it good. For example, selling heroin is not morally good, even though addicts crave it. It is not morally good, because it destroys the one who gives in to the craving.

2) It is often not true that the sub enjoys BDSM – for example, a punishment to discipline the sub will probably be enjoyed by either only the dominant, or neither of them. Many subs speak of experiencing negative emotions like fear during scenes, and actually likes the feeling of relief from getting out of these negative situations afterwards. None of them actually enjoy pain or will, for example, butt their head against walls for fun.

3) Subs often “want” the opposite of what they want: They actually want kindness, tenderness and reassuring words of encouragement and praise like everyone else, but they feel they will be in a better position to enjoy having these needs met if they start with rough treatment and negative messages. The rough treatment – degradation, insults, etc., is what they “want” but the opposite of what they really want. A man who gives them the bad treatment could certainly make them unhappier. They take that risk, in the hope that a scene, where they live themselves into the bad, will end with the good. When the dom is not good at providing the good part, he can say he did only things the sub “allowed” and even “craved.” But he did not give her what she really enjoys, and he probably did harm her psychologically.

One dom testify that every sub he ever met was conflicted over her wants, with a part of her that finds her BDSM desires deviant. Which make sense, really: Obviously in any sane person, there will be a part that dislike these things. Between those two conflicting and opposite desires of the sub, the dom chooses to give the deviant one. I suggest that this says a lot about the character of the dominant partner.

6) “I don’t feel like this is something bad”:

I will quote CS. Lewis on this:

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both bad and evil: bad people do not know about either.

Perhaps you do not regard something as morally bad, because your soul has become used to the badness in BDSM. If you disagree, show me what positive moral values is encouraged by BDSM.

7) But this is safe and sane!:

Safe is free from the possibility of getting harmed or hurt. If you want me to believe that BDSM is safe, you have to convince me that bondage, discipline, domination/ submission, and sadism/ masochism does no damage or pain of any kind to the self image, the body, the interpersonal relationships, the mind, or the acknowledgement of real moral values, of the submissive, or the dominant, or the reader of BDSM blogs and websites.

If you want to tell me it is sane, you have to convince me that there is nothing insane about wanting bondage instead of freedom, domination instead of you and others each getting their will, or pain (I don’t just mean physical pain, but also the mental pain of being degraded and treated as less than) -in yourself or your partner – instead wanting a healthy, non-hurting, autonomous body. mind and heart.

And sane things could still be unethical. I can think of several reasons why a sane man would want to rob a bank, but that does not make bank robbery morally right.

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So please: If you think you have evidence to suggest BDSM is morally better that I give credit for on this blog, please give it. Bring up some actual moral standard, for example kindness or justice, and explain how BDSM, or some aspect of it, is kind or just or whatever moral standard you admitted.

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Why BDSM should not be seen as acceptable by mainstream culture

November 10, 2012 at 5:46 am 

When can you call yourself a good person? The usual secular answer goes something like this:

I don’t hurt anyone. I do not want to hurt anyone. So I am a good person.

I previously argued that this approach to moral goodness is less than adequate, but that is not today’s topic. Point is, someone who does not want to hurt others – physically, emotionally, economically, etc. is regarded, by almost any set of values including the purely secular, as superior to those who want to hurt others. And that simple baseline idea of morality: “Do not hurt others” is a fairly good start for a moral conscience. Per extention, hurting others on purpose is the baseline standard of moral evil.

Where does that put people who like sadistic or masochistic acts? (Warning: Violent sexual graphics in link.)

Are people who condone this as moral as those who oppose this?

A sadist hurts people. A masochist finds sadistic behavior – hurting others – acceptable, something (s)he encourages and defends in a partner. This hurting could be physical pain, or it could be humiliation , insults and degradation.

The BDSM community may say that their standard of morality is “safe, sane and consensual.” In my opinion, that is automatically a lower standard than not hurting people:

>    To safely hurt people – in other words, hurting them emotionally and physically, but not to such an extent that their life or health is in danger – is a lower moral standard than not hurting them. It is also nonsensical. Part of the definition of “safe” is “free from hurt” and “protected from being hurt”. As such, anything or anyone that causes hurt is, per definition, unsafe.

>    To sanely hurt people – hurting them while staying in control of your emotions, while doing nothing that the BDSM community will regard as crazy, is a lower standard than not wanting to hurt people. It is also a contradiction in terms. Mental health professionals regards both sexual sadism and sexual masochism as mental disorders.*

>    To hurt consensual people is a lower standard of morality than not hurting people. A similar example will be selling cocaine only to consensual buyers – of course, that is morally worse than not selling cocaine at all. But the similarities goes further: Drug sellers not only want to sell to consensual people, but they do what they can to enslave their customers further, so they can sell more drugs and make more money. Likewise, sadists encourage their consensual submissives to consent to worse pain and worse humiliation than before. And both drug sellers and the BDSM community push their product because they want to enslave new customers.

Anyone who is involved in BDSM (I am not speaking about the ropes and blindfolds part here, but pain and humiliation) have rejected the simplest basic human value of “it is wrong to hurt people.” Can you reject this value, and still be a good and trustworthy member of society, safe for those around you to be with? I do not think so. I believe this will spill over into the other human interactions of the BDSM participant.

I do not expect to make any BDSM participant en ex-participant with this post. I want to tell “vanilla” (non-BDSM) people to not regard these people as normal people who just have different sexual needs. This is not in the same class as, say, a fetish for high heels or even a preference for your own gender. This is a direct rejection of the most basic value of how to treat humans. To the degree you start to  find sadism/ masochism in pornography and literature acceptable, you reject the most basic moral standard that is written on normal human hearts. To the degree you watch that kind of pornography, you encourage and even fund cruelty.

(Edit, added about 12 hours after this post first appearing: I should have asked this before, but please do not link to BDSM/DD web sites or blogs in the comments, including the place where you optionally fill in your blog name after your name and e-mail address. Thank you)

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Note*

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders regards both sexual masochism and sexual sadism as mental disorders. Because of, among others, pressure from the BDSM community, consensual masochism or sadism is only regarded as a mental disorder nowadays if it causes “clinically significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning.” It appears humiliation and degradation is prone to cause significant distress for the person subjected to it, and I expressed the opinion that letting go of the “hurting people is wrong” standard will dause impairment in social functioning.

Even when all sadism and masochism was considered mental disorders, BDSM people already called “sane” one of their values.