Ingrid Olson
Introduction
Sexuality
and gender identities hold subversive potential. Contemporary academic work on
sexuality and gender has targeted issues such as gender oppression, sexual objectification, and intersex, transsexual and transgender
categorizations. However, the creation
and recognition of alternative, non-normative sexuality and gender identifications
has been largely overlooked by the academic community. The study of sexuality
is the study of power. Nowhere is this truer than in sadomasochism, the
negotiated, consensual exchange of power. The practices and relationship
schemata within the sadomasochistic community represent a paradigm for
investigating alternative sexuality and gender identities. Members of the
leather community often engage in
communication and negotiation for the specific purpose of developing consensual
sexuality and/or gender roles within the framework of power exchange
relationships. These subsequent alternative
sexuality and gender identities can be regarded as seditious as they
problematize traditional, binary sex/gender categorizations, and sexual
relationships based on expectations of symmetry and gentleness.
Contrary
to disparaging interpretations of sadomasochism (S/m) as either emotionally or
physically harmful, I contend there is knowledge to be garnered from S/m
practices generally, and the specific knowledge advance I address here is S/m's
development of alternative sexuality and/or gender identities. The academic
utility I attempt to highlight in this chapter is how we make sense of sexual
subjectivity through S/m-generated alternative identities. There is also
subversive potential when these alternative identities address social inequity
instantiated through vectors of power as elucidated in the work of C. Jacob
Hale and Robin Bauer. Through S/m practices, categorizations of
ability, age, class, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexual orientation can be
manipulated and traversed to positively enact new modes of sexual subjectivity.
The potential utility arises from S/m constituents confronting issues of social
justice and inequity through sexuality/gender identities they might not
otherwise consider, or experience. Jose Esteban Munoz uses the term 'disidentification' to account
for reinterpretations of encoded social meaning reified in dominant culture.
Munoz’s work imagines identity hybridizations developed from sites of
intersectionality, welcoming the influences of varied demographic categories.
Alternative sexuality and gender identities created through S/m relationships
can be understood as disidentifications and hybridizations that expand the
hermeneutics of sexuality and gender.
This
research is located at the intersection of queer theory, gender theory,
sexuality studies, and queer engagements with post-structuralism. The knowledge
advanced from this intellectual work (re)imagines categorizations of sexuality
and gender, exceeding historic binary imaginations, and promoting a template
for autonomous actualization of transgressive sexualities. Unique
sexuality/gender conceptions that are intelligible to others within particular
sexual contexts open opportunities for unforeseen erotic connections across
diverse 'sexual fields.' A continuation
of gender and sexuality theorization that ignores the multifarious
potentialities for sexual subjectivity via alternative sexuality and gender
identifications reifies the stifling and limited status quo. My explication of
the development of these identities strives to fill the knowledge gap from
previous academic work on sexuality and gender identities described above.
In the first section I clarify the parameters of the gender
and embodiment modalities located within this discussion; what paradigms of
gender are included, and excluded. In the second section I present an overview
of Munoz’s theory of disidentification and counterpublics, and Halberstam’s
work on drag king performances and queer temporality. These theorists offer
examples of counter-conduct and subcultures that disrupt normative
sexuality/gender interpretations that serve as a queer theoretical framework
for the alternative identities developed through S/m relationships. In the
third section I examine how alternative identities are manifested in S/m, and
that an outcome of this role-play is the (re)interpretation of sexuality/gender
identities. The fourth section introduces Dean West's theorization on S/m
practices as ritual performance and an outlet for sexual fantasy. I seek to articulate
a reconciliation between West's concern for deviant sexualities engaging in
sociocultural taboos with his reference to liminality. There is a benefit
offered through the concept of liminality in considering the hermeneutics of
alternative identities. I then make my concluding argument for understanding
role-play in S/m relationships as expanding the hermeneutics of alternative sexuality/gender identities.
1. Definitions &
Parameters
I start
with a definition and a clarification of the parameters for the 'alternative'
sexuality and gender identifications I address. I define an alternative
identity as a secondary (or tertiary) sexuality or gender role one has
developed for specific relationships or scenarios, and distinct from one's
normative, quotidian social identity. I contend alternative identities are
projects of what Munoz describes as a 'disidentification,' a deliberate
identification that is disruptive and exceptional to demographic
classifications of ability, age, class, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual
orientation.
The
parameters around my use of ‘alternative identities’ does not necessitate
surgical procedures; rather, the praxis of S/m-generated role-play identities are open to everyone ,
to all genders, to all forms and levels of ability, age, class, ethnicity,
religion, or sexual orientation. Practitioners engaging in this activity may be
cisgendered, transsexual, transgender,
genderqueer, or consider themselves normatively gendered; they may identify as
hetero-, homo-, or bi-sexual; their
relationship status may be single, married, monogamous, consensually
non-monogamous, or polyamorous, and they may have undergone some form of
aesthetic or cosmetic surgical procedure(s), or not; these categorizations are
not prohibitive or limiting in the production of an alternative sexuality
and/or gender. The creation and development of alternative identities is an
opportunity to step outside, perhaps very far outside, one’s everyday
presentation /existence. To pursue an imagination that is distinct and distant
from one’s normative understanding of sexuality and/or gender is a queering of
the self, regardless of one’s sexual orientation.
Participants
in alternative identities via S/m may not identify as queer but I contend the
leather community discourse on identity transformation presented here qualifies
as ‘queer theory.’ Ken Plummer states
that queer represents 'the postmodernization of sexual and gender studies' and
'brings with it a radical deconstruction of all conventional categories of
sexuality and gender.' Similarly, in
Hale’s remarks on queer theory as it relates to 'the power of queerly gendered
bodies and performativities to disrupt enforced normative sex/gender systems,'
he claims that the trans and queer community discourse he promotes exceeds
contemporary academic theory.
These
definitions of the terms queer and queer theory suitably represent what I
investigate here. I argue S/m scenarios are an epistemological context for the hermeneutics of alternative sexual
identities. In this epistemological context the experiential converges and
perhaps is interpreted as conflicting with the testimony of one’s identity from
practitioners. That is, the empirical or phenomenological knowledge assumed by
the observer of S/m practitioners can be contradictory, and sometimes
exceedingly so, from the identifications uttered by the practitioners
themselves.
2. Disidentifications and Counterpublics
Prior to moving into the dungeon I want to introduce some
queer/gender theory to bridge the discursive shift in postmodern
sexuality/gender epistemology. In this section I present a brief overview of
theoretical work from Jose Esteban Munoz and Judith Halberstam. Both Munoz and
Halberstam examine representations and performances within queer communities
that can be understood as subjugated knowledges.
In his preface to Disidentifications, Munoz interprets a
reference by Jack Smith to 'pasty normal' as a form of normativity that is not
unique to heterosexuality. Rather, it is
equally applicable to the assimilationism of gay politics where 'pasty' is the
opposite of exotic, and the pasty normal represents the requisite logic of
heterosexism and normativity. In response to gay assimilationism, Munoz cites
Michael Warner’s creation of the term 'heteronormativity' and Lisa Duggan’s
development of the term 'homonormativity' as the outcome of politically
conservative gays and lesbians shifting toward social integration. Munoz also references Sedgwick’s Epistemology
of the Closet, in stating that a person’s identification is not 'simple
mimesis,' it is a project that includes 'simultaneously and partially
counteridentifying' against and concurrent with the influences of the dominant
ideology. Within these projects of
subjectivity minoritarian identities often clash with other minority groups.
Munoz describes disidentification as a game 'of resistance
within the flux of power and discourse.'
Disidentification is a hermeneutical practice, a productive process that
assesses various modes of the social and cultural from the stance of those on
the lower echelons of these hierarchies.
For minoritarian subjects, disidentification can be 'a survival
strategy' enacted through 'hybrid transformations' that serve to 'resist and
confound socially prescriptive patterns of identification.' Acting against the homogenization and
assimilation of queer identities by dominant ideologies, Munoz argues that an
understanding of the self cannot be reduced to either a 'social constructivist
model' or an 'essentialist' position.
Disidentification rebuffs assimilation and does not directly confront
the dominant ideology; rather, it is a strategy that works 'to transform a
cultural logic from within.' Munoz
states that despite the socially and culturally encoded scripts of identity
thrust upon us there is an option to reconcile desire with identification; they
are 'interlocking and coterminous.' He
calls for an activism capable of developing 'anti-identitarian counterpublicity.'
It is important that this idea of counterpublicity be
intersectional, not merely multicultural, in order to achieve a sufficiently
critical hermeneutics of the social, and avoid 'severe cultural myopia.' Munoz distinguishes intersectionality from
multiculturalism by defining the former as the relationships between different
minority groups. The projects of disidentification are intersectional in that
they consider the indexes of 'class, gender, and race, as well as sexuality.' The term hybridization is deployed by Munoz
to account for the consolidation of subjects’ postmodern identity fragments;
fragments which lack uniformity or source of origin. The 'recycling and
rethinking' of exclusionary social messages empowers minority subjects to assert
a hybridized political response. Munoz
refers to Stuart Hall’s concept of encoding/decoding because of its relevance
to the idea of disidentification and counterpublics whereby the encoded message
is 'dismantled' to reveal its totalizing and prescriptive nature. Hall sees three options in decoding the
ideological directives that 'reinforce the status quo of the majority
culture.' The first option is hegemonic
in form, and results in acceptance of the encoded message. The second option is
a compromise where the subject analyzes the message without rejecting its
authority. The third position is 'oppositional,' a response that 'resists,
demystifies, and deconstructs' the dominant code. It is the third position and its
deconstruction of the majority culture that Munoz proposes via anti-identitarian counterpublicity.
An example of disidentification explored by Munoz is the
work of queer Latino artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Gonzalez-Torres asks the poignant (and I
would argue existentialist) question, 'Who is going to define my culture?' He
articulates this rhetorical question as a response to criticism that his
artwork is not representative of a Latino. For Gonzalez-Torres, there is
frustration in expectations of cultural representation under the rubric of multiculturalism;
he does not want his work or his life to be prescriptive based on ethnicity.
The queer subject's evasion of social and cultural
expectations resists assimilation and promotes the development of
disidentification, whether from the work of an artist, or more personal
performances of counterpublicity. Judith Halberstam references Munoz’s work on
performances by queers of colour, particularly his concept of counterpublics to
support her work on queer subcultures. Halberstam cites Munoz’s own definition
of counterpublics as 'communities and relational chains of resistance that
contest the dominant public sphere.'
Like Munoz on disidentification, Halberstam regards queers of colour as
a community that challenges the dominant sphere of white heteronormativity and
Duggan’s idea of homonormativity. Halberstam's work interprets the drag king
subculture as a viable counterpublic where heteronormative masculinities can be
reinterpreted through various vectors of social power – class and gender, for example,
though queer performances can move beyond these categories. The resistance of categorizations such as
age, class, ethnicity and gender in some drag king performances are congruent
with Munoz's definition of intersectionality as the relationships between
different minority groups.
An example of counterpublic in Halberstam's work comes from
a television appearance that features a hip-hop style drag king known as
'Dred,' who astonished unknowing audiences by removing her moustache and hat,
revealing herself as a woman, then subsequently removing a wig to reveal her
shaved head, leaving the audience sexually (and ethnically) disoriented.
Halberstam refers to this as a 'spectacle of indeterminacy,' the disruptive
nature of a reinforce/resist dichotomy.
That is, in the case of Dred, the performer is not only female, but a
butch (masculine-presenting) woman of colour. This indeterminacy is
intersectional in that, as Munoz discusses, the performer is both a person of
colour and queer, disturbing socially encoded scripts of identity, and
concurrently having the autonomy to determine one's own culture as
problematized by Gonzalez-Torres. This autonomy in identification permits
individuals like Dred to step outside of sociocultural expectations based on
class, ethnicity, and gender prescribed by the dominant ideology. Halberstam
makes the significant point that '[q]ueer subcultures illustrate vividly the
limits of subcultural theories that omit consideration of sexuality and sexual
styles.'
In this
section I have presented brief overviews of Munoz's theory of disidentification
by queers of colour, and Halberstam's analysis of drag king subculture. I
suggest there are similarities in the alternative sexuality/gender identities
recognized within the leather community where S/m practitioners vary in
ability, age, gender, and sexual orientation, among other demographic
categories. I propose that the playing of power within S/m or D/s relationships that generate alternative identities
are analogous to Munoz’s counteridentifying and Halberstam's indeterminacy. As
a critical hermeneutical concept that evades assimilation, stereotyping, and
stultification, disidentification accurately captures the manipulation of
social codes and hierarchies. S/m scenarios serve as counterpublics to a
multitude of socio-cultural representations across age, class, ethnic, gender,
and religious lines; practitioners adopt, invert, and usurp power icons such as
police, military, teachers, doctors, and clergy in exploring sexual fantasy and
political subversion.
3. The (De)Subjugated Knowledges of Sadomasochism
Confronting
the S/m community are theorists that criticize these practices, particularly
from some feminists who regard the power relations intrinsic to S/m as a
replication of ignoble social power(s) and a sexual model that reconstitutes
patriarchal power. Other feminists, with
a self-described radical view, see S/m as a brutal practice equal to torture
and rape. Without doubt, the mechanics
of S/m practices are completely immersed in power dynamics, and could likely
appear vicious to non-practitioners. Nonetheless, I argue that a Foucauldian
perspective of power as ubiquitous and pervasive offers a more charitable and
realistic interpretation of these relationships. Foucault sees S/m as 'the
eroticisation of power' and S/m
practices as 'the real creation of new possibilities of pleasure.' What I see as a problem from feminist
criticisms of S/m, and for the leather community generally, is a lack of
representation from practitioners. Notwithstanding criticisms from
non-practitioners there is a lack of information and understanding of S/m which
might be usefully rectified by engaging those intimately connected to it. My
project in this work is to promote a genuine representation of the practices of
the S/m community as they relate to revealing the creation of alternative
sexuality/gender identities.
Gender
and sexuality theorist, Susan Stryker,
uses the title of her article, '(De)Subjugated Knowledges' to describe
the rise of transgender studies as an academic discipline, accompanying the
shift of the discourse from the power/knowledge of doctors and therapists to
the transgendered and transsexual subjects; trans scholars gained recognition,
conducted graduate work, and promoted intimate accounts of gender theory.
Stryker describes the discursive shift in gender theorization from the term
‘transsexual’ to ‘transgender’ as a result of the reduction in the
marginalization and pathologization of trans persons. She delineates how
academic work, as an outcome of transgender activism and scholarship, has
reinterpreted 'gender, sex, sexuality, identity, desire, and embodiment.' As a result of transgender studies’
reinterpretation of sex and gender categorizations Stryker elucidates how trans
persons have been denoted as 'false representations.' I propose that both transgender studies and
the alternative identities within the leather community can be interpreted as
such because both are postmodern epistemological projects that problematize
normative sexuality and gender definitions. The rise of transgender studies is
depicted by Stryker as a move 'from the clinics to the streets.' I contend that the expansion of the
hermeneutics of sexuality and gender identities is not only enriched by moving
from the clinic to the street, but also into the dungeon.
I posit
Stryker’s historical overview of transgender studies here as a template for an
increased understanding of sadomasochistic practices and the leather community
through the testimony of its constituents. Similarly, a major claim in Terry
Hoople’s work on the legal aspects of S/m practices is that it has been
misrepresented through clinical, legal, and feminist discourses (as mentioned
above) to appear dangerously violent and mentally suspect. Moreover, due to S/m's position at the fringe
of sexuality its potential academic contributions are largely unnoticed. I
present these two disparate academic pieces together because while Stryker
advocates for the unearthing of (de)subjugated knowledges from marginalized
trans persons, Hoople separately yet correspondingly argues that it is
necessary for S/m praxes to be represented by the practitioners themselves.
I now
move to an examination of the development of alternative sexualities via S/m
practices. I examine the way in which S/m practitioners can be regarded as
enacting a socio-political theorization, and suggest it is inherent in the
creation of their alternative identities. I shift from the overview of
disidentification and counterpublic of queer performativity to give an account
of how I see similar processes unfolding through S/m practices.
The
alternative identities discussed here are sometimes the result of spontaneous
sexual gamesmanship that might occur within an S/m relationship or a D/s power
exchange dynamic. These are identities that are brief in duration but still
capable of being vibrant in intensity, perhaps holding ethnic, religious, or
class significance not only for the sexual subject, but for the S/m
interlocutors engaged in the scenario. In ad hoc scenes, S/m or D/s role-play
provides a temporal framework for exploring these identities but once the
scenario is concluded the negotiated rules and roles are dismissed and the
'egalitarian status of the participants is resumed.' I want to make clear that I am not
criticizing or diminishing the quality, pleasure, integrity, or intensity of
spontaneous articulations of sexual identities, my point is to clarify the
distinction between short-term and long-term identities.
In
contrast to temporal identities, an ongoing alternative sexual identity is one
that is accessed at appropriate times and revealed in befitting circumstances
for particular D/s scenarios, whether planned, or perhaps relatively
spontaneous. Persons engaged in ongoing
D/s relationships may argue that their D/s identity is continual and is
therefore not merely accessed in felicitous circumstances; I concur with this
claim. An ongoing D/s identity as a
‘slave,’ for example, means that one is at all times, in all circumstances the
slave of another. This is not abundantly evident to the public sphere, but in
an ongoing identity it is so. Formal D/s relationships are sometimes referred
to as 'total power exchange' because it is regarded as a long-term commitment. While practitioners carry monikers such as
Mistress, slave, Sir, or boi, these are
consensual relationships and there is of course no legal standing; one is free
to terminate the agreement.
These
alternative identities are often known to others within their sexual community
and perhaps even to the larger S/m erotic field via S/m conferences, community
gatherings, mutual friends or lovers, and social networking. One may not identify continuously as a
schoolboy, for example, but if it is a persona regularly adopted at S/m events
it is reasonable that one would become known by this alternative identity. In
Partners in Power, S/m author-practitioner, Jack Rinella, sanctions
self-exploration, and sees S/m as an opportunity to become whatever leather
identity one wishes to create: 'slave, pig, master, mommy, daddy, bondage
bottom, queen,' for example. C. Jacob Hale extends the notion of identity
in his explanation that not only can one become a boy through a Daddy-boy D/s
dynamic but he can select what mode of boy: 'Boy Scout,' 'Catholic schoolboy,'
or 'hip hop' kid, for example. The
genesis of these identities comes from different sources: books, film, friends
and acquaintances, the leather community itself, of course, or the rich imagination
of one’s own mind. The author identified as a ‘grateful slave’ in Guy Baldwin’s
SlaveCraft, writes in the section, ‘Heeding the Call,’ about the progression of
an alternative identity from childhood imagination to adult fantasy. And Robin Bauer makes the significant
distinction that 'sexual role-play,' unlike fantasy identities in books or
film, for example, is 'an embodied experience.'
It is reasonable to suggest that for some their alternative identity is
a construction of selfhood years in the making.
These
identities are not merely ‘performativities’ unconsciously reproduced via
habituation; they are not the outcome of 'heterosexualized genders,' but rather are consciously formed and
deliberately produced alternatives to the everydayness of regulated and imposed
gender normativity. D/s and S/m practitioners explore their boundaries 'within
a framework of negotiated consent,' where the interpretation of D/s and S/m
relationships is a contextual opportunity for the sexual self to 'consciously
choose and negotiate roles and identities for play,' including the 'gender,
race, age, class, or status one chooses.'
Furthermore, these identities are interpreted as genuine and have
integrity with other community members who respect, value, and celebrate the
diversity of sexuality/gender identifications developed through D/s and S/m
praxes. The individual – regardless of
embodiment, age, or class – who holds an alternative identity as a Boy Scout,
for example, might wear an appropriate uniform, and/or be familiar with at
least some history, jargon, and customs constitutive of the identification, and
endeavour to create a scenario supportive of one's objective to experience what
it is like to be a Boy Scout. In this way one's alternative identity coalesces
through dress, deportment, speech and behaviour. This is not meant to suggest
an adjudication of alternative identification based on a rubric of various
categories, it is intended to describe the steps many persons in D/s or S/m
relationships take in developing the identity. Persons outside D/s and S/m relationships sometimes engage in casual
role-play sexual activities or costume events but usually these roles are done
as a one-time event and lack the intentional creation of the role as an
identity. What distinguishes alternative sexuality/gender identities as valid
is their recognition by others in the S/m scenario or community. Some S/m
practitioners use the term 'seeing' to refer to recognizing the transformation
of their own identity, or that of an Other.
Because one has been recognized as a Boy Scout, to continue the example,
means that others respectfully engage the Boy Scout as such, and see that the
individual is a Boy Scout rather than a person merely dressed as a Boy Scout.
The (potential) limitation on this recognition is that others recognize that
this is an alternative identity and that the Boy Scout is a rational adult.
A
further aspect of choice in the creation of alternative identifications is that
S/m or D/s practitioners are not necessarily static in their negotiated power-exchange
roles. The discourse of D/s largely focuses, for good reason, on the binary
power distinction, but there are some leather folk who traverse Dominant and
submissive roles, with the same or different partners. Members of the leather
community use the term ‘switch’ to denote someone who assumes the role of
either a Dominant, or a submissive, sometimes in a relatively short time span.
A switch may have casual or regular play partners with whom they have specific,
alternative D/s roles. In such cases the same person would be a Dominant to
person ‘A’ and submissive to person ‘B.’ It could also be the case that two (or
more) persons engage in power-exchange relationships that are more fluid in
nature, where the identities of Dominant and submissive are malleable and
shifting throughout a single scenario, or even extending across the timeline of
their relationship. The idea of multiple D/s or S/m relationship connections
introduces the characteristic of multiples or even groups of participants in
some activities. Some scenarios require multiple participants for pragmatic
reasons – assisting with suspension bondage, for example – while other
scenarios are purposely planned to have numerous participants to increase the
polyvalent possibilities of alternative identities.
The
sexual orientation and gender representations of participants need not remain
static either. In his dedication to a mentor and role model, Patrick Califia,
writes that Daddy Cirby 'scandalized' some members of the leather community by
discussing various relationships with 'boy-boys, girl-girls, boy-girls, and
girl-boys.' The commingling of sexuality
and gender icons in the context of D/s is also portrayed in Carol Queen’s, The
Leatherdaddy and the Femme, which describes an unpredictable sexual liaison
between a gay leather man and a feminine woman.
I see this shifting amongst gender and sexuality categorizations not as
opposing the metaphysics of sexuality and gender but as supporting it, and
recall Munoz's conceptions of disidentification and counterpublics as a
theoretical framework supporting the alternative sexuality and gender
identifications developed through S/m praxes.
Recent
academic work by C. Jacob Hale and Robin Bauer provide rare and valuable
insight into how alternative identities are created in the context of S/m
relationships. Hale, a transsexual man, details his own former submissive
relationship as a ‘boy’ with another transsexual man occupying the role as
Hale’s ‘Daddy.’ This experiential expose reveals the possibility for two
female-bodied, masculine-identified persons to adopt alternative identities and
develop a sexual relationship based on mutually agreeable power dynamics.
Hale's work buttresses the claim that S/m scenarios provide an epistemological
framework in the formation and creation of alternative sexualities that are
intelligible to others in that milieu. Similarly, Bauer’s work is sociological,
and his interviews with dyke and trans identified S/m practitioners investigate
the transgression of social hierarchies and cultural taboos through gender
transformation and sexual role-play. For both Hale and Bauer, S/m relationships
provide a spatial and/or temporal context for challenging normative, social
identity scripts and power relations based on categories of ability, age,
class, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. On the question of
utility, or what the individual gains by engaging in D/s role-play, Bauer
states,
Self-exploration in role-play thus provides the players with
certain insights about themselves and about how gender and other categories of
social distinction take on different meanings and functions from the
perspective of someone whose positioning is different within society from what
it is for themselves.
As trans men, both
Bauer and Hale explain the phenomenological and epistemological context of S/m
role-play for alternative interpretations of embodiment. The D/s context enables a hermeneutics of gender
and sexuality where what might normally be thought of as a dildo can be seen as
a 'dick.' This contextual reinterpretation is not only important for trans men,
where an individual might (but not necessarily) regard it as an embodiment
issue, but also for non- or pre-operative trans women who, contrarily, might
want their phalluses regarded as clits. This notion of perception goes beyond
gender and genitalia, where some dykes may also regard their dildo as a dick;
Bauer describes this way of seeing differently as 'reassigning' or
'renaming.' Given the boundary-breaking
milieu described above these embodiment interpretations apply equally across
genders and sexual orientations and extend to the perceptions of age and race
noted earlier.
Bauer highlights S/m practitioners who draw a personal line
at play involving 'fat oppression or disability', and cites comments by several
interviewees who hold personal barriers with age, race or other factors in
terms of play. While this chapter respects everyone's personal boundaries, I
want to further explicate the potential for persons who experience multiple
vectors of oppression to wield power and, to use Bauer’s words, use S/m 'as a
tool for personal growth and healing.' I
do not include this statement to suggest that transgressing socio-cultural
taboos is a preferable sexual practice, or what ought to occur; rather, I
include some examples of D/s play addressing ethnicity, religion, and personal
safety as the truly raw, hard sexuality some persons seek out for its
transgressive nature. As one of Bauer's
interviewees states, courageously confronting normative morality through S/m
scenarios can be an appropriate method to 'embrace all your monsters.'
I respect Bauer’s limitation of play involving physical
embodiment or ability. I assume his concern is the use of one’s embodiment for
humiliation, this concern as admirable. We can, however, conceive of
differently abled persons fully and enthusiastically participating in S/m. It
is not illogical to imagine a Dominant person wielding power from a wheelchair
on an normative-bodied submissive. And, to take the intersectionality of this
example further, it is also conceivable that the Dominant in the wheelchair
could be a female-bodied, transgendered person identifying as a Daddy. And,
like the Boy Scout mentioned above, in the context of the S/m community this
leather Daddy is intelligible to others. As Bauer and Hale state, these
alternative sexual identities have the potential to play with, invert, and even
subvert power dynamics; they can be disruptive to the socio-cultural
hierarchies and marginalization that differently abled persons encounter
regularly. I suggest it is a transgressive and empowering scenario within the
context of S/m. Equally, I claim that a submissive person with a disability has
the right to negotiate and consent to S/m practices they might desire. Such a
scenario has the potential to be socially powerful because observers are
confronted with the phenomenology of a disabled submissive individual receiving
pain. Not only can this appear as brutality toward someone who is not
normatively abled, but it also transforms the differently abled person into an
autonomous sexual being, one with fantasies and desires.
It should not be too surprising that there are some persons
who consciously and purposefully pervert their physical embodiment as a means
to sadomasochistic pleasure. Crip theorist, Robert McRuer, references the work of Bob Flanagan, a
performance artist with cystic fibrosis, who incorporated exotic visuals of
sadomasochism into his work. Flanagan referred to himself as a 'supermasochist'
who, in addition to 'pounding a nail through his penis,' included oxygen masks
associated with cystic fibrosis to 'discomfort his viewers.' I see this as part of the alternative
sexuality for differently abled persons created via S/m. For Flanagan, S/m had
a pragmatic benefit in that physical percussive punishment from his Mistress
also helped clear his respiratory system.
And, just as Munoz claims re queer performativity, McRuer suggests the
queer/crip/supermasochist dynamic of
Flanagan’s life generated a 'seemingly incomprehensible way to survive.' McRuer states that Flanagan 'repeatedly drew
attention to how his life interrupted classic disability narratives.' Power exchange relationships do not eradicate
physical or social obstacles, however, like the drag kings examined by
Halberstam, they provide an opportunity to (re)interpret identity.
Ethnic and racial issues are deep-rooted power relations
with polemical historicity. McRuer also cites the writing of Gary Fisher, a
self-described 'black, queer sociopath' and sexual slave who engaged in S/m
fantasies that included 'racial degradation.'
While 'race play' scenarios
similar to those pursued by Fisher can be contentious I suggest they are also
bold confrontations of socio-political fears and transgressions against safety
barriers for historic indignation. Hoople recognizes that scenarios of race
play can be deemed by non-practitioners (and some practitioners) as S/m
embodying a 'racist culture,' but this, again, assumes the participants lack
agency or are dupes of imperialism. To
adjudicate such scenes as 'sexualized racism' robs the participants of their
voice and 'renders them invisible, replacing them with a stereotype.' Hoople’s work on S/m cites Homi Bhabha's
definition of a stereotype as exaggerated and always negative, an
'oversimplified characterization.' The
discursive production of fearful and prejudicial S/m stereotyping leads to a
myopic analysis that does not consider or grasp the possibility that one would
willingly choose to participate in such a form of sexuality.
What I aim to realize through these brief examples of S/m
play is that the scenarios were negotiated and entered into freely and
enthusiastically. I restate my agreement with Hoople’s call for the
self-representation by and for S/m practitioners. I also concur with Hoople’s
argument that to dismiss D/s or S/m praxes we deem controversial is to
disrespect their autonomy, rendering them mute and invisible. More importantly
for the argument of this chapter is to draw attention to the transformative
potential in some S/m scenarios, the eroticization of power that comes from
counterpublics, the disruption of normative conceptions of social hierarchies.
The socio-political potentiality innate to the identities created via S/m
role-play is a form of counterpublic. These alternative sexual identities
resist the prescribed normativity that is socially enforced through
institutions of power: education, religion, and the state. This is not merely a
pushing back at power, it is a resistance that is 'as inventive, as mobile, as
productive' as power. Resistance to
reified interpretations of clergy, police, the differently abled, and members
of ethnic groups are examples of what Foucault describes as 'counter-conduct,'
a 'struggle against the processes implemented for conducting others.' The Foucauldian concept of counter-conduct as
a struggle against governance reminds us of Gonzalez-Torres’ rhetorical
question: who will define my culture?
From Hoople's endorsement for self-representation and
Gonzalez-Torres' engagement of defining one's culture, I want to introduce
West's article on S/m as ritual performance, and a deviant sexuality.
4. S/m as Ritual Performance v. Transgressive Liminality
In Dean
West's chapter, Acting Out: What We Can
Gain by Treating Hetero-Queer Fantasy and RT as Ritual Performance, he
discusses ritual-performative practices, with an analysis based in 'the
psychoanalytic anthropological model of myth,' making use of historic theatre
and religious practices. West's model draws together the disparate analytical
frameworks of 'anthropological, psychoanalytic and religious studies
theories.' The goal of the article is to
provide a methodology 'whereby deviant sexual fantasy and practice may be
interpretable as a form of ritualised performance aimed at expressing and
temporarily resolving unconscious drives or conflicts.' While there are references to pornography and
online fetish chat rooms the main theoretical basis for West's analysis is the
assessment of transgressive sexual subcultures and practices, specifically
sadomasochism. The utility West seeks to
realize from this research is an objective identification and demarcation
between permissible and impermissible forms of deviant sexual acts:
sociocultural taboos. His conclusion proposes that role-playing performativity
through S/m relationships can be a safe outlet for deviant sexual desires that
might otherwise manifest in harmful, criminal acts. West's interrogation of S/m practices as
deviant sexual fantasy and performance in Acting Out provides a model for
comparison with the concepts of disidentification and counterpublic, and the
real creation of alternative identities, discussed above. There are two issues
I want to extract and criticize from West's Acting Out. First, what I regard as
a troubling continuation of the pathologization of S/m practitioners and the
correlative suggestion that their activities require an extraordinary level of
suspicion and surveillance. Second, a clarification between the conception of
S/m practices as a ritualized performance and alternative sexuality/gender
identities I advance here.
West's
project is to propose the real-time 'performance' of alternative sexual
practices as an acceptable methodological treatment to a prognosis of 'deviant
sexuality.' With regard to the issue of
the pathologization of S/m, he describes these practices and 'fetishistic
pornography' as 'deviant' and 'transgressive' sexualities. West endeavours to
walk a tightrope between an assertion that S/m practitioners engage in
permissible types of deviant sexualities, and concern that their desires will
'escalate' into criminal sex acts. His
conclusion cautions that ritual-performative sexual activities have the
precarious potential to become dangerous and unleash harm. To be fair, West states that his familiarity
with S/m practices has led him to conclude that they are mostly not
pathological. However, the reason I have
reservations with the article is the author's linkage between the negotiated,
consensual activities of most S/m practitioners with the rare cases of
non-consensual sexual and/or physical violence: the misrepresentation Hoople
describes.
I have
no serious concern with deviance and transgressive as adjectives attributed to
S/m practices, it is the contentious boundary-testing nature of some S/m
practices that result in it being labelled transgressive by some. As I have
stated above it is the transgressive nature of these practices that produces
opportunities for sexual re-imagination. My concern is that the use of such
terms in a psychoanalytic context perpetuates the pathologization of S/m as the
default position. This concern is amplified because it is not until after
inflammatory references to incest taboos that West states he does not consider
S/m participants to be paraphiliacs. The
frustration with this seemingly perpetual pathologization is that this adjudication
is out of step with the contemporary negotiations, consent and activities of
most S/m practitioners. Rather than
contemporary consensual S/m practice non-consensual sexual activities or
violence are by definition criminal acts that are not unique to persons who
engage in S/m activities. The erroneous conflation of criminality with
consensual S/m undermines West's claim to the contrary that he does not regard
S/m practitioners to be paraphiliacs.
The
second issue in my engagement with West's Acting Out is less contentious and
more of a substantive clarification in that the alternative sexuality/gender
identities I attempt to elucidate are not regarded as performative by either
the individual engaging an alternative identity, or the community members who
recognize the alternative identification and have interactions with the
individual. In response to West's chapter I would agree that many S/m
activities (flogging, caning, piercing, for example) might be interpreted as
performative from the perspective of an inexperienced onlooker, however the
identification of the practitioners themselves is an integral part of their
subjectivity. As detailed above, these identifications are not generated
through unconscious drives; rather, they are purpose-specific identities
consciously developed through one's own desires, or consensually negotiated and
formed with one's sexual interlocutors. Having said that, the references to
myth-ritual performance in Acting Out highlights concepts that are equally
useful for my discussion.
What I
find attractive in West's Acting Out is his consideration of the concept
liminality, describing it as 'a mental state characterised by the upsetting of
social schemes, structures and hierarchies.'
In his introduction, West claims liminality holds the potential for
transformation that can be understood as a 'temporary or permanent alteration
of individual or group perceptions of self, society or the Other.' I suggest this definition of liminality
buttresses the assertion that certain sexual practices can be understood as
transformative, or at least assist in one's transformation. West's references
to liminality as a means to subvert societal structures and hierarchies is
comparable to Munoz's disidentification and Halberstam's counterpublic whereby
socially encoded identity scripts are usurped and re-imagined. Some S/m
practitioners, like queers of colour, are often poised on the threshold of both
society and subjectivity, an intersection exemplified in the references to
Daddy Cirby, Bob Flanagan, and Gary Fisher.
Similarly,
West's references to 'taboo fantasies' link this discussion to Bauer's
assertion that some of the S/m practitioners in his research transgress social
hierarchies and cultural taboos. While I
rebuff any suggestion of interpreting S/m practices as a therapeutic method to
deter harm, I have given much attention to practitioners who transgress
sociocultural norms. In the cases cited I do not see these activities as
dangerous fantasies that are expunged via S/m; rather, they are sometimes, as
Munoz writes, survival strategies for those on lower echelons of social
hierarchies. To use West's term, these are 'taboo fantasies' that precariously
and playfully disrupt normative sexual epistemology based on categorizations of
ability, age, class, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation.
The conscious, deliberate development of identifications and scenarios that
transgress sociocultural taboos are interpretable as deviant, but
concomitantly they are practices of
sexual minoritarian groups that expand the hermeneutics of sexuality/gender
identities. I concur with West's citation of Mary Douglas' view that sexuality
is perhaps the most targeted concept for regulation amongst human
practices. The practices of some S/m participants
are contentious, and some alternative sexuality/gender identities and
relationship schema destabilize the concept of purity by the commingling and
fusion of varied demographic categorizations. These taboo fantasies are not
conducted to assuage paraphilic desire, they are created and pursued for the
sexual pleasure of the participants.
5. Conclusion
I start the conclusion of this chapter with a brief passage
from Foucault's later work on subjectivity. In About the Beginning of the
Hermeneutics of the Self, Foucault discusses what he describes as techniques of
the self. These techniques enable individuals to create 'by their own means, a
certain number of operations on their own bodies, on their own souls, on their
own thoughts, on their own conduct…so as to transform themselves.' The transformative property described in
Foucault’s techniques of the self is what I argue for here: D/s or S/m
practitioners in relationships or scenarios that promote alternative sexuality
and/or gender identities.
This
paper is titled after Munoz's disidentification in part because because
normative sexual practices are incommensurable with the alternative
sexuality/gender identities generated via S/m and D/s relationships. Contra the
'pasty normal' cited by Munoz, alternative sexuality/gender identities more
closely resemble, pathologization notwithstanding, the deviant sexualities and
taboo fantasies referenced by West. These counterpublic identifications are,
however, not based on shame, but rather provide practitioners with a
subcultural framework to negotiate, form, and develop alternative
identifications that transgress sociocultural expectations based on ability,
age, class, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexuality. The genesis of the
identifications undertaken by individuals represent techniques to transform
their own bodies, their own thoughts, their own conduct, to transform
themselves.
S/m or D/s representations of disidentification subvert
sexuality and gender paradigms. S/m scenarios provide a spatio-temporal context
that makes possible the bracketing out of demographic categorizations of
ability, age, class, gender, race, and sexual orientation. This does not mean
the real experiences of people oppressed through social vectors of power is
nullified; rather, it is the opportunity, as Bauer states, to choose and
negotiate our roles regardless of embodiment and social status. These
alternative sexuality and gender identities often garner utility for
practitioners through transgressing one’s limits, gaining insight into one’s
true self, developing affirming relationships, and promoting personal growth by
contravening normative narratives. This is exemplary of Foucault’s techniques
of the self and operations on one’s own body, thoughts, soul, and conduct,
enabling new possibilities of pleasure through self-transformation.
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