15 women who deserve their own biopics

15 Women Who Deserve Their Own Biopics

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Turkey's Atheists Face Hostilities and Death Threats

Onur Romano, a founding member of Turkey’s Atheism Association, opens the office and checks the mail. For once, he says, there are no death threats.

"Sometimes they send photos of some al-Qaida members chopping people off heads and putting all the heads in a bucket," he says. "They tell us your head is going to be in one of the buckets, that's how you are going to leave your office, stuff like that."

In officially secular Turkey, whose population is 99 percent Muslim, atheists are voicing alarm about what they call increasing intolerance fuelled by the country’s pro-Islamist government.

"Through Facebook, Twitter, emails, and to our call centre, we have received a couple of hundred death threats already," Romano continues. "We have a total of three security cameras, and we have two panic buttons hooked up to the nearest police precinct. But we are determined."

On Turkish TV channels where growing numbers of Islamic clerics espouse their beliefs, Atheists are a popular target. Romano says much of his group's work involves countering such views.

Indians begin to talk about S&M

ByDivya AryaBBC Hindi   15 December 2012

In an apartment in a middle-class neighbourhood in the Indian capital, Delhi, a group of men and women have met to talk openly about their love for BDSM activities.

Talking about bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism is an absolute taboo in India, a country well known for its conservative attitudes to sex.

But here, the conversation is candid.

The participants are members of the The Kinky Collective, a small group of heterosexual and transgender people, trying to connect to other Indians active and open about their BDSM preferences on various online communities and social networking websites.

'Shock'

Transgender activist Sara, a member of the group, says it has a "dual purpose".

"We want to spread awareness among people who carry preconceived notions on BDSM, but we also want to educate people joining this lifestyle about its own rules and principles. For example, consent is critical and the dominant [partner] has to always be very responsible for the submissive and take care of his/her safety."

Calcutta-based Joy Willingly says most members of the collective were slow in opening up about their BDSM lifestyle, but as they came in contact with other people, they realised that some support, organised initiative and conversations were needed urgently.

"We found out that there was a lot of hostility, once these people came out, even their friends wouldn't understand and distanced themselves, so we are now trying to give a sense of community, that there are others who feel this way, and that it's fine."

Almost a year into their work, the group, which has grown now to 15 members, has presented papers and held discussions with students of mental health, women and gay activists and participated in human rights and law conferences.

I had first met Sara at a transgender performance night organised at a popular arts centre in Delhi a few months back. Sara and her partner had enacted a very intimate BDSM sequence to an audience of about 100 people.

Simulating rough sex and the use of a belt and whip surprised and shocked many in the audience.

Many described the performance as brave while others questioned it.

Sara had to speak to many people individually but claims that such interactions were, in fact, the opportunities they needed to educate people.

Another member, Jaya, 40, says that BDSM is mostly misunderstood to be violent in India.

"It is, in fact, a very intense play of power and pain, I have been a feminist for 20 years, but I choose to be a submissive in my relationship. I chose to give my consent and don't see this as violence, but an experience that is edgy, erotic and even spiritual."

'Problematic'

Psychologists say that those who embark on BDSM "play" usually come to an agreement about the roles they will play: dominant, or submissive.

India's well-known sexologist, Dr Narayana Reddy, disagrees.

He says in the last 20 years, at least 1% of his patients came with complaints about their partner's demand for a BDSM lifestyle.

They were between 30 and 50 years old and were middle class, Mr Reddy says.

They spoke about acts ranging from being burnt by cigarette butts and severely bitten by their partners. They were also pricked with needles, tied up in chains and put on a dog's leash and "humiliated" in front of others.

"If this kind of bondage, domination and sadomasochism is the only means by which a person gets aroused, then I would term it as sexually problematic behaviour," says Dr Reddy.

"Initially, someone might try it for its novelty, but with time that can run off and it can leave deep scars, both physically and emotionally."

Many in India were surprised that Fifty Shades of Grey - a trilogy about a steamy romance between a businessman and a student which contains scenes of sadomasochism - sold so well in the country.

Sandhya Mulchandani, who has researched many historical Indian texts on erotica like Kamasutra and written books exploring Indian writings on sexuality, says: "Unlike modern times, our historical texts were not judgmental. I don't find any specific writing on BDSM, but the spirit was to acknowledge the many shades of human behaviour and ask them to be accepted for what they are."

Despite this legacy, Indians are still prudish.

So then, will a controversial lifestyle like BDSM become culturally "acceptable" anytime soon?

The Kinky Collective surely hopes so.

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Consent is a grey area?

Consent is a grey area? A comparison of understandings of consent in 50 Shades of Grey and on the BDSM blogosphere

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The Stonewall Riots – 1969. A Turning Point in the Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Liberation

THE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE By Lionel Wright

Something unremarkable happened on June 28, 1969 in New York’s Greenwich Village, an event which had occurred a thousand times before across the U.S. over the decades. The police raided a gay bar.

At first, everything unfolded according to a time-honoured ritual. Seven plain-clothes detectives and a uniformed officer entered and announced their presence. The bar staff stopped serving the watered-down, overpriced drinks, while their Mafia bosses swiftly removed the cigar boxes which functioned as tills. The officers demanded identification papers from the customers and then escorted them outside, throwing some into a waiting paddy-wagon and pushing others off the sidewalk.

But at a certain point, the “usual suspects” departed from the script and decided to fight back. A debate still rages over which incident sparked the riot. Was it a ‘butch’ lesbian dressed in man’s clothes who resisted arrest, or a male drag queen who stopped in the doorway between the officers and posed defiantly, rallying the crowd?

Riot veteran and gay rights activist Craig Rodwell says: “A number of incidents were happening simultaneously. There was no one thing that happened or one person, there was just… a flash of group, of mass anger.”

The crowd of ejected customers started to throw coins at the officers, in mockery of the notorious system of payoffs – earlier dubbed “gayola” – in which police chiefs leeched huge sums from establishments used by gay people and used “public morals” raids to regulate their racket. Soon, coins were followed by bottles, rocks, and other items. Cheers rang out as the prisoners in the van were liberated. Detective Inspector Pine later recalled, “I had been in combat situations, but there was never any time that I felt more scared than then.”

Pine ordered his subordinates to retreat into the empty bar, which they proceeded to trash as well as savagely beating a heterosexual folk singer who had the misfortune to pass the doorway at that moment. At the end of the evening, a teenager had lost two fingers from having his hand slammed in a car door. Others received hospital treatment following assaults with police billy clubs.

People in the crowd started shouting “Gay Power!” And as word spread through Greenwich Village and across the city, hundreds of gay men and lesbians, black, white, Hispanic, and predominantly working class, converged on the Christopher Street area around the Stonewall Inn to join the fray.

The police were now reinforced by the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF), a crack riot-control squad that had been specially trained to disperse people protesting against the Vietnam War.

Historian Martin Duberman describes the scene as the two dozen “massively proportioned” TPF riot police advanced down Christopher Street, arms linked in Roman Legion-style wedge formation: “In their path, the rioters slowly retreated, but – contrary to police expectations – did not break and run … hundreds … scattered to avoid the billy clubs but then raced around the block, doubled back behind the troopers, and pelted them with debris. When the cops realized that a considerable crowd had simply re-formed to their rear, they flailed out angrily at anyone who came within striking distance.

“But the protesters would not be cowed. The pattern repeated itself several times: The TPF would disperse the jeering mob only to have it re-form behind them, yelling taunts, tossing bottles and bricks, setting fires in trash cans. When the police whirled around to reverse direction at one point, they found themselves face-to-face with their worst nightmare: a chorus line of mocking queens, their arms clasped around each other, kicking their heels in the air Rockettes-style and singing at the tops of their sardonic voices:

‘We are the Stonewall girlsWe wear our hair in curlsWe wear no underwearWe show our pubic hair…We wear our dungareesAbove our nelly knees!’ 

“It was a deliciously witty, contemptuous counterpoint to the TPF’s brute force.” (Stonewall, Duberman, 1993) The following evening, the demonstrators returned, their numbers now swelled to thousands. Leaflets were handed out, titled “Get the Mafia and cops out of gay bars!” Altogether, the protests and disturbances continued with varying intensity for five days.

In the wake of the riots, intense discussions took place in the city’s gay community. During the first week of July, a small group of lesbians and gay men started talking about establishing a new organization called the Gay Liberation Front. The name was consciously chosen for its association with the anti-imperialist struggles in Vietnam and Algeria. Sections of the GLF would go on to organize solidarity for arrested Black Panthers, collect money for striking workers, and link the battle for gay rights to the banner of socialism.

During the next year or so, lesbians and gay men built a Gay Liberation Front (GLF) or comparable body in Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Australia, and New Zealand.

The word “Stonewall” has entered the vocabulary of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered (LGBT) people everywhere as a potent emblem of the gay community making a stand against oppression and demanding full equality in every area of life.

The GLF is no more, but the idea of Gay Power is as strong as ever. Meanwhile, in many countries and cities the concept of “gay pride” literally marches on each year in the form of an annual Gay Pride march.

The present generation of young LGBT people and many of today’s gay rights activists were born or grew up after 1969. And over the intervening decades, politics in the U.S. have passed through a very different period. While there have been huge advances in the struggle for LGBT rights, there is still a long way to go to achieve full liberation as the growing attacks by the religious right makes very clear.

Developing Subculture

Why did the Stonewall events happen when they did? How did the initial actions of fewer than 200 people lead to both a wider protest and then the birth of Gay Liberation?

In his 1983 book Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, the historian John D’Emilio has revealed the pre-history of Stonewall. The author shows how the process of industrialization and urbanization, and the movement of workers from plantations and family farms to wage labor in the cities, made it easier for Americans with same-sex desires to explore their sexuality. By the 1920s, a homosexual subculture had crystallized in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, the French quarter of New Orleans, and New York’s Harlem and Greenwich Villages.

People with same-sex desires have existed throughout history. What has varied is the way society has viewed them, and how the people we now describe as LGBT regarded themselves at different stages.

The significance of the social change described above, and the emergence of a subculture, for the development of a gay rights movement is that an increasing number of individuals with same-sex desires were able to break out of isolation in small and rural communities. However discreetly, they learned of the existence of large numbers of other gay people and started to feel part of a wider gay community.

In society at large, the penalties for homosexuality were severe. State laws across the country criminalized same-sex acts, while simple affectionate acts in public such as two men or women holding hands could lead to arrest. Even declaring oneself as a gay man or lesbian could result in admission to a mental institution without a hearing.

Within the embryonic subculture, there were fewer places for lesbians than gay men because women generally had less economic independence, and it was therefore harder for a woman to break free from social norms and pursue same-sex interests. During the Second World War, all this changed. With the set routines of peacetime broken, gays and lesbians found more opportunities for freer sexual expression.

Women entered both the civilian workforce and the armed services in large numbers, and also had new-found spending power with which to explore their sexuality. In the documentary film Before Stonewall, a lesbian ex-servicewoman called Johnnie Phelps relates how she was called in with another female NCO to see the general-in-command of her battalion – which she estimated was “97% lesbian.”

General Eisenhower told her he wanted to “ferret out” the lesbians from the battalion, and instructed her to draw up a list to that end. Both Phelps and the other woman politely informed the General that they would be pleased to make such a list, provided he was prepared to replace all the file clerks, drivers, commanders, etc. and that their own names would be at the top of the list! Eisenhower rescinded the order. A few years later as U.S. president, however, Eisenhower would get lists aplenty during the McCarthy witch-hunts that were unleashed against thousands of both suspected Communists and “sexual perverts.”

Renewed Repression

With the return to peacetime conditions, the millions of Americans who had encountered gay people and relationships in the services or war economy saw this temporary opening-up of U.S. society come to an end. Most of the new wartime gay venues closed their doors, as service people were demobilized and the bulk of the new women workers were sent home from the factories.

The lid of sexual orthodoxy came crashing down, and a dark age was about to dawn for gay people. But the genie of lesbian and gay experimentation had been let out of the bottle. Things could never be quite the same again. One of the enduring effects of the war was the large number of lesbian and gay ex-service people who decided to stay in the port cities to retain some sexual freedom, away from their families and the pressure to marry.

In the 1940s and 1950s, post-war reconstruction and the shift to consumer production, taking place against the background of the Cold War, resulted in the authorities heavily promoting the model of the orthodox nuclear family to buttress the social and economic system of capitalism. The other side of the coin was a clampdown on those who stepped out of the magic circle of matrimony, parenthood, and homemaking by engaging in same-sex relationships.

The inquiries of the House Un-American Activities Committee led to thousands of homosexuals losing their jobs in government departments. The ban on the employment of homosexuals at the federal level remained in place until 1975. In the District of Columbia alone, there were 1,000 arrests each year in the early 1950s. In every state, local newspapers published the names of those charged together with their place of work, resulting in many workers getting fired. The postal service opened the mail of LGBT people and passed on names. Colleges maintained lists of suspected gay students.

The Birth of Gay Rights

It was against this hostile background that the gay rights movement in the U.S. came into existence. In 1948, Harry Hay, a gay man and long-standing member of the U.S. Communist Party (CP), decided to set up a homosexual rights group. This was the first chapter in what gay people at the time described as the “homophile” movement.

Like all Communist Parties around the world, the U.S. party claimed to uphold the tradition of the October Revolution in Russia. One of the early measures of the Bolsheviks had been to end the criminalization of gay people. But by the 1930s, the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy had resulted in the resumption of anti-gay policies both in the Soviet Union and world Communist Parties.

In this situation, determined to pursue his project, Hay asked to be expelled from the CP. In view of his long service, the party declined his request. Together with a small group of collaborators including other former CP members, Hay launched the Mattachine Society (MS) in 1950. This took its name from a mysterious group of anti-establishment musicians in the Middle Ages, who only appeared in public in masks, and were possibly homosexual.

D’Emilio describes the program of the Mattachine Society as unifying isolated homosexuals, educating homosexuals to see themselves as an oppressed minority, and leading them in a struggle for their own emancipation. The MS organized local discussion groups to promote “an ethical homosexual culture.” These argued that “emotional stress and mental confusion” among gay men and lesbians was “socially conditioned.”

Notwithstanding the Stalinist degeneration of the CP in which Hay had received two decades of training, the MS founders clearly applied Marxist methods to understand the position of gay people and chart a way forward. For the structure of Mattachine, Hay utilized the methods of secrecy which the CP had employed in the face of attacks by the authorities, but which also developed against the background of the undemocratic methods of Stalinism in the workers’ movement.

To combat the persecution facing gay people, the Mattachine Society was based on a network of cells arranged in five tiers, or “orders.” Hay and the other leaders comprised the fifth order, but would be unknown to members at first and second “order” levels. For three years, the MS steadily expanded its network of discussion groups. Growth accelerated in 1952 after MS won a famous victory over the police when charges against a Mattachine member in Los Angeles were dropped, following a campaign of fliers by a front organization called the “Citizens Committee to Outlaw Entrapment.”

However, the following year, after a witch-hunting article by a McCarthyite journalist in Los Angeles, the fifth order decided to organize a “democratic convention.” When this took place, the Hay group was criticized from the floor by conservative and anti-Communist elements who demanded that the MS introduce loyalty oaths, which was a standard McCarthyite tactic. The radical leadership managed to defeat all the opposition resolutions, and the demand for a loyalty oath never gained a majority in Mattachine.

Nevertheless, Hay and his comrades decided not to stand for positions in the organization they had established and built. This effectively handed the group over to the conservatives. Many who had supported the original aims left in disgust, and it took two years for the membership to be built up again. If the Hay group had stayed active, it could have offered a pole of attraction for militant LGBT people. As it was, the movement was thrown back and a decade was lost.

Whereas the Mattachine founders had advocated an early version of “gay pride,” the new leadership reflected the social prejudice prevalent against homosexuals. The new MS president, Kenneth Burns, wrote in the Society journal, “We must blame ourselves for our own plight … When will the homosexual ever realize that social reform, to be effective, must be preceded by personal reform?”

The position of the new leadership was that gay people could not fight for changes in U.S. society but had to look to “respectable” doctors, psychiatrists, etc. through whom to ingratiate themselves with the authorities in the hope of more favorable treatment. But the problem was that the vast majority of such figures advocated the idea that homosexuality was a sickness.

Towards the end of this period, when a professional named Albert Ellis told a homophile conference that “the exclusive homosexual is a psychopath,” someone in the audience shouted: “Any homosexual who would come to you for treatment, Dr. Ellis, would have to be a psychopath!”

The Rise of Gay Activism

It is thought that many LGBT people who had yet to “come out” (publicly identify themselves as homosexual) became workers in the black civil rights campaign that began in the 1950s. By the following decade, the influence of the civil rights movement was making itself felt within the homophile movement. The “accommodationist” establishment of people such as Burns increasingly came under attack from a fresh generation of militant activists.

Eventually, in both the Mattachine Society and a similarly conservative lesbian group called the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), the leadership chose to dissolve the national structure rather than see the organization fall into the hands of radicals. Individual MS and DOB branches then continued on a free-standing basis. In these and other city-based groups, militant leaders managed to win majorities, often after colossal battles.

Within this process, an influential figure was astronomer Frank Kameny, who had been fired from a government job in the anti-gay purges. After unsuccessfully fighting victimization in the courts, he concluded that the U.S. government “had declared war on” him and decided to become a full-time gay rights activist. Kameny was scathing about the old leadership of the homophile movement in their craven deference towards the medical establishment: “The prejudiced mind is not penetrated by information, and is not educable.” The real experts on homosexuality were homosexuals, he said.

Referring to the organizations of the black civil rights movement, Frank Kameny noted: “I do not see the NAACP and CORE worrying about which chromosome and gene produced a black skin, or about the possibility of bleaching the Negro.” As the struggles of U.S. blacks produced slogans such as “Black is Beautiful,” Kameny coined the slogan “Gay is Good” and eventually persuaded the homophile movement to adopt this in the run-up to Stonewall.

The militant homophile campaigners started public picketing with placards and other direct actions, and mounted an offensive against the police and government over criminal entrapment, the employment ban, and a range of other issues.

Twenty years after Harry Hay had first conceived the idea of the Mattachine Society, U.S. society had undergone a transformation. The rise of a women’s movement (with lesbians prominent among the organizers), the shift among black people from a civil rights to a black power movement (parts of which embraced socialist ideas), a revolt against the U.S. war in Vietnam on American campuses influenced by the May 1968 events in France, plus the side effects of other developments such as a rebellion against establishment values in dress and personal relationships among groups such as the hippies, all contributed to gay and lesbian rights campaigns moving into a more militant phase.

One of the strands within the Gay Liberation Front argued that a revolutionary struggle against capitalism to build a socialist society was needed to finally end the oppression of gay people.

Craig Rodwell concludes: “There was a very volatile active political feeling, especially among young people … when the night of the Stonewall Riots came along, just everything came together at that one moment. People often ask what was special about that night … There was no one thing special about it. It was just everything coming together, one of those moments in history that if you were there, you knew, this is it, this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

Originally appeared in Socialism Today No. 40, July 1999

************************************

The first documentary -- in any medium -- about the riots:

REMEMBERING STONEWALL DOCUMENTARY MP3

This documentary, broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, is the first documentary -- in any medium -- about the riots. It weaves together the perspectives of the participants, from Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, who marshaled the raid, to Sylvia Rivera, one of the drag queens who battled most fiercely that night. The revolutionary impact of the riot is better understood by looking at life for gay men and lesbians in the era before Stonewall, seen through the eyes of people like Bruce Merrow and Geanne Harwood, a gay couple who have been together for 60 years, and Jheri Faire, an 80-year-old lesbian. also examines how Stonewall affected gay politics through the voices of people like Randy Wicker, the first openly gay person to appear on television and radio; Joan Nestle, founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives; and yippie leader Jim Fouratt, who helped found the Gay Liberation Front on the third night of the Stonewall Riots. 

Producer: David Isay with Michael Scherker / Editor: Amy Goodman / Mix engineer: Spider Ryder at WNYC / Funding provided by the Pacifica National Program Fund. Photograph by Harvey Wang.

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Am I allowed to laugh? (BDSM) – a Christian Perspective

There are occasions when the Atheist in me has to roar with laughter...... I think I may do some research from the Bible to find Christian encouragement to participate in BDSM. Since all books are open to interpretation.... I will interpret and offer a conclusion that is a positive influence to some nuts. And I am sure Master Drezda will most likely assist. 

So, lets read what they have to say:

Bondage,  Domination, and Sadomasochism  (BDSM) – a Christian Perspective
 I hope that as you read through this page, you will arrive at the same conclusion as I have concerning bondage, sadomasochism and their associated subcultures.   God created us and gave us the wonderful gift of sex to be enjoyed in the intimate bond of  marriage.  God intended sex to be a loving, giving experience, as opposed to a selfish, lustful, or domineering experience.   This page has been written primarily to Christians, but I encourage everyone to consider the points made.
 Definitions:

• Bondage: "sadomasochistic sexual practices involving the physical restraint of one partner " (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

• Domination: "supremacy or pre-eminence over another; exercise of mastery or preponderant influence" (Webster's Dictionary)

• Masochism: "A sexual perversion characterized by pleasure in being subjected to pain or humiliation esp. by a love object; pleasure in being abused or dominated" (Webster's Dictionary)

• Sadism: "A sexual perversion in which gratification is obtained by the infliction of physical or mental pain on others; delight in cruelty" (Webster's Dictionary)

 Additionally, Encyclopaedia  Britannica says this:  "The sadist, however, often seeks a victim who is not a masochist, as some of the sexual excitement derives from the victim's unwillingness. The level and extent of sadistic violence may vary considerably, from infliction of mild pain in otherwise harmless love play to extreme brutality, sometimes leading to serious injury or death. The satisfaction of the sadist may result not from inflicting actual physical pain but rather from the mental suffering of the victim. Sexual urges may limit the level of violence, but in some cases the aggressive impulse becomes predominant and the sadist progresses to more extreme expressions of his violent tendencies. Sadism may be a factor in some violent crimes, particularly rape and murder."

• Sadomasochism: "The derivation of pleasure from the infliction of physical or mental pain either on others or on oneself" (Webster's Dictionary)

• Submission: "An act of submitting to the authority or control of another" (Webster's Dictionary)

 There are many ways in which people mix the above acts with sexuality.  The term "BDSM" is a broad reaching term that vaguely covers all of the above activities, and there are many subcultures associated with BDSM. Rather than attempt to analyze each group in this discussion, I will present some principle-driven questions that can be asked of the particular activity with the goal of determining whether the activity is pleasing to God or not.

Questions that can be asked concerning a BDSM activity:
1. Does the act degrade and dishonour God's temple?  Our bodies are made in God's image and are intended to be vessels of worship (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20).  When we mistreat someone's body, or allow our bodies to be mistreated, we degrade them and dishonour God.  This is basically mocking the dignity of God's image.   This dovetails with Satan's objectives of marring, abusing or destroying our bodies such that they cease to glorify God. 
 2. Does the act pervert sexual pleasure by mixing it with pain?  Pleasure and pain are opposites, but BDSM attempts to bring them together for sexual gratification.  Pain is a by product of sin (Genesis 3:16-17; Genesis 6:6) and was not intended to be part of creation.  It will be eventually removed from creation by Jesus at the end of the age (Revelation 21:4). God designed us to enjoy many different pleasures, including sex, food, work, art, music and  sports.  Our fallen nature tends to combine sinful acts with our outlets of pleasure.  God does not take pleasure in evil - nor should we as his followers.  David wrote, "You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell." (Psalm 5:4 NIV)  Consider what Solomon wrote: "A fool finds pleasure in evil conduct, but a man of understanding delights in wisdom" (Proverbs 10:23 NIV) 3.  Does the act stifle the work of the Holy Spirit in your life?   When you consider the definitions of the words involved with BDSM and its associated acts, it's apparent that they are not based on love.  Rather, they are based on malice, hate, cruelty, lust, selfishness, control, and domination.  These attitudes are part of our sinful nature (Mark 7:21-23) and are directly opposed to the attitudes or "fruits" of the Holy Spirit.  The fruits of the Holy Spirit are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV).
 There are many scriptures that warn us not to have the attitudes featured in BDSM.  For example, Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:31-32 NASB, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."  (note: the definition of malice:  "desire to see another suffer" (Webster's Dictionary).  For more examples see the scriptures at the bottom of this page. God commands us to walk in obedience to the Holy Spirit and not to gratify our fleshly cravings (Romans 13:12-13).  Paul wrote: "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:24 NIV).  When we ignore God's commands and  pursue our sinful cravings, we stifle or "quench" the activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Ephesians 4:30). 4.  Does the act corrupt God’s perfect plan for love and sex in marriage?   Let's first look at the below scripture to best understand God’s intent for marriage relations:²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour.
²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
²⁶to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
 ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-- Ephesians 5:22-29 NIV

Key ideas from the above scripture:

1. Wives are to submit to their husbands as they do to God.  Our submission to God does not involve punishment, wrath or abuse, because Jesus Christ bore all the punishment due to us on the cross (1 Peter 2:24; Romans 5:1).  We have peace with God and submit to him in reverence and appreciation for the great sacrifice he made for us.  A wife's submission carries no hint of sexual slavery, abuse, suffering or pain.

1. The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.  Jesus did not treat the church harshly, nor did he inflict pain for pleasure or seek to dominate them. Jesus loved the church so much that he sacrificed his own body to pay for our sins.  His sacrifice was once and for all, eliminating any need for further pain and suffering on account of our sin (Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 10:10).  Following Christ's example, a husband has no business treating his wife harshly, inflicting pain for pleasure, dominating her, etc..  Also, the reverse is true as well - he has no business allowing his wife to do those acts to him.  It simply would not be within the character of Christ.

1. A wife should not mistreat her husband because this would be a perversion of the submission and respect that should characterize the wife's role.    Paul likened the husband’s role to that of Christ and the wife’s role to that of the church.  In Ephesians 5:22-24 he wrote, “22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”  The question we can ask ourselves is, “Did God intend the church to abuse Jesus through pain and domination?” No!  The church's attitude toward Jesus is to be one of reverence, respect and love.  Likewise, wives should treat their husbands with reverence, respect and love. 

1.  We are to nurture our body and our spouse’s body.  We worship God in many ways, but especially in how we treat our body (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20), which is made in God's image and is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16).  It would be dishonouring to God for the wife to abuse her husband's body, and a husband is specifically commanded to cherish and nurture his wife’s body, as he would his own body (Ephesians 5:29-30).   Nurturing, caring and feeding do not carry any connotation of bondage, pain or abuse.

1. Does the act bring you under the rule of a defeated enemy?   Satan hates the fact that through our faith in Jesus Christ, we become co-heirs of God's kingdom (Romans 8:17).  As adopted sons of God, we inherit authority and dominion over sin, Satan and his forces (see authority).  Consequently, Satan seeks creative ways like BDSM to bring us back under his rule (through sin) and strip us of our "divine inheritance" rights.  

 God commands us clearly to not allow sin (or anything other than God) to be our master (Genesis 4:7).  Also, Paul wrote:  12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. " 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Romans 6:12-14,16 NIV We must remember that Jesus surrendered his own body to be punished once and for all for our sin.  His sacrifice purchased our freedom from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2).  To willingly place ourselves back into some form of bondage would be to make a mockery of the freedom Christ purchased for us.  Paul wrote: Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.  Galatians 5:1 NKJV
 If we allow ourselves to come under Satan's rule, we will be subjected to his "tools of domination," which he uses to keep people in slavery.  Being subject to these tools is no fantasy!  Here are some examples: 

• Torture: Matthew 18:32-35

• Sickness: Luke 13:11, Acts 10:38

• Affliction: Job 2:7,

• Murder & death: John 8:44, John 10:10, Hebrews 2:14

• Bondage/Slavery: Hebrews 2:14-15, Romans 6:19, 2 Timothy 2:26

 6.  Is the act based on violence or graphic fantasies (e.g. sex, death, rape, torture, mutilation, etc.)?  In an exclusive interview in the 1990's , the late serial killer Ted Bundy shared with Dr. James Dobson how pornography progressively helped him accelerate down the road to sadistic killing.  Interestingly enough, BDSM was involved. 7. Is the act a 'perversion' of normal heterosexual  relations?  People turn to perversions when they are not satisfied with the “normal” pathway of stimulation.  In essence they are saying to God “your plan for my sexuality is not good enough…I want more gratification.”  By doing this we open ourselves up to some very serious consequences. The apostle Paul captures some of those consequences in his letter to the church in Rome: "²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
²⁵They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
 ²⁶Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

²⁷In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

₂₈Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
 ²⁹They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,

³⁰slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;

³¹they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. "  Romans 1:24-31 NIV
 Here are the key aspects of the peoples’ behavior:

• They degraded their bodies with one another

• They worship created things instead of God (sexual fantasy is a form of worshipping the body)

• They explored additional areas of perversion (homosexuality)

• The consequences of such actions included:

• They were given over to shameful lust and a depraved mind

• They received a "due penalty" for their perversion

• They were filled with every kind of wickedness, including malice and murder

• They became heartless and ruthless

 Pursuing BDSM-related activities may produce similar results, because they often involve degrading the body, worshipping something other than God (sex, body, pain, control, punishment, power, etc.), and exploration of other forms of perversion.  Once we open ourselves up to the associated consequences, it becomes very difficult to regain a clear and right mind.  However, recovery is possible with God's help. If the answer to any of the above questions was "Yes", then I would encourage you to refrain from practicing the activity. Consider these additional verses:
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" 1 Corinthians 5:8 NKJV"But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth." Colossians 3:8 NKJV"³For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. ⁴But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit"  Titus 3:3-5 NKJV "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind."  1 Peter 2:1 NIV "Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts." Psalm 28:3 NIV
"²¹For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

²²greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
²³All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "  Mark 7:21-23 NIV
 "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people." Ephesians 5:3 NIV "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Colossians 3:12 NIV "Do everything in love." 1 Corinthians 16:14 NIV

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Passion Play - How the Romans in Britain changed theatrical and legal history

In October 1980 a daring new play opened at the National Theatre. News of its graphic violence and simulated male rape soon had Mary Whitehouse up in arms. No surprises there. But no one could have guessed what would happen next. Mark Lawson on the drama than changed theatrical - and legal - history

How The Romans in Britain changed theatrical and legal history


WEB: www.sinfulandwicked.co.uk
MOB: 07426 490 214
TWITTER: @sinfulandwicked