As a slave you are....

Sissy Maxine and the Master

I arrive at the hotel after answering the Craig’s List ad for sissies desiring a Master to teach and train them in the ways of sissiness… 

I knock and hear muffled voices as I enter. 

"Hi, I am Bob and these are my assistants Bunny and Laura. They will lead you into the bathroom to remove your clothing and help me with your first lesson." I enter the bathroom and undress, standing completely naked before Bunny and Laura, who are incredibly sexy, and as they take off their lingerie, I focus on their voluptuous breasts, and then out pops their cocks. As I begin to protest, Bunny grabs my balls and squeezes as Laura covers my mouth with a cloth filled with ether or chloroform. Everything gets hazy and I blackout.

Power and Agency in the Dungeon: Exploring Feminist Understandings of BDSM

Rachel E. Perry

 16 May 2014

Power and Agency in the Dungeon: Exploring Feminist Understandings of BDSM

Introduction

Though BDSM is often regarded as a controversial, taboo practice, it nonetheless has increasingly made its way into mainstream media over the past several decades. Indeed, marketing campaigns have used sadomasochistic-themed advertisements to sell everything from cigarettes to clothing, and E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy has achieved international fame. Because it touches on questions of consent, agency, and power, BDSM has continued to be a site of contention within feminism, and it is for this reason that a more comprehensive exploration of its nuanced nature is appropriate. 

I use BDSM as the shortened acronym for bondage/domination, domination/submission, and sadism/masochism. The latter, S/M (sexual pleasure through giving or receiving physical pain), tends to be the more controversial practice of the above definition, so I often employ this term to emphasize the pain aspect of BDSM. Finally, kink refers more generally to sexual preferences of a non-normative nature. Some practitioners are casual players, while others consider themselves much more serious enthusiasts, investing in large collections of toys, attending conventions, and networking with other players. In all, the BDSM community is incredibly diverse, a feature which must be kept in mind when making generalizations about the sexual subculture.

While not wanting to oversimplify this complex debate, I begin by outlining and evaluating the two principal, conflicting perspectives regarding BDSM, which can be structured very basically as “radical” versus “pro-sex.” A postcolonial theoretical framework elucidates how neither of these views sufficiently acknowledges the multifaceted, often contradictory, nature of BDSM. After assessing the dominant voices within this debate, I shift to a more focused case study of commercial BDSM to examine feminist questions of agency and power, ultimately drawing from Butler’s notion of parody to show that BDSM has the potential to resist the oppressive, gendered ways that power operates by revealing the very constructedness of those normative gender relations.

Framing the Theoretical Debate: “Radical” and “Pro-Sex” Feminists

Often referred to as “radical” feminists, this group has been especially vocal in their questioning of and opposition to commercial sex. Andrea Dworkin, for instance, claims that pornography is systematic harm to all women, asserting that it “crushes a whole class of people through violence and subjugation” by creating “a sexual dynamic in which the putting-down of women, the suppression of women, and ultimately the brutalization of women, is what sex is taken to be.”¹ Taking advantage of their highly taboo nature, she utilizes vivid images of SM/fetish porn in an attempt to prove her point about the dehumanizing violence that is pornography. Indeed, if vanilla pornography is systematically hurtful to women, then BDSM porn, by extension, is even more blatantly damaging. Because it exaggerates power relations and sexualizes the infliction of pain, S/M, in this conceptualization, is dangerous because it creates the impression that all sex is brutal and oppressive toward women.

Similarly, Kathleen Barry denounces the structural violence that she believes is inherent in prostitution. She argues that “[w]hen the human being is reduced to a body, objectified to sexually service another, whether or not there is consent, violation of the human being has taken place.”² Depicting the ways in which women are reduced to their bodies, while men are not, Barry is clearly concerned with the negative effect that prostitution supposedly has on the frequency with which rapes are committed. Expanding on this line of thinking, sex work that specializes in SM/kink is especially exploitative because it reproduces and commercializes oppressive gender relations. Even professional dominatrices, who take the dominant role in BDSM interactions with submissive men³, are nevertheless involved in a troubling practice because it ultimately reinforces violence and gender hierarchies. Though seemingly paradoxical, the argument follows that women who sell sadomasochistic services, even when they play the role of the ‘pro-domme,’⁴ are reinforcing patriarchal domination because the ostensibly submissive men are still in control of the transaction. In this view, then, pornography and prostitution, especially when sadomasochism is involved, are inherently abusive because of the structural, systematic harm they levy against all women.

Humiliation? Degradation? Or embarrassment?

An experienced Dominant once defined the difference in this way:  Embarrassment is something you do to yourself.   Humiliation is something that someone else does to you.   I’m still thinking about that one, but it’s an interesting way to compare the two.

Verbal Humiliation attacks a person’s humanity; that trait that we call pride.   Whether done in a hurtful manner or in a consensual format, it pokes fun at our dignity.   Telling a humiliating story about something a person has done or using words to cause a person embarrassment about something demonstrates that the Dominant has the power to make the submissive tolerate the situation.   The Dominant usually enjoys the display of power and the submissive enjoys the relinquishment of that power.

Physical Humiliation is about the same power exchange, but in a more obvious way.   A Dominant might demonstrate his power over her by making her wear something that she is not comfortable wearing, forcing her to display her body in a way that she is uncomfortable with, or do something that illustrates his ability to control her.   When giving a submissive an order to do something humiliating, be patient.   There is a period of time that is required for this to sink in.   She will likely take a few seconds to believe that you actually said what she thought you said, a few more seconds to convince herself that she must obey this order, and more time to summon up the courage to actually act on it.   

Many Dominants make the mistake of taking this inaction to mean that they have gone too far, and will often retract or soften the order in some way.   This robs the submissive of the opportunity to demonstrate her submission.   Be patient!   In the negotiation process, discuss how much resistance she is likely to have to acceptable humiliation and how to handle that resistance.   Make sure there is a safeword or safe statement that she can make to indicate that this is beyond her ability at the present time.

It is not necessary that anyone else actually witness the humiliation.   Sometimes, simply performing in front of the Dominant is humiliating enough.   Another option is to have the submissive perform a humiliating feat in private, while threatening to repeat it at some future point in public.   Just be careful not to threaten too often without actually following through on the threat.   Your credibility must be maintained.   Her anticipation of this future event will probably be as powerful as the actual event.   Good examples of public humiliation in the vanilla world might be having the submissive wear some clip, clamp, plug or bondage under her clothing while having dinner.   Although completely unseen, the presence of observers will probably cause fantasies of discovery.   A common ploy is to tell a submissive to leave the restaurant table, go to the ladies room and remove her panties.   

DELVING INTO DISCOURSE: DEVELOPING KNOWLEDGE OF BDSM

An article to read & Review

BDSM Is Not an Answer, So Embrace the Uncertainty

"In art, one must throw one’s life away in order to gain it."

Gustav Janosch – Conversations with Kafka (https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Kafka-Second-Directions-Paperbook/dp/081121950X/)

I think there are many different motivations for seeking out BDSM play or a BDSM relationship dynamic:

• a drive to satisfy kinks or fetishes

• novelty

• escape from societal constraints

• sense of purpose

• a sense of completion from someone with complementary traits and I’m sure there are many other reasons.

I’m personally not self-aware enough to know what drives me to seek out M/s, SM and the variety of kinks I explore. It would be nice to understand it, but it is probably a complex mix of all of the above.

What I am aware enough to do is accept the attraction and harness it for personal growth.

EMBRACING FEAR AND UNCERTAINTY

American Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön writes in When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times: (https://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Anniversary/dp/1611803438/)

"Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth."

Is it Topping from the Bottom?

No-one is going to deny that Tops need feedback in a scene. This commonly includes the bottom communicating needs, discomfort and safety concerns. or communicating and processing their feelings in aftercare.

At the same time, a basic working definition of topping from the bottom might be: “an attempt by the bottom to steer play or the power exchange in a direction they want”.

The distinction might be clear to you, and I do think that each of us can make that distinction in our own encounters, but laying down firm boundaries between the two is difficult, and communicating to our partner where that boundary is is even more difficult.

In a scene, if a bottom were to say “I think that would feel more intense in bent over position than upright” is that feedback? In many people’s dynamic it is. Or is it an attempt to top? In many people’s dynamic it is.

IS THERE A CONSENSUAL AGREEMENT?

Drawing a boundary between feedback and topping from the bottom rests on an assumption that there is a mutual understanding of what communication we, personally, consider good or bad. Effectively, we are saying that topping from the bottom is communication that violates that agreement.