Another rancid BDSM take is going around twitter again:
This time I genuinely don’t think I can get it up to respond.1 But I don’t think I have to because it seems the tide is turning on how we treat these uninformed hate-blasts. Many of the responses and retweets were pure gold:
Predictably, the replies in agreement quickly became SWERF-y and gross. No receipts provided because I can’t look at them again.
At the end of the day, as you all know, we can’t be out here defending ourselves from every person with a viral tweet. And if we looked behind the veil at who these people are and where they’re coming from, I’m sure in addition to finding they’re simply uneducated about queer culture and history, we’d also discover that they’re traumatized in some way and unable to conceptualize the adult consent this is all predicated on. It’s sad. But it’s not a threat to us. They can’t take anything away. And we can’t fast-forward one to five years when they likely will have calmed down on this take. The danger is not people saying anti-queer, anti-BDSM stuff. The danger is in catering to it, and allowing ourselves to be fatigued by opinions that don’t matter. Like the vocal online zoomers who can’t handle sex scenes, these people want to lead us down the primrose path of purity panic. But they’re not getting my panic. Not this time. Because I read :)
You’ve probably already heard my favorite quote from Mark Thompson’s Leatherfolk on this subject. I’ll repeat it, and add the preceding paragraph which is particularly relevant here:
There's a political naiveté about sacrificing the civil rights of a few for the acceptance of the many. So, to protect their interests, leatherfolk have gone on to form a nationwide network of our own. More savvy than most, we know that a duplicitous myth of "good" versus "bad" gay people is good for no one. Leatherfolk now keep alive the promise of a once visionary movement.
Leatherfolk, looking at the brutal acts of Dominance and submission that are carried out in America every day, know that in such rapacious and nonconsensual acts lies the real sadomasochism that plagues our time. In our audacious explicating of society’s roles and violent tensions, leather folk mirror the deadly games that a culture dishonest with itself plays. Perversion, in this case, is a symptom of the beholder. I know this is true from personal experience. When I admitted to my own interest in S/M, two things happened: My sense of humor improved, and I became more socially aware.
I’ll add to it with an excerpt from Coming To Power: Writings and Graphics on Lesbian S/M (1981)2. This is from the book’s introduction, titled “What We Fear We Try To Keep Contained.”
S/M fantasies and S/M sex between feminist lesbians have been one of the most avoided topics of discussion in the movement… In the public arena of the lesbian, feminist, and gay press, positive feelings about S/M experiences have been met for the most part with swift negative reaction and authoritative reprimands. In this context, trashing has been renamed "feminist criticism," honest dialogue has been submerged by wave after wave of ideological censure calling itself "debate," and those of us who continue to resist this treatment are accused of being contaminated by the patriarchy. What we fear we try to keep contained. The intense political battle over S/M is increasingly polarizing members of the lesbian-feminist community. Is S/M good or evil? Is it "feminist"? Anti-feminist? Or should we even be bothering to discuss it at all?
The logical place to begin is to talk about our sexuality as it is. We must talk about what we do as much as who we do it with. We will find many differences among and between us, but it is better to do this work than to continually hide from our fears and insecurities. We must put the rhetorical weaponry aside and willingly engage each other, without simply jumping ahead into a new sexual conformity. We must have precisely the same dialogues about the texture of our sexuality as we have been having about classism, racism, cultural identity, physical appearance and ability. How do all these differences converge, to make us who we are? We must all ask and answer these questions.
More on BDSM history to palate cleanse from these asinine internet takes:
Ask A Sub News~~~
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This collection is out of print and quite difficult to find. I had to buy it from a used bookseller for $100.
I'm teaching a Feminist Sex Wars class right now (and writing a book on about how the war isn't really over) so this is very front and center for me. Breathing through the rage bait and trying to make sense of what has stakes/weight/impact has been my main task! Relatedly: I'm trying to figure out if it's worth responding to a currently viral Substack post about "pedobait" that I find deeply....wrong. Just so so very wrong. But it's a young writer and there's all the important stuff that gets brought up in these kinds of things (stats about violence against girls, all real, etc.) so idk. But it's getting mega-clicks and so many young people are really insisting on the Dworkian framework re: many things. </3 Anyway, so grateful for your work, as ever!