BDSM and feminism: Kink-shaming and victim-blaming

Defending BDSM is a fraught process for feminists. On the one hand, you have misogynists and rape apologists telling you that women are just 'asking' to be assaulted, coerced, violated, beaten and raped, an insidious culture that makes any woman who enjoys consensual kink feel like she is a traitor all female victims of violence. On the other, you have (some) feminists telling you that while they support your right to choose whatever sexual practices you find pleasurable, if you like BDSM (especially as a submissive/masochist) it's probably just due to toxic patriarchal social conditioning and you should probably "work to change that" (genuine quote from a feminist discussing BDSM).

Then you have stories like the awful Jian Ghomeshi allegations that continue to emerge, whereby an alleged abuser is trying to mitigate the charges against him by claiming they took place under the umbrella of consensual kink. His accusers say differently. Rape apologists say "well, it's their word against his." Feminists say #IBelieverHer but suspect that these women are merely going to be dragged through the mill of being disbelieved, scrutinised and publicly attacked and possibly not see any justice at the end of it, because we know that's what happens to the majority of sexual assault victims. Radical feminists say What do you expect? and That's what happens when you say BDSM is OK, it becomes a cover for assault. Of course, there are quite a few radfems out there who believe that all BDSM is assault anyway, and that any woman who claims she consents to it is just brainwashed by the patriarchy into believing she actually wants to participate in this activity. 

This is where I encounter a particular logic fail with feminist criticism of BDSM. Does it not seem paradoxical to anyone else to be part of a movement that fights for women's right to be seen as full, autonomous, intelligent beings with agency while claiming that women who make sexual choices you don't agree with are too stupid to know what they're doing? As Margaret Hunt writes in her excellent "Report on a Conference on Feminism, Sexuality and Power: The Elect Clash with the Perverse," "leaps of logic like these only make sense if one really believes that adult women who choose to be the bottom in an S/M exchange are equivalent to children, while their tops are equivalent to pathological murderers." Yet it's not just the obvious corners of anti-sex work, anti-pornography, radical feminism that such viewpoints emerge. I was seriously disappointed to read this recent article by Emer O' Toole "This murder in Ireland has made me rethink my sexual practices," (The Guardian, 31st March 2015) where O' Toole claims that, despite having happily participated in BDSM previously, she now finds it difficult to reconcile with the fact a woman was murdered by a man she was in a BDSM relationship with. The tagline is "I wonder if we can continue to deny any links between kinky sex and wider societal abuse of women," the accompanying picture is a still from F**** S**** o* G*** and the caption to that claims that in that movie "a reluctant, inexperienced and infatuated young girl is controlled and beaten by a rich sadist" - read here to see why I believe that's a total mischaracterisation of that particular storyline.

From the outset of O' Toole's piece I got the sense that this was going to be yet another anti-kink article, this time more cleverly concealed than the usual feminist condemnation by the fact the author claims she is a BDSM practitioner. Sadly, I wasn't wrong. She starts by demanding that we examine "the social context that allowed a man to convince a woman that his sexual desire to stab and kill her was within the bounds of the acceptable," as if it's somehow a foregone conclusion that "social context" was what drove Graham Dwyer to murder his partner. This is followed by an epistemic leap so vast it requires a parachute to accompany it, when O' Toole says that this means we also need to pay "attention to the cultural mainstreaming of BDSM."

I probably should have stopped reading there, because my responses were already descending into teenage grunts. My response to that particular sentence was Why? and Says who? After the Columbine killings, hysterical hand-wringers told us to look to Marilyn Manson and violent films/video games for the source of the senseless violence that two 15 year-olds visited upon their classmates and teachers. Anyone with half a brain said no, I will not resort to such blind, simplistic scapegoating. Music doesn't kill people, video games don't kill people. And consensual play with ropes, floggers, gags and cuffs doesn't cause the rape and murder of women, Whenever we blame anything but the rapist for the rape, the murderer for the murder, we shift responsibility from the criminal and to something else (sadly, as happens far too often in the case of sexual assault, we shift it on to the victim). If you're a feminist, you know that short skirts, drinking and flirting don't cause rape. So why are you suddenly training your sights on PVC outfits and erotic power play and claiming that they are responsible for domestic violence and murder?

Partly because it's an interesting and trendy thing to be talking about, I guess, in light of *that film* and *that book*'s popularity, otherwise I doubt The Guardian would have commissioned O' Toole's piece, But her supposedly kink-friendly feminism is just woman-shaming and kink-shaming in a leather disguise. She says "I’m making this critique not as a kink-shamer, but as a challenge to myself: what are my reasons and justifications for inviting or accepting male sexual violence?" Again, the teenager in me responds WHO CARES? Not because I'm being rude or dismissive, but because funnily enough, as a feminist, I don't think we should be asking women to put a disproportionate amount of weight and stress upon themselves by interrogating their desires any more than anyone else does in this society. Why is it always on us as women to analyse ourselves, to scrutinise ourselves, and, according to the great Radical Feminist Handbook of How Acceptable Egalitarian Sex should be done, probably find ourselves wanting? Wherefore the privilege of the unexamined life, the unapologised-for libido? Isn't that something men enjoy? So why are we demanding that women give that up and instead flagellate ourselves (pun so very intended) for the things that give us pleasure in this so-often thankless and joyless life?

Citing one study about self-proclaimed porn addicts as evidence that porn creates a desire for violence (if you read the article, it actually only states that people who are predisposed to already enjoy looking at violent porn tend to seek it out - shocker), O' Toole accepts on one hand that kink gives people a safe space to enjoy desires that are not acceptable to release in everyday life, but then demands that we never forget that a racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist society is still sitting in the kink club with us. Does she really think that any one, apart from those in the most privileged social groups, can ever forget that fact? So why is she asking that we continue to beat ourselves over the head with guilt about the fact our BDSM practices may resemble sexist, racist, transphobic or ableist violence (I remember reading about a disabled man who liked to be called 'cripple' and dragged out of his chair and abused during kink scenes - his play may shock me and many people, but that itself is not reason enough for me to tell him he should not be doing it). What reason is there, apart from the fact that this one horrible murder has clearly made O' Toole feel guilty about her own sexual practices, to demand that we start "conscientiously examining a) the social conditions that have led to our fetishisation of female pain and submission, and b) the ways in which our sexual practices strengthen and reinforce those social conditions?" These very statements imply to me that despite claiming to be a BDSM practitioner, O'Toole has not thought very long or hard about kink or feminism. She assumes there must be a social basis for the desires of any woman who enjoys pain or submission, yet that assumption pretty much at one fell swoop disregards all female sexual agency, the existence of female switches and male submissives, and women who feel their submissive desires exist in spite of, not because of, their upbringing (quote Mollena Williams: "I was taught that being strong was the first thing you had to be, especially ... as a black woman. To be submissive, to be obedient, was NOT acceptable.")  There is also, of course, the underlying assumption that O' Toole's own viewpoint is objective and neutral, rather than coloured, as everyone's must be, by their own experiences and background. As Margaret Hunt writes, in a statement that could be applied to every radical feminist condemnation of women's sexual practices, "The argument that there is no free choice in the world is never all-inclusive. It always admits the existence of a small group which is morally superior to the corrupt mass." And that is where the logic fail happens. If O' Toole believes we are all so easily brainwashed, then how come she has magically managed to avoid the same fate as the rest of us? What exactly is it about her that makes her qualified to say that women's choice to participate in BDSM is somehow linked to, possibly even partially responsible for, one terrible murder? 

If we really want to look at things that have left women likely to be murdered by partners, we could look at: cuts to domestic violence services, slow legal machinery that mean getting injunctions and getting a violent partner removed from the family home could take days or even weeks (now thankfully much improved), victim-blaming narratives ("Why didn't she leave?" "She must have provoked him") and a culture of silence around domestic violence - the very term implies a "private matter" or "just a domestic," a language that seriously needs to change. BDSM did not kill Elaine O' Hara, and I take massive offence at O' Toole's last statement, that O' Hara's "submissive desires left her vulnerable to male aggression in the most tragic way possible." The only thing Elaine O'Hara's submissive desires left her open to, it would seem, was having her sexual preferences blamed for her death rather than her murdering partner. I'll say it again - if you wouldn't blame a short skirt for rape, then don't blame BDSM for a murder. BLAME THE MURDERER. O' Toole is criticising BDSM for somehow making it easier for abuse to go undetected - even though plenty of abuse goes undetected, excused or apologised for in the vanilla world - yet she is playing by the same rulebook of rape apologists by implying that Elaine O'Hara "left herself open" to getting murdered just because she was a submissive.

This is pretty disgusting. It's also ignorant - it disregards the many lengths submissives and masochists go to to protect themselves, precautions that many vanilla people don't bother to take when meeting someone for a date (arranging a 'check-in' call with a friend, letting someone know the name, online username, address of the person you're meeting), it assumes that "submissive as part of kink" = "weak in everyday life" (and anyone making that assumption will get a big, rude shock when they meet some actual subs) and, as I've pointed out above, it presumes that there are things women can and should be doing to protect themselves from male violence. But what could Elaine O' Hara have done? Not been married to this man? Right, well, perhaps it's marriage we should be protesting against, not BDSM. But then she might still have met this man, or dated him, or worked with him, or just walked past him one night in the street. And he still might have violently murdered her. So the best she could do is move to a remote island with no men on, right? Funnily enough, no one ever suggests that. Because that would be silly, that would be extreme. But saying that enjoying a spanking from your partner means you contributed to your own murder? That's fine to say. Even from someone who claims to be feminist, who claims to be pro-kink.

So, no, I'm not going to accept that I am obliged to examine my sexual practices and consider how they contribute to a society that blames rape and murder victims for their own violations, because I think the only thing which contributes to such a society is the belief that it's always down to women to change, behave differently and re-wire ourselves, because that belief is predicated on the mistaken idea that there's anything we can do to avoid violation, and that belief in turn - however well-meant - comes from a solid landscape of victim-blaming. So I let (read: asked) a guy pull my hair, put his hand round my throat, slam me against a wall - so the fuck what? Does it make feminists like O'Toole feel better if they know that this took place with my full consent and enthusiastic desire, while in my own home, wearing clothes of my own choice, that the wall I got slammed against belongs to me, and I paid for it with my own money, that the guy and I laughed and chatted and drank Um Bongo before and after it took place? Does it help if I add that I've never experienced any coercive sexual behaviour from any of the men I've practised BDSM with, whereas I know plenty of women who've experienced the same in vanilla relationships? Do you know, I don't care if it does - because I shouldn't be obliged to state these things just to make my preferences sound 'acceptable' to the feminist anti-kink police. Because what I do in my sex life, however unpalatable or odd it may seem to others, is not hurting anyone, and is bringing me freedom and pleasure. Fuck anyone who tries to shame me for that by using a woman's horrific death as their excuse.

***To read more essays on BDSM, feminism and pop culture, check out my new book "Thinking Kink," which is now out in the US and the UK.***

Pointing The Finger

One of my very first posts on this blog, back in the heady days of 2008, was titled 'Who To Blame and Where To Aim', a question that I think remains very salient for feminists. I feel like recently I've encountered a lot of feminists asserting that any kind of critique of women's behaviour is not feminism, and that what we should be defending is women's right to choose to behave however they want. A reworking of the famous quote (wrongly) attributed to Voltaire, if you like - "I may disagree with every thing you do, but I'll defend to the death your right to do it."

 

A lot of my feminism falls down on this side of the fence, insofar as I've spent a lot of time writing in defence of kinky women and have also tried to examine and challenge my own assumptions about sex work and its implications for feminism by reading blogs by sex workers and listening to what they have to say on social media etc. I'm very aware that there are radfems out there who would condemn me for 'doing feminism wrong' because I enjoy and practise sexual submission with men, and that those same radfems have also done a hell of a lot of hating on trans women and sex workers, and that's not a brand of feminism I want any part of. I do want a feminism that's broad, and open, accepting of difference, and able to reckon that, while we may be all be conditioned by social forces, we are all doing the best we can to live happy and fulfilling lives within that context.

 

But. I do come unstuck when feminism seems diluted to simply mean 'supporting women's right to do/say whatever the fuck they want.' Because by that logic, we'd support pro-life women. We'd support Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman. We'd support Equalities Minister Maria Miller, who has voted against adoption rights for gay couples and who has spoken in favour of reducing the UK abortion limit. We'd support hateful troll Samantha Brick, who wrote a misogynistic, body-shaming article that I refuse to even read because I've seen the massive trauma it has caused to countless women who have suffered from eating disorders.

 

And presumably, we don't support those women. We support a free society where they can say things that we may disagree with, because it's important to know their views exist so we may address them, challenge them, and maybe even try to educate those promoting them. But I know that I, for one, am not going to unquestioningly endorse those women in the name of feminism. Yet, I feel like certain feminists leap upon any criticism of another woman's behaviour as divisive to the sisterhood, and I'm not going to be railroaded into that. Yesterday I was criticised for using the term 'self-defeating women'. I can see why it might have pissed someone off. It would piss me off to be called that, especially by, say, a radfem describing me as thus because I'm kinky. The person in question suggested that all I meant by this phrase was 'women who disagree with you', and to an extent they were right, but that's not all there is to it. I do deem certain behaviour by women as making life harder for themselves and other women - pro-life women would be a very good example of that. How can you tell me that female senators who sign off bills making abortion more difficult to access for other women are doing anything but attacking their own rights, and the rights of every other woman unfortunate enough to live in that state? If that's not self-defeating, I don't know what is.

 

But OK, that's an extreme example, involving laws which obviously affect people's lives. Other examples are more nebulous. I may feel Page 3 girls make life harder for other women by normalising the trivialisation of women and their bodies, whereas those who defend the glamour models' right to work or who find boobs in newspapers unproblematic would disagree. Radfems may feel I make life harder for other women by 'eroticising violence against women' (I use quotes to show I do not believe this for a second) when I participate in kink, publicly or privately. Obviously I'd feel that radfems are making life much harder for me by imposing huge guilt and shame on a part of my life that brings me pleasure and peace. Abolitionists may feel sex workers make life harder for women by sending out the message that the female body is purchasable, and that  the male right to sex is all-important. Sex workers may feel abolitionists make life harder for them by advocating draconian laws, stereotyping and patronising them, and refusing to listen to their voices or acknowledge their ability to choose/enjoy their work. Ultimately, we can all call each other self-defeating, and I don't suppose we'd ever reach much consensus. Nor, as has been noted with regard to constant Twitter battles over the last few months, will this in-fighting do much to advance the fight against the patriarchy.

 

But I suppose that's the exact crux of the issue. Wherein lies the patriarchy? The person I was debating with yesterday stated that they supported women's right to do whatever they wished, and that their beef was not with female behaviour, but with patriarchy.

 

So are we to believe that patriarchy never influences women?

 

Anyone who's read that Samantha Brick article, or one by Liz Jones, or Melane Philips, or Phyliss Schlafly, might beg to differ. So how do we argue against their poisonous views if we're not going to consider the idea that some of us may make choices that are damaging to women? If 'choice' is our answer to everything, then do we have to conclude that Christina Hoff Sommers' claim that rape reporting in colleges must be hugely exaggerated as a result of a feminist conspiracy is as intelligently arrived at as our own belief that rape is underreported and not taken seriously enough? I mean, she's presumably an intelligent woman with agency of her own which I as a fellow feminist should respect as much as I respect my own. So where do I find the safe space to say that Sommers' views are toxic, damaging, and very likely influenced by a culture which encourages women not to challenge sexism, without being accused of just pissing all over someone I happen to disagree with? If all-encompassing courtesy to women I think are behaving harmfully prevents me from saying Sommers is wrong and harmful in the first place, then how can I hope to get to a point where I can debate with her and try to show her alternative viewpoints? I'm not going to accept that her view has equal weight to mine, just in the name of sisterhood. I accept that her right to hold and state that view is equal to mine, but other than that, I think she's fucking wrong, and I'm going to say so.

 

I can get on board with a feminism that reminds us finger-pointing isn't one way, that we have to look back at ourselves and our own prejudices before we criticise others. But I can't get on board with one that purports to erase and bland out all potential objections to female behaviour in the name of supporting choice. That leaves feminism fragmented to nothing but individualism - something many of us criticised the late, famously anti-feminist, Margaret Thatcher for promoting. That doesn't mean we shouldn't also be criticising male behaviour, damaging patriarchal traditions and structures, and influences that mean women may engage in shitty behaviour as a result of lack of a better alternative. That doesn't mean we shouldn't support the right of women to do things we find distasteful, difficult to understand, or downright bizarre. But if we have no standard against which to measure what moves feminism forward and what holds it back, then feminism means nothing.

And I want my feminism to mean something.

Where Do I Stand? The Feminist Pinball...

I remember 7 years ago, when I was at the tender, angry and politicised age of 21, my uncle labelling me the 'political pinball'. "Some of what you come out with is typical of a left-wing, dope smoking hippy," he said, "And some of your other statements wouldn't sound out of place 'in der bunker'". I didn't mind that too much. While I would call myself primarily left-wing, I do think the ability to consider other viewpoints shows I don't just blindly accept whatever the 'side' I'm supposed to be on espouses. And I'd wager that most of us consider ourselves similarly diverse.

I feel similar in regards to my feminism. There are issues on which I seem to be aligned with 'hardline' feminists often termed 'radfems'. Then there are issues on which my views are much closer to those of 'sex positive' feminists. Fortunately, I do think there are many grounds on which we feminists are broadly united. Access to safe, legal abortion and contraception without apology seems to be an aim we can all agree on. Freedom from violence, vast improvements in the way sexual violence is dealt with, and the end to a culture which apologises and covers up for rape and sexual abuse seems to be another. Then there's closing the gender pay gap, improving the visibility of women in public life, and getting women into fields in which they're vastly underrepresented. We may all have different ideas about how to do it, but I think we can say that feminists generally agree those aims are Worth Pursuing.

Then we get onto sex, and all hell breaks loose. Porn, stripping, prostitution, BDSM...these are the issues that seem to divide feminists most violently, and between which there seems so little middle ground. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have trouble getting my head around them too. I definitely would be a hypocrite to condemn all pornography, and it's not something I'm interested in doing. I do believe that a critical approach to the fact porn seems to be getting nastier, more inhumane and more widespread is needed. I'm definitely not happy to stand aside and do nothing about a world where 11 year-olds are learning what 'ass-to-mouth' is. But I don't think knee-jerk responses are the answer, and I do think that where feminists advocate censorship, they risk aligning themselves with the anti-woman right wing (as Catharine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin ended up doing in the 80s). Also, when we start censoring sexual matter, the first to suffer are often the most marginalised groups whose sexuality is deemed 'suspect' (i.e. LGBT people) - after all, why is Diva magazine often on the top shelf in WHSmith when its cover usually depicts a fully clothed woman?

So how can I reconcile the fact that I've viewed pornography that might make the average Sun reader's eyes pop out, and yet still support the No More Page 3 campaign? One answer is that while I don't support censorship, I do support the idea of a time and a place for porn, and I don't think it's unreasonable to state that a newspaper isn't it. I don't think defending the constant use of women's bodies as window dressing to the whole of existence is defending the right of women to be sexual - it's just defending the right of the media to make money, which it will do one way or the other. As I wrote back in 2008, "how would men feel if every time they went to fill up the car, they were confronted with images of muscular, sleek, chiselled men with full heads of hair, stunning skin, powerful bodies as if carved from oak, and of course, ridiculously huge, erect penises peeking out from under the tiny loincloth which is of course, all they are wearing? Pretty shit, I think we can unanimously agree. Yet women are expected to titter, roll their eyes and pretend they don't feel offended, attacked and obnoxiously shown up by the colonising of the female body to sell items that are going to roll off the shelves regardless of whether you use a 17 year old girl or a 70 year old piece of cheese to advertise them."

I'm also tired of being told that the NMP3 campaign is misguided or a waste of feminism's energy. As I wrote just a few weeks ago, "as for the ‘Oh, lads’ mags/women’s magazines/The Daily Mail/Angler’s Weekly are just as bad, why aren’t you campaigning against THEM too?’ argument, this is a classic attempt to try to heap collective responsibility for changing all of society's sexist failings onto feminists’ heads, whilst abrogating everyone else of any responsibility to improve their behaviour. But getting rid of Page 3 would send out a huge message. It would be a game-changer, an altering of the media landscape, the destruction of a sexist institution in place since the 70s. No, it would not immediately destroy all other media sexism. But it might just make other producers of sexist media content stop and wonder how much longer they can get away with objectifying women when a large swathe of the British public has now proudly declared ‘I’m not buying that shit any more’." 

Nicola Carty wrote an interesting piece opposing the No More Page 3 campaign and although I still mostly disagree with her reasons for being against it, I can see her point of view when she says "Working for the only the rights of women who choose not to be especially revealing about their bodies  doesn’t sound like feminism to me... It sounds like women, once again, are being told that they need to behave in a certain way if they want to be treated with respect." It's a provoking thought to this particular feminist, who has read on radfem blogs that my sexual preferences make me a 'dupe of the patriarchy', that by liking BDSM I'm "reinforcing the legitimacy of power imbalances outside the bedroom” and hence damaging the feminist cause. My instinct would be to defend my actions because they are freely chosen, personal and pleasurable - but then Page 3 models would presumably say the same. I might think my choices are 'superior' because I'm not paid for my sexual actions, but feminist sex workers would strongly disagree. I don't agree that there's one 'right way' to have sex whereby monogamous, hetero 'loving' sex is seen as superior to all other kinds, and I don't think it's helpful for feminism to advance that ideology, or confuse it with the NMP3 campaign. Regardless, I have definite ideological problems with how stripping, lap dancing and prostitution are accepted as 'inevitable' responses to 'uncontrollable' male sexuality. The assumption of male entitlement to the female body is what, as a feminist, I find most galling about these industries. Unfortunately that kinda leaves me stuck between a sex positive rock and a hardline feminist hard place.

I do consider myself able to move beyond the simplistic notion that all sex workers are exploited and miserable, because that's as patronising as assuming that I only participate in BDSM because evil men 'force' me to. However, when it comes to the crunch I remain deeply uncomfortable with the notion that a man can buy entry to a woman's vagina, anus or mouth, and find it difficult to defend sex work beyond believing that it should at least be made safer for women. Perhaps jealousy or insecurity is at the root of this - are women worried that if all men can buy sex, they will never have to bother being nice to a woman again, and our society will just descend into the misogynistic state that feminists are trying to hold back the tide against? And is this a valid concern, or simply an excuse for, as one sex worker put it, 'whorephobia'?

I want to admit to my own lack of knowledge and experience in the areas and do something about it. I have never met any sex workers, and I think that'd be a start - because what experience do most of us on this issue have beyond having read the writing of Dr Brooke Magnanti or terrible stories of trafficking and exploitation? So, this is something I'm planning to research more deeply by talking to feminists on all sides of the debate, and will hopefully be back with a piece looking at whether it's possibly to move beyond the divisive, two-sided feminist debate on prostitution. 

In the meantime I'll continue skating down the middle, somewhere between the radfems and the sex pozzies, and accept that every feminist is going to be as unique as a snowflake, but live in hope that one day we might come together to form a patriarchy-smashing snowball.

Thoughts on feminism and the politics of kink

There was a very interesting post on Feministing where Natalie Zina Walschots responded to a previous post which, while defending women's right to be kinky and submissive in the bedroom, still appears to support the idea that women only find submission erotic because we've been socially conditioned to do so. Walschots refutes this, saying "In these cases, the statement that submission is an extension of socialization is inadequate, and is similar to saying that someone becomes gay or straight because of the way they are socialized. There is so much more to it than that for someone who profoundly identifies as submissive."

It's a seductive argument. It's one I've heard before, and it's one that makes me feel better about the feminist guilt I sometimes feel for enjoying submission in the bedroom. However, unfortunately I'm not sure the comparison always holds up. Most of us (who aren't under the power of religious propaganda or other types of homophobia) accept that your sexual identity - in terms of who you're attracted to, at least - is part of your nature, and not something society can create for you. Most of us accept that society can't and doesn't 'make' anyone gay or straight. When it comes to kink, however, if your preference bears any resemblance to oppressive social structures - i.e. the demand for male dominance and female submission - you're accused of having been 'socialised' into finding that attractive.

I agree that it's massively offensive, hateful and simply untrue to posit that there is a 'cure' for gayness, or that any gay person should seek to alter their sexuality. But there are feminists who would say that that's exactly what I should be doing about my kinky side. Feminists arguing against prostitution and porn in books such as Not For Sale accuse any woman who has a sexual fantasy involving violence of being complicit in violence against other women. In this book it actually says, with a deeply moralistic tone, "too bad for the women and girls whose pain, death and humiliation are the impetus for orgasm... the sex radical wants her porn and her orgasm is more important than anything or anyone else". Nice. So my orgasms and the fantasies that contribute to them are now subject to the investigations of the feminist sex police?

There are scathing put-downs to this notion in the words of feminist and S&M-defender Gayle Rubin who says "I find the idea that I've been brainwashed infuriating and ludicrous." She goes on to note that those who condemn other's sexual tastes are operating under the mistaken idea "that there is one best way to do sex." Yup - anyone who glances through Cosmo, Company or Glamour magazine will definitely be inundated with articles supporting the view there is a 'right way' to have sex, that there is a universal concept of 'good sex' and if you're not adhering to it, you're at best, unfulfilled, and at worst, shirking some duty to your true self. And as Rubin notes, the result of this kind of thinking - whether it comes from the editors of a woman's magazine, or feminists, is the implication "that any woman who might actually enjoy [BDSM practices] must have something wrong with her."

This is exactly where I sometimes feel alienated from the sisterhood, to the point where I once left a feminist conference early because I did not want to listen to a presentation from anti-porn feminists. I knew it was only going to make me feel at odds with other feminists, complicit in the oppression of other women for having looked at and enjoyed BDSM porn, and worst of all, somehow 'sick' or 'warped'. If feminism really is a 'discussion, not a rulebook' as the fabulous young feminist Tavi Gevinson puts it, then why does it feel like so many feminists have set the rulebook on what Acceptable, Pro-Feminist sex should look like?

That's why it bothers me when, even in a piece purportedly supporting the right for women to be submissive, the author still says “I am in no way surprised that many women, who have been socialized in a culture in which male sexuality is linked to domination and in which women are taught their sexual power comes from being wanted, have fantasies of submission.” It appears that while reluctant to outright condemn female submissives, the author believes the person participating in such a fantasy still has to accept that their desires are a mere result of anti-woman conditioning. How the hell is a feminist supposed to reconcile those two notions and still have a satisyfing, guilt-free sex life?

Fortunately, other commenters are already on the case:

One says: "This line is problematic because it suggests that submissive desires and identity are a result of internalized patriarchy. I think a lot of those who identify as submissive would vigorously disagree, and actually find this assertion (which I admit is not uncommon) extremely patronizing."

Another points out that "women who are “professional” or for various reasons feel empowered and are feminists might be more interested/able/comfortable engaging in submission play because ... their status in the rest of their lives is not in question".

And my own PS would be -  my reasons for liking submission is not because I derive pleasure from being 'wanted'. I can feel 'wanted' in many ways, including entirely non-sexual ones, and that's all very nice, but it's certainly not essential to my self-esteem. I do not derive pleasure from being a 'passive object' - because as anyone involved in BDSM will tell you, no one in the community, submissive or dominant or switch, is truly passive - we've all made considered choices to participate in very specific scenarios. I simply like playing the sub because it makes me HORNY.

Also I think it's worth remembering that women don't generally 'become' submissives, or participate in the BDSM community, unless they already have a strong sexual leaning that way. It may certainly be easier to admit to it because of a society that approves female submission, but that's not the same as saying a sexist society causes us to find submission erotic. It's also worth noting that society's love of male dominance also makes it harder for male submissives to come out as wanting to be dominated, so they may hide their preferences in the shadows. Hence Katie Roiphe and everyone else's assumption that the world is being overrun by female submissives. Also, what so many people fail to recognise about BDSM, is that while the acts involved in it might look a lot like what society tells us is 'right', it actually rests on premises entirely at odds with a patriarchal society's demands for male dominance and female submission. If you're in a sexual scenario that demands your sexual submission without you having to consented to it or chosen it, that's not BDSM - that's just sexual abuse. BDSM puts the right to choose, the right to change your mind, the right to say no and the right to have your sexual tastes respected and met, front and center. Since when did patriarchy care about any of those things? Some might even say BDSM enshrines consent and safety far more effectively - especially for heterosexual women - than the sexual culture of the vanilla mainstream.

But there'll always be those who tell me I'm fooling myself. I remember a comment thread on a radical feminist website where one commentator stated that BDSM was attractive to some women because it was their only way of seeking some degree of safety away from the coercive, misogynistic culture of heterosexual vanilla relationships. This, in the commenters' eyes, didn't make kink any more respectable - it was simply the lesser of two evils. According to this way of thinking, a woman is participating in her own violation whatever she does - whether it's in a satin-sheeted bed surrounded by roses, soft music and candlelight, or on a hard floor surrounded by gags, cuffs and whips. In the latter scenario she might have the safety of a 'safe word' and 'ground rules' but according to the radfems, she's still just eroticising her own subordination. I feel that one can only think this if one believes all sex is inherently degrading to women, and unless you're a hardcore Andrea Dworkin fan, then like me, you probably don't agree with that.

 

Still, the questions remain: Can any of us ever step outside of the society that has shaped us long enough to examine what's really contributed to our tastes and preferences? And more importantly, should we have to? If, as a feminist, I baulk at how breast implants or posing for Page 3 are labelled 'empowering', do I also have a duty to question myself for finding submission a turn-on? I don't know. I do know that what makes me hot and what makes me orgasm feels far too instinctive, private and individual to be a sole result of what's on TV, the internet, magazines or music videos. I do know that the feeling of being 'naughty', going 'against the rules' and betraying norms is a great contributor to eroticism, hence the thrill of being a submissive female comes partly from the feeling of transgression. I know that as a person who spends a great deal of her life being fiercely in control, unwilling to delegate, and mistrustful of others, handing over power in the bedroom is cathartic, exhilarating and freeing. It's also simply a bloody great turn-on.

For today, I'll leave the last word to Gayle Rubin.

"People who have different sexual preferences are not sick, stupid, warped, brainwashed, under duress, dupes of the patriarchy ... The habit of explaining away sexual variation by putting it down needs to be broken."