Sex-positive documentary report #4: “BDSM: It’s Not What You Think” and related shorts

I’m turning over a new leaf by failing to preface the post with a lot of text. This week’s Sex+++ documentary was pretty close to my heart ….

We showed Erin Palmquist’s “BDSM: It’s Not What You Think!” (check out the official website!) as well as two related shorts, “Leather” and “Cut & Paste”. I was heartbroken that technical difficulties prevented us from showing “Forever Bottom”, which I was really psyched about. Oh well. The “Forever Bottom” DVD worked when we tested it on a laptop; we’ll try to get it to interface properly with the system and show it with a later film.

“BDSM: It’s Not What You Think!” is an unfinished film, but it’s definitely on the right track. It tries to describe what BDSM is — i.e., demonstrate that it’s more than a dominatrix in a catsuit with a whip — and work against anti-BDSM stigma by interviewing a bunch of kinksters about what they do, how they do it, how they feel about what they do. I loved a lot of the points it made — they’re obviously very similar to points I constantly make with my outreach presentation and such.

“Leather” is an absolutely gorgeous short film that’s very similar to “BDSM”; it was made in 1995 and specifically features members of the gay leather subculture. It’s less cautious than “BDSM” in avoiding transgressive imagery, and it is more personal and less political than “BDSM”. It features scenes between one specific couple that seem as though they must be choreographed, they’re so lovely. But I don’t mean to imply that it’s hardcore or anything — there’s some bootlicking and hot wax and clothespins and flogging, that’s about it. The whole thing feels more ritualistic and meditative than darkly emotional; these aren’t degradation scenes or fear scenes. This is another film like “Sex Positive” where I wish I’d written down some of the quotations about what the participants were feeling, because they were so beautifully said.

“Cut & Paste” is a BDSM coming-out story, and it’s a well-made one with adorable graphics. I love coming-out stories so much! Better yet, it’s a coming-out story from the point of view of a Black queer woman who uses the opportunity — not just to show what it’s like to come into a highly stigmatized sexuality — but what she absorbed about what Black women’s sexuality is “supposed” to be.

The discussion group after the films talked a little bit about a number of BDSM-related issues, but didn’t go too in-depth about any of them. One interesting question, raised by a gentleman whose name I regrettably do not know, was this: As BDSM imagery becomes more prevalent in the media, does that make BDSM more mainstream? If BDSM is becoming more mainstream, then will that weaken ties within the BDSM community?

To the first question, I’d say that light BDSM is probably becoming more mainstream. More people are considering tying up their lovers with silk scarves today, than were 30 years ago. But I think that heavy BDSM play is still very, very stigmatized, and I also think that most people have no idea what forms heavy BDSM play can take. More importantly, I don’t think the mainstream has any real grasp on communication and consent tactics that are promoted in the BDSM community — beyond safewords, that is. 1-5 checklists? Check-ins? Simultaneous journals? These things are not being mainstreamed at all. (Although I’m doing my best to work on that with the sexual communication workshop I’ve been giving recently.)

As for weakening ties within the community … I don’t think that’s happening either, at least not yet. People are more open about BDSM now and that means that more people can come into the community — but a lot of people still don’t feel like they can talk about BDSM with vanilla people. So we have the benefits of people being able to find the community more easily, and we also have the strong bonds created when most of us feel like we can only talk to each other — no one in our outside lives — about the way we approach love/sex.

I doubt the community will collapse even if BDSM goes totally mainstream — if every BDSM act is totally acceptable, and information is freely available to everyone — because not everyone will ever be into BDSM. There will always be value to the community because it will always be the place to go to meet people who speak our erotic language. There may be some fragmentation as the scene gets bigger, of course — and to some extent this already happens, with different groups attending different clubs, for instance.

It’s worth noting that our August 11 documentary will be “Liberty in Restraint”, which is about a fetish photographer. So if you’re really interested in issues of fetish media, then you should attend that one!

But as for now: our next film night is March 24, and it’s a two-theme night. We’re showing “Doin’ It: Sex, Disability and Videotape” — about disability and sexuality — and “Orgasmic Women: 13 Selfloving Divas” — about female masturbation and orgasm. See you there!

Various thoughts post-KinkForAll

KinkForAll was great. There were a variety of amazing presenters and discussions, and I wish I could do them all justice. I loved the conference model — highly flexible and very easily implemented — and I hope to see many more conferences along the same lines.

I gave two talks — one on strategies for BDSM outreach, and one on the Leather Archives and Museum. (Support the LA&M, everyone! They’re having a membership drive starting this month! You can also check out my entries about stuff I’ve found at the LA&M by clicking here.) I hope to distill the outreach talk into a blog post one of these days; I’ll tag it KFANYC when I do. [edit] Done — the post is here! [end of edit]

There was a KinkForAll liveblog done over Twitter. If you’re like me and aren’t much for the Twitter format, there’s also an aggregate of KinkForAll blog posts over on Technorati.

I wrote down a lot of thoughts, and I think KinkForAll will influence my blog for some time to come. Here’s some quick ones:

+ There were some discussions about coming out BDSM — and dragging people out of the closet, that is, telling the world about someone else’s BDSM life even if they’re trying to keep it a secret. I’ve written on this before, but I’ve never talked about how I feel about outing other people. Often, people will say that closeted people who work against alternative sexuality causes — for instance, secretly gay politicians who work against gay marriage — should be dragged out of the closet. By working against their own community, they sacrifice the protection of that community. I can understand that, but what bothered me about the discussion at KinkForAll was that I felt there was an uncomfortable emphasis on outing the family members of anti-sex-positive politicians. For instance, one person stated that if she knew for sure that Donald Rumsfeld’s son was gay, she’d have no problem telling the world.

If Donald Rumsfeld’s son is gay, then granted — he’s related to an antigay politician — but what if he’s not doing antigay work himself? Just because he’s related to a sex-negative politician doesn’t mean that he sacrifices his own right to privacy and understanding. In fact, his relationship to a sex-negative politician probably means that he stands to lose an awful lot if he is outed. He could, for example, be entirely disowned. I don’t think it’s remotely okay for us to drag some poor kid out of the closet — to force him to risk his relationship with his father — just because we disagree with the father. I do think it’s okay for us to talk to the kid in private: “Hey Donald-Rumsfeld’s-son, when are you gonna come out to your dad?” But if we force the issue, then we may not only cause serious problems for someone who doesn’t deserve them … we may alienate that person as well. Why should Donald Rumsfeld’s son help our cause in the future if we create serious personal problems for him now?

+ A presenter talked about the biggest pitfalls of play piercing. One of the biggest risks is probably double-sticks — that is, if you pierce someone and then accidentally stick yourself with the needle. Be careful, folks! The presenter also noted that rubbing alcohol is not a great disinfectant, and recommended a product called Technicare. Plus, everyone keep in mind that if iodine is used as a disinfectant, it requires three minutes to work.

For anyone interested in play piercing, I strongly recommend the book Play Piercing by Deborah Addington (Amazon page).

+ Tilda gave a gorgeous BDSM and culture slideshow. Her kink+culture blog is here. People who want to track BDSM in popular culture should definitely also check in on Peter Tupper’s incredible blog Beauty in Darkness: the History of BDSM.

+ A discussion on youth organizing basically emphasized how important it is that young people get involved in sex-positive activism. Go for it, folks! Actually I should probably say, “Go for it, everyone including me,” since I myself am only 24 … the founder of Polyamorous NYC talked about how he started it when he was only 26. Never underestimate yourself because of your age, my friends.

I’ve been thinking about this question since Trinity posted about it a while back. Those of us whose sexuality is very focused on BDSM will usually practice it if we can, and if we can’t find a safe space to learn how to do that, then we’ll simply do it without enough information … or become vulnerable to predators who offer that information unsafely. Unfortunately, the legal situation in Chicago makes it hard for the clubs to make themselves accessible to people under 21, but there is at least TNGC to provide an environment for 18+-year-olds to learn.

I was hoping that there would be more discussion on how to get BDSM information to people under 18, but there wasn’t really. We’re risking too much legal crap if we attempt to instruct those under the age of consent. I don’t really know how to get around this problem, except for posting as much how-to information to the Internet as possible — I’m really glad KinkForAll posted so much information to the Internet for that reason. And referring younger people to existing awesome kink-positive, pleasure-positive sex education sites like Scarleteen.

+ Maymay gave a talk on gender and technology making the fantastic point that we really need to be communicating with web designers, because they are encoding so much of how we think about gender and sexuality. As a simple example, the people who create social networking sites are influencing our ideas about sex and gender because they are making the drop-down menus we use to express that: for instance, compare your average social networking site — where you can pick “Straight”, “Gay” or if you’re lucky “Bisexual” — to FetLife, which offers many more options — “Straight”, “Heteroflexible”, “Bisexual”, “Gay”, “Lesbian”, “Queer”, “Pansexual”, and “Fluctuating/Evolving”. You can find the slides and links from Maymay’s presentation here.

+ Audacia Ray gave an awesome talk on “How To Be a Public Sex Intellectual Without Getting Hurt”. I think my favorite point that she made was her first: “This might be a really bad idea for you, and you need to consider that before you take the plunge.” Going public is not an act that you can take back and you must, must be sure that it’s what you want — it will affect your entire life. I hope that she recreates that talk as a blog post that I can link to, because I couldn’t possibly sum it up here, and it was awesome. In the meantime, check out her post on when and why to turn down media appearances.

+ Someone who spoke about gender told the story of a transperson he knows who identifies more strongly as BDSM than trans. That person apparently said that if ze had to choose between transitioning genders and being in the BDSM community, ze would rather be in the BDSM community. BDSM is a stronger aspect of hir sexual identity than trans! What an amazing anecdote.

+ Lastly, Boymeat presented on Old Guard leather culture. There was a lot of vilifying of the Old Guard and much of it struck me as, frankly, unfair. Yes, the Old Guard was more closed off to the public … but BDSM was far more stigmatized. The reason our current BDSM communities can afford to be so open is that the stigma against BDSM has been drastically reduced. Boymeat also talked about how rigidly etiquette-driven the Old Guard was as compared to today’s BDSM scene, and while this is true, I think it’s worth considering where that etiquette came from and how it functioned.

The etiquette that surrounded the Old Guard was in place because it helped those people communicate the scene standards. Yes, some of that etiquette was clearly intended to create an “in-group” … for instance, there were rigid ideas of what was acceptable clothing (sweaters were not okay!), and that’s easy to dislike. But having specific maxims and rules helped encode some really important things — as a very basic example, it’s not a bad thing for people to be emphasizing the maxim “discipline, honor, brotherhood, and respect”. Also, let’s keep in mind that the society surrounding Old Guard leather culture emphasized etiquette far more than ours does today: Old Guard leather culture took ideas that were current in America back then and used them to create a safe BDSM scene. Our BDSM scene talks less about etiquette because we young Americans talk less about etiquette.

I’m not saying that those maxims and rules were better than the BDSM scene we have today; I think the BDSM scene we have today is just fine. But let’s not criticize Old Guard ideas so much that we lose track of what was great and important about them.

I think I’ll end this post with two quotations about Old Guard leather culture that I use in my BDSM overview lecture:

It is more useful to understand than to criticize. And perhaps most importantly, what the Old Guard did for the development and expansion of kinky life and butch gay male sexuality can best be appreciated against the backdrop of what had existed earlier — not much of anything!
~ Guy Baldwin, “The Old Guard”

From a larger perspective, it is clear that many of the differences between “Old Guard” and “New Guard” are the differences between life in the US in the 1950s and life in the 1990s. These differences are common to many groups, not just leather/SM.
~ Gayle Rubin, “Old Guard, New Guard”

Coming out BDSM: Outness as a political act, and the perils thereof

There can be serious consequences for identifying publicly as BDSM, and there’s a lot of anxiety in the BDSM community about that. Yet one of the most effective ways to combat the anti-BDSM crowd is for us BDSM people to come out. Being out about our kink can be a very powerful statement: a statement that we aren’t ashamed; that we don’t think there’s anything wrong with what we’re doing; that we are people too … all that good stuff. If you’ve seen “Milk” or “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk” — both movies about the famous gay politician — then you may recall that Milk urged all gay people to come out, as a fundamental part of the gay liberation movement. There are BDSM advocates who take the same position.

Recently, I was in a position observe a great conversation on this subject among a bunch of smart kink advocates, and I’m going to reproduce a bunch of that conversation here. First, though: greetings from New York … I’m back again! I don’t usually spend quite so much time here, but there were a number of events to tempt me. I’ll be giving my BDSM Overview presentation at the Museum of Sex this Friday; if you know anyone in New York who could use a general introduction to BDSM — how the community welcomes and educates people, the way we differentiate between BDSM and abuse, BDSM-related legal issues, and so on — then you should send them down to 233 5th Avenue, Friday, 7PM. Plus, CineKink was this past weekend, and I was privileged to see a number of really excellent sex-positive films there. I highly recommend CineKink — and it tours, so if you’re in another city, you should check the CineKink website to see if it’s coming to your town.

There’s another great event happening this weekend: KinkForAll, on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to KinkForAll … it’s going to be a huge learning opportunity, not to mention a chance to meet some sex-positive advocates that I admire a lot. I encourage anyone — anyone at all, gay or straight, kinky or non, whatever — anyone with an interest in sexuality to attend KinkForAll.

Here’s something worth emphasizing about KinkForAll, though: taking photos and recording video will be allowed. Not just allowed — encouraged! To quote from some of the early KinkForAll emails, “information from the talks will be spread on the web afterwards. It’s to get everyone in on the discussion on sexuality, it’s to get everyone sharing and teaching with everyone else, and it’s to get sexual information available to all people, regardless of age, socioeconomic station, gender, sexuality, etc.” Of course this is a noble goal, but means that people who aren’t currently seeking to come out are taking a serious risk when we attend KinkForAll.

I recognize that (notwithstanding my recent whiny entry on coming out BDSM) I have not suffered any real consequences for my high visibility. And even if I were properly outed — if my birth name were widely associated with BDSM — I would still be in a better position than most. My parents, for instance, already know about my sexuality, and are totally cool with it. And although I would very likely suffer professional damage if I were outed, my economic status is such that I wouldn’t be out on the street. Still, though I don’t have any children yet, I do plan to — and children are hostages to social stigma … as would be anyone I want to get romantically involved with. If I date someone whose parents don’t know he’s into BDSM, and I’m widely known to be into it, what happens then? We keep our relationship a secret? He risks his relationship with his family to date me? What a mess.

When Maymay, event organizer, first announced to the KinkForAll mailing list that recordings would be encouraged at the event, I made the obvious point: that this would arguably discourage attendance. Maymay responded by saying that the event would institute colored nametags that would indicate the wearer’s status — either “willing to be recorded” or “not willing to be recorded”. I said:

I certainly don’t think recording should be disallowed, because I do believe recording is a noble goal. But I think it will encourage attendance if there is a more effective way to demonstrate one’s unwillingness to be recorded — you know, better than wearing an easily-missed nametag. For instance, maybe certain areas of the venue should be specifically designated as recording-free.

Maymay answered:

I tend to agree with you, actually, that encouraging cameras and recording devices will probably discourage *some* people from attending. While that’s unfortunate, it’s also simply the nature of things. Social change is great and wonderful but it simply can not happen if people don’t put their faces behind the message.

… So, to be precise: [it's not impossible to institute recording-free zones]. However, the fact remains that even if you confiscated every cell phone, digital camera, tape recorder, and every other recording device you could find at the door to the event, there is *still* a chance that people will be photographed or otherwise recorded even if they ask not to be. There’s no way to stop it and ultimately you’re always asking people to play by the rules honestly anyway.

Disallowing cameras is just not something KinkForAll as an event has much of a reason to enforce. Moreover, in the spirit of spreading information, creating any policy disallowing cameras is itself a counterproductive idea.

… In other words, the message I want to send to people who are considering not coming to KinkForAll because they might be photographed is: we will miss you, and we hope you will be comfortable enough next time around to come out and be part of the discussions with the rest of us face-to-face.

There was a bit more talking at the time, and at subsequent times, but I think the most comprehensive and eloquent argument against allowing recording at KinkForAll was put forth by Corey Alexander:

I guard images of myself, and do not publicize them, with good reason, and in ways that cause some difficulty, in all arenas of my life, including professionally. My personal reasons aside, I think it is important (as someone for whom these issues matter very much) to communicate to you what it may mean to hold such an event, and who you may be excluding because of it. I understand that you intend to go forward with the event as planned and I am very aware of why you are invested in a politics of outness, and I do not dispute this as a political strategy. I just want to talk about risk, and potential cost, because I think that folks that are invested in outness need to be aware of these issues.

I personally would be pretty much guaranteed to lose my job if I were out, and I am not alone there, as would pretty much anyone who works with kids, and who works in the social services or government. Additionally, those with kids or those who intend to have kids run the continued risk of losing custody of their children, should they be publically identified/identifiable as a kinky person. I personally have known several people that have lost their kids, and several who are currently involved in custody battles over this very issue. …. These are the risks that come with outness, and they are just some of those risks, but I find them the most compelling in my life, because they illuminate places where some people simply *cannot* choose to attend your event; they do not have the privilege. In this economic climate, where I have friends getting laid off right and left, I would support anyone who would choose their economic survival over attending an event like this (of course those folks that are assured of the economic support of others or the tolerance within their profession may have privilege that allows such risks). As someone who has lost custody of children I have parented, I would also support any parent who would choose not to take such a risk.

Another thing to note is that any event that is invested in publicizing images of attendees widely is unlikely to attract folks that are survivors of violence that have taken steps to hide their whereabouts.

… More than that, I want to draw your attention to the community resources you will lose, presenters, volunteers and attendees, because of this policy. I am not the only one, I am sure. … As you are interested in Kink For *All*, I would urge you to consider that as you welcome some (through your publicity on the internet), you exclude others (who cannot or choose not to take such risks) by this policy.

Maymay responded:

All of these risks you mention are real and valid but they are ones I believe are ultimately transient for society; that is, they will not always be risks. That said, I do not believe it’s possible to get to a place where kink for *all* is really possible without just such “politics of outness,” as you have described them.

… To date, other sexuality community events have excluded the very people *this* event wants to involve. If that means losing parts of the more traditional and valuable sexuality community, such as yourself, this is a price I am willing, if not happy, about paying.

… There are lots of examples I could give of people who are for one reason or another excluded by most other sexuality community events [such as Sex 2.0, Dark Odyssey, traditional BDSM conventions, and others] and who I believe are fantastically valuable additions, but I had two primary thoughts on this:

1. People who are not familiar with the public sexuality communities and who therefore do not go to the same events as many of us on this list do.

2. People, typically younger ones, who are familiar with the public sexuality communities and find them not to their liking for whatever reason.

Sara Eileen added:

We hope that the Kink For All space will feel safe for everyone who participates. But, in keeping with the core concepts of the idea, we hope to make this happen through encouragement, support, and expectations rather than rules.

These concerns are valid and difficult to answer, mostly because I think we really need to see how this community-focused space will shape up *on the day itself.* In the meantime, the risk of finding the space unsafe may be regrettably too high for some.

I’d like to mention again that if you’re presenting, you are by no means expected to present on an explicit, demonstrative or practical subject. The intersection of sex and life has many issues to be explored, and I truly hope we run the gamut of them when the time comes. I’d also like to point out that our venue explicitly forbids nudity, and the 20-minute presentation time frame makes practical demonstrations very difficult. That’s not to say they may not happen, but I expect to see much more talking than anything else.

We will have colored nametags or markers for people who don’t wish to be photographed. These markers, as with all components of safe spaces, function on the basis of trust. This event is bringing together a lot of different groups and new faces. It’s up to each of us individually to determine whether we have enough trust in the respect and consideration of other attendees.

The discussion went a little bit afield in places, but these are all the points that I found most compelling and interesting — both as a kinkster considering the politics of outness, and an organizer of sex-positive events. If you want to look at the KinkForAll mailing list archives and examine the full threads for yourself, you can find the KinkForAll Google group here.

Coming out BDSM: upsides and downsides

A lot of us kinksters use vocabulary similar to the kind of thing people are accustomed to hearing from LGBTQ folks. “Coming out” is a great example of this: a lot of BDSM people struggle with the question of whether to come out to our employers, our friends, our parents … all the people we love. And BDSM is stigmatized and frowned upon enough that most kinksters never come out.

Some professional fields are more BDSM-friendly: for instance, kinksters who work in computer science frequently don’t have any problem with coworkers knowing about their sexual identities. Some fields are less BDSM-friendly: schoolteachers who are into BDSM have to be incredibly careful. Likewise, some subcultures are more BDSM-friendly: kinksters in the goth subculture, for instance, don’t tend to have any problems within that subculture. But again, some subcultures are less BDSM-friendly: not just the obvious ones like religious evangelicals … there are also some feminist groups that are very intolerant of BDSM, and many liberal groups still exhibit prejudices.

When I came into my BDSM identity, it was a very sudden realization for me, and my circumstances effectively outed me to most of my friends. (It’s a long story.) I think that this was ultimately a positive thing, in my case — for the most part, my friends were totally cool about it, and I was able to talk to some of them about the panic and horror and shame I was feeling. (“I’m so screwed up! I’m such a bad feminist!” … that about sums up how I felt.) It was still really hard for me to deal with it, but thank God I didn’t have to do so in strict secrecy. (I really like hearing people’s personal stories of how they got into BDSM, by the way, so if you’ve got any — leave a comment, or send them my way by email!)

Later, I came out to my parents, and I was terrified when I did it … but I’m lucky: they were both really awesome and supportive about it. As for my boss … well, my boss likes me a lot, but I’m not sure his affection would survive if he learned that I’m such a sexual deviant. He might be okay with it, but he also might be horrified and fire me. I’ve never told him and I don’t plan to.

As I’ve gotten into BDSM outreach, I’ve become a weird kind of BDSM “public figure” among my vanilla friends. A lot of them already knew I was into it, but now pretty much all of them do, because it’s such a huge part of my life that I can’t have a conversation about what I’m working on without BDSM coming up.

There are some obvious pros and cons here. For instance: I feel happy that I can talk honestly about my relationships and my work with my friends, and yet I live in fear that my boss is going to find out and hate me! But there’s one big Pro and one big Con that I want to talk about today.

1) Pro: I’m available for comment! People with their own BDSM desires, who know me or have heard about me, have a resource they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Multiple people I know from my everyday life have taken me aside — usually in very quiet, furtive, ashamed ways — and asked for BDSM advice. Some of them have an idea what they’re asking about: they say straightforward things like, “I might want to try some BDSM. Where can I learn more?” Others are more confused. They ask roundabout, contradictory questions or lapse into pauses.

A female friend of mine asked me out to dinner a few months ago, soon after the first time I gave my BDSM Overview presentation to a bunch of vanilla folks I know. She started by saying that she didn’t really know what was going on, but that she’d always had these crazy violent dreams. She said she wasn’t sure what she wanted but that she was scared to ask, sometimes even scared to think about it. She said that was afraid of what this meant about being a feminist, and that was when I spotted the tears in her eyes.

It was heartbreaking to see how much she was hurting, but it was empowering, too. I saw so much of myself in her, and I realized how much I was helping her just by listening … and how much more I could help her by sharing knowledge and experience. I immediately told her that she wasn’t betraying the feminist movement, and I explained how I’d had feelings along those lines. We talked for hours and afterwards I sent her my own coming-out story, as well as a few basic BDSM book references. I explained how the BDSM community functions and how she can attend BDSM meetups and discussion groups. *

(I’ve thought about publishing my coming out story. It’s all written up, and I’ve received some great feedback on it from both kinkster friends and “normal” friends. In particular, I’ve heard from BDSM people — some of them people who are just learning about BDSM from me — about how helpful it was to read about my own process. I’ll be honest, though: I’m scared about publishing, because my story is so personal that even publishing it under my scene name — Clarisse — feels like I’m greatly exposing myself and my inner world.

The idea of publishing it is also complicated by the fact that I’d really want to publish the story in a vanilla venue: that is, a magazine or webzine or other place that’s not devoted to BDSM material. It would be relatively easy for me to find a BDSM-related venue for my coming-out story, but I think it’s important for mainstream society to be hearing these stories … partly because it will forward the cause of BDSM tolerance … and partly because scared or repressed or latent kinksters are more likely to read my story if it’s in a vanilla venue, and they’re the ones who can benefit most from that kind of encouragement and insight. But what kind of mainstream venue is going to publish a BDSM coming-out story?)

It has really inspired me to know that there are people out there who are having a terribly hard time dealing with their sexuality because of all the stigma against BDSM — and I’m helping just by being public and available to talk.

2) Con: I am exoticized and othered. People — sometimes even my friends — make stereotypical assumptions about me, or harass me in minor but frustrating ways.

I remember once that I told someone in the BDSM community that I’d come out to most of my friends already, and he said, “Did people start hitting on you more?” I couldn’t help laughing because it’s so true — it’s such a known effect! For some reason, there are lots of vanilla guys out there who think that a BDSM girl is just the hottest thing … I mean person … ever. I don’t know why that is, but I am here to tell you that the fact that I’m into BDSM does not mean I’m some guy’s hot sex-crazy nympho dreamgirl.

I’m just another person, you know? I like sex, but sometimes I don’t want to have sex; sometimes I don’t even want to do BDSM, amazingly enough. I like going out to dinner and getting chocolate from my lovers, and watching good movies together. An evening reading in my room, or hanging out casually with my friends, sounds just as good as an evening of hot BDSM sex. (Well, okay, maybe not quite as good. But really good.)

Plus, news flash: if you’re a vanilla guy, I’m not interested. You’re probably not into what I’m into. And no, I don’t feel like explaining exactly what I like to you. If you want to know about BDSM, I can recommend some books. If you want to know about me, you can become friends with me … just keep in mind that “being friends” means “having fun hanging out, maybe talking about science fiction or other interests we might share”, rather than “asking me questions about my sex life all the time”.

Some people seem to think it’s okay to openly speculate about my sex life or even ask me really invasive, personal questions, just because I’m into BDSM. I know people who comment about my sexuality at every opportunity … and I mean every opportunity. I’ll stub my toe and they’ll say, “Is that good pain or bad pain?” and leer. Or I’ll ask them not to do something and they’ll say, “Ohh, sorry,” throw up their hands in mock surrender, “I guess you’ll just have to beat me up.” This wouldn’t be annoying if it happened every once in a while … and hey, I make my own jokes about BDSM. But when a person literally mentions my sexuality multiple times every time they see me, and it’s always totally out of the blue … it starts feeling like I’m some exotic creature behind glass in a zoo. They wouldn’t do it to someone else; I know, because a lot of them didn’t do it to me before they knew I’m into BDSM.

I recognize that people who act this way are a blessing, compared to the people who think I’m a psycho in need of therapy … or the people who think BDSM people really ought to just go ahead and kill ourselves. I know it could be a lot worse, and I’m lucky it’s not. I just wish more people would be more sensitive, and would think about the stereotypes they’re applying to BDSM people.

It’s worse when people start judging the “reasons” they think I’m into BDSM. I’ve heard people suggest that I only talk about BDSM because it gets attention, or because I want to seem like everyone’s fantasy sex-crazy nympho dreamgirl.

I’m not into BDSM because I want to appear edgy or dangerous or adventurous or sexy or scary. I’m into BDSM because that’s how I express my sexuality. That’s it. That’s all. I didn’t choose it and I don’t know why I am this way … but I am. I’m certainly not complaining … but I can’t help it.

I think that there are people who get into BDSM just because they’re curious and want to try new things, not necessarily because BDSM is a huge part of their identity … and there’s nothing wrong with that! I see these people as similar to — say — people who identify as straight but are totally willing to make out with the same sex. Personally, I’m cool with the fact that such people exist; as long as they’re having fun, more power to them. But I’m not like that. BDSM is an undeniable, overwhelming, central facet of my sexual identity. For me, telling me that I’m into BDSM just because I “want attention”, or because I’m “just in a phase” or “like experimenting”, or because I’m “dramatic” or “attracted to danger” … that’s like telling a gay person that she has sex with girls just because she “wants attention”, etc.

So that’s what I don’t like about being partly out: the way people judge me for my sexuality. But hey, that’s why I’m doing BDSM outreach in the first place, right? — because that’s the only way we’ll ever get away from these assumptions and stereotypes.

Note: I get that this post has an awful lot of whiny upper-middle-class white girl privilege in it. For a post that’s more political, maybe you’ll like this one.

* Hey Chicago people: if you think you might want to explore BDSM and you’re between the ages of 18 and 35, your best resource is The Next Generation Chicago. Join the mailing list — it’s right there on the webpage. And if you are older, don’t fret! There are groups for you too, including The Lost Generation. You can learn more about meetups, groups, and so on by looking at the Chicago Pansexual BDSM Calendar.

BDSM-dar

I’m in New York right now, so I spent part of yesterday (Saturday) at the Lesbian Sex Mafia party, then headed off to a TES event. (Ah, New York.) I met a lot of cool people, but the one whose words I’ll cite in this entry is named Liz. Liz is an older lesbian and top. I love talking to culturally aware people who lived through the feminist / sexual revolution — particularly if they’ve got a specific focus on alt sex communities, which Liz does.

She made a lot of great comments at dinner. My favorite, though, was when I started talking about BDSM-dar. You’ve probably heard the term gaydar, “the intuitive ability to assess another individual’s sexuality”. BDSM-dar is a similar concept, but obviously for BDSM rather than homosexuality.

I have some attachment to the concept of BDSM-dar. The reason is that I came into BDSM by means of a man who unexpectedly went after me at a party and hurt me — and though I was shocked and horrified, I also loved it. I went back to him and asked him to do it again. Multiple times. And I spent the next year flipping out as I faced up to the fact that I’m a sexual deviant. And once I was done flipping out, I felt far more whole and sexy and powerful than I ever had before.

Let’s call him Richard. And let me make it clear right now that I was never attacked, abused, or assaulted in any way. I could have asked Richard to stop, that first night, and I didn’t. It was difficult for me to come to terms with my BDSM desires, but I have no doubt that they are real and that they have been in me all along. In childhood, I did things like tie up my Barbie dolls and draw sadomasochistic comics; I only started repressing those feelings in adolescence. When Richard went after me, he did not create anything in me — he drew out what was already there, something I’d been pressing back for years.

Later, when I asked him how he knew, he smiled and said he could tell. That with me, it had been obvious. He called it SM-dar.

Now, there are some obvious reasons for why Richard might have been able to appear to sniff me out, and yet not actually sport any real special sense. The biggest: if he just asserts that lots of women are into BDSM, he’s bound to succeed some of the time, right? Maybe he doesn’t actually have SM-dar. Maybe he just discounts the cases where his “detection” doesn’t work, and plays up the ones where it does.

I don’t think so. I know Richard pretty well; I’ve seen him do a lot of interacting. Furthermore, I’ve actually seen him “detect” one or two other people with surprising accuracy. I say surprising, because initially I found the way he talked about SM-dar extremely irritating and presumptuous; so I was surprised when it worked with people besides myself.

But on the other hand, I don’t have BDSM-dar myself. And I have no proof, no studies or anything approaching real evidence that BDSM-dar exists.

I had one quotation that I thought was powerful evidence for the BDSM-dar concept. It’s from a 1953 book of psychological case studies called Sadism and Masochism: the Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty (buy it here — I’m talking about volume 2). The quotation comes from the story of a sadistic woman who came to Stekel for a cure. She tells how she’ll go out to spas and engage the attending men in pleasant, noncommital conversation. She’ll pick one man, and tell him to come to her room. When he gets there, she’ll whip him. Then she goes home and feels incredibly ashamed. Oh Doctor, please help!

Understandably, Stekel asks her how she can possibly identify these men; obviously she’s doing a pretty good job identifying them, since no one’s pressed charges for assault — but how? She answers: “Sadists and masochists have a secret language. I might say a secret alliance with secret customs and secret agreement.” I always figured that since this woman clearly wasn’t hooked in to an established community of any kind, she couldn’t be referring to a real “code”. I figured this was just her way of articulating her BDSM-dar.

Liz, however, told me a bit about how lesbians used to function in the absence of a lesbian community. She said that even without a “central authority”, they would develop little tricks for finding each other. For instance, lesbian-tinged books or movies, referenced slyly. She said that’s how she interprets Stekel’s sadist: not as “sensing” her bottoms through any aspect of their personalities or appearance, but as taking advantage of tiny cultural hints.

Liz also expressed irritation with the preponderance of male tops (particularly older ones) in the scene who will come up to women and say, “You’re a submissive. I can just” — :leer: — “tell.” I get the impression that she’s dealt with a lot of this, which must be particularly annoying as a top.

(Ironically enough — later that night, an older male top I’d briefly played with commented haughtily that a female top we’d spoken to earlier was “a submissive; I can tell.” I gently argued with him for a while on the subject. His stance was, “I’m not being sexist or patriarchal. I’ve got 20 years of experience in the scene, and I just think I’ve probably learned how to tell a top from a bottom.” My stance was, “Okay, maybe, but I really think you need to (a) not say these things in quite so presumptuous a fashion and (b) carefully examine your assumptions.” I wonder if I made an impression. I hope so; it pisses me off to think that I might’ve had a BDSM experience — no matter how casual — with an unrepentant sexist jerk. :grin: That’s the risk with people you don’t know too well, I guess. And maybe I’m not giving him enough credit. Anyway, I digress.)

I considered trying to discuss my coming-into-BDSM experience with Liz, but I didn’t really get the chance. I wish I could have heard her thoughts.

So now I find myself back to square one. Did Richard sniff me out with BDSM-dar, or did he just get lucky? Is BDSM-dar mostly just a figment of our assumptions and biases?

If Stekel’s sadist wasn’t using BDSM-dar — if she was instead doing something more like what Liz described — I wish I had some idea what cultural references she might’ve used. Lawrence of Arabia, perhaps.