To me, and all those I have talked to in the community, this seems to be my experience. We’re aware that what we do can be extremely dangerous, that external observers would consider what we do absolutely terrible, and that most people look at what we do with extreme distaste, and in some cases extreme antipathy. We also know that even within the BDSM community, noone’s into everything – we all have our own kinks. Also, and here’s the big thing, most of us want to be able to participate in the things we do without horrendous repercussions, both social and legal.

As such, the vast majority of the BDSM community take consent very seriously. There’s too much at stake for us not to. It’s really as simple as that. Because we know most people wouldn’t consent to what we do, we make very sure that the people we interact with are consenting.

Now, I’ll be frank here, this isn’t a universal – There are those outside the communities, those who are asshats, those who are genuinely psychopathic, who do not share our concern for consent. Understandably, we don’t interact with them if we can at all avoid it, and we try very hard to convince others in our community not to interact with them either. It’s as much a safety thing as anything else.

This was found very offensive, and reflects my conflation of consensual and nonconsensual sadomasochism, I was told. I’m aware there is a difference, but remain skeptical of attempts to deny any link.

A link between consensual and non-consensual sadomasochism? That seems… a strange link to make. Like, f’rex, saying there’s a link between consensual and non-consensual sexual intercourse. I guess, in the sense that mechanically they are the same, there is a link, but in the sense of the experience itself? I cannot envision such a link. Much as how consensual sex and rape are two very, very different experiences, consensual BDSM and torture are also very much worlds apart in the experience. This seems common sense to me, and I’d like some information on, exactly, what you consider the link to be.

It begs the question, why should people believe BDSM has nothing to do with abuse when its practitioners embrace the terminology of abuse? Is the distinction real, or sophistry? Is the distinction between being submissive and subordinated real, or sophistry? The slaveowners of this country believed slavery was best for their subjects, whom they valued highly, but that was all in the eye of the beholder. The slaves knew better. What’s the point of using the terminology of such a horrendous institution to denote consensual kinky sexuality? What’s in it for you to use these terms, if their conventional meanings are so far from applicable?

Well, among other things, what other words do we have? Seriously, answer me this! This terminology has been used for countless years, over many generations of BDSM practitioners, and has become, for better or worse, common parlance, and to construct an entirely new vocabulary to move everything away from the terminology of abuse, would probably take at least 3-4 generations, although I’m sure there are people who are making the attempt as we speak.

And you’re right – when the slaves were called another name, they still knew they were slaves. So, how, exactly, would the inverse not be true? Someone who is called a slave, but knows they are free?

I think you have actually answered this question yourself, but I’ll express it again in better terms – The words we use are not set in meaning, and we use them as we wish, for exactly the purposes we desire. Yes, we appropriate the terminology from fairly terrible things, but that doesn’t mean that we participate in those terrible things. We use those names because what we do, from the outside, might look like that which we label. Those within the community know the difference between what we do and the terrible things they are named after. As long as these differences are known and separated, what is the harm in using the terminology?

What’s out of the ordinary about dominance and submission? BDSM is just the extreme expression of hierarchy for its own sake, which is the bedrock of most civilizations, to their great detriment. That kind of power is almost impossible to avoid abusing.

And yet, we try very hard not to. From my perspective, being a switch-sub in a relationship with a dom, We keep a powerful distinction between play and reality. Yeah, sure, things leak through, but never seriously. And the fact that we have this distinction actually makes it easier for us to police our actions – we are committed to, as much as is possible, maintaining equal roles between the two of us, like any relationship should. Because we play with power dynamics, we have better ability to identify them when they emerge outside the relationship.

I suspect that you believe that we don’t have a full understanding of what we do, or at the very least believe that since in normal relationships, power dynamics are often invisible, that of course you’ll have difficulties seeing them anywhere else. But if all members of a relationship are already aware of the power biases within the relationship, wouldn’t that actually make it easier to police those biases? This seems fairly common-sense to me, but admittedly, my perspective is quite different than yours.

You judge your consent, but I get to judge the implications. Isn’t the life of most prostitutes torture? Isn’t that relevant to this question of consent, twisting of which makes it seem so legit for the johns?

I’m not quite sure that it is. I mean, sure, in a social context there are often factors which make it difficult for an honest communication of consent to occur, but this doesn’t change the fact that consent is still a personal feature. The fact that some people consent to torture does not in any way change anyone else’s consent to the same act. If people have difficulties communicating their consent, this is a terrible thing, but not something that is really anyone else’s problem but the person. Definitely, we should be trying to educate women as hard as possible to take full control of their own consent, but I struggle to determine why people consenting to things that other people would not consent to damages the consent of anyone else. It’s their consent, after all!

For a great many women, the life you’re describing here is no fantasy. It’s a trap which they’ve learned to accept as normal. In some cases, that’s part of the culture, and in others, it’s called battered women’s syndrome. Yeah, people with uncompromised agency can turn it into a game, but talk about playing with fire. It’s just hard for me to believe people can play with such concepts, with such pernicious hooks into our subconscious minds, without getting burned. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but I’m skeptical.

I would point out the BDSM pretty much requires two people to tango. Both people have to consent to any BDSM intruding into their lives. The Dom gets to safeword just as the Sub gets to.

There’s also the point that consent-wise, I think that BDSMers are a step ahead, considering that most non-BDSM couple don’t even think about consent at all. For most people, If a woman makes out, she’ll put out, if she consents once, she always consents, if she consents to one thing, she consents to everything. The BDSM community tries to foster a very different attitude – that consent is per act, that consent can change from moment to moment, that consent is not transferable. I think that there is a great deal that non-BDSMers could learn about consent from the BDSM community (if not from individual BDSMers). It could be considered a dangerous game, but then, I’d point out that at least we know we’re in the game. Issues of consent and abuse come up in every relationship. Every one. And yet, few people think about it at all. Even if we don’t get it right all the time, we have an awareness of the issue, and I’d like to think that’s at least a goodly step in the right direction. It’s not just us that plays with fire. Every relationship plays this game, and it frightens me how few people don’t have even a cursory understanding of these issues.

I’m suspicious of these attempts to reclaim sadism and cruelty. I can sort of understand turning them into a game, but I think those who play with fire may not even realize when they’re getting burned.

I would be more concerned if people considered the game to be real life. I think if that condition holds, the fire metaphor holds. If one holds BDSM as an external to the rest of their lives, and try to maintain that distinction, then you always have the fire in your view. Sure, you still have to make sure that all the flammables stay away from the fire, but as long as you’re keeping a good watch on that fire, you at least have a better idea of when it’s burning you than if you make the claim that you never have BDSM in your life and that everything you do is perfectly normal. The second statement stops you from questioning yourself, stops you even thinking of the fire. I think in that situation, you are far more likely to burn yourself without knowing it.

My point in referencing sadistic pornography is that it is a huge problem pouring gasoline on a epidemic of screwed up men abusing women. Why would you want to be associated with that, stuck with the task of disabusing people of the notion that sadism hurts people?

I still question the impact of violent pornography on the general male populace. I hold the position that screwed up pornography is only going to cause violence and pain in those already predisposed to it, but I understand that this is not a common or acceptable stance in the feminist sphere.

But to answer the question specifically, I don’t associate myself with torture porn. Even before I stopped watching porn, torture porn caused a terrible sensation inside me. When I see a BDSM scene, I need to know that everyone involved is happy in the scene. Screaming often causes serious bad vibes in me (This is probably a side-effect of my rape). What I do is not that torture. My torture is quite different, and I won’t apologize for using a common word in my jargon.

I don’t live in your world, and you seem indifferent to what your vocabulary usage evokes in me, basically saying that’s my problem, since I’m misusing the vocabulary. It’s as though you’re saying if I’m bothered by the language, I should find another word for nonconsensual sadism. Maybe you can understand why that makes me feel you people do have something to hide.

I’m not indifferent to your reaction to our vocabulary, hell, I’m a sociolinguist and I know quite well that our vocabulary can affect others in a way that doesn’t affect us. I just, well, wonder why we can’t both use the same language. I mean, what we use is basically a jargon, a technical language for specific concepts. Now, this language is, unfortunately, steeped in language describing acts that are quite terrible, and that, outside our community, have meanings rather contrary to what we use it for. But it’s our language, our terminology – why should we change it? I mean, some people here are rather strongly attached to their definitions of their language, as is generally the case for all users of all languages – it’s something of a truism that everyone considers their use of language to be the correct use.

And I think what is problematic for everyone involved here is that both sides are adamant that their language be used to host the debate, when the choice of language is actually likely to be a deciding factor in who wins. If you insist that sadism actually means the enjoyment of suffering, then when we discuss sadism, we can’t really try to make any other claim, can we? And the same goes for if we insist that sadism is actually the enjoyment of inflicting pain, regardless of suffering. I think this debate was always going to come down to semantics, because the entire point of the debate is on definitions of words (pretty much the definition of semantics, in the technical sense). And noone here is willing to budge.

I think it would probably have helped the debate if we understood that there were, in fact, two jargons being used here, and worked to make sure that we knew which jargon was being used in which context.

This for me was a very interesting and thought provoking thread. Despite the polar differences in views, I felt that there was genuine respect among everyone for the thoughts and feelings of others even when the messages that were being sent at times could have been construed as offensive. I got many of the answers I was looking for and want to thank all that answered my questions to help me gain a better understanding of the bdsm world. Thank you, AS for allowing me to go to places that maybe you did not intend for this thread to go. I now realize that I could not be a bdsm’r and was probably spared in the long run by not having been drawn into the life. Sometimes the things that we do out of the love for another person are not always what will be good for us in the long run. Thanks again for allowing me to explore the topic which will help me bring closure to the whole situation once and for all. God bless.
Jen

The twisting of consent in the S/M scene is a huge can of worms.

I was told the problem is my misuse of language, that BDSM is all about consent.

The principle (of sadism) is… the common phenomenon of men being dominant over women. I say, that principle is in itself destructive to women and unhealthy for men. A woman who enjoys that is getting off on her own degradation. This is analogous to the Stockholm Syndrome, to my way of thinking.

This was found very offensive, and reflects my conflation of consensual and nonconsensual sadomasochism, I was told. I’m aware there is a difference, but remain skeptical of attempts to deny any link.

I didn’t imply there’s nothing wrong with female masochism, merely that I don’t blame women for it. It’s far more than a fetish, which is why I compared it to the Stockholm Syndrome. Women have written books about female masochism. These were serious books, not porn. Social conditioning convincing women pain is their lot is far from harmless; it’s a major part of how men have gotten away with dominating the world for so long.

…if it’s all playacting and no actual cruelty is involved, why call it sadism? What does that have to do with the definition? Surely you realize there are lots of men who really do get off on hurting women. Isn’t that why gonzo porn is so popular?

Those were from comments I made to respondents before the wave brought in by Gorgias a month ago, determined to defend BDSM on an entry prompted by the notorious Craigslist exposure of ardent sadists eager to torture the advertiser, over two years ago.

There’s nothing good about mastery of one human being over another.

Again, supposedly if people like playing those roles, I’m supposed to believe there’s no problem.

Subjective experiences might be equally valid, but the interpretations aren’t.

This in response to being told I have to believe in the testimony of the subjective experience.

What’s out of the ordinary about dominance and submission? BDSM is just the extreme expression of hierarchy for its own sake, which is the bedrock of most civilizations, to their great detriment. That kind of power is almost impossible to avoid abusing.

I was told I was missing the point and misusing my terms.

…the idea of one person being the master of another is anathema to me. That’s called slavery, generally, though you turn it into a spiritual quest. Another variety is called marriage, generally, at least in the traditional variety, where the wife is supposed to obey the husband.

…There’s a huge difference between being aware of one’s mental condition and perceiving it clearly. Human knowledge of objective reality is really quite limited. Perception and interpretation have a nasty habit of getting in the way. Virtually everything people learn to believe clouds their perception. You learned to believe pain is sublime. There’s nothing objective about that; your belief creates your perception.

The pain reaction has a survival purpose, to alert the organism to do something about what’s causing the pain. Pain can teach great lessons, but making pain sexual is a huge can of worms. You may think it’s part of your nature, but you may not realize how sexuality used to be viewed when women were property. Women weren’t supposed to enjoy sex. Those who enjoyed it too much got their clitoris chopped off. In some cultures women are still property, and in some cultures women are still mutilated to ensure sex is a painful duty, not something they’d seek out for pleasure. Humiliating and hurting women is extremely popular in pornography. You may not like being linked to this association, but these sick artifacts of male-dominated civilization define what sadism means to most people. You may not like the term, but your crowd isn’t so squeamish about it. Why is that?

Apparently that, combined with allegations from Jen based on her own experiences with a sadist, brought in the rest of the crowd, determined to explode the associations I was making, and explain why these issues are to be taken as made irrelevant by negotiated consent and safewords.

It begs the question, why should people believe BDSM has nothing to do with abuse when its practitioners embrace the terminology of abuse? Is the distinction real, or sophistry? Is the distinction between being submissive and subordinated real, or sophistry? The slaveowners of this country believed slavery was best for their subjects, whom they valued highly, but that was all in the eye of the beholder. The slaves knew better. What’s the point of using the terminology of such a horrendous institution to denote consensual kinky sexuality? What’s in it for you to use these terms, if their conventional meanings are so far from applicable?

There were attempts to answer this, but none alleviated my concerns.

Consent will never be a simple matter as long as rapists claim the woman consented, so her accusation was a lie, it wasn’t rape. It will never be a simple matter as long as men buy sex from desperate women who need the money and call it consensual. As long as men have power over women, consent to sex will be a huge can of worms.

I was told this is inapplicable to BDSM, because it’s all about consent.

I’m investigating the matter of people excusing inflicting pain on people. You can’t take this out of the context of the culture, which glorifies cruelty as macho, patriotic, kicking ass, showing that woman who’s boss, whatever. It’s been mainstreamed. I think the truth shreds you, you have no real answers to me or Jen. I think you’re a bunch of experts in sophistry, twisting language to make your theories work. I’m a hard scientist. I don’t respect much of what requires faith or twisting language to believe. At least there’s some recognition there’s a problem with the language. Some words aren’t worth reclaiming.

This got roundly denied and turned back on me, as if I’m the one twisting language.

You judge your consent, but I get to judge the implications. Isn’t the life of most prostitutes torture? Isn’t that relevant to this question of consent, twisting of which makes it seem so legit for the johns?

This was to respond to an aggrieved Renegade Evolution, miffed that I questioned her consent.

For a great many women, the life you’re describing here is no fantasy. It’s a trap which they’ve learned to accept as normal. In some cases, that’s part of the culture, and in others, it’s called battered women’s syndrome. Yeah, people with uncompromised agency can turn it into a game, but talk about playing with fire. It’s just hard for me to believe people can play with such concepts, with such pernicious hooks into our subconscious minds, without getting burned. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but I’m skeptical.

That was in response to a rosy description of submissive fantasies.

I’m suspicious of these attempts to reclaim sadism and cruelty. I can sort of understand turning them into a game, but I think those who play with fire may not even realize when they’re getting burned.

The idea that I’m trying to force women to conform to my beliefs is laughable. I’m observing how expectations of female masochism have been used against women from time immemorial. This makes me suspicious of the idea that a woman allowing a man to dominate or inflict pain on her, even as a game, is doing anything to empower herself. It might be fun, or a means of defiance of traditional expectations by turning them into a game, but it’s a dangerous game, and I wonder if these women should be so trusting. If a man gets mad and out of control, suddenly it’s no longer a game.

I think the entire culture is pathological, especially in these United States. Some of that is the pervasive sexism, some is the reckless arrogance of science for hire, and some is the mentality of empire. This is the context in which I see sadism and cruelty. As I said, they’ve been mainstreamed. Many people may not notice their influence unless it’s in their face, as when confronted with BDSM or Abu Ghraib; then they act shocked. Sexism is in itself sadistic and cruel. There’s no escaping these facets of the culture. I could see how my scorn could be called cruel. It isn’t meant that way, but it could come across that way. I see nothing but trouble coming from the mainstreaming of sadism and cruelty. Playing with that kind of fire can be fun, sure, but the stuff of hell on earth shouldn’t be underestimated or taken lightly. Fun isn’t always innocuous or without consequences, which can be extremely subtle and easily missed or denied. Traditionally, there’s nothing fun, subversive, or empowering for women in female masochism, but it has been a convenient means of training women to accept male dominance.

I was told my fire metaphor is stretched and inappropriate.

I’m still not getting the point of making the word sadism socially respectable. Do you not see potential hazards in that? In an ideal world, it should be possible to educate people not to confuse these forms of sadism, but this isn’t an ideal world. The people you’re trying to shun aren’t going to give up the word to you. In other words, your efforts to educate people can easily backfire by giving cover to the traitorous sadists, even though that isn’t the intention. You know the saying, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It’s all a problem of education, I’m told.

My point in referencing sadistic pornography is that it is a huge problem pouring gasoline on a epidemic of screwed up men abusing women. Why would you want to be associated with that, stuck with the task of disabusing people of the notion that sadism hurts people?

Not their problem, I’m told; people need to learn to use the language properly.

I think we’re at an impasse. When it gets to the point that people are throwing around wildly stretched analogies and can’t see why they’re stretched after I attempt to explain my problems with them, I start to feel the discussion is pointless. I don’t live in your world, and you seem indifferent to what your vocabulary usage evokes in me, basically saying that’s my problem, since I’m misusing the vocabulary. It’s as though you’re saying if I’m bothered by the language, I should find another word for nonconsensual sadism. Maybe you can understand why that makes me feel you people do have something to hide.

No, it’s my problem if I persist in misusing the language. I gave up. I made my case. I feel my concerns were evaded if not dismissed outright. This is their right, but it’s my right to note my impressions of how my concerns were not answered.

While SM done conscientiously is not particularly risky, most people don’t come into the community knowing good technique. (“Safe sex” in health class doesn’t cover bondage or whipping.) A place where people can see others is a place where people can learn from others.

You’ve gotta learn what you’re doing somewhere. Sure, you can learn by experimentation at home — but if you’re, say, not experienced with rope, will you (generic you) think to know that using constricting knots on your lover can cut off circulation? Will you know that tying someone up with silk scarves is actually a bad idea because knots in them tend to tighten, or will you simply think it seems sensual and run with it?

Maybe you will, and maybe you’ll have no idea — and unwittingly run risks that you could easily have avoided if others saw it and politely interrupted.

Semi-public parties are a place where experienced people who know when someone is doing something reckless or unsafe can intervene to protect someone.

Jen,

I couldn’t tell you, as I don’t have group sex. I do go to play parties, though, where people do BDSM activity in front of others that generally doesn’t include sex. The vast majority of the time, the only person I do anything with is my partner, who I’ve been seeing for a little over a year now. Sometimes we do things with friends, too, but it’s rare.

I don’t feel that that makes my relationship with my partner less intimate or less serious. But I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone who wants monogamy to a stricter degree than I do. I think different people look at intimacy differently, and for some people exclusivity is very important, for some it’s less important, and for others it doesn’t work for them at all.

I certainly don’t mean that I think you should try BDSM — it’s pretty clear that you don’t want to, and that on top of that, doing so would bring back bad memories. There’s no reason to do something you don’t want to do in the interests of “having an open mind” or whatever. Having an open mind is about being willing to listen to others respectfully, and you’re doing very well at that IMO.

If your ex-boyfriend pressured you to try group sex, that’s gross. Things like that should happen with everyone’s eager consent, not based on manipulation or pressure. There’s NOTHING wrong with you for having a boundary and saying so.

As far as the pressure goes, I understand why that would worry you, as well. I don’t think there’s a woman on the planet that doesn’t have insecurities about her attractiveness. (I blame ad companies.) But for me personally, when I went to my first play party, I saw people with lots of different body types, of different ages, etc. My experience wasn’t one of glitz and glamor, and it actually helped me feel less weird about my body, rather than made me feel that people would like me less.

“Are most people that are into group sex bi-sexual?”

Not that I have noticed. Bisexuals are as diverse in their preferences for or against monogamy as any other population I’ve seen.

“It would seem to me that a person would amost have to be, given that it is a group activity made up of men and women.”

The latter assertion isn’t necessarily true: N people (where N > 2) can be in a polyamorous relationship wherein the sexual arrangements are such that only 2 of them are having sex at a time. If more than 2 are present for sex, mechanics are such that it’s entirely possible for many things to occur without a heterosexual walking away with cause to question their orientation.

“Also, do some people that are really gay ‘hide’ in this lifestyle. In other words, do they use it as means to have contact with the same sex when to seek out this contact in any other way would be unacceptable to themselves?”

If we’re talking about nonmonogamous lifestyles rather than BDSM here, I hasten to point out that there is no single “lifestyle” — “swinging” is not the same thing as “polyamory,” for example. In either case, I’ve never heard of or met a gay man or Lesbian who used either to engage in same-sex activity while preserving a closeted identity. I don’t see how it would work to hide their orientation — particuarly from themselves, as heterosexual men tend to be very sensitive about being touched by other men in ways that might be thought of as homoerotic.

“Does the ‘life’ cause a person to become confused about thier sexual preferences?”

I’ve seen people question their sexual preferences and orientation[1] based on what they’ve seen or done in monogamous and nonmonogamous situations. I’ve also seen people answer those questions one way or another in the same context. Based on the development of my own understanding of my sexual orientation from heterosexual to bisexual, I wouldn’t describe that as causing confusion, but resolving it. That is to say, I was confused when I thought I was heterosexual, discovering and acknowledging that I like guys too dismissed that confusion.

[1] For example: “I like cunnilingus” is a preference; “I’m Bisexual” is an orientation.

No, not really. Plenty of straight people are into group sex as well – they simply limit their activities within group sex situations to interactions with the opposite sex.

In fact, I hear from many people that male gay sex is quite rare at mixed-gender sex parties. Female gay sex? Happens all the time, but gay male sex tends to be a rarity, probably due to general male homophobia. Dykes are hot, Faggots are icky, and all that.

“Also, do some people that are really gay “hide” in this lifestyle. In other words, do they use it as means to have contact with the same sex when to seek out this contact in any other way would be unacceptable to themselves?”

Probably. I have not personally seen people like this, but I am sure they exist somewhere. When homosexuality is seen something that must be hidden, people need to find some outlet for their desires. For some, sure, I’d bet the group sex scenarios are such an outlet, but considering the statement above, I’d bet that closeted gay men in particular probably don’t use mixed-gender group sex as such.

“Does the “life” cause a person to become confused about thier sexual preferences?”

Usually there has to be something there to begin with to get confused, but again, I am sure that there are plenty of straight people who get into group sex and discover they’re not quite as straight as they thought, but there are also people who get into group sex and discover they are just as straight as they thought they were (and conversely, I’m certain there are people who were sure they were bisexual and discovered that, actually, no they’re straight. Happens in all ways and combinations).

You are correct, it does strike me as unrelated. No matter. My BA is in Physics, and uncertainty is a empirically confirmed phenomenon. I can’t think of a definition of determinism that would include me.