Sunday, 12 October 2008

"the time honoured BDSM-mindset tradition"

I'm tired, need sleep, and would rather spend my energy on post-sex happies than on this sort of thing:
  1. on 10 Oct 2008 at 1:50 amlaurelin Identicon Icon laurelin

    I think it’s worth remembering that people who comment and criticise blog moderation policies are doing so because of their own political (whether they personally refer to it as ‘political’ or not) agenda. Ironically (or not), these are the same people who accuse those who refuse to publish their comments of deleting their comments due to the blogger’s own political ideas. They would prefer it, of course, if we sauntered over to their blogs in order to pick fights, as then their accusations of our unfairness would seem to have some basis. But we don’t. So they have to troll us instead.

    Women are always told to be nice to those who abuse, and then when they experience abuse and complain about it, they are told that they ‘encouraged’ the abuse, or (in the time honoured BDSM-mindset tradition) that they did not respect their own boundaries and are therefore to blame, rather than the abuser. We should not have to put up with this shit on our blogs either.

...so I'll just say "what the fuck is a 'time honoured BDSM-mindset tradition'?"

15 comments:

Renegade Evolution said...

who knows? not even her, I suspect.

Anonymous said...

Why *does* she keep going on about BDSM, even in places where it is not the topic of the discussion, or really anything to do with the discussion?

Anonymous said...

I couldn't say for sure, but from the context, it looks as though the phrase means something like this:

"BDSMers have internalised a logic that allows you to abuse someone if they ask for it and asking to be abused is a sign that a boundary has been crossed; therefore if you complain afterwards then it is your fault for crossing that boundary."

Which is as twisted and inverted as a Klein Bottle. Which, as you'll note from the Wikipedia link, has no boundaries!

But the language of having boundaries and respecting them doesn't originate in BDSM - it's mental health (therapy and counselling) language for healthy interactions with other people. And in both BDSM and mental health, the focus is more on respecting others' boundaries. Although, of course, knowing one's own boundaries and (for example) not putting stuff out there that's inappropriate, is also wise!

Trinity said...

Debs,

I couldn't tell you -- I still don't know what the sentence means at all. But I *think* it's a consequence of some of the theory that they follow, coupled with their really insular community.

Because what the theory says is that BDSM is a manifestation of internalizing the idea that "hierarchy"/"man over woman"/etc. is okay. BDSM people think that's hot (supposedly) so we don't challenge it when it manifests in unjust social hierarchies (supposedly).

Which is a really warped view of what we're actually doing, but it seems to be what this crowd believes -- that BDSM is dangerous because it makes hierarchy sexy, so people who would otherwise fight oppression are distracted by the shiny and don't be feminist (enough.)

So any time that you have someone supposedly doing something "hierarchical," they're acting from the "BDSM value system."

Which is how you get to nonsensical stuff like tops being called "sadist/rapist" in some of the old writings from the original sex wars... and how you get to nonsense like this, I think.

It's also how you get stuff like Nikki Craft's "Patriarchy: 5000 years of S/M. HAVEN'T WE HAD ENOUGH?"

(Dang it, I can't find a link to that button/flyer now. Nikki, you disappoint me.)

Which is kind of clever, if not for the whole being totally wrong thing.

Trinity said...

I was surfing Nikki Craft's web site, looking for the pin that read "Patriarchy: 5000 years of SM. Haven't we had enough?" to mock it. Didn't find it yet, but I did find a link to this:

http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=villanovalwps

It's a PDF of an article from a law journal, advocating that we reject models of sexual consent based on "she didn't say no" or "well, she consented to heavy petting, so he reasonably assumed she wanted more..." and go for a, get this, model based on negotiation.

Now, what community has consistently stressed that consent is complicated, as people may want wildly different things, and you have to negotiate first? If yiu said "The SM community," you win a prize.

We're awful and regressive and patriarchal, but we're right! \m/

Trinity said...

Dangit, all I could find was this one:

Bondage Is Not Sexual Liberation

"If you love someone, set them free" Um, he's free to dump me any time he likes, just like anyone anywhere ever.

Trinity said...

SD: Yeah, you could be right. I read it more as something like:

Well, in BDSM you have safewords, and that means that any BDSM person thinks that if you didn't safeword, you asked for whatever you got.

Kind of a specialized version of "It's only rape if you say 'No' loudly." But thinking we made up that logic, because we're the Illuminati of the Patriarchy, Baby!

*waggles black silicone boner ominously*

But really, I have no idea. That was just my best crack at it. (Do the people who hate BDSM so much even KNOW safewords exist anyway?)

hexy said...

Oooh! I'll play!

"what the fuck is a 'time honoured BDSM-mindset tradition'?"

Is it... consent is important? No?

Trinity said...

"Is it... consent is important?"

I'd say so, but I doubt that's what Laurelin had in mind, somehow...

whatsername said...

I have no idea wtf she's talking about, but it wouldn't be the first time laurelin made no sense. *shrug*

electronic doll said...

Whilst reading through her comment part of my brain actually switched of and started inserted the "wah wah wah" noise favoured by adults in the Peanuts cartoons.

I had rather thought that the whole BDSM = abuse was all a bit old hat, obviously not.

New hats all round please.

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