In honor of International Women’s Day (March 8th), a few links on feminism and BDSM. Comments are mine (Cloud’s), as are any errors in summarizing the content; such are not intentional:
BDSM and Feminism: An Insider’s View by Tammy Jo Eckhart. The opinion of one heterosexual, feminist, dominant woman, who considers both the “heated debate” among feminists about BDSM, and among BDSMer about feminism. She especially considers simplifications of “the other side”. In fact, we are a diverse bunch of people.
BDSM: Examine your desires by by Myca from Alas! A Blog. A short blog rejecting the fundamental premise, that anyone who is not vanilla is “broken”, with a loooong conversation of commenters. Some may enjoy these sort of chats; yes Virginia, there really are sado-masochists… 
Political dialogue might be a kink in itself; you might enjoy exploring it.
Kink 101 by Kit Roskelly from the f word: contemporary UK feminism whose basic argument is that “feminism is not a prescriptive school of thought” and “It is surely a mistake for anyone within the feminist movement to sit in judgement on another woman’s sexual preferences”. A nice thoughtful article.
I am not damaged: the intersection of queer and kinky by Earlbecke which considers head on the suggestion that “woman could only want to be submissive if she’s been abused, coerced, brainwashed”. Excellent writing. She writes more in More on kinky/queer sexuality
and considers whether kink is a sexual preference, a sexual orientation; and what that means.
Let Them Eat Pro-SM Feminist Safe Spaces by Trinity which talks about the elephant in the living room, the female top and the male submissive. Like most of the webpages I am offering, this has a lively comments section.
reconciling kink and feminism/politics by Findingthegirl. This is on a BDSM rather than a feminist site. Questions from one queer-identified bisexual femme submissive provoke some thoughtful dialogue with commenters.
There are many many more sites. If there’s one you want to bring to people’s attention, please Comment. If you want to start a conversation about feminism and BDSM, you can also comment. I ask only that we avoid any personal attacks…
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After just having read through this same topic on Steel-Door-Discussions for the past week, I think I will, respectfully, sit this one out.
-LordSir Ninetails
The website LordSir Ninetails references is I believe http://www.steel-door.com/Chamber.html
feminism? ?/?f?m??n?z?m/
–noun 1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
3. feminine character.
If the feminist movement is for the equality of women, then couldn’t it be boiled down, in the simplist of terms, to a woman’s right to choose?
When a woman has the right to choose, can’t she choose to let herself be free to explore what she likes? And if she happens to like things that are beyond what society calls normal, isn’t that her choice too?
For so many centuries the patriarchal Western culture, that I am a part of, has said what a woman is and defined her character. But the fact is that women are individuals. What may work for one may not work for another. Be it in business, taste in food or diet, or in relationships.
From http://www.reference.com/search?q=BDSM
“BDSM is a complex acronym derived from the terms bondage and discipline (B&D), dominance and submission (D&S, D/S, or Ds), sadism and masochism (S&M or SM). BDSM includes a wide spectrum of activities and forms of interpersonal relationships. While not always overtly sexual in nature, the activities and relationships within a BDSM context are almost always eroticized by the participants in some fashion. Many of these practices fall outside of commonly held social norms regarding sexuality and human relationships.
Many activities can be found under the umbrella of BDSM, which include — but are not limited to — forms of dominance, submission, discipline, punishment, bondage, sexual roleplaying, sexual fetishism, sadomasochism, and power exchange, as well as the full spectrum of mainstream personal and sexual interactions.
An important distinction is that BDSM is not a form of sexual abuse — although some BDSM activities may appear to be violent or coercive, such activities are conducted with the consent of all partners involved. BDSM relationships and practices are exercised under the philosophy of “safe, sane and consensual” (SSC), or the somewhat more permissive philosophy of “risk-aware consensual kink” (RACK).”
From my limited experience BDSM’s main quality is consensual. I’ve actually communicated more of my likes and dislikes with people in this community than I have with past non-bdsm lovers. There is a certain freedom in not being judged.
And while many long article will banter about with the good, the bad, or the ugly, it really comes down to some simple things for me. Does it feel good? Is anyone being hurt? Are all involved considerate and or supportive of the others?
This is just my two cents,
Moonglow
Actually, groups.yahoo.com/group/Steel-Door-Discussion
Feminist “criticism” -Is there such a thing? Please defend this idea to Me, a Male Dom, -LordSir Ninetails
::re-reads what she wrote. Considers the problem – what makes this an answer specific to a male Dom?
Not a thing – which is just right.::
Okay, Touche’! My fair Feminist cloud. LordSir Smiles that wicked little smile he has…he knows cloud is aware of what he is…
But, let’s argue this out for arguments sake…Devils Advocate if you will…
Just as some Femme Doms have their beliefs in Female Superiority, so do some Male Doms have theirs… for instance, there is a belief that we (Male Dominants)can “allow” women to take Dominant roles when we choose to because we know if they get too powerful or full of themselves, we could always take that power away from them, by force, if needed. History shows us this, time and again. Female Domination has seen relatively brief periods of time in comparison to times of Male Domination. So, the question becomes this: If, you are submitting to a Male Dom in a world that is Male Dominated, and you are a Feminist believing that you should have equal rights to a Male Dom, though the Male Dominated world could strip you of those rights any time it chooses to, does this not make you at odds with your role as a submissive to a Male Dom? What place does Feminist Critique have in such a relationship? Think of it from the reverse of female superiority. Would a Femme Dom accept Male Critique of them? Interesting huh?
Now, for the Disclaimer: I do not believe in gender superiority and do accept constructive criticism regardless of gender…says LordSir Ninetails,the Class A Instigator.:)
Hmmm I am a feminist. I am submitting to a male Dom. The world may be male dominated. I believe I DO have (not should have) equal rights to a male Dom. I do not believe the Male Dominated world can strip me of ANY rights even if it might choose to do so. I am not at odds though I am sometimes contemplative of my feminism and my submissive role to my chosen Dominant who is male.
To expand: I believe I have equal rights to a female Dominant, too. I do not believe a Female or Feminist dominated world can strip me of any rights even if they might choose to do so. I believe other people’s being at odds or disturbed or repulsed by my sexuality is not my problem, but theirs. I believe other people’s being at odds or disturbed by the choices I make with my inalienable rights, to liberty and to happiness in my own flavor combo, will not define my actual freedom no matter how intolerant and ignorant and rude they might get.
An assumption underlying your devils’ advocacy is that rights are determined by others’ opinion, possibly even by majority vote. Not so. No more than dominance is taken or achieved by force rather than gifted by consent.
“Feminist Criticism” is a sub-genre of Literary criticism in which some writers have taken novelists and other writers from both pre and post “Women’s Lib” days and evaluated both writer and work in light of their own personal preferences.
This is in itself no more or less valid than any other form of criticism; it just often has the blessing or stigma of having been written by someone who has a (sometimes extreme) gender bias. Something like my late grandmother saying we should all vote for Bob Dole because he was “a good Kansas boy.”
The danger lies in thinking one’s paradigm is the only one with any validity. Dominance and submissiveness have no guaranteed gender, although in my own (especially SL) experience I have encountered significantly more female than male subs, and significantly more males than females professing to be Dominant. Nevertheless, I am aware of women who are subs in SL (and possibly behind closed doors in RL) who are powerful and respected in their careers, as well as at least one PhD who is a sub in both lives, and, incidentally, male. He is also probably the best role-player I know in SL. Cloud touched in another post on the phenomenon of SL being a sort of testing ground, a way for someone to explore things they perhaps cannot in the big world.
Witness the woman I met some time ago, who said when we met that she was not a sub. I do not require a woman to be a sub before she shares my time, or my bed, and in the end she said “god I love kneeling at your feet.” So it seems not only is D/s not gender-specific, it’s also not a 100/0% proposition. She would laugh at anyone else who told her to kneel, yet serve anyone, if I wished it. The whole thing is as complex and as varied as the number of people involved, and it is unwise at least to lump us all into one pigeonhole labeled Good or Bad.
So condemning BDSM as being in some way inherently demeaning to women shows a lack of understanding on the part of the critic, not a fundamental flaw in what is ultimately a matter of free choice.
Zeb, what a pleasure to read your post.
Feminist literary criticism, a sub-genre of literary criticism, is in fact not the only meaning of feminist criticism (Wikipedia and some literary criticism sites notwithstanding). Feminist criticism is also the practical application of feminist consciousness, especially that created by the old-school exercises of “Consciousness Raising” groups. See http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/feminism.html for a somewhat more inclusive definition of the phrase, which imho rather more accurately represents how the phrase was used in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. “Feminism, or feminist criticism, is an umbrella term that describes a whole range of approaches to literature and culture….” including such not literary/cross disciplinary approaches as looking “at the way children acquire a language.” Feminist criticism was considered a way to deconstruct assumptions and biases, trying to examine them in gender-neutral or sometimes feminine-positive (but – hopefully – still not masculine-negative) ways; such criticism asked, for example, what archtypes and standards were built into our subconscious minds and culture by defining god as male only, or defining nurturing as feminine, or defining aggression as masculine. Susan Griffin’s book The Way of All Ideology, a classic in feminist theory and criticism,
would say that ANY ideology, any paradigm rigidly and staticly maintained, is invariably wrong; life, and understanding, just don’t work that way.
I agree emphatically that D/s is complex, and personal; I consider it a way of relating or a relationship between people, an aspect of self perhaps, but always dynamic. Of course, as a switch, as a bisexual person, as a feminist, as a woman, I agree – neither Dominance nor submission are gender defined, except perhaps as fetishes (e.g. feminization as a fetish some male submissives and Domme enjoy; exagerated traditional gender roles a la 1950s television Father and Mother roles as a fetish enjoyed by some male Dom/female submissive couples).
WOW! Zeb and Cloud, I loved both of your last posts! They had more depth in knowledge about the subject than the usual commenter would have. Smiles. Just one non-gender “criticism”…You had more knowledge about the subject than the usual commenter would have. Not necessarily a good or bad thing depending on your audience and your intentions towards cultivating an audience. But, while impressive, it may have been too so. Or not. I would be interested in knowing one way or the other though. HaHaHa, of course I would! With Love in BDSM -LordSir Ninetails
What I know of Literary Criticism came mostly from a course on the subject as part of a Creative Writing degree, and rather than calling Feminist Criticism a sub-genre, it would be better classed as a “school” of criticism. The most extreme writer on the subject that I recall was Dale Spender, who seemed to advocate scrapping language entirely and starting over. That was a bit much for me and I wrote my most important paper for that class trying to refute her arguments without attacking her personally. That paper is lost in the depths of time, so you need have no fear of my quoting it.
I think you are mistaken as to the duration of Matriarchal societies, although my basis for saying so relies on but one writer and a fair amount of Archaeological evidence. Merlin Stone’s “When God was a Woman,” a popular and groundbreaking book of the mid-1980s suggests that, if memory serves, the Goddess held sway for some 20,000 years before Patriarchal societies became dominant. I found her presentation pretty watertight. In conjunction with a feminist Mythology (and Asian Lit) professor, the fiction of Jean Auel and Ms. Stone’s other book (at that time), a very large volume available only in the Reference section of the University library, my own biases and paradigms were shifted. Stir in the work of Joseph Campbell, and the story of Ut Napishta (the “original” Noah) and the general conclusion reached was that everything I had been taught might be wrong, or at least biased. It seemed foolish to consider the possibility that one segment of my education had been suspect while the rest was sacrosanct. Therefore I had to question all, and cast aside that which could not be supported. This was, to varying degrees, a simple task, for I had become a skeptic re Christianity at the age of 7, my great-grandmother had borne 6 children, midwifed over 300 babies, buried three husbands and lived to be 95. If she was over 5’ tall she was not 5’2” – and with her as an ancestor I never really could buy the concept of women being “the weaker sex.”
Now what this has to do with BDSM is simply that there was somewhat fertile ground remaining in my mind when I came to SL and through a great deal of thought I finally realized it wasn’t sick or perverted or wrong that the woman I had married had loved to be tied up and “forced” to have sex and I wasn’t sick or perverted or wrong for enjoying it; I realized I had been attracting subs all my life but had been clueless how to relate to them. This was in part because in accepting the concept of gender equality I had completely failed to grasp that D/s and the other components of BDSM were not contradictory to that equality but entirely unrelated. And I guess when it comes to rethinking things, late is better than never.
I am sleeping in the chair, better send this. Be well
I don’t think I have actually posted on the blog any opinions on matriarchy; for those curious, the somewhat contradictory summaries in http://www.answers.com/topic/matriarchy seem well written.That matriarchy is a powerful, evocative concept for many, both personally and as a contested issue in history, is evident. Scholars and students have gotten quite passionately involved in debate over evidence, definitions, significance, etc. The concept is a matter of religious belief for some people both feminist and antifeminist in many contemporary cultures. There are quite a variety of myths about falls of matriarchy (either of mytholized histories of defeated cultures or of Goddesses defeated or replaced in supremacy by Gods). The meaning of these myths is debated (enthusiastically
) but certainly it at least attests to VERY long significance of gender power differences in many cultures across history.
I agree with you, feminism and BDSM do not conflict with each other IMHO. Feminism is not about women dominating men, despite what antifeminists might say in the culture wars. Feminism, in its willingness to re-examine power and relationships, in its assertions that power for women or men is more within every person rather than in nonconsensual imposition of will or brute force, could even be a conceptually helpful framework for power-exchange play and relationships. When I say submission is a gift and cannot be taken from force, and dominance also a gift shared mutually, when I say that self awareness and trust is mutually exchanged between partners in BDSM play and maybe especially in “forced fantasy” play, when I consider if BDSM is a sexual orientation for some of us, my opinions are at least partly informed by my feminism.
LordSir, as to whether Zeb and I are so into this particular topic so as to ::grin:: perhaps turn off some of the blog readers – I love dialogue here but can only respond to what people post. I, too, would be interested in feedback and other points of view.