Because it's a new play (and because the rehearsals/reading are all under a workshop umbrella), I can't talk about specifics. But there is something that comes up in the play that... really challenged my riteoughness about kink and consent, I think. Or not challenged; maybe, put in perspective. Maybe.
There's an arc in the play involving a woman, in the attic of the house they live in. She's gagged, but not tied up, and debatably drugged. The details aren't important, but the debate we're having in rehearsals is, basically, whether or not it's consensual. And how that affects... a lot of things in the play. Choices characters make, what kind of people they are, what the play says as a whole.
The debate about whether the woman is there consensually (or if that's even possible, with the debatable drugs involved) isn't one I can tackle here. I mean, I could, but I don't think it's appropriate to go into the details of the play, as it's still a play in workshop. But the dramaturgy happening in the room; that is simple, and that is fascinating.
Dramaturges are the literary and research department of the development of the production (for more info, see the above link). For a play in workshop/reading (which is what this is), they're another analytical voice in the room, as sometimes (as with our play), they bring a smattering of visuals pulled from the text of the play. For this play, those images include frat boys, frat houses, the anatomy of a cell, a pair of slippers, images of strippers and strip clubs, and, of course, images of bound women.
They're all pulled from metaphorical images, or actual events in the play.
We refer to it as our "wall of porn."
I didn't think much of it until a few days ago, when I was moving it between rehearsal spaces, and actually looked at the images of the bound women. There are two.
The first is a highly styalized photo, maybe even from a photoshoot with a professional model. The woman has a blindfold over her eyes, and a band of fabric around her nipples, pressing her breasts in so they bludge above and below. The shot cuts off just above her brow line, and just below her breasts. Both the blindfold and the band of fabric are muddied, but in a professional photoshoot kind of way. Her collar bones are promiment, her lips are full. We can't see her eyes.
The second is less professional looking. It's a full body shot of a woman in normal underwear, cuffed at the wrists and ankles, with chain running from the cuffs to the wall behind her. She's spread eagled, but standing, sort of almost smiling. It looks like it was taken for an instructional manual of some kind, like "this is a woman in leather and chain bondage, see illustration 2.43." It's well lit and simple.
The two photos couldn't be more different, but they have a couple of similarities that make them both problematic for the play.
1). They scream consensual.
2). They scream organized kink.
Scenario one is that, from a dramaturgical point of view, the woman in the play is there consensually, and there's some kind of kinky shit going on. If this were the case, then the play assumes a few things about kink: 1) that it's sort of like abuse, or is abuse, and 2) that it's okay to leave a bound person (or gagged person - it's never specified if she's bound or not) alone in a room for extended periods of time (or, at all, really).
Scenario two is that, from a dramaturgical point of view, the women in the play *isn't* there consensually, which brings us around to an even more problematic, albeit similar point. Namely, that consent doesn't matter in kink, and that the women in these pictures actually are representative of the woman in the play; that there is no difference between being tied up with consent, and being tied up without.
To put this all in perspective, I know that there was probably .02 seconds of thought put into these pictures, and that our wall of porn is mostly for comedic affect. The work of dramaturgy is not clip-art. But in a room where the subject of women, consent, gender relationships, and feminism are at the heart of what we're discussing, I think it's fascinating that we have obviously consenting, styalized women tacked up to a pin board in order to represent a woman who may or may not be stashed in an attic against her will. I think it says a lot about the split second assumptions we make about kinky imagery.
But I am, as always, an ASM. So I sit in the corner and keep my mouth shut. Would you like irony rare, or medium?
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