Real post coming soon. In the mean time, here's a link that I'll probably be referencing forever. I love finding things on the Internet that are exactly the answer to a question I get asked a lot. Feels less lonely, and also adds a comforting weight to the arsenal of "no, I am not disturbed, and here's why," in which I seem to always fumble, trying to answer those oft-asked questions.
Anyhow, enjoy:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2013/04/22/an-open-letter-to-people-concerned-about-kink/?utm_source=feedly
Sunday, April 28
Monday, April 15
Falling in Love All Over Again
I know my partner is a feminist, and a radical, and a sex-positive, patriarchy-smashing rockstar. I know it, but sometimes it slips into the background, like many things in long term relationships tend to do. It's there, but I'm not watching it every second like in the beginning. I don't think this makes me a bad partner; I just think it's part of relaxing into a life with someone.
But then he goes and writes something like this (see below), and it's right in front of my face again. It's reflective and informed; it's simple to understand, yet broadly applicable. It's one of the best working definitions of privilege I've seen.
He posted it on facebook, as a status, in response to nothing in particular. Many women commented. They commented in funny ways, in heartfelt ways, in (oddly and ironically) joke(?)-romantic/sexual ways ("Swoon," "If I wasn't already married, I'd chase you..." etc). I understand where they're coming from, as I felt similarly; so rare is an understanding like this, and even rarer from a cis-male-identified person. It's a precious thing, and it feels like a precious thing, to see someone speak about their own privilege without shame or guilt. With proud awareness and active responsibility. Makes me want to get up on something tall and wave my arms above my head and whoop.
But I didn't comment. Some of it was that I knew I would get to talk to him about it later, not on a facebook wall (we hardly ever communicated in public that way, which I like). Some of it was not wanting to seem overbearing or possessive by commenting on a thread where other women expressed desire and love for my partner (not that those things are bad - see later paragraph).
But the biggest part of it came from a feeling of smallness, which I don't like, which I want to unpack. I read his post, and read the comments, and felt bad that I was having the same reaction as these women. Felt bad that I didn't react more normally, that his post wasn't something that immediately registered as "of course he wrote that." Which is not to say that it didn't fit with his character as I know it, just that: in being similarly surprised and delighted as all the other people, I felt somehow that I'd been taking him for granted.
I felt guilty, but also that I was somehow slacking, and in that laziness, that I was wandering into dangerous territory. Yes, I thought the same things as all these women, and of course I did, because they're true. Because the man that I am with is a really, really incredible man. And if I don't remember that, if I let the luck of being with him go squandered, then I might not be so lucky anymore. Obviously, there are many women lined up. Obviously, some of them are pretty amazing feminists, are pretty amazing thinkers and writers, are (and this is no small piece of the puzzle) simply very pretty. I couldn't distinguish myself from them, and if there is nothing different or unique about me, then I must make up for it by treating my partner like gold. In that moment, realizing that I might be less acknowledging of him than these other women was, in short, very threatening, and very scary. If I'm not special, and I don't do a good job of realizing how he is special, then why would he stay?
This is all, of course, bullshit. I don't actually believe in a) an emotional starvation economy, or b) that anything I was "slacking on" could possibly loose me my partner. (If he didn't feel appreciated, and we talked about it, and he still didn't feel appreciate, that would be another story, and something we would work through (or not, but we'd talk about it first). He isn't going to magically leave me one day because I haven't praised him enough times in the last forty eight hours). But feelings don't really listen to the things I believe in, a lot of time. Feelings are gremlins raised and fed by the patriarchy for twenty years, and I'm just now weening them onto a healthier diet. And, as they say with any diet, old habits die hard.
This wasn't supposed to be a post about my reaction to Jamie's writing. This was supposed to just be Jamie's writing. Ah well.
Down with the darkest gremlins, in the farthest reaches of the Caves O' Patriarchy, I am scared that finding more feminist communities or being more active is social justice circles is going to mean that Jamie will leave. Part of what he loves about me is my politics, is talking about them with me, is what I think and how I think about it. And I'm scared that it's a unique part of me, to him; that it's part of why he stays, and in meeting other people who are also like me in that way, I will become less special. He will discover that the things setting me apart actually do not. This isn't any more real of a fear than any of the rest of the bullshit, but I think it falls into a more real category. Or a more identifiable category.
I am scared that an aspect of our relationship that makes it special won't anymore, and then what does?
And now that I've said it out loud, it'll probably get a whole lot better.
It's the same as any boundary that we work on, although this one is more specific to us, I think, than say, physical boundaries or kinky boundaries. What defines our relationship, what sets it apart from other relationships is just exactly that: that we each choose this, that he is who he is and that I am who I am. That our relationship is the two of us together. I forget what book or podcast said it, but somewhere there's a quote about poly that goes something like "Non-monogamy is having so much faith in your relationship that you don't have to have faith in anything else." And while I'm a long way off from that as yet (and don't consider in an absolutely goal or anything), it's a principal I stand by. I just have to cajole the feelings into going along with the principals. Gremlins, fall in line.
So, without further ado, here's what I've actually been talking about. This is a post, un-prompted, by a man who, even if I wasn't real in love with him, I would respect deeply, and like a whole lot.
Here's what it comes down to (my point of view):
When my date drinks too much I never worry about my safety.
When I was in NYC, walking around at night with torn clothing, I never once was stopped and frisked.
I'm secure in the knowledge that no one out there wants to beat me to death or drag me behind a truck, and certainly no one with the power to do so.
There is no law in place or proposed that will deny me anything based on any part of my identity.
When I'm walking from my car to my front door at night I never put my keys between my fingers.
If I get too drunk at a party I know the worst I'll wake up with is Sharpie on my face and embarrassing facebook photos.
When I get pulled over by a cop they never once imply that I shouldn't be out driving, might be up to something illegal, or search me or my car.
When I was in college if I interrupted someone they stopped talking, and no one interrupted me.
No one looks at any part of my body when I'm talking except my face.
No one's implied any part of my identity is a phase, something I'll grow out of, a sin, a crime, or an affront to them.
I never worry that someone is hiring, promoting, listening to, agreeing with, or talking to me because they want to sleep with me.
If I feel depressed I can look for inspiration in the heroes of every movie and video game ever - they all look like me, and never imply I need someone else to come rescue me, I have all the power to do it myself.
If I decide to vote, no one will make any effort to dissuade me.
If I come to work disheveled, people will be ask if I'm sick and respect me no less than they did yesterday.
I've never had to commit the small deception of wearing a ring on a different finger to ward off amorous advances of someone who might turn violent in their persistence, unless a metal band indicates I belong to someone else.
I spent 12 years of school studying people who look like me doing great things.
I've never considered whether the person I'm with might sexually assault me.
I've never had to talk in anything other than my native tongue to get respect.
I get to wear the clothes my parents and peers have always worn without judgment.
No part of my identity is subject to ridicule, mockery, questioning, nor am I ever called to educate those around me about what it's like to be one of me.
No one's ever implied my weight casts aspersions on my abilities.
I get taken seriously.
I feel like that confers a responsibility to share those advantages with those who might not have them in any way I can. Don't you?
I love him for this. As a caveat, I love him for many reasons, both describable and not, but his politics are a part of it. And being afraid to say that in a public forum because of petty, patriarchal constructs is just sort of bullshit.
Because he is really incredible, and even if it isn't at the top of my thoughts every day, I shouldn't be scared to whoop from the rooftops when it is.
But then he goes and writes something like this (see below), and it's right in front of my face again. It's reflective and informed; it's simple to understand, yet broadly applicable. It's one of the best working definitions of privilege I've seen.
He posted it on facebook, as a status, in response to nothing in particular. Many women commented. They commented in funny ways, in heartfelt ways, in (oddly and ironically) joke(?)-romantic/sexual ways ("Swoon," "If I wasn't already married, I'd chase you..." etc). I understand where they're coming from, as I felt similarly; so rare is an understanding like this, and even rarer from a cis-male-identified person. It's a precious thing, and it feels like a precious thing, to see someone speak about their own privilege without shame or guilt. With proud awareness and active responsibility. Makes me want to get up on something tall and wave my arms above my head and whoop.
But I didn't comment. Some of it was that I knew I would get to talk to him about it later, not on a facebook wall (we hardly ever communicated in public that way, which I like). Some of it was not wanting to seem overbearing or possessive by commenting on a thread where other women expressed desire and love for my partner (not that those things are bad - see later paragraph).
But the biggest part of it came from a feeling of smallness, which I don't like, which I want to unpack. I read his post, and read the comments, and felt bad that I was having the same reaction as these women. Felt bad that I didn't react more normally, that his post wasn't something that immediately registered as "of course he wrote that." Which is not to say that it didn't fit with his character as I know it, just that: in being similarly surprised and delighted as all the other people, I felt somehow that I'd been taking him for granted.
I felt guilty, but also that I was somehow slacking, and in that laziness, that I was wandering into dangerous territory. Yes, I thought the same things as all these women, and of course I did, because they're true. Because the man that I am with is a really, really incredible man. And if I don't remember that, if I let the luck of being with him go squandered, then I might not be so lucky anymore. Obviously, there are many women lined up. Obviously, some of them are pretty amazing feminists, are pretty amazing thinkers and writers, are (and this is no small piece of the puzzle) simply very pretty. I couldn't distinguish myself from them, and if there is nothing different or unique about me, then I must make up for it by treating my partner like gold. In that moment, realizing that I might be less acknowledging of him than these other women was, in short, very threatening, and very scary. If I'm not special, and I don't do a good job of realizing how he is special, then why would he stay?
This is all, of course, bullshit. I don't actually believe in a) an emotional starvation economy, or b) that anything I was "slacking on" could possibly loose me my partner. (If he didn't feel appreciated, and we talked about it, and he still didn't feel appreciate, that would be another story, and something we would work through (or not, but we'd talk about it first). He isn't going to magically leave me one day because I haven't praised him enough times in the last forty eight hours). But feelings don't really listen to the things I believe in, a lot of time. Feelings are gremlins raised and fed by the patriarchy for twenty years, and I'm just now weening them onto a healthier diet. And, as they say with any diet, old habits die hard.
This wasn't supposed to be a post about my reaction to Jamie's writing. This was supposed to just be Jamie's writing. Ah well.
Down with the darkest gremlins, in the farthest reaches of the Caves O' Patriarchy, I am scared that finding more feminist communities or being more active is social justice circles is going to mean that Jamie will leave. Part of what he loves about me is my politics, is talking about them with me, is what I think and how I think about it. And I'm scared that it's a unique part of me, to him; that it's part of why he stays, and in meeting other people who are also like me in that way, I will become less special. He will discover that the things setting me apart actually do not. This isn't any more real of a fear than any of the rest of the bullshit, but I think it falls into a more real category. Or a more identifiable category.
I am scared that an aspect of our relationship that makes it special won't anymore, and then what does?
And now that I've said it out loud, it'll probably get a whole lot better.
 |
| yup, i really did this (not this time around, but perhaps more than once in the past) |
It's the same as any boundary that we work on, although this one is more specific to us, I think, than say, physical boundaries or kinky boundaries. What defines our relationship, what sets it apart from other relationships is just exactly that: that we each choose this, that he is who he is and that I am who I am. That our relationship is the two of us together. I forget what book or podcast said it, but somewhere there's a quote about poly that goes something like "Non-monogamy is having so much faith in your relationship that you don't have to have faith in anything else." And while I'm a long way off from that as yet (and don't consider in an absolutely goal or anything), it's a principal I stand by. I just have to cajole the feelings into going along with the principals. Gremlins, fall in line.
So, without further ado, here's what I've actually been talking about. This is a post, un-prompted, by a man who, even if I wasn't real in love with him, I would respect deeply, and like a whole lot.
Here's what it comes down to (my point of view):
When my date drinks too much I never worry about my safety.
When I was in NYC, walking around at night with torn clothing, I never once was stopped and frisked.
I'm secure in the knowledge that no one out there wants to beat me to death or drag me behind a truck, and certainly no one with the power to do so.
There is no law in place or proposed that will deny me anything based on any part of my identity.
When I'm walking from my car to my front door at night I never put my keys between my fingers.
If I get too drunk at a party I know the worst I'll wake up with is Sharpie on my face and embarrassing facebook photos.
When I get pulled over by a cop they never once imply that I shouldn't be out driving, might be up to something illegal, or search me or my car.
When I was in college if I interrupted someone they stopped talking, and no one interrupted me.
No one looks at any part of my body when I'm talking except my face.
No one's implied any part of my identity is a phase, something I'll grow out of, a sin, a crime, or an affront to them.
I never worry that someone is hiring, promoting, listening to, agreeing with, or talking to me because they want to sleep with me.
If I feel depressed I can look for inspiration in the heroes of every movie and video game ever - they all look like me, and never imply I need someone else to come rescue me, I have all the power to do it myself.
If I decide to vote, no one will make any effort to dissuade me.
If I come to work disheveled, people will be ask if I'm sick and respect me no less than they did yesterday.
I've never had to commit the small deception of wearing a ring on a different finger to ward off amorous advances of someone who might turn violent in their persistence, unless a metal band indicates I belong to someone else.
I spent 12 years of school studying people who look like me doing great things.
I've never considered whether the person I'm with might sexually assault me.
I've never had to talk in anything other than my native tongue to get respect.
I get to wear the clothes my parents and peers have always worn without judgment.
No part of my identity is subject to ridicule, mockery, questioning, nor am I ever called to educate those around me about what it's like to be one of me.
No one's ever implied my weight casts aspersions on my abilities.
I get taken seriously.
I feel like that confers a responsibility to share those advantages with those who might not have them in any way I can. Don't you?
I love him for this. As a caveat, I love him for many reasons, both describable and not, but his politics are a part of it. And being afraid to say that in a public forum because of petty, patriarchal constructs is just sort of bullshit.
Because he is really incredible, and even if it isn't at the top of my thoughts every day, I shouldn't be scared to whoop from the rooftops when it is.
Saturday, March 30
Kink Fest; The Quotes Post
I'll write a big 'ol missive on the event later, I'm sure, but for now, here are some favorite quotes from the last day and half. Heard in classes, around the festival, and in the dungeon (no names posted, because I don't have anyone's permission, or even what some of their names are). From hilarious to quippy to profound, perverts say it all.
[from a presenter, on people arriving to his class on time] "I appreciate your radical acceptance of the schedule."
"We cannot have power exchange unless everybody has power to begin with."
[on suffocating someone with your hands, and using different smells (wasabi, fish sauce, scat) to make breathing unpleasant] "Some people, when they smell certain smells - they stop breathing. They're like 'fuck you, fine' and just stop."
"You, darling, might be an asshole"
"I had a partner who identified as a human ferret."
[on being asked to bottom in a double penetration rape scene by five new-ish tops, in a lecture given by the bottom on how to play with new tops] "I was laying there, after they'd tied me down on my back, while they were trying to figure out how to put it in. And I was just sort of waiting. And then I suggested, gently "Hey, maybe the problem is the position of the bottom..." They flipped me over and got right back in. It was awesome."
"But I said 'Sir' at the end, so it was all okay."
[from a very shy person, in a lecture on negotiation for shy people] "I wore a name tag that said 'My name is ___, wanna fuck?' It opened up a lot of doors."More details later! Now: on to further adventures!
Thursday, March 21
Getting to Kink Fest: A Fable
I was pretty excited for KinkFest this year. Although I was going to be working four shows over the weekend (as per usual), I was probably going to do what I did last year: buy a ticket for Friday, go to the lectures during the day, shop around at the vendors, maybe check out the party post-show.
And then I lost my job. Which is another blog entirely, so we'll leave it at that for now.
I was (among many other things) both excited to have the entire weekend free, but also a bit hesitant, because my financial situation had changed with the loss of that job. So I looked up kinkfest, and what it would cost for the weekend.
And holy fucking floggers, batman. 185$?! Plus an extra 40$ if you wanted to attend the leather dinner on Friday evening, with the keynote speaker and the fancy schmancy attire?
185$ is almost exactly what I make in a week now. I can't spend that much money on anything other than rent, much less a luxury like a kink conference. I understand that these events cost money, and I believe that, could I afford to buy a ticket, I would definitely regard my money more than well-spent. But right then, it just wasn't an option.
Wait! Excitement! There are work study volunteer opportunities! I apply! I am excited! I'm a great volunteer, and have experience, and I sent them this blog, and although I'm not super active in the Portland community, I am enthusiastic and express such enthusiasm with grammar and punctuation! But not emoticons! Because I have standards!
A few weeks later, I get an email informing me that, unfortunately, I have not been awarded a workstudy. That there were limited spots. That they are sorry, but that they hope to see me at the event. I am saddened, but spend the afternoon moving money around, to see if I could maybe pay for a day ticket. Alas, no dice.
Another email the next day, from the Education Committee, telling me that if I still want to volunteer, I can volunteer to set up the lectures and classes (which are my favorite parts anyway). I extrapolate (and learn later: wrongly) that this means I can show up and attend just the parts I volunteer for without having to pay. I am excited again! There is hope! I write an e-mail back to Eddy (we'll call him Eddy), the Education Committee Coordinator, with my schedule preferences for working the lectures and my grammatically evidenced gratitude!
Eddy is very kind in his reply, but has bad news for me. Everyone must register for the event, and if I wanted to volunteer, I would have to buy a ticket for the weekend. I tell him "oh." I tell him "bummer." I tell him "thank you for letting me know," and still, I am enthusiastic, because Eddy really is very kind, and he offers to maybe help me get involved in other kink activities around Portland, which especially right now, with Jamie and my boyfriend out of town, would be a nice refreshing burst of fellow kinksters in my life.
We ping back and forth a few times.
And then, and then... and then he tells me, don't hold your breath, but oh, there might be a few more workstudies available! And oh, he has asked that maybe I get one, to help the Education Committee! And oh, the next day, an e-mail from Vicky (we'll call her Vicky), the Volunteer Coordinator of Kinkfest, saying yes, she is pleased, saying yes, I have been awarded a workstudy! Full workstudy!
Hurray!
So, there's a meeting on Saturday, of the volunteers. I'm really excited to go, and I'm really excited to volunteer (and there will, I'm sure, be much writing on this blog about kinkfest over the weekend).
But it was interesting, this whole financial process. Because there have been times in my life where yeah, a workstudy would have been nice, but not necessary. There are times when I would have applied, and been rejected, and somehow scrounged up the money to go anyway.
This just isn't one of those times. And it was interesting to see, in many of the emails (not Eddy's, but some other ones) how it seemed... optional? Somehow. How in the underlying message, there was a "we know you applied for this thing because you can't really pay for this, but just in case you can still: here are some options."
I'm not trying to criticize Kinkfest. I understand that continuing to offer opportunities to those who might be able to afford them is awesome, and they asked, in between emails about workstudy and further offers, if I still wanted to volunteer - it was overtly consensual, and finance-conscious. Rather, I'm reflecting on my own personal difficulties in having things offered to me, and not being able to take them for financial reasons. I am, for the first time in a little while, farther on the other side of the line; I am definitively more poor than I was a month ago.
It's not something I'm unfamiliar with, but in a way, I'm learning to be poor again. The timing of all this is remarkable, because not only has my financial situation shifted, but there's the kinkfest scholarship thing, as well as the graduate school scholarship thing. I'm getting acceptance letters (yup! two!), and in the same breath, they offer me spot in their program, and a letter saying how much money I'm (not) getting to go there. One of the schools I've been accepted to (ranked 24th in the country, wow) is already out because I can't pay for it.
But I'm learning to sit with it. I'm learning to trust that, along the way, the right school or the right festival will come along ("right" including the money aspect of what it is to be right for me). I'm not especially bitter about it. Money is just another factor, and this is just where I am right now.
Anyway, that was a serious digression into non-feminist non-kinky territory. Or maybe: thoughts about economic barriers in the kink world deserves it's own dedicated post.
To end on a more relevant note: I just read a Lee Harrington blogpost on "asking," which links to Amanda Palmer's recent Ted Talk on the same topic. Asking is good, asking is important, and like Palmer says, when you connect with people, everybody feels good about giving.
Monday, March 18
The Conflation Game
 |
| it's a pie chart! kink is the red. just 'cause. |
I had a moment like this with a post by sex geek on feministing; the post is long, really long, but it does a good job of breaking down how the mainstream media talks about kink, and tackles a couple of recent and particularly egregious examples. One of my favorite of sex geek's points, and a thread throughout the post, is the conflation of kink and violence; or rather, the mainstream's choice to ignore how pivotal, and how essential, and what a cornerstone, and what-other-language-can-I-look-for-to-reinforce-this-point, consent is to the kink community (I've also written about this conflation before, from a more personal context, so I'm excited to see it getting discussed other places).
It's like the flour in bread, dudes; if you leave it out, you don't have "sorta kinda something like bread." You have water and yeast and sugar. Which is both gross, and very, very far from bread.
Thursday, March 7
Priceless
Feminist textbooks, feminist theory essays, other reading material: a hundred-ish dollars.
Kinky hankies: ten dollars.
"this is what a feminist looks like" jacket: twenty dollars.
Finding out your father is a bigot and a shitlord, really and truly: fucking not worth it.
Kinky hankies: ten dollars.
"this is what a feminist looks like" jacket: twenty dollars.
Finding out your father is a bigot and a shitlord, really and truly: fucking not worth it.
Frivolous or Pathological: The Options of Kink
Although I've written before about some things that irk me about Dan Savage, I keep listening to his podcast. Partly because he's says great things much of the time, and partly because, as a sex nerd, I like to listen to other sex nerds.
On his most recent podcast, a caller asked about whether power exchange was at the core of all fetishes, and remarked that he saw, under the wide umbrella of what we call deviance or kink or BDSM, common themes of power exchange, control, etc. I'm inclined to agree with him (and even to take it a step further: to say that sex, even the most obviously non-kinky sex, has elements of power exchange somewhere in there), although that's not exactly what I wanted to write about here.
Savage invites an author and researcher on the program to talk about the caller's question, one Jesse Bering. And the conversation didn't go the way I expected. Here's some of it, transcribed:
Bering: He's referring to sadomasochism essentially. I wouldn't say that sadomasochism is a common feature of all the fetishes or all the paraphilias. I think it's a... it's a subtype in itself.
Savage: Don't you think that so many fetishes are, at bottom, about power and control and dominance? I mean, even a foot fetishist -
B: Not really.
S: No?
B: I mean, I think the argument would have to made. I think there are foot fetishists that are also sadomasochistic, but I don't think they necessarily have to go together.
[conversation veers into fetish as a term, etc., and how defining between "fetish" as a term is important]
B: But something that happens to sort of turn you on or makes your arousal more exacerbated is very distinct, very different from having sort of a clinically diagnosable paraphilia or fetish. Umm, so the terminology is slippery, but I think it's important as well.
S: Okay, so if not all paraphilias and fetishes involve power, why is it that so many people's fetishes and kinks do involve power?
B: Well I do think that the sadomasochistic component is a very strong one, and it does underly a lot of human sexuality, um, you know, typically, you wouldn't consider someone to be a sadist unless they're really sort of genuinely causing harm and distress to somebody who's not giving consent. I mean, they really take the pleasure in the fact that they're causing somebody else pain and suffering. But most people who are sadomasochistic, the sort of S&M, BDSM community, you know, they're sort of what John Money, a psychologist, called "velvet dragons." They're sort of playing with simulated pain. Very few people are sort of genuinely committed to the role of being a Sadist. Or, you know, they have limits to the extent to which they're agreeable to being the masochist in the interaction. Um, you know, a woman who's sort of biting into her husbands rear end and calling him a sissy little bitch or something like that, that's not really a sadist, that's sort of playful -
S: But that's sort of an arousing power game, and so many people's kinks and paraphilias sort of tap into that, those arousing power games. Does that have something to do with the fact that we're just monkeys in shoes, or that ...[something I couldn't decipher]... we're deeply hierarchical primates,and playing with hierarchies, and flipping roles and inverting power dynamics is inherently arousing, gets the blood going?
B: I do think that, I mean clearly what these types of interactions suggest is the eroticization of power differential, and you can change roles in the bedroom where it's... not as easy to do that, in your everyday life. So, I do think it's striking at some core feature of human sexuality, and getting into some animalistic aspects of our underlying psychology. And you know, you do find all sorts of variants of power differentials like this all across different societies and human cultures.
So first, I need to point out that Bering is using the term "sadomasochistic" in both a confusing and vaguely old-school fashion. As in the first printing of The Bottoming Book (of which I'm a proud owner) and many early books about kink, the term "S&M" or "sadomasochism" is used to refer to all things kinky; power exchange, playing with pain, sissy play, puppy play, whatever you want to put in that category. Now a days, with the coining of terms like "kink" and "BDSM," "sadomasochism" has, from what I can tell, returned to it's original meaning: namely, referring to sadism and masochism. Referring to pain. And while I think the history is probably where Bering got the use of his term, it's confusing when he conflates sadomasochism with power exchange, or general kink, over and over. He's not exactly wrong, so much as vague, and from someone who goes on to point out how important it is to define our terms, I find that sort of funny. Especially if when that someone is a sex researcher speaking as a guest on a show about sex.
Second, there's a polarization that happens in Bering's language, and it's pretty disappointing to hear it, especially from someone who's writing books about perverts. It's when Bering starts to talk about who's really a sadist, and characterizes the S&M that happens in the BDSM communities as "playing with simulated pain."
What he's trying to do, I think, isn't really so bad. Differentiating kinksters from scary sociopaths is great, and I understand that, in our current society, it's still a necessary distinction to make (to say nothing of the fact that it's true, we're not). But what happens, when Bering tries to say this, is that kink (the kink that's risk-aware, that's consensual) gets characterized as sort of meaningless. Bering uses words and phrases like "simulated," "[not] genuinely committed," "not a real sadist," (and I'll leave a rant about what makes a sadist "real" to the side, for now, although I think it's mostly that Bering's using a different definition of "sadist" than most sadists I know. Again, define your terms). I think there's a phrase pretty early on in the conversation that sums up an often unnoticed, prevalent attitude in so, so much of the mainstream view of kink.
"But something that happens to sort of turn you on or makes your arousal more exacerbated is very distinct, very different from having sort of a clinically diagnosable paraphilia or fetish."Throughout the conversation, these are the two options that Bering offers: you can have a silly little fetish that "exacerbates" (as if sexuality some kind of rash) your arousal, or you can be clinically ill. If you choose the first, your interest in kink/a fetish item/power exchange can't really be taken seriously, or isn't really important, or is just playing and look at the goofy little kinkster. Choose the second, and you're ill, and there's something wrong with you, and you need help.
And this is the option given, if you've got kinky proclivities, by much of the world. I don't think Bering really meant anything by it, and it was great that Savage pushed him to explain why, then, power exchange is such a big part of human sexuality (or, in his own way, challenging Bering on his de-legitimizing language and attitudes). But I don't think that excuses pointing out the lack of a third option here, the option that I and many lovely perverts I know tend to choose.
That this way of expressing ourselves can, all at once, be deeply felt, serious, playful, emotional, honest, vulnerable, and healthy. That the presence of consent doesn't make the pain any less real (I mean, has Bering ever seen someone take a long, hard, consensual beating? There's nothing simulated about it), and that the "deviant" nature of this kind of sex doesn't make it any less than other kinds of sex.
Basically, that I can say: masochism and submission are essential parts of my sexuality, and that doesn't make me sick. Yes, I need this to really get off (chosen intentionally: need); yes, this is the most true way I can express myself sexually; and no, that isn't a problem.
As in a recent post (where I go more in-depth about silly vs. serious sex and kink) I'm not trying to say that any sex (much less all kinky sex) needs to be super duper serious all the time. I'm just saying that people who pontificate about how it can't be serious, or if it is, it must be a diagnosable pathology, need to shut up already. Because, as the abbreviations used above denote (and to go with the ever-present acronym tendency of the kinky world), that's a bunch of BS.
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