BDSM and public acceptance is part of the
series on BDSM and society
Sexual freedom today
A recent
survey by the US
It sounds
like someone needs to hear about how things really are. In the survey it is
additionally stated that as a result of the widespread rejection of BDSM by the
general public, 95% of the interviewed kinks think that it is therefore important
that the general public is better educated about BDSM. A topic that this blog
is intending to contribute to, even when it is primarily aiming at our own
community.
Furthermore
74% of the respondents do not feel comfortable to talk about BDSM with their
families. Regarding co-workers this goes up to 75%, which makes clear that both
private and at work there is a huge reluctance to speak about our BDSM urges or
practice. Whether or not you are in such position yourself, I guess we all know
situations where we have to avoid openness and fall back on little lies or lame
excuses. Personally I do not like that at all, but I sometimes see the
necessity of it.
Practical example
Sir Cameron
remembers a situation at a business party where he was luring two pretty ladies
into a mysterious net of eroticised thoughts. When noticing how he indeed felt rather
comfortable playing the game of double meanings and charming courtesy the most
daring and less cautious of the two hotties let the first sexist remark slip;
“You are a real Casanova; you know what woman want, but you would never hurt
them.”
As Sir Cameron
was just thinking about caning that neat Polish behind of her neighbour; our
brave Sir, for a brief moment, faltered and looked down at his shoes. She had
hit the nail; he would love to hurt her sexy nipples. The sweet Russian goddess
now realized that she dropped a brick; her own arousal had converted my
dominance over her into more acceptable romantic ideas of the mysterious lover
that would put her on the throne; instead it would be the dungeons.
The prolonged
silence that followed her remarks said more as shouting ‘I’ll dominate you two
honeys until you beg for more’ could have done. Yet, it was a normal party and
it offered no room for play or confrontation, so I just let it be. From their
reactions they had sensed it anyway and soon after the incident the Russian
beauty left with her rather irritated husband, who must have spotted that his
wife was a bit confused. The Polish lady stayed glued on her chair and we had a
very inspiring conversation, as she was just as smart as sexy. At the end I handed
her my card; she never called.
You see; quite
an ordinary situation with open minded people having modern values; yet, I was
not free to say that I am a sadist and that I like to play out women –or men’s
- fantasies with those who are brave enough to do so. On the other hand, why
should we, most of the times it is perfectly fine to keep your ideas to
yourself, but still.
Acceptance of openness
So what is
it? How to navigate between wishing to be clear and open about who you are and
finding a way to give others room to read between the lines, instead of pushing
your kink upon them? How can we best do this?
Perhaps,
pointing out the differences between fantasy and reality can shed some light on
the issue, just as the notion of consent. We will start with the latter.
A part of
the NCSF-survey showed that the interviewed thought that consent should be an
ongoing discussion in any relationship, not just in kinky play; a thesis to
which 94% agreed. Almost 96% shared the opinion that consent should be revocable
at any time. An alarming 1 on 3 kinky persons expressed to have experienced a
consent violation. A clear sign that our community is not as ideal as we
perhaps think it to be, despite the agreement on consent (96%), roughly one
third of them has problems recognizing or respecting this once involved in play.
Unfortunately
the survey does not answer if those who violate the rules that make our play
reasonable are selfish dominant males or ever more demanding pain pigs that run
over their top’s limits and cause him to get trauma treatment right after he
had delivered her to get first aid at the ambulatory clinic of the local
hospital. Why is it that maso and macho do not really match most of the times?
You think I
am too cynical? Well, remember those 33% of the people that got abused instead
of being ‘treated’ in the way they like. The sad thing is that these people were
kinky and into consensual kink; they likely would have complied anyway, given a
bit more attention, care or negotiation. Control is a nice thing, but it works
best when it goes in two directions; violation of consent is a lack of control,
not a virtue of ‘real’ dominance.
But tell
me, why am I not surprised? And we did not even talk about hygiene and
disinfection of tools did we? The point will likely be the next issue we had
planned to look at anyway: the difference between fantasy and reality and the
risk of overplaying our hand.
Dream a little dream with me …
Just today
I responded on a comment that made it clear to me how important the distinction is
between abstract fantasy on the one side and our play in actual reality on the
other side. The reason is obvious - if I may refer to Easton
Yes, of
course the villain that brutalizes us in our fantasy is a bastard, yet, he is
so sexy with his knowing smile and whatever he does to us, our body reacts on
him in such a shameful way … because he precisely know what to do. And that lovely
Mistress too, how mean she is when she pinches our nipples with her long red
nails, that cause us to immediately get hot tears in our eyes; for which she
mocks us with her humiliating remarks while she pushes our face closer and
closer towards that soaked spot on her leather string thong ...
In naked
reality however, the bastard does not smell as good as expected and goes into
sex way to quick and somehow he cannot read your mind on how you precisely
prefer him to give it to you. And what a pitty; but that sexy Mistress is not
really open for your wishes, because she can only top without nurturing. But
are these tops to blame for being as they are; for not being able to read minds
and know everything?
In reality,
we need time to build up trust and self-acceptance, in reality we need to learn
how our body responds in a scene with factual distress and pain. In reality we
have to find a way to deal with differences in limits and technical skills
without feeling awkward afterwards. In reality we have to communicate in order
to get what we want. Dreaming about the ‘one’, ‘perfect’, ‘true’ of ‘real’
person runs the risk of getting close to self-delusion by confusing dream and
reality.
But there
is hope; BDSM is just as much a process of careful negotiations on getting what
we want as it is fun. And the mental kick of abusive fantasies will for sure
kick in when you are involved in a well prepared consensual scene. Just give it
some time; practising is just as pleasurable as the final act of perfect play
where our passions and bodies merge in blissful clash where we become the stars
on the famous stage of the ‘realized dreams theatre’.
Bliss, bless, public
It is the
bliss of working and functioning BDSM that the general public both understands
and misunderstands. Most people are familiar with the blessings of hot and
steamy sexual encounters, likely from their own fantasies, but hopefully from
their active sex life too.
When on
Monday morning at the university library those two vanilla women question their
kinky submissive friend and ask her why she let herself being humiliated all
weekend and the bottom answers that she simply needed those 23 orgasms to show
her master how she admires him, some women would perhaps think that she is
sick; most other women likely wonder how it would feel to have 23 orgasms in one
weekend and if they would like or need that themselves, yet all of them
understand that it must be pretty awesome experience that shows a lot of intimacy and expertise.
When we
engage in consensual acts that add flavour and spice to our BDSM lifestyle, we
chose to do so. We seek it and we seek the suited surroundings for putting our secret longings into practise. The public’s negativity may first come from not respecting their
privacy; when the neighbour goes out on his balcony to smoke and sees how your five
Mistresses have tied you to a tree, hanging helpless in ropes, visibly aroused,
not all neighbours tend to be sympathetic to what you do. Okay, it may be your
garden, but it is also his balcony where he perhaps wishes to smoke without
being confronted with a bondage scene. So, when we are as we are, we most times
have to respect the limits of others. This goes for limits of our play partners
and limits of outsiders; a limit that may involve not wishing to know, to see
or to hear about what it is that we do.
Just as
BDSM-acts result in heavy emotions in us as participants, it also can evoke
strong reactions in others; shame, disgust, curiosity and fear, to name a few
of the more common ones. When a vanilla person is confronted with our
perversities, we can expect them to run against limits that are part of this
person’s convictions, experiences and emotions. Just as we, they have the right
to have limits, particularly in the public area. Yet, unless they are
knowledgeable in BDSM theory, they are to a much lesser extent entitled to
judge on what we think is fun, unfortunately they more often as not judge and reject that what
they in most of the cases do not know or understand properly.
In fact,
for this reason it might indeed be one of our tasks as a BDSM community to
spread the word and to inform those who wish to receive such information about
what it is what motivates us, what we get from it and why we still hold to BDSM
as a sane, sound and reasonable sexual practise.
Feeling
hurt by rejection, feeling frustrated for not being able to openly be as you are,
feeling lost and alone with your urges because you sense you are not properly
understood and accepted, moreover, accused by labels that do not fit your own
perception; yes this is not nice. Nevertheless, when we abide to consent
between players, when we wish to respect hard and soft limits from those in the
scene, why would we not be more relaxed when it comes to accepting that our
branch of sexuality is not very well understood and thus not very often
approved on. The reactions of the public
are first and foremost theirs. Where we share a common responsibility would be
in refraining from pushing our urges upon those who have not asked for it and
in informing those who wish to understand. Whatever emotions the public has
after that, they are theirs to cope with.
Like the
Scriptures says in John 21: “Peter, seeing him, says to Jesus … and what of
this man? Jesus says to him … what is that to thee? Follow thou me.”
In this
sense, let us all follow our own call and do not bother too much with how
others think about our practise and simply follow our path to fulfilment and
happiness. Let us be realistic about differences in fantasy and their
realization, let us be realistic about the factual limits of the public and let
us be realistic about the increase in openness that our society as a whole is
showing to alternative sexuality. We have a long way to go, but I am glad you
are with me …
As always,
enjoy – Sir Cameron
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