Originally a comment by Marcus Ranum on About the boyfriend who wanted to choke them.
I recently was asked to watch “50 shades of gray” by a friend, who is exploring BDSM and wanted to know what I thought of the representation of D/S in the movie. For starters, it was wrong in every possible way and was badly acted and the dialogue was terrible, besides. But there is a thing that it almost kinda sorta gets right* namely that the two protagonists utterly “do not get it” through the entire movie. He is so intensely focused on his desire to be a “dominant”** that he utterly fails to see that there’s another person involved. She’s so, uh, well, she’s such a cardboard cut-out that perhaps he’s right that there really isn’t anothe person involved. But the one little slice of “getting it right” the movie manages to accomplish is at the end, when he finally gets sadistic on her*** and she freaks out and leaves. OK, that was great: utter failure to understand her other than as part of a relentless effort to manipulate coupled with utter failure to understand him as part of being beglamoured by wealth and attractiveness****
The reason it’s relevant to this discussion is that there are (as Dr Carrier says) people who legitimately like to play on both sides of erotic power exchange. But it’s a textbook example of what happens when someone who is kinky tries to forcibly introduce someone “vanilla” to kink. Vanilla relationships take a lot of communication. Kinky relationships take a lot more, especially if they involve any kind of edge-play. Putting your hands on someone’s throat is edge-play. If some idiot watches a bunch of BDSM porn and decides it looks fun and they try to introduce their vanilla partner to it, they are flat-out wrong. Because that’s not what the vanilla partner originally signed up for. This applies to BDSM, or threesomes or moresomes, or pretty much anything else in a relationship. If I’m into ballroom dance competition and I get into a relationship with someone and somehow neglect to mention that fact, it is going to affect our lives together: my partner either learns to dance with me, or expects me to be gone a lot. It’s a matter of violating the initial expectations you establish when you are forming a relationship. It’s nightmarish when it happens. It’s like falling in love with someone and forgetting to find out that they are a Republican, or a racist, and then you have this great big WTF that both of you have to deal with. Cue me up a gender-neutral version of Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover” at that point.
There are powerful critiques that can and should be levelled at porn, and the question of how much consent counter-balances them; often when I think about this issue I am minded of the brain-washed individuals who claim that wearing a burqua is their choice. I know several sex workers and porn performers and they’d all say they are happy with their jobs, etc. The economic/patriarchy critique of porn is powerful and relevant and I don’t want to even pretend to have anything to say about it. 50.S.O.G. appears to address that critique by the simple expedient of making both characters utterly thoughtless shallow chucklefucks who are thereby excused from attempting to unpack the vast power-differential between them until he exceeds her limits*****. In the BDSM communities I’ve hung out with, the 50.S.O.G. scenario or the “watches porn now wants to choke” scenario would have triggered at least some sad head-shaking or some sotto voce advice to either or both parties.
Tl;dr of the above: in scenarios where you are seeking consent for things that are beyond the edge of “normal” consent, you need to communicate a whole lot more and brain a bit harder. I would file this not as a porn problem, though there are plenty of problems with porn, but more as a didn’t talk enough/didn’t listen enough/didn’t think enough problem that should be addressed with improving understanding of consent and expectations in a situations not just in edge-play.
(* I am pretty sure that the sequel, if there is one, will un-right it)
(** Actually, he’s an ‘asshole’ who mistakes himself for a ‘dominant’. Picture what being in a ‘relationship’ with Vox Day must be like: you’re an inflateable accessory)
(*** He’s a “sadist in denial” not a ‘dominant’; there are a lot of them in the BDSM community)
(**** Other than that, he appears to have no personality except ‘asshole’ and ‘control freak’)
(***** Prior to that the majority of the movie appears to be about him trying to gain written blanket consent to do whatever he wants, which someone who was experienced in BDSM relationships would take as a Big Red Flag unless there was solid reason to believe there was no danger)
This, exactly. And talking about what one’s partners have enjoyed, in fairly explicit detail, is gross without the explicit consent of that partner. Better yet, only talk about oneself.
I agree with everything except…
This argument rests on (i) an overly inflexible contractual view of relationships, as if the ideals and desires of a relationship will remain completely unchanged over time, and (ii) an assumption that is wrong to even try to introduce BDSM into a previously vanilla relationship — an argument that could be used to prevent any growth in a relationship, not just BDSM and not just other sexual practices. The problem, surely, is not in wanting to introduce new things, even potentially confronting things, so much as how things are introduced and what pressures and expectations are involved. Depending on what’s being asked, refusing to make any changes to a relationship “because I didn’t sign up for this” can be just as obstinate, unfair, and corrosive as trying to force change on someone.
(None of this is a defence of the sexual politics of 50SOG.)
chrislawson #2, there is the following fragment in the OP:
It seems to me that the situation depicted here is different than the one you describe.
It’s not a question of “ideals and desires changing over time” (cf. your (i)). In the ballroom dance example the desires and ideals are *right there from the start*; the problem is just that it’s all one sided and the communication is missing. Marcus seems to be saying:
if you keep such a crucial piece of information to yourself, then it is *you* who is responsible for creating your partner’s initial expectations. If you keep this hidden from your partner, then a later revelation – when the emotional bond, the expectations, the rituals are already at place and well established – comes like a bolt out of the blue. It’s nightmarish when it happens.
If this interpretation is correct, then I think there is a lot of truth in Marcus’ words. It can be a nightmare indeed. Even so, I’m hesitant to give the italicized fragment (whether these are Marcus’ views or not) an unequivocal support. The ballroom example is different from kink in one crucial respect: there is no social stigma involved. When coming out as a participant in dancing competitions, you risk no shame; there is practically no danger that you will be received as a monstrous creep just because of that. Unfortunately, this is not so with kink. And it is exactly at this point where the analogy breaks down.
Just to make it clear: no, I don’t think that the proper conclusion would be to free the envisaged kinkster from any responsibility. Far from it. I think, however, that the blame should be somehow distributed. We have no right to demand from anyone to be a hero. In effect, part of the blame goes (imo) to the social circumstances, which force a person to view her own potential admission as shameful, painful and creepy .
Still, a considerable part of the blame remains with the person. No easy solutions. No escape.
So, I read this book with my BDSM book club under the premise of “knowing your enemy” a few years ago. I pretty much agree with Marcus on it. It’s really not surprising that BSDM is being mainstreamed, but without any of the emphasis on consent and self-knowledge, just all that craaaazy sex stuff!
Another thing to add is that kink, ideally, is about becoming more self-aware of one’s sexual tastes and learning to integrate them positively into one’s life in a way that doesn’t harm others (you know, like choking them nonconsensually). In FSOG, Christian does the opposite of that. He indulges his need for control by stalking a potential partner, closely monitoring her food intake, making extravagant gifts, etc etc, and doesn’t get consent for any of that. He keeps his BDSM life very secret and super dysfunctional. And, it’s implied that Ana is the one for him because… he enjoys vanilla sex with her. So his kink is implied to be a problem that can be fixed by the love of a good woman, rather than an enjoyable and healthy aspect of his sex life.
Anyway, yes, this is relevant because some people do eroticize power, control, violence. You could probably have an endless chicken-or-egg debate about violent porn and violent sexual proclivities. Personally, I don’t think brainwashing is at play, but we often simply lack the sexual literacy to separate fantasy from reality and see that wanting to have “porn sex” is every bit as ridiculous as getting into a street fight and trying to dodge punches like a superhero. Also, I do worry for people who have absorbed violent sexual imagery but not the consent practices that can make it safe and satisfying to try some of that stuff out.
Ariel,
The problem I have with Marcus’s post is the combination of “trying to introduce” and “flat-out wrong”.
I agree that if BDSM is important to someone, then they should disclose that early enough in a relationship to minimise distress should their partner decide not to get involved. But the specific example he gave was of someone watching some BDSM porn and deciding they want to try BDSM with their existing partner.
As I say, in all other respects I agree with his comment, and I think the point he was trying to get across was that people shouldn’t watch a BDSM porn video and think “that would be fun to do” without giving any thought to the difficulties it could create for their partners, especially with BDSM practices that are potentially dangerous such as knife play or erotic asphyxiation but even with the trust issues involved in “light” BDSM. I agree that such people are, to use his word, idiots. But although I agree with what I think he was intending to say, it’s not what he actually wrote. What it came across as was a blanket condemnation of anyone who discovers a new aspect of their sexuality and even tries to involve an existing partner, which seems to me to be perilously close to kink-shaming. I’m hopeful that Marcus wasn’t meaning that.
I think all this criticism of 50 Shades is a massive category mistake, like someone kvetching about Shane because it didn’t accurately portray the realities of sharecropping in the 1880s. That’s not what these sorts of fantasies are for.
I think #6 is a category mistake, Bluntnose. It’s nothing like criticising Shane; it’s more like criticising a novel that sets out to glamourise as much as possible something potentially harmful (such as … fast driving?) which is also potentially attractive to many, while completely and actively omitting any and all mention of such things as seat-belts, crash helmets, roll bars and the idea of keeping it on a racetrack where other drivers are prepared for fast driving, and out of neighbourhood traffic and pedestrian areas where they aren’t.
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Far from a perfect analogy either, but closer.
I don’t think you understand how fiction works Opposable. When I read James Bond I don’t get any more likely to drive at 120mph in a Ferrari through the French Alps with a Beretta in my beautifully tailored jacket, nor do I even aspire to that way of life. I read it as a fantasy, as do, I am pretty sure, the millions of readers of 50 Shades.
The Turner Diaries are fiction, and they worked exactly as intended on Timothy McVeigh.
In the opposite direction, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was fiction, and far more effective in advancing the author’s goals,
Likewise every novel by Charles Dickens and Eric Blair. It’s a strange modern view of fiction that considers it, like humour, to have no ideological content and no social impact — Turner Diaries’ mistake was in being too blunt, like the Gor books, because it’s been amply demonstrated that bias and bigotry in “mere” entertainment translates into greater unreflective acceptance of racism and sexism, even by people who think they’re neither. Because we are creatures of story narrative first, ruled by emotion, not math.
Thus Doctor Strangelove, a work of both humour and fiction, having more of an impact at showing the folly of macho posturing and apocalyptic optimism than a thousand solemn tomes on our prospects for weathering atomic war.
Oh I didn’t say art can have no real-world reverberations, but that fantasies are fantasies and that is how they are consumed. The average reader of 50 Shades, it seems to me, is not treating it as an introductory manual for a life of BDSM. It is a fully-enclosed fantasy world. It would be like a reader of 50 Shades criticising more conventional BDSM stuff for lacking billionaire playboys.
The local BDSM community occasionally holds seminars on various techniques and activities. At least half of each seminar covers making sure your partner consents, and making sure your partner is actually having a good time. Communication, signals, and negotiation are vital to a good experience. And, if done right, they can also be pretty damn sexy.
If you can’t tell whether or not your partner is right there with you, you are doing something wrong, whether it’s BDSM play or straight vanilla missionary style.
Oh yeah, Bluntnose, I do agree that fantasies don’t necessarily have to be something people want to realize. However, coming off a discussion of men who try to act out “porn sex” on their female partners, it’s important to actually discuss these issues instead of dismissing complicated fantasies as things that exist in a completely separate sphere from reality.
Can someone please explain “kink-shaming” to me? Google gives me “To kink shame is to disrespect or devalue a person for his or her particular kink or fetish.”
I find this concept a bit weird. If someone has a kink or fetish, it’s really none of my business and I wish them joy of it. However, the only way I would know about it, is if they talked about it. If it’s kink, it’s a preference not shared by everyone. Many kinks are problematic – those involving pain or humiliation, for example. There are many reasons why someone wouldn’t want to discuss these things.
I agree that simply saying “I enjoy ______________” should not cause anyone to be disrespected or devalued but that doesn’t seem to be how it’s used. More often it means “I want to discuss this at length, regardless of your comfort level.” If the kink is something that involves discomfort, dragging an uninterested party into it is akin to involving them in your kink.
chrislawson@#2:
This argument rests on (i) an overly inflexible contractual view of relationships, as if the ideals and desires of a relationship will remain completely unchanged over time, and (ii) an assumption that is wrong to even try to introduce BDSM into a previously vanilla relationship
I’m not claiming that relationships do or should remain unchanged over time. That’s why I said that communication is key. The problem I was trying to illustrate is when someone decides to change the underlying rules of the relationship without communicating about it; I focused on examples of unknown initial conditions, i.e.: one partner didn’t know the other was a Republican. I sort of thought that the situation where existing conditions change is rather obvious:
“Hey, hun, I was watching some BDSM porn and I saw some choking scenes that look cool. How would you feel about exploring that?” and then you go from there. Many people go into relationships with the idea that each partner changes and goes off and does their own thing. Others go in with the idea that things will be more or less as they begun unless the changes are managed and agreed to. And there are loads of variations in between. I’m not advocating any specific relationship strategy, however I do think that if one party in a relationship wants to make a major change – be it ballroom dancing, joining the Republican Party, or getting into BDSM, there is an issue of consent in each case because that party’s actions will change the relationship and that affects the other parties involved. The ballroom dancing example is from a real life couple I know; she got interested in it and is now competing and spends a great deal of time practicing. They talked it over and he wasn’t interested, so he took up golf. She practices the dance while he golfs and it’s all good. It could have just as easily been a divisive problem if not handled well.
Suddenly grabbing someone’s throat – whether you’re in a relationship with them or not – without unambiguous consent that that sort of thing might be on the menu, is “assault” not “fetish play.”
Depending on what’s being asked, refusing to make any changes to a relationship “because I didn’t sign up for this” can be just as obstinate, unfair, and corrosive as trying to force change on someone.
Of course. Unilaterally changing a relationship – or unilaterally refusing to change – can both be damaging to the relationship. Remaining unchanging is a strategy for getting your partner to orbit around you, just as much as constantly changing and mutating is.
Ariel@#3:
The ballroom example is different from kink in one crucial respect: there is no social stigma involved.
I was trying to keep things abstract.
There are, however, parts of US culture where a man who started ballroom dancing because his partner asked him to might be shamed for it. In fact, in the case of the friends from which I took the example, I suspect that the one chose to pursue golf with that time was because he was uncomfortable with competing as a dancer. It’s a toned-down example of the same thing as someone who’s nervous about being known to be kinky.
The mainstreaming of kink is doing a lot to reduce the shame factor of kink. I think that giveth and taketh away approximately equally. On one hand, there are going to be more incidents in which boneheads jump into something dangerous because it’s been mainstreamed as fun.* On the other, my experience is that many people in the kink communitie(s) understand the idea of being othered, and are fairly open-minded as a consequence. I have also observed what I take as an improved understanding of consent in those communities as well as a heightened awareness of gender roles. To me, it all boils down to a lot of opportunities for teaching moments and reflection about the self, our own attitudes and desires, and how those mesh with others. In the cis-normal world there is a default set of assumptions that, right now, are heavily influenced by rape culture. Kink, at least, encourages many to re-assess those assumptions, and it’s hard to be part of the kink community without rejecting most of them.
(*I understand there was a recent music video that featured head-down suspension bondage. Any bakushi will tell you that’s the single most dangerous form of bondage you can do; the rope-bottom can die or be paralyzed if they slip as little as 6″. Experts don’t try it. I haven’t seen the video but in my ideal world there would be words appearing under it saying something like “don’t try this at home, kids!”)
chrislawson@#5
The problem I have with Marcus’s post is the combination of “trying to introduce” and “flat-out wrong”.
If I had known my comment on the earlier thread was going to become a thread of it’s own, instead of writing:
If some idiot watches a bunch of BDSM porn and decides it looks fun and they try to introduce their vanilla partner to it, they are flat-out wrong.
I would have coupled it with the previous sentence into something more like:
Putting your hands on someone’s throat is edge-play and if some idiot watches a bunch of BDSM porn and decides it looks fun and they try to surprise their vanilla partner with it, they are flat-out wrong.
In the context of Ophelia’s original posting, I was responding to the idea of one partner getting an idea and unilaterally springing something significant into a relationship without discussing it or obtaining consent.
The reason I framed my comment in terms of 50.S.O.G. was because, as I said, it’s an interesting case-study in wrong. He tries to expose her to his kink before getting into it (so far, so good) but only after he has already established an impossible power-dynamic in the relationship (incipient clusterfuck) and then tries to get consent (ok, but…) in the dumbest and most manipulative way (asshole alert). I was alternately facepalming and wanting to throw a red flag on the play.
I know we’re not trying to criticize the movie, but if the actors hadn’t been wooden carvings, and the director hadn’t favored “add badly mixed dramatic music” in certain scenes instead of actually having the characters have character… Uh.. if the whole movie had been different, it wouldn’t have sucked so hard. It could only have been worse if Michael Bay had directed it because then it would have had Chevy product placement and big explosions.
chrislawson@#5:
I’m hopeful that Marcus wasn’t meaning that.
I absolutely was not.
When establishing a relationship, it seems to me to be wise to raise all the potential red flags before things go past a certain point.* When a person in a relationship feels they want to try something, it’s time for a discussion. That discussion will either result in a decision not to try it, a decision to try it, a deferral, possible dissolution of the relationship, or possible improvement of the relationship. I interpret consent – whether related to kink, ballroom dancing, food choice, or whatever, as an acknowledgement that what one partner in a relationship does will affect the other. Even if it’s just a question of where you spend your time and attention. I speak here as someone whose ex-spouses** both complained that the amount of time and attention I spent working interfered with their happiness.
(* another thing the guy in 50.S.O.G. did horribly wrong; he tried to hook her then condition her as a sub.)
(** I did my bit to destroy the institution of marriage before the supreme court!)
Bluntnose, of the few times that 50 shades has been brought up in my presence, the overwhelming majority of these ‘vanilla’ individuals think that it is an accurate portrayal of BDSM. *I’m* totally vanilla and I DO know that it’s horrifically inaccurate and they are always surprised when told so.