Heartbreak Nymphomania » BDSM

Am I being hypercritical?

Wilhelmina Wang — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:37:16 +0000

So… remember how I was complaining about my local kink scene?

I recently found an event listing on Fetlife about an actual kinky party (!!) that’s being organized here – pretty exciting, as we currently don’t have anything like that here at all.

The downside? The poster and announcements so far aren’t very encouraging as (except for expressing that they welcome LGBT folk and that they’re working with one of the LGBT orgs here) they’re doing almost all the alienating things that I’ve complained about in past entries here:

Enforcing a strict fetish dress code; (Edit: Okay, actually, I take this back since I can sort of see why they’re doing it. There have been “fetish parties” in the city before, but they ended up being like regular club parties with a theme, like an 80s party or other kind of dress-up party, and the people who came were mostly just regular vanilla folk who posed with the spanking benches and took photos, and the kinky folk who showed up in latex or leather etc felt out of place. I guess since there aren’t really any spaces in the city yet where people can dress up in fetish gear and not look awkward and out of place, a dress code is needed.)
Their event poster depicts a white, feminine, attractive woman in fetishwear with a lovely view of her bare ass; there isn’t any picture of a man, let alone a male sub;
Their call for performers specifies that they want girls who will dress up as ponygirls or who will bottom in a bondage performance; and that they want a “master” who will perform a whip show. Yay, keeping the man=dom, woman=sub assumption/status quo intact! (Edit: I left a comment asking the organizers if men could volunteer to be bottoms or if women could volunteer to be tops and their response was “sure, why not?”, which leads me to think the initial announcement was a result of lazy assumptions more than anything else.)

Am I being hypercritical here? Our local scene isn’t even off the ground in any way and I’m already lambasting it – I’m aware of that. I mean, maybe I should be happy that someone is even organizing a fetish party in the first place - god knows the organizers are really putting themselves out there and taking a risk that I, at least, am not brave enough to take. On the other hand, is a scene that I find alienating better than no scene at all? I’m not sure that it is…

All of that said, maybe I’m completely wrong and it’ll be a totally awesome event. I’m curious to see how it’ll turn out.

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Building inclusive spaces & my local “kink scene”

Wilhelmina Wang — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:48:55 +0000

I’ve never really been part of a “kink scene” or BDSM community before. I only started really exploring kink in college, and our campus didn’t really have that much to offer, and neither did the small American town it was in. So I guess it’s only understandable. After returning to Hong Kong, though, I had the chance to become a part of a community in a consistent manner for the first time ever. (I’m not really counting the couple of months I spent in New York, because I don’t think you can’t really build any significant relationships or become significantly involved in something in just a few months.)

The Hong Kong “kink scene”

I have to begin with a bit of context. Hong Kong’s scene is tiny. Tiny. I was actually a little surprised that there was actually one at all. We’re not as sexually conservative as some other East Asian countries, but we’re still fairly sexually conservative in general: no same-sex marriage; a trans woman might be able to get her gender changed on her Hong Kong ID card, but she still can be prevented from marrying her cis boyfriend; if an adult male has anal sex with a person who is under the age of 21, both participants face a life sentence if caught; LGBT material has been subjected to censorship in the media or other public events/forums.

Regarding BDSM, I think most of the time local people just stay in the closet about it. Events-wise, there are only a couple of munches organized by HKBDSMEvents (which I am semi-involved with) and another group; and private parties held at one of the HKBDSMEvents people’s homes once every couple of months or so. There’s also a fairly big pro-domme scene, so I hear, but I haven’t had much contact with that. And there have been a couple fetish-themed parties in clubs around town, but with the theme as merely a gimmick. I didn’t go myself, but I heard from a couple acquaintances that they were just like any other old club party, except with a spanking bench or something, which people kept taking photos in front of and not actually using.

A while back, another of the HKBDSMEvents folk owned a fetish store with an upper floor that was also often used a party venue – they ended up shutting down after they were busted by the police for “running a disorderly house.” The owner ended up winning the case (uh, since she wasn’t doing anything wrong) but lost a lot of money regardless.

So I’d just like you to imagine for a minute how fucking annoying and difficult it is trying to kick up some sort of BDSM community in a climate like this in the first place.

I haven’t actually been to a munch in months. Partially because the kinky areas of my brain have been shut off for a while – most probably because of the same reasons why I haven’t been as active on this blog – but also partially because I’m not sure if the BDSM community here is something I even want to be actively involved with in the first place. Which brings me to…

A little troubleshooting

Right now, the munches are at a pretty stable point. They happen every month and people come and hang out and nothing has gotten fucked up. I’d also like to add that it’s a nice group of people, and I’ve made several friends through it. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. I think that some of these problems are actually common to kink scenes everywhere, since I definitely remember reading posts in many other blogs addressing the same things.

Anyway, here they are:

1. The community is a fairly homogenous one

Specifically – mostly older, white, heterosexual expats. We have a few local and a few non-white people who come to events, but there aren’t many of them. On a certain level, this is to be expected because it’s easier to be open about sexual topics in western cultures than it is in Asian cultures. I’m sure that there are some people who thought about coming and then decided not to because of shyness or because they’re in the closet and were worried about running into someone they knew en route to the event, or something. But I do think that we aren’t doing enough to reach out or make our events into events that non-western people would be comfortable coming to. I haven’t the first clue about how to do that, though. I’ve thought of translating our site into Chinese, but I can’t really think of anything else.

Besides that, we also have a dearth of younger people (i.e. under 30), queer people, and single women. I remember a couple of women who came to events without a partner, once or twice, but most of the women who come already have a partner, and come with that partner (all hetero couples, too, naturally). Actually, the last munch one of my friends called me and asked me to come because the event that evening was full of dudes with no women. Not exactly encouraging…

All of this can’t be a coincidence.

2. The community is more oriented towards more “traditional” ways of doing kink, which I don’t necessarily like

I use the word “traditional” because I don’t know how else to describe it. I’d like to find a better word, but I suppose this will do for now.

By “traditional kink” I mean:

expecting everyone to have clear-cut roles (dom, sub, etc)

Personally, I don’t think I have a set role. I tend to claim the label “versatile” or “fluid”, if any at all.¹ It’s not like I have a problem with roles in general, but I do have a problem when it’s basically presented as a requirement. People who are new to kink might not know what they identify as yet; others might be into kink but not have a role at all; and others, like me, might have multiple roles depending on the situation. Most of the people I became friends with through the munches are actually quite hard to pin down when it comes to roles. They’re either straight-up switches, or they mostly top but like bottoming once in a while, or they’re dominants but are also experience junkies who like pierce play or being suspended by flesh hooks or whatever.

enjoying BDSM = dressing in fetishwear

Same as above – I don’t have a problem with fetishwear itself, but I have a problem with it being almost like a requirement. I do enjoy wearing corsets and leather and crazy spiked heels sometimes – I kind of love all of those things, in fact – but I don’t want to wear them every time I play. Like I’ve mentioned before, I actually feel most comfortable domming in jeans and a tank top, and I’m somewhat annoyed by the popular perception of a domme as this ice queen in a corset and thong and 6″ heels. Again, it’s not the image itself that annoys me, but the perception that all dominant women must dress that way, and if you don’t – well, then you must not be a real domme! (Which is, of course, complete bullshit.)

And, of course, most people come to play parties in fetishwear. Which is fine, in itself, but the play party dresscode was recently changed to “fetishwear or all black”, and I heard through the grapevine that the organizer had changed it because some of the guests had been complaining about being watched while playing by people dressed in regular street clothes, which made them suspicious of the watchers’ intents (i.e. maybe they’re fake kinksters and are just here to get dirt on people!) or made them feel like animals in a zoo or something. Why not just dedicate a couple rooms in the venue to people who prefer playing privately, then? (Although, if you prefer playing privately you can just do it at home instead…) I didn’t hear this from the organizer directly, though, so this might not be the case, but if it is the case then it’s kind of silly.

3. Women are always the ones on display, regardless of their “role”

This is also connected to the popular assumption of woman = submissive, man = dominant; and to the invisibility or perceived undesirability of the male submissive. (Source 1; source 2) I have to point out that I don’t mind women’s bodies being on display… but I want to see more men on display and playing the coy, attracting role, as well…

Some examples:

I know of a number of male subs who go to munches, but only two female dommes. I only know one female-domme-male-sub couple. I’ve seen male-dom-female-sub scenes at play parties countless times, but I’ve only ever actually witnessed a woman topping once – and she was topping another woman. I’ve never seen a man bottom at any of these parties… although I have frequently seen the aforementioned male sub do tasks for his mistress, like fetching her drinks and other errands. At one point I started looking for male sub acquaintances I could top at one of the parties (this was before my boyfriend L was here), just so that there would be such a scene happening, for once.
At the parties, I frequently saw naked, scantily clad, or otherwise seductively-dressed women; women dressed in such a way that would make them the “attractors”. I never saw any of the men dressed up in a “sexy” manner that showed off their bodies… unless they were cross-dressing.
At one party, I pulled a Maymay and tried to count all the paintings and sculptures in the venue that depicted naked women. I think I got up to 11 or so? Definitely not a hard number – I wasn’t really keeping a tally and I was having conversations and doing other things at the same time. But I’m pretty confident about the number. There were no similar images of men. Since the party was taking place in the home of a male-dom-female-sub couple, though, I can hardly fault them for putting up art that they like. It’s their home after all.
Overheard remarks, mostly from straight male doms, like “everything’s better if a naked girl is involved!”, when two topless girls were brought into an introductory workshop/demo type thing at one of the parties; and a discussion about a potential pony play session on a nearby beach where it was automatically assumed that all the pony girls would be women. What about some cute pony boys, I thought…

These are the big three. There are a few more changes that I’d like to see, but those are more just personal preferences of mine, not changes that should happen because the existing model is problematic.

But creating an inclusive, inviting space takes time, energy and effort

The trouble with problematic communities is that they perpetuate themselves. E.g. a certain type of person is more likely to come to a space if there are already people like them there; they are less likely to want to come if people like them are not there, or not made welcome there.

This quote – actually about including PoCs in fat acceptance activism – sums it up well:

Creating a project or atmosphere of any kind that is welcoming to people of color involves more than an invitation to participate. That’s the tiniest step you can take in getting people of color involved. What you actually have to do – and if you don’t know how, that’s again why google is so very useful – is make your project or atmosphere actually welcoming. You have to create a space that invites diverse people to participate without fear of ridicule or hatred.

That is hard damned work. And I don’t think anyone is perfect at it.

- The Rotund

To get more young people, more queer people, more non-white people, more women and more non-traditional folk – and many more, besides – we will have to actively cultivate a space that is comfortable and welcoming to these people. And that takes dedication. And I can’t be the only one trying to do it, because if it’s just me it’ll be useless, not to mention exhausting. And, to be honest, I really don’t know if I have enough time and energy for something like this, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing and I can’t be sure of a positive outcome. It might just end up being an abortive attempt to bring more people like me to the local BDSM community – maybe it would be easier for me to just find a different community altogether.

I think it’s important for Hong Kong to have some sort of BDSM community, since there’s so little in the way of alternative sexualities here – but a kink community that conforms to the same problematic systems as many others around the globe, or something that’s entirely new and different?

I dislike the label “switch” – more on that later.

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Fantasies

Wilhelmina Wang — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:19:26 +0000

A random list of scenarios I’ve been fantasizing about lately.

Eiffel-towering a guy with another guy. Specifically: me and L co-topping another guy. Most likely I’d be pegging him while he’d be blowing L.
Being fucked by somebody else while on the phone with L, describing what’s going on & letting him listen in. This is all thanks to a Watchmen fanfic I read where Dan fucks Laurie while she’s on the phone with Rorschach.
Fisting someone. Thanks to the Watchmen kinkmeme, yet again.
Footfucking someone. After a conversation with M where I was talking about how much I wanted to feel what it is like to penetrate someone with a penis. I posited that maybe footfucking would be the closest I could get since I have very sensitive feet. Probably not true, but the idea continues to pique my interest.
Shoe/boot worship. C’mon, we all know I already have an excessive love of shoes as it is.
Bathing & dressing someone else.
Helping a guy cross-dress, e.g. putting makeup on him or brushing/combing his hair.
Wearing a spandex head-mask while masturbating. Possibly pushing it up above my nose, and then taking it off altogether towards the end. I can’t really picture myself doing this with another person, both because I’d be too self-conscious, and because another person’s involvement isn’t really necessary. I think this idea sprang into my head due to my recent obsession with Deadpool, but I remember wearing a face-mask once and feeling oddly safe and comforted by having a large part of my face covered. And there’s this piquant sense of mystery about someone engaging in a sexual act while having a part of their face covered, or having their face covered, period.
Getting fucked while dressed up in full dandy guydrag. For quite a while, I’ve been wanting to fuck with my gender presentation a little bit and purchase a tomboy/masculine wardrobe to go alongside my feminine one. Apparently I tend towards dressy masculine clothing just like I tend towards dressy feminine clothing, because I find myself wanting to dress in suits and ties and waistcoasts and pointy-toed loafers. Obviously, soon afterwards I began wondering about what it would be like to get fucked while dressed like this.¹
Doing vanilla things while I’m tied up. Specifically while in a chest harness, with my arms tied behind my back. I generally like having my upper body tied more than my lower body, probably because I can do more with my hands than with my legs, or because I value being able to manipulate things with my hands more than I value being able to move around from place to place with my legs. I had a little adventure with this at the last play party I went to, where M did some suspension work with me, then left me in the chest harness for a bit. I managed to turn on one of the bathroom taps and take a drink of water; pick up my wine cup, which was on the floor; scale a set of stairs to the upper floor² where everyone else was socializing; and find someone to help me pour some wine into my cup and put the cup to my lips so I could have a drink. I like being able to see how much I can do on my own without the use of my hands, but I also really like being helped by others. Which brings me to…
Someone messily feeding me or giving me a drink while I’m tied up. I have this very specific scenario of me in the chest harness, at a play party, and L feeding me a spoonful of a creamy-textured dessert, or giving me a drink of wine/champagne, and “accidentally” smearing some on my cheek or spilling some down my chin. I really dislike messy eating, and I frequently wipe my mouth and hands with my napkin when I eat. But with my hands tied, I’d obviously have to ask L to wipe my face for me. Meanwhile, I would be a little embarrassed at appearing “messy” in front of other people. And then I picture L picking up a napkin, smirking, and then setting the napkin on the table so that I’d have to walk over and awkwardly rub my face against it in order to get clean again.
Getting fucked/fondled while asleep or getting fucked/fondled awake.

Reading this over… it’s funny to see how many of my fantasies stem from either fandoms I’m following, or from my neuroses.

Coupled with the mask thing above, I’m a hop, skip and a jump away from wanting to get fucked while dressed like Rorschach. And I… don’t really want to mentally go there right now, because… what the fuck, self.
This was a terrible idea, and I advise against doing this. I could have seriously hurt myself if I had fallen over.

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Rope marks

Wilhelmina Wang — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:04:39 +0000

I’ve been doing quite a bit of rope stuff over the last few months. A new friend of mine has been giving me some rope pointers, and has also been practicing his tying and suspension skills on me.

I’ve decided that my skin gets marked up fairly easily. The marks may be a little troublesome – my mother saw them and instantly guessed what they were, though she feigned ignorance for a while – but I like them a lot. They remind me of the good feelings that come from being tied, so every time I catch a glimpse of them I get a little happier.

Being tied and being suspended are very different beasts indeed. Often, being tied sends me right into bottomspace. And if combined with a few other factors, e.g. a little roughness, it makes me melt. I modeled for a rope class that Esinem lead last week, and while it was not “orgasmic”, I experienced the floatiness that usually happens to me post-orgasm, where all I want to do is lay there, totally immobile; perhaps doze off for a while. And I’m not sure if it’s because my bottomspace often manifests as feeling like an inanimate object, but directly after the demos I very much desired to not-speak. Unfortunately, after the demos ended, everyone would try out what they had just seen, which meant people came and spoke to me, and I had to gather myself back together and respond to them.

After the second demo, I took a break and lay down on one of the couches, eyes closed and body curled up tight.

Being suspended is a little similar – I begin to float away and lose the desire to speak¹ – but it’s tempered by the stress that the suspension puts on my body. Getting suspended hurts. But because of this hurt an interesting thing happens – I know that I can’t escape what is happening to me² so I end up finding a very narrow space in my mind where the hurt becomes… alright. It’s a very meditative, very powerful place; and being able to find that place – dig my fingers into it – when I am suspended, makes me think that I am a step closer to finding it during every day life as well.

…Which can be bothersome when my tier is checking up on me
Well, I mean physically nothing I can do. I could call off the scene, but I don’t want to or need to since I know there’s nothing damaging going on.

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How to deal with annoying Fetlifers

Wilhelmina Wang — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:34:34 +0000

Trigger warning: racist & sexist slurs

A chatlog? Haven’t done one of these in a while. Anyway, here is a chatlog between me and one of my (white, straight, cisgendered, male, top) friends.

—

Wilhelmina: i wish random fetlifers i don’t know would stop trying to come on to me via messages

Wilhelmina: this one older guy messaged me once asking if i was “oriental” and wondering if i was a switch “because i was a woman” (???)

Friend: hahaha, oh man- and then I think of all the least appropriate responses ever

Friend: but he probably wouldn’t have understood the sarcasm in the response I would have sent

Friend: Dear Sir, Actually, I prefer the term “chink,” or if you really must generalize- “slanty-eyed whore.” You are right of course on the matter of my being a switch because I am a woman- I would like to be dominant, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot overcome the fact that by being a member of the weaker sex, I can never truly hope to dominate a man. The very idea of standing up to a man, much less a white man such as yourself, who is so much better than me… I shudder to think. No, I can only hope that some day I might, with the proper guidance from a gentleman such as yourself – whose wisdom and skills no man of lesser experience and seniority could ever hope to rival - and towards the furthering of said gentleman’s pleasure, have the skills and confidence to assert my authority over other members of my same gender, assuming they were not of a superior race.

Wilhelmina: hahahahahhahahaha

—

Seriously though, I keep getting propositioned even though I’ve specified on my profile that I’m, um, not looking. I’m toying with the idea of simply responding to all unwanted messages with a link to something really gross.

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Fetish/Fashion

Wilhelmina Wang — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:31:33 +0000

A “fetishistic” set I created using Polyvore.
“Poetic Penumbra Dress” from Modcloth, “XIT” shoe from Jeffrey Campbell,
& random jewelry from everywhere.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about forms of dress and its relationship to fetishes and various BDSM practices. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of BDSM probably knows something about certain clothing items and their connotations w/r/t power and control within D/s: collars, boots, corsets, crazily high heels and ballet shoes with 6″ spike heels. But forget about power for a minute. Maybe you’ve been to a kink party with a dress code. Maybe you know something about latex, vinyl, rubber, leather, or shoe fetishes. I’m talking primarily about that; about clothes both as aesthetic objects and as sexualized objects, and about clothes being part of a cultural norm within kink communities.

I think that clothes within a BDSM context can be both aesthetically pleasing, and sexually charged. Sometimes they can be one thing; sometimes they can be both. I don’t think they have to be both, though. I assume that if you’re a [material] fetishists, your pleasure is derived primarily from the material itself, and whether or not it’s artistically appealing or not is just a bonus. Is that true? Maybe it’s only true for some people, since everyone has different reasons for liking what they like. I don’t know very much about [material] fetishes, so if you know more than I do, I’d be more than happy to hear from you in the comments.

Anyway, my personal experience with clothes and BDSM goes like this: certain clothes have a power component to them, for me. Sometimes I want to wear certain things while I’m topping someone or when I’m at a party because they make me feel more confident and put me in a better headspace. I do sexualize shoes sometimes, but for the most part, my interest in clothes is aesthetic. I wear things and am drawn to things that I find beautiful. I might think something like “this piece of clothing makes this person look hot/sexy/attractive/whatever”, but I wouldn’t necessarily look at the same piece of clothing by itself and think “this turns me on.”

That said, I’ve attended a couple of kinky parties where dress codes were either enforced/encouraged/incentivized (Suspension, in New York City, which I only went to once) or where people favored a particular sort of dress regardless of whether or not there was a dress code (private play party). I was happy about this because I was about to wear cute corset tops and leather skirts and high heels and elbow-length gloves without receiving weird looks. My personal style can tend towards the “gothic,” and I would argue that there’s quite a bit of an overlap between gothic fashion and typical dress within BDSM communities. There aren’t many contexts where I can wear gothic-like clothing without receiving negative attention, so I liked that I could wear those clothes at the kinky parties and not have it be considered anything out of the ordinary, and even be complimented on what I was wearing.

What I also find interesting is that certain types of clothing seem to be commonly perceived as “kinky clothing”; wearing said clothing marks you as a member of the BDSM community, e.g. I went to a munch recently, which was purely a social gathering, and even though there was no dress code, practically everyone there was wearing black. (I showed up in what I had been wearing all day: a pink floral sun dress and white tights.)

Clothing might even be an integral part of whatever activity you might be engaging in, e.g. whipping someone, tying someone up, whatever. In this sense the clothes take on a performative value; they are aiding you in doing BDSM.

While parties like this are valuable because they provide a space where BDSMers can dress the way they want without fearing any sort of negative repercussions, I wonder if it’s necessary to have a dress code in the first place:

cost: $15 in proper attire, $30 sharp all black
dress code: Fetish wear, creatively dressed, burner beautiful, uniforms

- Taken from the description of one of New York City’s regular “Suspension” events. Event listing found on Fetlife.

At this party, people who adhere to the dress code get in at a cheaper price, people who wear black get in at the regular price, and I assume people who are dressed casually don’t get in at all. I don’t really know what they mean by “creatively dressed”, but I guess that’s up to the organizers/people at the door to decide.

Again, I think it’s great that BDSMers have spaces where they can wear what they want to wear, but having a dress code could potentially alienate BDSMers who wish to dress casually, or who don’t have a clothing component to their kinks and can “do” BDSM while wearing their regular clothes:

I think one of the most disappointing things I saw when I went to my first leather (not BDSM, but “leather”) events was that everyone was in the same uniform. I guess that should be expected from a community that places a high emphasis on protocol, but it also negates or devalues a lot of other interesting expressions of dominance and submission (let alone switchiness).

I’ve seen a lot more fluidity of sexual expression in my friends from the west coast for some reason. Not sure why that is, but it’s been liberating to talk to them about switching roles, dressing up (or not) and mostly just doing whatever they want that feels right.

- Excerpt from a message exchange with a friend on Fetlife.

I have at least one other acquaintance who I know tends to avoid parties like this because of the dress code (among other reasons, I think).

There’s nothing wrong with dressing up, but I wonder, do I not think kinky thoughts and do kinky things regardless of what I’m wearing; am I not still “kinky” when I take off the corset?

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Connecting BDSM and past abuse/harm

Wilhelmina Wang — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:30:04 +0000

I read Salon.com fairly frequently, and have read many articles of theirs addressing feminist issues, sex politics and porn, so when I saw they’d posted an article about spanking, my interest was definitely piqued. After reading the sub-headline alone, though, I already knew I’d have lots to say about this article:

Fetishists open up about their private thrill, where it came from — and how normal they really are.

Sigh.

First off, the writer of the article is clearly vanilla, and not just vanilla but quite the wide-eyed n00b. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I feel like every time I see BDSM depicted or talked about in the mainstream media (when it is at all), it’s usually through the eyes of someone who doesn’t do BDSM. I mean, why not get a spanko to write the article? Or, if that’s too hard considering people aren’t typically “out” about their fetishes at work, why not have a collection of interviews and have the spankos tell their story themselves?

Anyway, what bothered me the most about the article was this:

Logic would dictate that the need is Freudian: that spankos were spanked as children and eroticized that abuse. But while many of the people I spoke to for this piece were spanked when they were little, just as many were not.

[Emphasis mine.]

Okay, it’s only one paragraph of the entire article. But, again, the concept of BDSM being the direct result of some sort of emotional/physical abuse or scarring or general mental fucked-up-ness is something I feel like I run in to a lot. And the thing is, whether or not people who practice BDSM are also dealing with emotional issues is neither here or there. Sure, there are probably some people who do BDSM due to some sort of abuse in their past. There are also probably plenty of people who have issues and do BDSM without the two things having a connection. What bothers me is that I feel like people tend to jump from “BDSM” to “emotional issues” all too quickly when, for me, that isn’t at all a logical step to make. BDSM and actual abuse are two very, very different things, and asking someone if they like spanking because they were spanked as a child makes just as much sense as asking someone if they like spanking because they liked strawberry ice cream as a child.

This reminds me of the movie Secretary. While Secretary does draw a difference between BDSM and (self-)harm, it still situates the two things very close to one another. Lee is shown getting into BDSM right after getting out of rehab for hurting herself, and overcomes her self-harm habit partly through her submission. Again, I don’t think that connection never exists in people, but I’m not sure it’s all that common as seems to be popularly believed.

What do you guys think? Am I completely off the mark here?

Edit [03/22/11]: I was talking about this post with an acquaintance, who he had this to say:

It’s still slightly frustrating to see yet another person trying to pin the ’cause’ for BDSM/fetish behaviour on childhood trauma.

To which I replied:

That’s another reason why it bothers me, too. I mean, you don’t see anyone going around asking people “so, what is the cause of you liking penis-in-vagina, missionary sex?”

Which I thought was important enough of a point to add on here.

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Do you want to tie me up? …Platonically?

Wilhelmina Wang — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 06:15:26 +0000

This probably isn’t very novel or mindblowing or even particularly interesting to read for many of you, yet I feel the need to articulate it in some way: I don’t always associate BDSM with sex.

Like I said: not a new concept. However, considering my relative newness to BDSM, it is a concept that I’ve had some difficulty managing. While I think that most seasoned BDSM-ers know that not everyone likes to connect the two things, for some reason I’ve always been worried that if I ask someone to tie me up at a play party, they might think that I’m also hitting on them. I mean, it would be a fair assumption to make. And, while I obviously enjoy incorporating BDSM into my sex life, getting tied up gives me many sensations and feelings that aren’t necessarily sexual: peace, security, vulnerability, joy. Sometimes I can appreciate rope bondage purely for its artistry; and sometimes learning how to tie from someone or trying out new ties is simply fascinating and fun.

I’m not really afraid of the other person taking it too far, or assuming that because I want to do X, I might also want to do Y and Z. I’ve always felt very safe in the kinky events I have gone to; and because of the usual emphasis on consent and negotiation in most BDSM communities, I can trust the other person won’t try to do anything else before asking me first. I am, however, afraid of sending the message that, though I might not want to do anything sexual now, I might want to later. I’m afraid of misleading the other person and then having to “reject” them. Doing that is always really unpleasant.

I suppose one of the inherent problems with socializing at events where the primary thing everyone has in common revolves around sexuality, i.e. being into BDSM or being a queer woman, is that some people will think you’re looking for sex. Since I’ve been dating L, I have been trying to meet people both in the BDSM and queer women communities and it’s always a little awkward to explain that #1 I’m in a monogamous relationship and #2 my significant other isn’t here with me because we don’t live in the same place.¹ It’s not like I think you need to be dating someone to justify looking to make friends or to participate in non-sexual BDSM, but it definitely has been more of an issue for me, personally, since dating L.

…There should be a hanky code for this.

And then re: the queer women events, there’s the added difficulty of having to explain that I still identify as queer and want to meet other queer women even though I’m currently dating a man.

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Cunt

Wilhelmina Wang — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:02:19 +0000

Not exactly up to par with the Vagina Monologues piece, but the word is just so perfect that I can’t not write an ode to it. Labels, in a sense, mean nothing, but they can also mean everything. Or anything.

This also appears to be part of a slightly grandiose and ridiculous trend with me; of putting the female on a pedestal. It’s not something I really believe in… except, of course, when he is under me, calling himself my fucktoy, saying that I can do as I want with him.

I call it my cunt. C-U-N-T, cunt. Vagina sounds like a hollow vessel, a medical term for a cavity that disappears speculums and latex-gloved hands. Pussy brings to mind glitter and colors and lace. Girly. Say it: pussy. Feel your tongue curl. It’s a delicate word; delicate and tasty like silk strands of pink cotton candy; like cunnilingus.

I call it my cunt when I’m fucking you with it, as opposed to getting fucked in it. I say cunt in every sense of the word: the c and t sounds spat from the mouths of hooligans in pubs, brawling, flinging the word at each other as a sharp-spined insult; whispered by lesbians under the sheets, mouths parting gently on the vowel; shrieked from the rooftops by women, shirtless, big-mouthed, and defiant.

It will draw you in, please you and make you disintegrate. It will clutch you, put you at my mercy. It will end you, and begin you.

I call it my cunt.

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Temple

Wilhelmina Wang — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:40:32 +0000

I’m bracing my hand on your chest, using you for leverage in all reasonable respects. Now and again my fingers ghost towards your neck; my nails dig into the muscle that slopes down from your neck to your shoulder. I’m pulling you into me; quick and shallow and then lingeringly, so slow that you can feel all of me. As I stare openly at you, it occurs to me that your cock only makes sense when it’s inside me. When you enter me I feel as if my cunt is a temple; a sacred place of transformative power; a place that can change your genitalia from something absurd and nonsensical into something… focused. Directed. Pleasurable. Dangling between your legs, your cock is soft and out of place and silly and only causes you irritation. Does it not? But trapped between my legs, it becomes instrumental to your gasps, to the convulsions that sweep through your body.

—

You tell me that once you pass a certain threshold of your arousal, you cease to think; you fuck me with abandon, thinking nothing of me and only of your own pleasure.

That’s the way it should be.

I want you to pin me down, grab my hips, spread my legs and sink yourself into me. I want you to hold my shoulders and pull me hard and jarringly back against you. I want to say, “this is your ass, your cunt, so take it, take them.”

Fuck me until you’ve had your fill.

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