Fifty Shades

In the same vein Bertie, I think it would be easy for vulnerable women to go along with being the sub, in theory giving consent, but more going along with it because they find it too difficult to stand up for themselves.

I think the problem with BDSM is that it would be extremely easy for an abuser to latch onto and label their own actions as "BDSM" when they're not, they're abuse. And I think that this does happen very much, although I am sure there are also a lot of couples/singles/swingers/whatever who genuinely do it because they enjoy it and it is a mutual thing rather than a power thing.

I used to know a couple of people who were so heavily into the BDSM scene that they ran workshops on how to do it safely. Don't know now it is becoming more mainstream - but then in the 80's, they would say it was an open secret amongst those into BDSM, that it was about childhood abuse. And in the 80's heard a few others as well saying that they knew they were re-enacting childhood abuse, but had a compulsion to do so.

Not blaming those individuals though.

SGB, I agree that BDSM is about safe scares. The first time I went to a dungeon my partner and I collapsed into giggles for about 15 minutes and we were on a massive endorphin rush for the rest of the day.

The idea that people into BDSM are somehow tortured souls is ridiculous. It's hard to generalise about a scene, but I find most people are LESS fucked up than others, or at least more ok about their fuckedupness.

POPG: I think she did remove a lot of stuff from her blog, can't remember whether it was a legal issue or something that happened in her personal life.

FWIW regarding your question on why people do BDSM, well my take on it (which may or may not be what Bitchy Jones thinks, I am not her and I can't remember if she ever addressed this specifically) is that it's got a certain amount in common with things like roller coasters and horror films as well as with extreme sports; a mixture of 'safe scares', catharsis, pushing your body to your limits for the adrenalin/endorphin kicks, exploring your imagination etc etc. Different people have different reasons - the Bizzybiz blog linked to upthread also criticizes 50 Shades of Shit for its portrayal of BDSMers as fucked-up idiots and tortured souls when many of us are not like that at all.

Those thousands of free sites then ask viwers to follow different paths to the type of porn they are seeking. Therefore if you are seeking for example male dom/female sub then that is what you will find. If it is female dom/male sub then that also. I doubt there is such a thing as mainstream porn anymore. When I was young, pornography was always a magazine or a video portraying a man and a woman having sex, with few variations. Young people today will find it just as easy to find very extreme and disturbing images and videos, and I am concerned about that. So I don't think there is mainstream porn as I knew it anymore.

Of course there's mainstream porn. All you have to do is type "porn" into a search engine and thousands of free sites come up. How much more mainstream do you want to get?

Thanks, it was a genuine question. I don't know what mainstream porn. In my younger days maybe softporn or what might be on TV. I don't know if mainstream porn exists anymore.

pornmonkey, I mean the sort of stuff you can find with a couple of clicks on the top ranking sites if you google 'porn'. I stopped using porn a while ago so have no desire to go and look for specific examples but I seem to remember rather a lot of it was about causing women pain, restraining them or humiliating them. Frequently all three.

SGB, I followed the link through to the blog. I feel like I learnt a lot about what she doesn't like about BDSM and a lot of that is for feminist reasons. It's an entertaining blog and I found myself nodding along. Some of her criticisms seem to be the same as some of those on the radfem blog I linked to earlier.

What I couldn't find anywhere was any sort of analysis of why somebody might enjoy dominating, hurting and humiliating somebody else for sexual pleasure, or why somebody might enjoy being the one who is dominated, hurt or humiliated. That seemed to be just assumed as a given. I couldn't find any discussion of what BDSM might mean in a world where one half of the species dominating the other half is just normal. It looks like she's removed a lot of stuff from the blog though, or maybe I missed it if it's there.

The bit at the end with 'oh come on' and the picture of Jesus made me roar.

Had a nasty choking incident on reading "And how about the eyes ? are they just rolling around loose on the floor, or what?"

Someone at work assured me I should read 50 Shades, she was sure I'd love it. Clearly she doesn't know me very well.

That link of trills to that blog has made my day. What an absolute crock of shit that book is (admittedly I only read a few pages of it standing up in Tesco).

Fair enough grown dullards women liking it, but I am a bit apprehensive that kids my daughter's age would read this as one step up/down from the Twilight nonsense.

Mind you I read Shirley Conran's Lace when I was 12 and have managed to get through adulthood without having a goldfish up my chuff, so who knows.

But I really dislike this and Twilight having an abusive and controlling relationship at its centre all dressed up as something thrilling and wonderful.

Ooh that blog is awesome and she is a fan of Mark Reads Twilight which I ADORE. I'm finding so many good blogs today

TCM - ew. That's kind of on a par with saying lesbianism is caused by breastfeeding. ie, totally unsubstantiated and ridiculous.

It's crept into mainstream porn too, and whereas the BDSM scene is fairly evenly split in terms of male/female sub/dom, suddenly it's nearly all male dom / female sub.

In this age of Internet pornography, what do you mean by mainstream porn please?

Absolutely love that blog link, giggling away to myself... but WRT the actual 50 Shades of Shit: It's awful. Don't waste your money. It's another of these shitheap books that are liked by the sort of idiots who haven't read a book since they were 10.

If you want to read erotic fiction there's much better stuff out there. And if you want to consider BDSM from a feminist point of view you could have a look at Bitchy Jones - that link is safe btw as it goes to the Wikipedia entry on the blog rather than the blog itself.

People like all sorts of things that are bad for them and for others. I don't exclude myself in that.

What sort of experiences have you had that make you get off on hurting women? That would be an interesting study.

quite onofficial observations

but why the sarcasm? does it offend you?

Are those official studies you are making, TCM ?

Can we look forward to them being published, to enhance all our knowledge about this topic ?

That certainly sounds like a noble and selfless act you are making for the good of us all

being abused, tourtured, humiliated is of course detrimental to the victim. except within the realms of BDSM where the victim activly desires the treatment from someone they trust.

pubes, yes the domme is actually performing a service for the mans sexual gratification, but then so in the dom, for the female subs pleasure, sorry, you cant have it both ways.

lots of women have submissive compulsions , and i have tried to study what types of women and what sort of experiences they might have had to bring them to BDSM. i had some ideas before i started, mabye many proffessional women and business women would like to give up responsability and domminance as a fantasy as escapism? maybe some women were simply weak and desired it? maybe some had a guilt complex and felt they needed to be punished? but my onofficial conclusion is it can be anyone , i know a lecurer at utrect university, a business woman from birmingham , a farmers daughter in kansas and a check-out girl from london, and i could go on. all are subs, all are comfortable with their compulsions and none of them would say their fantasys made them less strong or able to deal with day to day life.

whats for sure is, no amount of philosophy will stop these women from seeking out the treatment they desire.

DO NOT read it!

Someone bought me it for my birthday and swore it wasthe best book in history. It's absolute shite, not only does it make every feminist bone in my body weep, it's really badly written.

The bizzybiz blog that Melty linked too is great, especially because it is written by someone (seemingly) knowledgeable about BDSM who debunks a lot of the utter crap in 50 Shades. I am resolutely avoiding, although I do find myself having that feeling that I need to read it in order to fully appreciate its awfulness

It's crept into mainstream porn too, and whereas the BDSM scene is fairly evenly split in terms of male/female sub/dom, suddenly it's nearly all male dom / female sub. This is where our young people are learning about sexuality. I have no doubt that 50 shades will be read by a lot of young girls, too. It's very worrying.

It's dreadful.
I didn't finish it and what I did read was exceptionally badly written, and not worth my time.
I have read the Twilight books, and while I think they were lightweight nonsense, albeit with a bad message for young impressionable girls, they weren't nearly as poorly written.

I was discussing it with a friend, and she directed me to this site:
Someone blogging about how bad it is
I've read what she (the blogger) has written so far. It does not inspire me to read the remainder of 50 SOG.
The characterisation is awful, the language is poorly used, and while I dont know anything about the BDSM scene, I don't think the writer does either.

And if you are a rape survivior, I definitely wouldn't read it. The whole book seems to be Ana saying no and the delightful Christian ignoring everything she says. It just made me mad.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and I find it a bit worrying that BDSM seems to becoming more mainstream. I have no problem with people wanting to do it, I just wonder if some are doing it while not being into it but being coerced.

It used to be a very niche thing, with a lot of older people: now I wonder if a lot of people are going to clubs just because it's a sex thing and ending up doing stuff that they don't really want to do.

I think 50 Shades of Shit might feed into that. And that would be horrible.