Article about BDSM scene not being any more egalitarian than anywhere else.

This thread has moved on slightly since I started writing my post, hopefully it is okay still to post it.

Andro, thank you for taking the time to write such an informative and full response to my post. You put me outside the BDSM scene, which suggests a clear line between those in the scene and those outside it. Not being flippant, but how is that line drawn?

Secondly, you stress that BDSM is not always about pain (point taken), but then state that it may be about control. To quote ?For a lot of Dom(me)s it's not about getting off on causing pain, it's about being able to control with absolute precision what their sub is experiencing?. This bothers me. The need/desire to be able to control what someone else is experiencing. I am trying to see how that can be a healthy relationship, because to me controlling someone has many negative connotations.

However, I don?t wish to pursue the second point, really, because it sounds like I am judging people?s choices, which I am not, I am trying to understand my own reaction to something. I certainly don't intend to upset anyone.

Yes I agree with you.

Going to leave this thread now, having some problems in my personal life at the moment and I feel like I'll end up getting too involved and upset.

Er, I don't really think that's fair Fastidia.

I said that personally I don't particularly enjoy analysing sexual practices, mainly because I think it's too emotive for people to discuss without offending/getting offended. I also think that there is a lot of emphasis placed on sexuality that could be placed elsewhere.

I think that you could go and find a million articles about BDSM gone wrong...it doesn't mean that BDSM is inherently abusive.

Andro wrote - "When you look at the Mosuo people, the application of true matriarchy is a questionable as a patriarchy is. Female authority is absolute, no male can match it on any issue - it's the direct opposite of the more common patriarchal society."

The Mosuo culture is not the direct opposite of patriarchal society. The men have the political power and the women do the housework. It's more matrilineal, in which women are often the head of the household, inheritance is through the female line, and women make business decisions (perhaps similar to how the family of a single mother might operate elsewhere).

Anyway, any female authority in the Mosuo people is now subservient to the patriarchal Communist Party of China.

I don't think I said that it shouldn't, Doctrine

JustA, I can understand someone personally finding it difficult to analyse sexuality politically because of the emotion involved but that doesn't mean it shouldn't and cannot be done.

you can't argue with it. you either get it or you don't. sex that isn't for procreation is for fun, and i think there are more worrying parts to the patriarchy than what consenting adults like to get up to in the sack. concentrate on abuse and keep your opinion on other peoples consensual pleasures to yourself maybe? Any relationship can be abusive.

Sexual practices get attention (from feminists anyway) because we live in a culture where women are sexually oppressed by men as a consequence of our sex, through the means of sexuality, reproduction rights and sexualised violence. Female oppression is a sex based (in the biological sense) oppression. Hence the interest in matters of a sexual nature. Pregnancy, abortion, rape, DV, sexual abuse, VAW, PIV, contraception - these are all big issues for feminism because they are direct consequences or reasons for our oppression.

Andro. Are you being serious?

Do the women in this culture rape and impregnate the men?
Have they defined the men as chattel, as belonging to the women, to be sold off for sexual gratification and heir producing?
Do they have a rape culture? Do the women keep the men in line with violence, sexualised violence? Do the women sexually mutilate the men or place restrictions on their movements, education and actions? Do they have a porn culture, a prostitution culture?

Who does the housework? (no, I'm not joking.)

Hrm, not sure I'm buying that Doctrine . Yes, men express power over women with sex, that's true. But I think that sexual practices get undue attention really - and I think it's primarily because they are more interesting. For me, it's really the least interesting aspect of feminism, because it is way too emotionally complex for me to look at in a political way. Anyway, sort of off the point of the thread.

Sexual practices get feminist attention because (a) sex has been/is a way of expressing male power over female and (b) it's a very important part of our lives where typically men and women interact regularly (so the gender pay gap gets more notice than Morris dancing because it affects a wider population of women)

Right. So which aspect of Mosuo culture is routinely sexually fetishized in BDSM?

The same ones you define as being examples of a fetishist version of patriarchal culture...if you choose to look at BDSM as the fetishization of patriarchy.

The roles in society are just reversed, the female is the power figure and the males have to behave in a certain way to achieve favour. Sexual relations are entirely at the female's discretion with the male having little control. Take that into the BDSM arena and it could be argued that the submissive role is a fetishization of male subservience, with the Dominant taking the role of the authority female - irrespective of gender.

"I said BDSM is the fetishization of abuse."

I don't think that's true. It's a very emotive way of putting it.

I see what you're saying about power structures and yes, perhaps it is true. For many, BDSM has really deep roots, even pre-sexual. I enjoyed being tied up from a very young age (as in 5 or 6). And very often, for me, BDSM just feels like messing about, being silly, playing a character, in a way that we don't generally as adults.

It feels like a very sexualised version of the play we took part in as children. Really, most human relationships/dynamics are about power - I'm not sure why sexual practices get the most attention from some in the feminist community.

Right. So which aspect of Mosuo culture is routinely sexually fetishized in BDSM?

"Well BDSMers present it like that."

Where's your evidence for that massive sweeping generalisation?

When you look at the Mosuo people, the application of true matriarchy is a questionable as a patriarchy is. Female authority is absolute, no male can match it on any issue - it's the direct opposite of the more common patriarchal society.

Can we get a banner at the top of FWRC saying "One swallows doesn't make a summer and two women don't make a matriarchy"?

What is matriarchy Branleuse?

Where does it exist and how does it manifest in terms of human society, culture and politics? What is its power dynamic, what are its power structures?

What would you say is being sexually fetishized when 'matriarchy' is being fetishized?

they just love a bit of something or another-archy

some of it is fetishiing matriarchy

Andro - it doesn't matter who is sub or who is dom.

It could be two women.

It is still a (very conformist) fetishization of patriarchal paradigms.

I said BDSM is the fetishization of abuse.

Although it is very often just plain abuse - as outlined in the article in the OP.