BDSM and Feminism?

Of course I know that we've been affected and influenced by human history. I'm a feminist, so of course I agree with that.
What I disagree with is your assertion that we have been selectively bred to enjoy submission. That it is now somehow part of our DNA.
This is a dangerous argument, because genes are what makes us what we are in a biological sense. We don't have control over the genes that we possess. I can't change my eye colour for example. So, if a woman has the so-called gene for submissiveness, then she's stuck with that isn't she? (And I'm not really sure whether I think BDSM is harmful or harmless - I'm on the fence at the moment).
I think there's a much simpler explanation for people liking the idea of BDSM. I think it's socialisation. From a very young age we are exposed to ideas where girls and women are weaker, are captured, need rescuing from the scary man. We get this idea from stories and cartoons when we're young.
Some people grow up to love the idea of being rescued by the knight in shining armour, some grow up preferring the idea of the bad guy tieing them up. It's playing out a fantasy.

Well, I find your insistence that we are not a product of human history odd.

Yes, at some times and in some places humans have been selectively bred like dogs.

Yes, at some points and places in human history, women have been forced to adapt to kidnapping and forced sexual relationships as the norm. Tribes/villages have resorted to women stealing frequently. Rape has been used as an instrument of war frequently. Rape victims do report the ability to dissociate as being a key feature of surviving the experience. Everyone knows about fight or flight being instinctive responses to threats, but freeze and fawn are also instinctive responses to threats. Some people run, some people fight back, some people freeze/switch off due to fear and some people flatter/fawn over the aggressor. All are survival strategies. It's not a big leap from freeze or fawn to protective mechanisms evolving that enables people to survive prolonged capture. Stockholm Syndrome is a well documented and recognized phenomenon. Now imagine how that develops when there is no rescue, no rehabilitation no it continues over whole lifetimes for generations.

I'm not saying that only women who enjoyed it would bear children. But I am saying that the survival chances of offspring are better when the mother forms a "relationship" with the aggressor/kidnapper, gets the aggressor/kidnapper to care for the offspring, and who herself survives (doesn't fight back) and sticks around (doesn't run off). Women will often do anything for their children. Someone who is actually able to develop feelings and positive sexual response to such an aggressor has a better chance of pulling that off than someone who pretends.

I am saying that the reason that submission etc is something that both men and women can derive pleasure in safe and consensual setting I. The current epoch, is from something linked to a capacity that evolved in part as a response to enable surviving oppression and subjugation for long periods of time in the millennia gone by (by which I mean generations). That subjugation can be by "other" communities or within communities.

People who practise BDSM now do so in a framework of consent. But the reason people feel a need at all to practice it is in part linked to a survival need from other times. The ability to run fast didn't evolve so we could hold Olympics Games and win medals. It evolved to evade predators.

As I understand it, to people who practise BDSM, it has nothing to do with rape. It's about consent.

biscuit - I find your argument very odd to be honest. Are you suggesting that some women who have been kidnapped and raped throughout history have somehow enjoyed the experience? Or that they could only bear children if they did enjoy it? Or that we have been selectively bred like dogs?
If you're saying that submissiveness is now part of our DNA through the process of evolution then it would follow that that is part of our nature.
None of that makes the blindest bit of sense to me.

I feel that it's deeply unfeminist to tell a woman what she should or shouldn't find sexually arousing, what I might like to do in the bedroom does not in any way shape or form impact on how I want to be treated outside of it. I am in a mild bdsm relationship and if he ever disrespected me outside of a sexual setting he would be history in a heartbeat.

I get a massive kick out of being sub because it takes away all the responsibility I have in the other areas of my life but I am beginning to wonder if I'm just lazy and want him to do all the work 😂 Actually I am only partly joking there because I do switch from time to time which he enjoys.

Story, posted too soon...

One that is realistic about how far oppression can reach into our lives.

Evoltution can happen quickly seachange. It's punctuated equilibrium, not gradual change. Never mind the possibility of deliberate sexual selection for a characteristic, or selective breeding.

Plus, people have been treated as livestock at times in human history. People of both sexes have been bred for certain characteristics like animals in societies where slavery was prevalent.

I'm saying that some people have sexual submission as part of their inherited preferences. Not that being "sexually submissive is part of our natural make-up". Those inherited preferences have been imposed on those people. So the socialization has been physicalised. In the same way it is institutionalised.

That to me explains why some people are genuinely sexually submissive and get real physical pleasure from it and have no problem with it. Some people have that but are deeply conflicted about it. Some people are not sexually submissive (or sexually dominant) at all. Then socialization is another layer/level in that.

And I think it is a feminist view- one that is realistic about the deep effects and extent of patriarchy and oppression. One that is realistic about how

Not evolution. That takes too long. Socialisation rather.
Basically you're saying that being sexually submissive is part of our natural makeup? That's not a feminist view.

My take on this is an evolutionary one.

The fact that some/many women get sexual pleasure from pain or submission shows how dark the history of human sexuality is.

Women have been kidnapped/beaten etc so often as a matter of course over history that finding sexual enjoyment from these things is a genetic adaptation that helped women survive in dark times.

In some circumstances, you're more likely to survive long enough to reproduce after being kidnapped by a neighbouring tribe if you have a place inside you can go to that let's you submit/be hurt and derive enjoyment from it, rather that instinctually just fighting back.

It made me so intensely sorrowful that that is part of our history when I first thought that. Subjugation written into our DNA.

You're assuming wrong, Branleuse. I think there are many problematic things a feminist can do as an individual. If someone can reconcile it with their feminism, good for them. I find it difficult, personally. For many reasons which I am not going to go into here.

I've definitely been on threads picking apart heteronormative sexuality. For instance, BDSM aside, "normal" sex (i.e. the mainstream stuff in Hollywood films that maybe get a 12 or 15 cert) often involves heavy overtones of female submission (e.g. the Twilight saga, or even the famous kiss in the Empire Strikes Back) which - here's the thing - isn't seen as submissive, merely as the natural order of things. So much so that when I wrote a sex scene with a woman instigating it and expressing what she wanted in bed (it was a pretty equal sex scene in my eyes, with two very enthusiastic participants, just doing what turned them on, and very vanilla), it was commented on as being the woman being dominant. And yet (I write fanfic), had I written the self same scene as two men, it would not have been read as sub-Dom in the slightest. In fact, had it been a M/M piece, it might have even got a certain subset of readers (the sort who want their male-male fiction clearly labelled with a "bottom" and a "top") complaining that, over the course of the whole piece, it was all wrong because who was topping swapped over!

There have been a number of them. They're some of the most controversial on here.

I dont see anyone making threads on here picking apart heteronormative stuff , even if there is feminist analysis in academic circles.

There's huge amount of feminist analysis around heteronormativity and consent, so no, thinking about your sexuality in political terms is not something specific to BDSM.

Generally people talk about their sexual interests changing and developing when they think about them.

I don't think anyone on here is advocating anyone start or stop being involved in BDSM?

and is it just people who are into alternative stuff who have to pick apart the sociological reasons they like the consensual things they do?

so if its really problematic for a feminist to have BDSM interests, would it be hypothetically best if she just stuck to the kind of sex she wasnt really interested in? Or maybe just not have sex at all? Wonder how long that would last.

Im assuming the people that think that its anti-feminist, arent actually interested in BDSM type activities, so its pretty easy to criticise other peoples sexual tastes

The comments about men are about situations they are in, I think, Psykhe. There seems to be a suggestion much of that is with prostitutes anyway.

I had a debate about topping and dominance with my sister the other day, where she considers them to be the same and I think they are very different.

Topping and domming can be interchangeable. I've often seen it described as- dominant what you are, topping what you do. It is more the physical side. Service topping; the bottom topping the dominant under their instruction.

Men feature nowhere near my sexual relationships. I am grinning at some of the comments on here about how it centres on men on what they want.

What do you mean by topping, Ophelia? Do you think of it as being distinct from domination?

And by get off do you mean have an orgasm or a more emotional sense of satisfaction?

Eh?

thinking anything political about positions or acts in bed is weird, but if being forceably unable to lead takes responsibility away and could be quite fun maybe. i would hate it in its fullest sense..but thsts me. i think the finamcial and psychological end of things is potentially highly damaging and odd.and have sat next to an abusive woman and her partner in a pub and she was hinting at bdsm on him..and her motives were nastiness not 'lets try out a kink'

being subservient to sexual pleasure seems ok imo

A female dom can get off quite easily any way from topping, if you're unsure. HTH.

That was in reference to you're "small penis" post. An aspect of humiliation. Obviously humiliating is not the main element the clue is in the word "Dom".
An element of domination can include or omit humiliation by choice.

You are being quite rude, actually!

A female Dom finds it enjoyable to dominate a man. Humiliation is not the main element.

She deleted all the more personal elements of her blog, which was a shame because she had been able to discuss in that what she did like and finding suitable partners that she'd had that experience with.

I was wondering if things have moved on for dominant women and they are finding appropriate partners more easily now.

almondpudding
A female dom finds it enticing to humiliate a man.
Telling a man he "has a small penis" (even though he may not) is basically a way of saying "your penis does not satisfy me and you're inferior". You need to try harder to pleasure me... or thereabouts. A female dom gets off on knowing her sub will be later on his knees to bring her to orgasm in whichever way she wants.

But seriously, on the bdsm scene the small penis thing is not tremendously prolific. Most have better imaginations!

spottytop1 nailed it when stating mutual satisfaction

I partake lightly in bdsm and the only time I topped was to "train" my new top what to do to me, as his sub, and it resulted in our beautiful bonding.