"BDSM is a sexual orientation, not a fetish"

[Felascloak]

An LG BT group in Iceland is including people who identify as BDSM as a sexual identity

grapevine.is/news/2016/03/08/bdsm-in-iceland-joins-up-with-national-queer-organisation/

Maybe I am too old but this seems crazy and i hope it doesnt become wudespread. Firstly I don't want to have to listen as my coworkers/acquaintances "come out" as BDSM. Other people's sex lives are not really my business and I'd feel really uncomfortable. I don't feel like it's the same as coming out gay as when gay people come out its about their whole life and relationships, not what turns them on.
I also think logically if you accept BDSM are a "sexual orientation" then the same caSE could be made for paedophilia and that's something that some paedophiles have been pushing for forever.
The whole thing makes me feel icky.

Nina it's appalling isn't it? Paedophiles tried this in the early 70s. I'm a bit sceptical about the "born this way" argument about homosexuality. I get that it's useful in conservative cultures to persuade people to accept homosexuality but it isn't necessarily progressive in itself. I have no idea why some people are gay because (a) it's none of my business and (b) being gay is a positive and beneficial way of life. I don't care if paedophiles or BDSM'ers are born that way as they are not positive or beneficial ways of life.

"The sex (male or female) of the person who is causing the arousal isn't relevant."

What do you mean, Mephisto? I'm confused.

NinaSimone I've apologised once already. All I said was that experts believe that, rather than being a fetish/paraphilia, paedophilia is an orientation, like heterosexuality, and just as resistant to change. I'm not trying to slur anyone.

BDSM isn't a sexual orientation. It is a social construct. It is just using the hierarchy of gender or sometimes subverting it. If gender roles/patriarchy/oppression didn't exist, it wouldn't exist.

Hmmm I dont necessarily see BDSM as an orientation but I think its more complex than a fetish. It's certainly a way of life. And you definitely dont pick if you're a D/S, you just know.

flora disagree with your blanket assumption that all BDSM relationships arent positive and bizarre lumping it in with pedophilia

One has nothing to do with the other.

This is infuriating. How dare they compare the fetishising of unequality to loving relationships between people of the same sex?

Bugger off from the LGB, kinksters. If they are added, paedophilia could definitely be added next - and God knows what else. Both these groups have been trying hard before.

Notice though, that it's a "queer" organisation. If LBG people are now labelled with the offensive word "queer" - strange - it makes sense that anyone else sexually strange would be allowed under that category.
That's another thing I find offensive, it's not queer or strange to fancy someone of the same sex.

And you definitely dont pick if you're a D/S, you just know.

Strongly disagree. There are people who do both. A friend of mine wanted to get into BDSM and started as a sub. However, she ended up as a dom. She found it to be the safest option. In the end she left the subculture because she couldn't stand all the misogyny and abuse of young women.

prawn I didn't express that very well. I mean that normative human sexual behaviour is within the same spectrum whether you're attracted to men or women. The sexual response and triggers and function are all within a range regardless of sexual orientation. The sexual orientation is what makes you gay, straight or bi, but sexual behaviour and response isn't the same as sexual orientation.
BDSM isn't a sexual orientation, it's a deviation, because it's a sexual behaviour and response outside of normative human behaviour. It becomes a fetish if it's the only way that a person is sexually aroused.

Interesting Thread- I just cant understand why BDSM is not identified as the structured abuse it most certainly is and why the LBG community would, in any form, wish to be associated with it.

This is odd. I have no problem with (healthy, consensual) BDSM or any other kink or fetish, but it seems like something that should be private! Why people would want to 'come out' about their particular turn-ons is beyond me. Unless you're my current or potential sexual partner, I really don't need to know.

Sorry snow that didnt come out as I meant it to. Yes I do know people who are Switches and enjoy both however I and lots of my friends just are one or the other and we couldn't be anything else and didnt choose it; I was it before I even knew what it was. Does that make sense?

That being said, I know people that are Switches and enjoy back and forth but havent heard of anyone actually choosing to change from S to D before, thats interesting!

Yes I'd quite like to know the answer to that question too, Buffy.

Also agree with Flora's post @ 16:26.

Odd? Odder to keep the abuse private I would have thought.

I do not believe that people from birth belong to BDSM roles. No one is born a slave or master, but is shaped that way by society and experiences.
I do know that some people are born with a lack of empathy and are more likely to act dominant, controlling and abusive.

My friend made calculated decisions. She wanted to join what she saw as a glamorous lifestyle. As a young woman, the message was that she ought to be a sub. Being a sub sucked, so she choose dom. In the end, even though she got her highs from SM scenes she again made the choice to leave it behind and engage in healthy equal relationships. She isn't the only woman who has experienced something similar. For example, many young women got into BDSM (and then left) because of past rape and abuse. There is an idea going around that it's supposed to help them cope with trauma; as if being pretend raped all over again by a sadist man is going to heal them.

"She wanted to join what she saw as a glamorous lifestyle"

Hmm...thats interesting. It doesnt really sound like it was the lifestyle for her so I'm glad she got out.

I gravitated towards a sub role before I knew anything about the "scene". I personally dont go to fetish clubs or anything that involves being in public, all done with people I know and trust in my home - I also dont tell people about it unless they're very close friends. It started from a young age, beginning with being facinated by restraints in a way I couldnt explain. I've never seen it as a club I wanted to join, in fact spent most of my teens feeling like there was something the matter with me.

I dont see myself as abused or opressed. Am happy and I have the kind of relationship I always wanted.

Have to say, though, that Ive met some Doms that should come with a health warning!

lemon I don't see anything positive in acting out other people's suffering for sexual kicks. It's not positive to degrade or dominate others nor to be degraded or dominated. It seems to have been around for as long as hierarchies have existed so it's hardly edgy.

Even if they both consent and it makes them happy?

That is not information that needs to be shared with colleagues though. How would they find out?

I'm an employer and other than if I were sleeping with an employee (which I wouldn't be, as it's generally frowned on anyway) I can't imagine any situation where I would find out one of my employees was into BDSM.

On the other hand if one of my employees was into BDSM and was telling other employees all about what they were up to I would be having a word with that person, accompanied by someone from HR as no other employees should have to put up with being regaled with the details of someone else's sex life.


lemon isn't that just a fetish though? I have heard male acquaintances say similar about shoes and tights. No one would argue being a foot fetishist was a orientation though!

buffy I think some people feel oppressed because they can't enact their dom/sub relationship in public. It's a strange definition of oppression.

felas I don't know really. I'm not arguing for it to be an orientation BTW, that seems odd. I'm just chipping in to counter those calling it abuse.

I suppose I feel like it is more than a fetish because it isnt centred around one object/dress/activity - its a wide ranging life style choice and means different things to different people and manifests in many ways...I guess maybe kink is a good word? Hard to say, I don't know enough about the definitions.

"I'm just chipping in to counter those calling it abuse."
Isn't that the kicker though? You are free to criticize particular sexual practises because you feel they are problematic/abusive/stupid, or just downright weird (like being sexually aroused by sherbet lemons say, due to a youthful fixation on Dumbledore........), even if those indulging in them are two (or more) consenting adults. But if someone gets to label a practise (or a group of practises, like BDSM) as an orientation (hence what a person is in some sense), then that is now out of bounds!

The difference between, say, thinking anal sex isn't the best thing ever, and using the same argument as a closeted attack on gay men, or just thinking gay men are unnatural because of the association between gay men and anal sex. Except there the false link was being made to disadvantage gay men.

I think that is what is being attempted here, and also if successful means that the BDSM people in question could make it a 'lifestyle' and a more public thing on the grounds that rather than being a private sexual practise, it is a 'sexual orientation', hence magically protected (just like gay people)............

Doesn't half piss me off though, the many groups trying to exploit successful campaigns for lesbian and gay rights. See, I'm of a generation when it was mostly L and even letting G in was problematic............

Ah, Mephisto, now I understand. Thank you.

I asked Google if BDSM was a fetish. Seems some think it's a load of over-lapping fetishes.

I have mixed feelings. I don't doubt that some people have loving relationships in which BDSM features. But I've heard too much about the exploitation of young women by older men and women being injured/raped in supposed safe settings. Women with low self-esteem and histories of abuse get sucked into the culture, the link being the level of attention a dom will pay a sub.

Obviously people's sex lives are entirely their own affair unless others are harmed, but in BDSM harm's part of the point. Some people are quite zen about it, others more John Wayne Gacy.

I'm with Buffy. How are BDSM participants being oppressed? And if they are, should they pay us for doing so?

Ah okay..so you think they want it to be acknowledged as an orientation to achieve a protected status, and that sort of piggybacks on the gay peoples struggles?

As I say, I personally dont think of it as a fetish, more a lifestyle, but all the BDSM elements of my life are centered around my bedroom, so therefore private! Cant imagine wanting to "come out" or do anything in public. A lot of people I know who are into the public scene are raving exhibitionists though so perhaps they feel differently. I find all the public stuff pretty cringey tbh. Personally find it far more special focusing on someone that loves you than a random who could be a total loon.

Also dont understand how BDSM is opressed....its bloody boomimg from where I sit! Incredibly acessable.

I will always argue against people who say its inherently wrong or abusive, however, as in the right context it can i believe it can be very, very positive and fulfilling.

Sorry, my response was to somedyke