"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.

Yes I agree. Coupled with the inability of the oppressor group to see or acknowledge oppression (like white fragility). I'd be interested to know whether the people pushing for this inclusion in LG BT are in fact mainly white men. That could support your ideas?

"..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? "
I think so. Okay, so when we were campaigning for gay rights, the 'people just are/can't help it' was necessary to counter the conversion therapy/disgusting lifestyle choice just to piss us off/unnatural style arguments. Except now those arguments have become too successful (despite, say, evidence from women that female sexuality can be more complicated than this), so the it's innate/it's just who I am style arguments have become the template for arguments by other groups, and also a supposed analogous situation (transphobia compared to homophobia, for example), leading to the whole LGBTQIAfuckknows nonsense.

At the risk of contradicting myself....

While I don't feel like people need to be "out" about BDSM I do think non-sexual meet ups/discussion forums are a good idea, especially to discuss issues of consent. I am aware there are predators out there who use the label of BDSM to manipulate people into doing things they don't want to and as a young person I've experienced this. Knowing nothing at all about what BDSM is really about (trust, respect, communication, CONSENT) and knowing no one who had similar inclinations, I was easy prey.

Of course it's much easier to get good advise now we're in the internet age.

I don't feel that people like me or DP are to blame for these bad things happening, although as responsible, age appropriate BDSM practitioners (for want of a better word) I suppose there's an argument for being open to discussing it with others in the right context.

Hasn't Turkey recently legalised child marriage?

Not true.

Of course it's not a sexual orientation. Orientation is what sex of humans you like to shag. Fetish is when you have a particular fascination, to the exclusion of other sexual activity, of what you want to do with the people you shag.

I'm not sure about born this way arguments. The evidence from reparative therapy is that you can't drug, psych or pray the gay away, and trying to do so is totally unethical even when the people concerned want it.

I know I'm very heterosexual, a strong preference, nothing to do with what's expected. In my 20s I explored my sexuality with other women but it just didn't work, though at the time I really wanted it to. Not a flicker, though I have very affectionate female friendships.

Otoh, I've enjoyed very mild BDSM with 2 men (separately) with whom I could be utterly vulnerable and trusting and found it quite inspiring/moving. There is a level of, I don't know, faith (?) that's very special.

If you're wondering whether I'm a bit of an old slapper you wouldn't be wrong. Ah, sex. I remember sex...

Whether our sexual orientation is innate or not, to what extent it is changeable/a possible choice, nature/nuture is a different issue, frankly.

"a strong preference, nothing to do with what's expected. " Except being born into a patriarchy, it was never a 'free choice'..........

Bonobos. Hetero and homo, and almost everything else, shows what evolution can do with sexual pleasure for social purposes.

Innateness and fixity isn't really the issue, or shouldn't be the basis for gaining your human rights or legal protection.

Who knows how many women would/could chose lesbianism if we were free of the patriarchy? We just don't know! How many should chose it given that we're not is a much more contentious question!

Knowing nothing at all about what BDSM is really about (trust, respect, communication, CONSENT)

And getting off on acting out real people's real misery.

Knowing nothing at all about what BDSM is really about (trust, respect, communication, CONSENT)

It isn't called TRCC though, it's called BDSM - bondage, domination, sadism & masochism. And that's what's it's really about. You can get trust, respect, communication and consent in normal relationships. What makes BDSM unique is that ritualized "pretend" unequality and abuse.
I don't mean to jump on this comment or you as an individual however I see these statements all the time adn it bothers me, that BDSM is REALLY all about trust and consent. Well why the need for all that other stuff then?

Exactly Snowshimmer -Its simulating and normalising the terrible abuse suffered everyday by many (mainly)women . Those who are 'sub' should receive counselling- the 'Doms' should be prosecuted. Radical I know but its just not acceptable. BDSM- Bondage ,Domination, sadism & masochism. The clue is in the name.

Stepping out here as I don't need counselling and find the suggestion I do offensive. I'll be damned if I'm staying in an unfulfilling vanilla relationship just because some other people out there are behaving badly.

Oh my aching butt. Really? Where does this all end? Bunch of attention seeking weirdos who would do very well to keep their odd predelictions to themselves, not trying to seek 'rights' and publicity.

You'd think they'd be embarrassed. I don't even like my cleaner folding my pants. Have they ever heard of discretion.

This thread illustrates some of the issues. Rejection of BDSM as a 'sexual orientation' shouldn't be on the grounds that you think it is weird/dangerous/offensive. But you can understand why some people, getting that reaction, are trying to sneak it in as 'just another maligned sexual orientation' remembering the abuse aimed at lesbian and gay people because of what they were assumed to do sexually as well as who they do it with.

Whereas actually, many gay sexual practises are pretty ordinary, and the only issue for many people was the sex of the person that they were doing them with. And we shouldn't collude with that by pretending the problem for gay people was the same as the problem for folks into BDSM. It isn't comparable or analogous.

It's the same messing about with language that we have seen already with sex/gender. Also, we had there some people trying to redefine homosexual as someone who is attracted to someone of the same gender (rather than the same sex). Whereas the BDSM ploy seems to be redefining homosexuals as people who like homosexual sexual practises, hence any other maligned participants in non-majority sexual practises free to join the same grouping.

As someone else already said vanilla gets maligned a lot, so can we join too??

Oh, I'm out and proud as vanilla! Or I used to be when I actually had a sex life, back in the mists of prehistory Mind you, that'll be top of the range, still see the little black seedy specks, Cordon-Bleu, Michelin starred vanilla.

Seriously, where did this idea come from that orgasms are better orgasms if they come accompanied by leather, handcuffs, dangling from the lampshade? Fine if that's what floats your boat, but why do so many people seem to insist that those of us getting our jollies in more conventional ways are somehow sexually inferior?

Apologies Lemon, not my intention. But you did use the expression that you were 'easy prey' up thread. Hence my concern for you, and indeed many other vulnerable women involved with BDSM. Its a licence for abusers to almost legitimately target the vulnerable.

Seriously, though, who would want to "come out" as BDSM? I don't want to know what you do in bed, any more than I want to know how whether my married colleagues do it in the dark with the flannel nightie temporarily hitched up, or wearing static-electricity inducing frilly nylon, or how often my single colleagues knock one out in the shower of a morning... I JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW LA LA LA LA LA NOT LISTENING!

(Actually, I have one colleague who I know is into sub-dom stuff, but that's only because discussion arose in the context of another conversation about domestic violence, where she pointed out that she'd been in an EA relationship with vanilla sex, and was now happily in a s/D relationship where it was confined to the bedroom and everything else was nice and equal, and how she'd binned an earlier boyfriend who'd assumed that the s/D thing would carry over outside the bedroom).

"An LG BT group in Iceland "
Actually, they aren't even called that, just the National Queer Organisation. Which means fuck-all to me, apart from anyone and everyone who doesn't identify as straight (and boring).

Even given that Iceland is very small (hence bundling of organisations might be a good thing!), it's still depressing. Hello to the queer umbrella.........

In article, because some people experience BDSM as an orientation, that's it. Who are the rest of us queers to question it? People are whatever they say they are.........................

Yes as I brought up earlier, if it's no longer LGB or even LGBT but "queer" as in abnormal, then any group of people outside of the mainstream standard norm could join. I hate seeing LGB isues compared to "I have weird kinks".
Loving someone of the same sex isn't a kink.

I think I understand the rationale behind seeing BDSM as an orientation, rather than a fetish. I think it's misguided to include it in the LGB grouping, though.

Potential reasoning is: person is "BDSM" (rather than lesbian/gay/bi/straight) in that they are only able to enjoy sex/be aroused if there's a BDSM element, with the sex of their partner/s being irrelevant. So the orientation is "BDSM", rather than lesbian/gay/bi/straight.

However, afaik, LGB groups exist to counter discrimination and, unless you want to tell people about exactly what gets you off (that's still considered poor manners, right?), being in a BDSM relationship is unlikely to cause you any problems - unless it's a same-sex relationship, in which case the discrimonation you're likely to face is due to homophobia, I would have thought? So the inclusion wouldn't really do anyone any good, but would distract from genuine social problems.

I agree that it's all a bit special snowflakey: "I might appear to be straight, white and middle-class, but I'm part of an oppressed group too! Let me join your club!"

That's the definition of a fetish though jilly
Homosexuality can't be considered a fetish any more than heterosexuality can, because it's about more than sexual gratification. Hence the term orientation.

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fetish