‘More acceptance’ of S&M needed

[Imnobody4]

talkradio.co.uk/news/more-acceptance-needed-sm-activities-19032230392
My morning isn't starting well. Haven't heard the programme - not sure I could stand it.

Perhaps I am misreading or misunderstanding: I am someone who would aim to support women who have been abused but I combine that with trying to prevent the abuse in the first place.

In a world of sex trafficking, coercion, 24/7 internet pornography and the normalisation of sexual practices that were deemed extreme and abusive a generation ago, and with self-harm and so many girls considering transing (perhaps, in some cases, to avoid sexualisation as girls) as much as I'd like to say 'Whatever turns you on' I can't — because then I would be part of the problem. Silence strikes me as collusion — just as I wonder whether I was in collusion with the men who had that woman tied up on the mountain. She might have needed our help but the woke Kiwi friends I was with decided that protecting her possible sexual pleasure was more important than preventing possible abuse. I feel very uncomfortable about that.

Once this kind of practice is taken into the public realm - through fashions or general endorsements - then it definitely should be openly critiqued for the way in which it impacts women and doesn't get a free pass because 'kink shaming'. If happening in a public place then it is right to call the police.

In a story as old as the hills a woman who thought women's dignity and safety were more important than a mans orgasm was called a prudey killjoy.

I think the people I was with were more concerned about her orgasm, actually: they really did see being tied hanging from a tree, naked, on a day when we were wearing sweaters and coats as entirely her choice and they seemed sure that whatever the men were doing to her was at her instigation/ for her pleasure. The more I think about it, the more sick I feel.

Ah yes because all those men would have just been there to support her orgasm.
What jolly good sports.

But those acts are already illegal.
It's illegal to choke someone or beat them.

It's just saying that those acts don't become legal simply because it's sex.

Yes, yes, but then (perversely because it makes no logical sense whatsoever) it would appear that according to the CPS/juries/British judicial "actually, yes they do become magically legal in a heterosexual context when a woman is the victim." See for example the recent case where a man was put on trial for manslaughter rather than murder having stabbed a woman he'd only recently met and was having sex with for the first time, because he was into blood play, kept a knife under his pillow (as you do - nb sarcasm alert for those struggling with tone on the internet) for just this eventuality, and left her to bleed to death. He said it was consensual ("Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?") she was dead so had no input into confirming or denying this, and the bastard effectively got away with it.

And this is only one case of many. There are countless women who've been choked to death during sex, but this is apparently sex gone wrong and therefore manslaughter rather than murder. There are women out there who've been beaten black and blue during the course of rape, only to have it passed off as "rough sex", so no rape conviction.

I have completely had it up to here with the "your kink is not my kink and that's okay" shite. Some kinks are very much not okay. Some kinks are about woman hating, rape and murder and they are really, really harmful - not just to individual women when they "go wrong" (otherwise known as the man actually enacting the fantasy he's harboured all along and committing rape or rape-followed-by-murder quite deliberately, knowing society will let him get away with it because apparently "kink shaming" is a worse crime than rape and murder), but to all women - because we all have to live in this shitty, fucked-up rape-and-murder culture.

If I come across as angry about this, it's because I am angry about this. And if you are not angry about men getting away with rape and murder using the "rough sex" defence, then there's something badly wrong with you.

thatdamnedwoman in a public place? WTAF. What if you had kids with you? I'd have been over there like a fucking shot, consent or not.

Fucking outrageous.

fermats hear bloody hear

That story is disturbing and I'm struggling with the fact that you walked on by. Your friends sound like arsehole.

Thank you, Fermats. Many rounds of applause.

Fermat, thank you for saying so eloquently what I feel but couldn't express.

I too am with Fermats

I used to be a very live-and-let-live, consenting-adults, YKINMKBYKIOK kind of person, heck, I’ve even attended a few of the more upmarket fetish nights such as Torture Garden.

However, I have become increasingly aware that choice is not made in a vacuum and that coercive and abusive behaviour exists in these communities and relationships, and that abusers appropriate the imagery and language of consensual kink culture in order to justify rape and violence against women.

So no, Your Kink is not Not OK.

I don't judge masochists, but I judge the hell out of sadists and I will never accept that they are not deeply disturbed and dangerous individuals.

It's terrifying to think of men getting away with torturing women to death with a 'rough sex' defence, even with women who have never even previously taken part in such activities, and also horrific to think of the effect this may have on men's attitudes to violent sex/rape/torture. There needs to be legislation put in place so that consent can never be accepted as defence in a case of manslaughter.

abusers appropriate the imagery and language of consensual kink culture in order to justify rape and violence against women

yes, I certainly do agree with this

I am interested in why some people are aroused by power play? I have some inclinations this way myself, which I have never explored, partly due to the sentence I have quoted above.

I do think a lot of the narrative now around sexual liberation, including some elements of genderism, is about reifying trauma response and trauma-bonding rather than actually working through trauma toward real freedom.

No coincidence, perhaps, that this turn toward reification as a positive good occurs at the same time austerity drastically removes societal resources for the prevention of and healing from trauma.

No comment on any one individual intended. I'm speaking generically and not specifically.

BickerinBrattle I think that's very perceptive.

I went to Torture Garden once ‘for a laugh’.

While I was on the stairs outside the main room, in the queue for the loo, I saw a young couple having what looked like a huge row. He was the aggressor and she looked cowed and scared. I was going to intervene but the friend I was with told me not to interrupt their ‘scene’. They were playing out a fantasy and it’s agsinst the rules of Torture Garden to interrupt a scene.

So I left it. Anyway, a couple of hours later I went to the loo again and this time the couple were in the toilets, she was seated in the loo and was bound in gaffa tape, he was standing there in his leather pants and hobnail boots, calling her a disgusting slag.

I still think about that poor girl now and what an absolutely shit night she looked like she was having. IMO BDSM really is all about where sexuality overlaps with trauma response and wanting to abuse from behind a ‘woke cloak’.

Totally agree with the points made about the law too. The absence of consent should be presumed in all cases where a woman dies from ABH or GBH during sex.

My friends are 30-something lesbians who would describe themselves as lesbian feminists of the liberal kind. They're rather disapproving of and embarrassed by my old-fashioned feminism (I'm older than them and more of a radfem).

Feel bad about not doing anything at the time but the whole situation was so surreal, and my friends' attitude so unexpected, that I lost my perspective on it. I was abroad, I was in the middle of nowhere, I had no mobile signal and I had three right-on people anxious to assure me that the woman would be enjoying it. Those are excuses but it's actually a very neat demonstration of how easily a person can be persuaded, in the moment, that something seriously weird and wrong is to be ignored. If they'd still been there when we came back about 15 minutes later I would certainly have photographed them and the car number plate and reported it to the police when we got back down the mountain.

Wow, x posed with BickerinBattle there.

Definitely agree about trauma response and trauma bonding.

Personally, I have a "modest proposal": make BDSM completely illegal.

I actually think this could really have legs. Of course it won’t be written into legislation as it almost uniquely affects women but we can dream.

I’ve recently begun dating after a LTR and have been alarmed by how normalised some BDSM behaviour has become. I’ve been smacked and had a hand around my throat. I told him I didn’t like it and he didn’t do it again, but it’s shocking that the assumption is that it’s ok to do these things without any discussion.

BickerinBrattle & AIBUtopickanyoldname I agree re. the trauma bond and that there's very little help available for those with trauma-related mental illness on the NHS. 6 weeks of CBT is usually your lot, which you might have to wait months for, and is not going to touch the surface anyway with things like personality disorders. Can't blame those who aren't given the right help for adopting ultimately self-destructive coping mechanisms, can blame those who promote this (sometimes in the name of feminism) or tell us that it's their choice and you're a prude for questioning it. I think some women don't see the harm because the side of it they see is more about fluffy handcuffs from Ann Summers, they've been sold a sanitary version. That's not what blokes are watching on the internet though, and clearly not the case with the NZ example given though, that's just blind wokeness.

MIA12 Same here, mentioned being slapped hard across the face during sex with someone new on another thread, completely non-consensual. If we weren't having sex at the time and he did that I would have called the police on him for assault, because it was during sex I felt I couldn't.

Is all this kink positive malarkey because of that chuffing book "fifty shades of shite"?

There were three of the bloody things weren't there?