“Is there an agreed feminist analysis of S&M? I do not believe that there is.
There is certainly a radical feminist analysis”
I do not accept that to simply call what is actually queer theory/sexual liberationist arguments ‘feminist’ actually makes them feminist arguments. The same as I don’t accept that when a male calls himself a woman it actually make him a woman. Simplistically relabelling something the direct opposite of what it actually is does not make it become the thing it claims to be. For example, if someone endorsed capitalist ideas, but called themselves and their arguments communist it would not make them communist, words have meanings, playing semantic games does not change reality.
“What concerns me about the radical feminist discourse regarding this issue is that it does not engage with thinking about desire.”
Radical feminism (actual feminism) does engage ‘with thinking about desire’, where is comes from and why. What it does not do is claim that all desires should be passively accepted without critique and acted upon.
“Everything is simply causally attributed to the patriarchy and there is a strong element of confirmation bias it certainly feels like this to me, of the policing of debate and of thought.”
In order to avoid cognitive dissidence those that engage in S&M have to try to reposition it as somehow about ‘female empowerment’ or ‘as a tool of dealing with trauma’ etc. If they didn’t do this they would have to reassess what they are doing and whether it is actually unhealthy and harmful to women as a group. Of course they don’t want to do this as it would mean facing the prospect that S&M is harmful to women as a group, so they prefer queer theory/sexual liberationist arguments (which have had a hold on the social sciences including psychology for sometime), so that they can carry on engaging in S&M without cognitive dissonance. Whether one realises their arguments are based on queer theory/sexual liberationist arguments is somewhat immaterial in the end.
“One of the main issues I have with TRAs is the policing of language and of narratives. I aways distrust any invitation to attribute the factors for any phenomena to simplistic causes.”
That is a reversal of what is actually going on. It is the advocates of S&M that use the excuse of ‘kink shaming’ in order silence an actual feminist critique of S&M. It is advocates of S&M that think simplistically calling it ‘empowering’, and pretending it is somehow ‘feminist’ actually makes it so.
“While it can feel very reassuring and comfortable to live in a world where good and evil are clearly identifiable and where one feels a sense of absolute certainty about ones convictions reality just does not work like like that.”
The reality is that we live in a male dominated society, where males rape and abuse females in high numbers, where females are taught to eroticise being submissive/masochistic. Rather than doing something to address this fact, and acknowledging the part the promotion of S&M as a harmless ‘kink’ plays in upholding this, S&M advocates do not wish to have their ‘kinks’ curtailed, so come up with various justifications of why it is actually healthy and not a bad thing for women as a group. The arguments being put forth in favour of S&M are not anything feminists have not heard thousands of times previously.