To ask Radical Feminists about their views on BDSM?

[BeeDeeEssEm]

Name changed (though I'm not a troll / intentionally goady! Also ignore my silly username haha!).
This was just something I was mulling over and I thought; "I know, I'll ask Mumsnet."

I know Mumsnet has a large community of feminists (particularly Radical Feminists, apologies in case that term causes offense (?) but I'm not sure how to put it otherwise). I was wondering what the views on consensual BDSM are? A lot of it contains choking / aggression towards women but I was wondering if that is nullified by the consensual or enjoyment aspect.

Full disclosure I'm in my twenties and so things like BDSM are relatively normalised for me, but I know my mum was very anti-BDSM and she spoke about it a lot when I was in my teens (MN would probably like her & her other views I think!)

Sorry if that's a weird thing to ask, just curious for curiosity sake. I haven't formed an opinion of my own about it yet, and I only really hear Liberal Feminist perspectives on BDSM (and other sexual topics). Also sorry if this has already been done to death, I'm not sure!

Hm. Cutting is sometimes part of BDSM, of course.

Eresh

I think that experience echoes quite a lot of women's. I have read a fair bit on female submissive fantasies as a therapeutic way of coming to terms with rape/sexual assault/abuse. Self harm comes in many forms. Sex can be one of them.

Isn't it reasonable to ask ... if sex wasn't involved would the behaviour be considered reasonable ? Could anyone ever say " it looks like gbh but it was just a lark gone wrong "

Self harm comes in many forms. Sex can be one of them.

Yes.

I think that experience echoes quite a lot of women's. I have read a fair bit on female submissive fantasies as a therapeutic way of coming to terms with rape/sexual assault/abuse. Self harm comes in many forms. Sex can be one of them.

I see it a lot in some bits of the fanfiction community - rape and BDSM fantasies as a way of processing horrific abuse that the writer has suffered in the past. It's usually pretty obvious which women are daft libfems with odd fantasy lives, and which are deeply troubled individuals, but it suits the libfem agenda to pretend the latter category doesn't exist.

Although it sometimes annoys the hell out of me, and often gets misused, I sometimes think we need to rediscover the Marxist theoretical idea of "false consciousness." There's a lot of people out there who don't get the basic psychological truism that what someone self-reports as their reasons and motivations for engaging in an act may be very, very different from the real reasons why they engage in that act.

Works for both sexes of course. Women who are highly damaged by past abuse deluding themselves into thinking that by freely choosing more abuse they are somehow liberating themselves. And men who are in fact straight out abusers pretending they are simply into consensual BDSM.

Could anyone ever say " it looks like gbh but it was just a lark gone wrong "

They do. Especially when it's murder.

https://wecantconsenttothis.uk/

Spanner! Operation Spanner not Screwdriver. Sorry, my memory's a bit iffy these days.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner

Anyway, this was a long (3 year) court case. Lots of interesting questions, about whether one can really consent to dangerous bodily harm etc.

But maybe I find it utterly orgasmic to ride a motorbike without a helmet before shagging someone! Kink-shamer

Tsk ! Always wear a helmet when riding a motorbike and good quality gloves too - dress for the slip not for the trip.

From the opening post - "I'm in my twenties and so things like BDSM are relatively normalised for me"

Am I the only one who finds that statement incredibly SAD?

@midgebabe

Isn't it reasonable to ask ... if sex wasn't involved would the behaviour be considered reasonable ? Could anyone ever say " it looks like gbh but it was just a lark gone wrong "

That's certainly the point I'm trying to make.

Sinclair explains that extreme submission [...] [helps] her preserve her mental health.

"Being able to embrace it allows me personally to feel the catharsis I need, as well as to remind myself I'm stronger than any problems I might be going through. I've been in the lifestyle for about six years now and for me, it's therapeutic," Sinclair says. "I tend to develop a bit of a disconnect with my emotions, [and] by submitting and going through levels of pain and pleasure, I feel more honed in to reality. When submitting to someone I trust, I'm able to let go of my anxieties."

BDSM (which stands for bondage, dominance, submission, and masochism and involves bringing power, pain, and release into a sexual experience) can be therapeutic even if you're not in the porn industry

If you change a few words and remove the sexual context, this is someone justifying their own self-harm and promoting it to other people as a coping mechanism. There's nothing uniquely sexual going on here- if you ask current and past self-harmers why they do it, some would certainly express it the same way Sinclair does here; that it's cathartic, that the physical pain is grounding. We don't shrug our shoulders and go "good for you" about it for a whole host of reasons. Why don't those reasons apply if you call it BDSM and have a partner involved?

Frankly the article's tone harks back to the pro-ana forums. And society is applauding this and congratulating ourselves on how progressive we are.

Works for both sexes of course. Women who are highly damaged by past abuse deluding themselves into thinking that by freely choosing more abuse they are somehow liberating themselves. And men who are in fact straight out abusers pretending they are simply into consensual BDSM

Agree with this bit. Personally don't see how constantly re-visiting the site of a trauma or a complex of abuse can heal it. Certainly not at the physical level. Seems to me there are young people ( women) that have also been led into believing that prostitution is somehow taking control of past sexual abuse. Don't buy that at all, myself.

I am not sockpuppetting but I have changed my name for this comment for obvious reasons. I wanted to say that when I was much younger I dipped my toe a little bit into BDSM style stuff. I was also borderline anorexic and had sort of stopped self harming. Basically I used the rough/painful sex as a way of stopping self harming, although to be more accurate it was a different way of self harming that I could justify to myself. At the time I would have defended it (if anyone had known) but now I can see how hugely unhealthy it was. It makes me cringe when I see very young people (early twenties) posting about it because I would have used exactly the same blase language at their age. It is also sad, because particularly when people are very young they deserve to have first experiences of sex that are kind, enjoyable and contain an element of genuine mutual care. Good sex is all of these things, even when its wild and passionate.

Very interesting how the OP has completely ignored the post by the doctor who mentions the numerous women they have treated after suffering violent injuries during BDSM 'roleplay'

I am responding to as much as I can, I am reading everything. I will respond to that quote but if I don't respond to something then it's not a personal slight or me sticking with a specific perspective, I'm just not capable of responding to all 135 (bar some of mine) messages. Doing my best!

OP - i don't think you commented on this post from PoletoPole ? They're not the only doctor to speak about the appalling injuries regularly happening to girls and young women who have been gaslit into believing that 'rough sex' is normal, acceptable and OK.

I've read that post (thank you PoletoPole!) and I agree it's horribly disturbing the variety of resulting sexual injuries, especially amongst women. There are various risks to having many kinds of sex - e.g. anal sex resulting in potential prolapse, and I think there needs to be more sexual education around the risks of rough or "non vanilla" sex. I don't personally believe sex should ever cause long-term psychological or physical damage.

OP also hasn’t commented on my post asking how we protect those of us that aren’t into BDSM and who are subjected to horrific injury and mental pain by men who are. Then use the wokery of kink shaming to get off Scott free.

If I told you that I had found cutting myself helped me with my mental health, what would you say? If I told you I had a tendency to disconnect with my emotions, and hurting myself put me back in touch with them and then provided a cathartic release for them? Would you be supportive? What if I, or someone else, wrote an article encouraging other people struggling with mental health to try cutting themselves? Would you be okay with that?

I will be very very open here. I used to have a pretty severe self-harming problem because it helped with dealing (on the day to day) with mental health conditions and a generally quite shit life. If you said the same, I would empathise with you and try to help you come up with alternative coping mechanisms to deal with your emotions. In any context I would strongly disagree with the advocation of self-harm, so I can understand why there is pushback against the BDSM community. To be honest, I've not figured out any method of coping that works equally or better than self harming so as an aside, if anyone has any tips that would be great. I imagine it is very similar for those who are addicted or heavily reliant on BDSM as a coping strategy, the option is not always there to just decide not to do it (even if it's harmful). It's a very complicated situation.

OP also hasn’t commented on my post asking how we protect those of us that aren’t into BDSM and who are subjected to horrific injury and mental pain by men who are. Then use the wokery of kink shaming to get off Scott free.

This, sorry ** I'm not sure how to respond, and I'm not in a position to offer advice or solutions on this specific topic.

Sorry to hear that, OP. Have you seen your GP and sought professional help?

I also have mixed views.

I am in my twenties also so I do think we have grown up with more extreme sexuality normalised.

I'm not into BDSM at all but my fantasies had always been centres heavily on power dynamics and stereotypical exaggerated gender roles. But obviously I don't want such things to happen in real life at all so I can understand a genuine compartmentalisation and could see how people could enjoy it consentually without it saying anything further about their outlook on how men or women should act or be treated.

But it's complicated and if I go further and analyse myself... are my fantasies based on being pursued/lusted after because I've gone through the vast majority of my life from a young age being pursued/lusted after by men? Is it genuinely what I want or is it just what I'm used to/expect??

Very complicated subject.

@DressingGownofDoom

I think that OP might be confusing BDSM - which has a whole community with rules and so on - with the kind of rough, degrading sex that you see in porn. I doubt the twenty somethings are all running around buying gimp masks and harnesses for BDSM parties. Could be wrong though.

They probably buy them on Amazon?

@CaraDuneRedux I am not saying it is healthy. But I do think that fan-fiction and peoples fantasies generally are a different space to the real world. People often work out traumas and fears in fantasy as a way of processing it outside of real life. That said, I am not saying it is necessarily healthy for someone who is very traumatised to fixate on the cause of their trauma too much. But constructing narratives is a fairly common coping mechanism for all kinds of issues. I only mention this because there is a common narrative that fantasies are the same as real life kinks/that it is a good idea to carry out fantasies in real life and I really dont think that it the case. As I said, I am not saying that fantasising about rape isn't harmful, but even where someone has those fantasies they should be very careful about agreeing to enact them in real life - that is much more psychologically (and physically) dangerous.

As for bdsm... Sadism is taking pleasure in causing pain. Masochism is taking pleasure in being hurt. Neither indicate a healthy mindset. And the more you indulge, and strengthen your mental associations via orgasm, the more entrenched in needing to cause or feel pain you're likely to get

Absolutely! Imprinting so strongly on patterns of pain and power......and the continual pushing at boundaries can, and does, lead into unhealthy places for many, and for what gain?

sorry, cross posted with @PearlescentIridescent Exactly! I would add that when you are fantasising you are in control of absolutely everything in the fantasy, so even if the "you" in the fantasy is under someone elses control, the "you" doing the fantasising is the one with all of the power. Completely impossible to replicate that in real life.

@BeeDeeEssEm Based on your last post. Are you SURE you're not me from 25 years ago???

I'm not into BDSM at all but my fantasies had always been centres heavily on power dynamics and stereotypical exaggerated gender roles. But obviously I don't want such things to happen in real life at all so I can understand a genuine compartmentalisation and could see how people could enjoy it consentually without it saying anything further about their outlook on how men or women should act or be treated

Personally think such fantasies are best kept at that level ( of imaginal/fantasy) - and not taken onto the physical level. When things start getting physical they somehow are made more real, I feel. More likely to become habitual and learned responses.

Gosh but yes I agree women can be exploited and it's awful.

I will never forget reading a Reddit thread on a similar subject and seeing a guy reply something along the lines of "look I just like hurting people." Made my skin crawl

I mean I have plenty of (non-sexual) daydreams where I am in a building that is taken over by terrorists/bank robbers and I fight them of with my amazing kick-boxing/parkour skills. They can get quite detailed. In real life, even if I was able to fight of said terrorists (unlikely) it would be hugely stressful and not fun at all. I would probably be left with quite severe PTSD. Fortunately though, it is never going to happen in real life.

I've gone through the vast majority of my life from a young age being pursued/lusted after by men? Is it genuinely what I want or is it just what I'm used to/expect?

I think it is largely based on your early/earliest experiences. Our sexual responses are so closely tied to our earliest exposures. Re-playing past scripts and obsessing on certain narratives.

@Justhadathought exactly, tbh it is very much in my head as in reality I would hate to be treated that way in real life and do hate being creeped on or harassed. That was what I was trying to articulate really- how different our sexual interests can be from how we feel in "real life".