belledame222: I validate that…
I validate that BB had a bad experience of BDSM and does not want any truck with it.
Well, that’s mighty big of you.
It would be nice if y’all could recognize that other people have different experiences, and that ours are also valid.
Look, experiences aren’t “valid” or “invalid.” Experiences just are. There’s a question here, though, about what some people’s personal experiences with BDSM, in and out of the formalized “scene,” mean. That’s not necessarily just a matter of “Well, you had your experiences and I had mine.”
And for the record, there *is* a recognized difference between abuse and BDSM, and while there are plenty of assholes within the scene(s), there are also plenty of healthy, evolved people who would immediately understand that what BB went through was coercion by any other name.
Part of the question here is whether it’s just some big accident that there are plenty of assholes in the scene in addition to the people you’re comfortable with, or whether there’s something about the scene (or about BDSM itself) that encourages that.
(And before you mention it, I know that there abuse and coercion happen in non-BDSM sexual relationships too. Most feminist critics of BDSM do think that there are plenty of things about normative sexuality in our society that encourage that, and criticize them at length. Part of what we are asking y’all for is not to just stop applying that level of scrutiny and criticism when it’s your own sexual “scene” that’s in question.)
Belladame, how can they be negotiating for what they want without simultaneously negotiating for what they don’t want: being pushed beyond their comfort levels.
Brava. This helped clarify what it is that bugs me so much when BDSM advocates are talking about the supreme importance of “negotiation,” in particular, in BDSM sex. Consent is unilateral, based what each partner wants to happen to her own body. “Negotiation” over “boundaries” is something that warring states do to work out territorial claims in order to avoid a conflict. One party suggests that they take X but give Y, the other says they want to take Z instead of Y, they either hash out a tit-for-tat compromise or else they get the guns and fight until their positions in the negotiation changes, and then they try again with a bit more quid on the table and bit less quo.
Sex shouldn’t be like that.
Anticopyright.