Of Kink and Blog-o-sphere Kerfuffles

Generally, I tend to avoid the anti-S/m dust ups around the blog-o-sphere that spring forth with stunning regularity from the keyboards of those who co-opt the term "radical feminist."

But every so often enough pissed friends point me at enough bullshit that I can occasionally be coaxed into writing a little something.

This was originally intended as a brief comment to the Most. Awesome. Comment. Ever. post over on Let Them Eat Pro-SM Feminist Safe Spaces.

But it grew.

It grew beyond reason, and certainly beyond comment legnth.

So I've moved it here as a full post instead.

For readers who have no idea what this is all about, be glad. (Or read Pro-SM Feminist Safe Spaces' tag documenting the BDSM-and-feminism kerfuffle in inverse order, starting at the bottom of the page. Most of the relevant links are either in that or in the comments thereon.)

But back to that little comment that grew, here it is in it's entirety:

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What so many of these oh-so-outraged women miss is that until fairly recently, it would have been exceptionally rare for them to have this level of visibility into the things we do.

Placing ads, exploring kink.com... by and large they wouldn't have had any immediate jumping off point to know WHERE to place such ads, (and it's still a LOUSY methodology,) or the ins and outs of the language were it not for the increased visibility in that they've been afforded.

Note that Leatherfolk were not out playing evangelists. The visibility they (the outraged) now enjoy comes as a direct result of commercialization, and into spaces where we self select and gather just as any other demographic has online.

Time was, not so long ago, that finding out about certain communications vehicles, much less entering into Leather spaces, would simply not have been an option for them.

To gain access to such meant going in person, and having someone willing to vouch for you. It meant entering what had often been a Gay male domain.

These days, they need only punch up whatever website they care to fear this week, get themselves all worked up, and then start typing.

A few rare Leathermen took me under their wings and taught me the core values of what being a Leatherperson entails; among them the critical importance of discretion, appropriate time and place, and "not frightening the horses" so to speak.

Of course for many of our critics they can only see the flat images on their screens, they know nothing of the ideology or highly ritualized behaviors that go with so much of Leather.

One of the first "Leather" books I was ever told to go read wasn't some (at the time unwritten!) manual of how to flog, nope I was told to go brush up on my Emily Post.

Those amazing Leathermen taught me the importance of being above reproach in one's dealings and finances, being a person of their word and personal honour, expressing deep loyalty towards those deserving of such, knowing when to defend oneself and one's tribe and when to hold your tongue, and not drawing attention.

To do otherwise could bring undue scrutiny down upon the community, these concepts being passed down from a time when raids on Gay spaces without so much as a pretense were common.

Yes, the net has changed everything, some for the good- breaking isolation and making "deviants" such as ourselves feel far less alone in this world.

But it has also come with a price- that things which were once deeply private and shown only to lovers or others deemed to have "the right stuff" and a deep willingness are now mere clicks away for any and all.

That and perhaps our critics have missed a key point, Lao-tzu's "Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know."

Certainly something they may wish to keep in mind the next time they should happen to be perusing the kink-o-sphere.

Splattered all over screens everywhere decontextualized images, a comic book notion of what Leather is, now readily available to every Joe and Jane Schmoe.

The vast majority of whom have no framework to fit some of what they're seeing into (even those within the community often have no mentors to answer questions, no training.)

Internal to the community AIDS had more to do with that than any online change in information flow could ever have done.

Yet for those external, yes we are in effect put 'on trial' because suddenly people who simply never would have seen what we do behind closed doors can now spend countless hours fixating and obsessing over how what we do must somehow affect them, or if not them, then at least the broader class of womyn more generally, or so their false notion goes.

The reality of course, is that we were doing this long before they noted our presence, and no, how I did or did not happen to fuck my wife did not affect broader class womyn other than to have if anything served as a binding closeness between the two of us in our (genuine) Radical Feminist activism.

All of it has been decontextualized down to the flat screen though. They know little to nothing of (and in certain cases absolutely refuse to discuss) the fact that much of what we call modern Leather comes not from the heterosexual end of things 9D is so obsessed over, instead many of the traditions have roots in the disempowered Gay Male sub-community of those who came back from WWII and didn't fit.

They looked at the suburban postwar world of "settling down" and having kids, and opted to hit the open roads on motorcycles with some of the few people who understood what they had seen and what they had been through, and their feelings for one another. They created small nomadic tribes with other men.

They were outsiders.

Womyn to womyn S/m has reflected those sentiments at times even more so, in that not only have we been Queer outsiders to the broader society, we are also often outsiders even to Gay Leather.

(Hence names such as "The Outcasts," "The Exiles", or more generally groups such as "The Renegades.")

To refuse to examine the origins and context much of leather culture grew in is not merely to erase Queer history and Queer methodologies of survival, but to actively reinforce the very heterosexism and heterocentrism they decry.

Ironically, they now claim to essentially speak on behalf of and in protection of womyn and womynkind- a feat only made possible when subsets of womyn who love and yes, ultimately sleep with other womyn, who know a great deal about womyn's authentic desires, and who have been (real) Radical Feminists since back in the day are relegated to "traitors" or "collaborators with the patriarchy." They thereby attempt the coup d’état of not merely erasing us, but usurping our positions as womyn who yes, know a thing or two about womyn.

To their minds, what we have to say are often unpleasant and unthinkable realities about womyn. Things that must then be projected into a form of "othering" as no "real woman" could ever possibly genuinely want the things we do, we must therefore to their thinking either be deluded or under a form of coercion, both of which conveniently disqualify us from what they now co-opt as "their" revolution.

Except of course, for them, it's more often than not revolutionary, as 9D herself would be/has been the first to fess up to. (See point 2 here.). To then utilize the term "Radical" (meaning "to the root") while explicitly rejecting "to the root" forms of social change, instead insisting that working within the existing systems (oh, LIBERAL feminism- bingo!) is the way to go is for her to 'wear the colors of the enemy' or co-opt our terminology for her own (assimilationist) purposes.

While for some Kinkyfolks, they may feel a need to justify themselves, now that we are being lied about, savaged and put up 'on trial,' others of us on the other hand, have always understood we were living at the edges and as exiles to begin with. I don't need to justify myself or my life to anyone.

I don't answer to those who co-opt and subvert the title "Radical Feminist" without ever so much as noting that some of us who used it long before they also wear (earned) Leathers, and were doing so long before the outraged-come-lately happened along.

As "exiles" we've always known that there is a time and place to stand our ground, and other times and places where going on the defensive or trying to justify our existence merely becomes counterproductive.

I've always been where the front lines are when it really matters, and if that's not "feminist" enough for those with smoke blowing out their ears from behind they keyboards, my answer really comes down to "Tough shit."

They've got a problem with it, it's their problem, not mine.

Now do some of us have a fair amount to say about the commercialization of the "work" we do, and the increased visibility into our world others are now afforded? Of course. But when it's time to say those things we do them in our spaces under our rules, not the false constraints of blogsites like 9D's, the preclude even my own existence as a Leatherwomyn.

Yeah I know, this is post-length. It's long overdue such be said- and as should be clear by now it's only going to be said in "our" spaces, not theirs.

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I also made an earlier comment on another post on that same tag, Nope. I'll republish it here as well just to keep all my writings on this particular dust up available in a single place:

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"If you have that kind of dark side, it might be best to leave it unexplored. Or kill yourself"

Yeah, I caught on that bit too.

For her, the notion of people like us existing in (her) world is just too frightening.

She would feel more comfortable if people like ourselves were either not here or at minimum not visible.

Since she's apparently not the type who feels the need to rid the world of us, herself personally, she'd rather we just "opt out."

A lot cleaner and neater that way.

Certainly no blood on her hands. No, certainly not.

The the instinct to purge those she finds so frightening, so terrifying, etc. lies just beneath the surface.

The difference being of course, radical feminist Leather womyn such as myself feel no need to purge the universe of the likes of her.

She who is so quick to condemn has never heard of me, knows nothing about me, and certainly isn't reading my (at times) "submissive" womyn's blogging in relation to a male partner.

I am after all both S/switch and Bi. Being such, I therefore fall straight on into the exception bin for her, that she so conveniently dismisses and refuses to discuss.

Womyn living within the context of consensual power exchange with other womyn is most certainly NOT on the agenda over there.

Of course our "individual experiences" are dismissed as she'd rather only discuss what she perceives as some twisted version of experiences on on the whole (what a handy way to dismiss any womyn who would dare disagree, and her own experiences.)

Nope, she'd rather bemoan the (commercial fetish) fate of the armory building, a building she herself by her own admission once coveted and now chalks up to having in essence, fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Seriously, gal, it's just real estate and sex, get over yourself already.

Sex the likes of which she both clearly has a fascination with and yet insists she sickened by.

This clearly qualifies her as having an opinion we should all listen to about on such matters- not so much.

Funny, I don't find myself writing post after post about whatever kind of sex she may (or may not) be having. 07 February 2009 10:05

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Who knows, perhaps six months from now when the next regularly scheduled "feminist" anti-S/m dust up occurs I may just link to this post instead of wasting my time giving them essentially the same earful all over again.

Late Summer/Early Autumn

I know, it's been a long time since I've posted. This after saying I was hoping to post more frequently. Worse, I left off on part 1 of what was to be a 3 part piece. I'll get to the rest of Floating World eventually, just not right this instant.

Sir and I have been incredibly busy as of late. I keep wanting to carve out some time to write parts 2 and 3, but ultimately other things are going by that I haven't written about out of trying to 'sit down and take the time it takes' to do those FW posts justice.

So for the moment I'm setting those aside and getting on with it, until I find time to come back to them.

Despite our hectic schedule, we did manage to attend an interesting BESS educational meeting back in August. The presentation topic was "Contracts, Collars, and Relationships." It gave us much to contemplate. I always find it interesting to hear someone who has put serious thought into how they do things and why.

The aftermath of seeing a presentation like that for us, tends to result in important discussions about our own structure and the how and why we do things the way we do, as well as how to bring further intentionality to parts of our relationship. It's probably very good for Sir to spend some time listening to others as he has seen fewer of these kinds of presentations than I have.

It's been part of my process of learning what I want and more importantly, learning how to articulate such after I figure it out. Part of good negotiations with any partner or potential partner comes down to not only knowing what you want but having the skill to speak clearly about such.

Inventories, assessments, Household protocols, petitions, contracts and other such written or verbal tools can be useful steps in finding the direction you hope to head, and refining your ability to express it to others.

Anytime I find the opportunity to look over the materials and tools others use, I usually find that time well spent. (With a few notable exceptions.)

The other major piece of news is that we've made the decision to return for Black Rose XXI at the end of the month. Several factors led to the decision, most of which, perhaps surprisingly, have little to do with Black Rose as an organization itself.

Over the Floating World, we spent most of our time in workshops relating to relationship structuring and yes to some degree workshops aimed primarily at the Master/slave dynamic.

Master and slave are not terms, nor necessarily a subculture, that resonates directly for the two of us as a way to describe our relationship. I tend to find it particularly jarring, as M/s dynamics hold very distinct Queer meanings for me, and yet I find myself in a relationship with man. I understand how so called 'het' Leather cultures utilize such (not that we consider ourselves a 'het' relationship by any stretch). But the terminology will probably always primarily hold Queer Leather associations for me, personally. Terminology aside for the moment though, Sir and I are finding many of our areas of interest overlap significantly with M/s end of things, certainly as opposed to other descriptive terminology such as D/s.

I am Sir's property/possession. We live this out our own version of 24/7. Submission is one of many components of our relationship, but not necessarily the single most important defining characteristic. Another important aspect is that we've been at this for quite some time now, long enough to settle into a relatively stable structure with set ways certain things are done.

So many of our workshop choices over FW focused less on proper singletail technique for example, and more on how we structure our lives and relationship within a Leather context.

But an events' worth of workshops focusing on such, followed by the many conversations that come in the aftermath of such sessions, over meals, late at night, etc, can lead to coming off an event somewhat emotionally exhausted if you're not careful. Fortunately, pacing ourselves was precisely what we did.

The upside has been that coming off Floating World we've been putting some intentionality towards structuring parts of our Leather Household that were a bit less defined before. Some of those conversations have also led to some good 'work' time spent together as well. Times we both treasure.

But the other side of such was that, it that led to really two things; not seeing as many workshops as we might have liked to and not seeing as many directly 'dungeon related skills' related workshops (think things along the lines of the finer details of proper skin stapling technique) as we might have liked to.

Going to BR XXI then becomes a way to attend some more 'skills-based' kinds of workshops. As it's all in one building, attending workshops or not, together or separately is certainly easy, and the dungeon is also close at hand. (I appreciate FW's arrangements for its own reasons, just as I appreciate insular events like BR for their own, they're both very different.) Finally, and perhaps most importantly it's an opportunity to spend time with others in our local community.

While we both tend to focus on our own Household, I guess I've been feeling just a little bit more social as of late, and interested in connecting with others locally. Events like BR then become a way of putting one's toe in.