Us verses them?
A few weeks ago, I sat in on a Jay Wiseman class at TES.
He opened the class by saying something to the effect of:
I am a kinskster. I like to tie women up. And that’s ok. The vanilla world, they need to be tolerant of us. After all, haven’t we spent enough time being tolerant of them?
Those last two sentences bothered the hell out of me.
Now, I mean no offense to Jay Wiseman, nor do I want to belittle his accomplishments as an author and community member. And I agree that it’s important to be comfortable in one’s own skin. But the implicit “us verses them” mentality wrapped up in those two little sentences is one of the major issues I have with many people in the scene.
First of all, by taking this stance, a person automatically goes on the defensive. He’s expecting confrontation and controversy… it leaves barely any room for the possibility that people may be accepting of that stance.
I can’t help but be reminded of one of my favorite Little Britain characters, Daffyd Thomas, the only gay in the village. He goes around declaring his otherness and creating his own persecution, even though it seems that the rest of the village is bi-curious at the very least.
As I wrote in a previous post, it’s natural to want to feel different or special. I know that I’ve been guilty of using kink as a way to establish my otherness, to create a separation between me and the “vanilla” world.
Then I realized… You can’t always tell what people do in their bedrooms.
Not everyone advertises their sexuality. Hell, when I was in college, I did things that could be defined as kinky, but it never occurred to me to attach any label or identity to them. Quite frankly, there are times and places where I’m perfectly happy with kink being off the list of appropriate conversation topics. (Around the watercooler at most jobs, family reunions, funerals, children’s parties…) BDSM, when you get down to it, is about sex… And what I do in my bedroom is my own damn business. I realize the irony of this statement coming from a sex blogger. I guess a more appropriate statement in my case is: if you have issues with what I do in my bedroom, don’t have sex with me.
To be honest, I’m a little torn on the debate about bringing kink into the public square. On the one hand, I hope that there will come a time when a person’s sexual proclivities cannot be used as a strike against them in a court of law. Also, people who are kinky should have access to reliable information so that they can practice it as safely as possible. On the other hand, engendering the idea that the rest of the world must tolerate us feels downright counterproductive. It borders dangerously on forcing one’s kink onto others.
I’m well aware that there are plenty of people in the world who are not accepting of things that they don’t understand. I’m also aware of the prejudices and preconceptions that people have when they hear “kinky” or “BDSM.” It has frightening connotations to many. I do hope that organizations such as TES and new initiatives such as Kinkforall can help dispel some of that misinformation.
Kink isn’t for everyone. It’s not without physical and emotional risk, even though there are ways of mitigating those risks. A lot of what we do is hard for people to accept. Upon reading my blog, someone once asked me What compels you to want pain? I know this may sound stupid, but my lord isn’t it painful?
People have visceral reactions to the thought of inflicting or receiving pain. It’s completely understandable why someone would squick at the thought.
I usually wait for people to get to know me as a person before I get into any conversation about BDSM. It is, after all, only one aspect of my life, not my entire being. This way, I change peoples minds through example and not through proselytizing. I find this to be a far more elegant, subtle, and effective approach.
If we’re going to gain any ground in the arenas where it matters, I think that we need to think hard about how we perceive and engage people outside of the kink community.
I think the “us verses them” mentality is one of the biggest problems with the BDSM community at large. It is fundamentally damaging to the community’s core messages, such as Safe, Sane and Consensual, and it is arguably the biggest contributing factor to the “BDSM image problem,” that is, the issue wherein people who hear “BDSM” immediately think “whips and chains and I’m not into that!”
Sex-positive and BDSM advocates must learn to reframe public discourse away from the notion that people who practice BDSM are not normal—are fundamentally different from vanilla people—and towards an ideal of sexual equality regardless of activity. It should not matter that Jay Wiseman likes to tie girls up or that I like to be tied up. Nobody fucking cares except your sex partners. So why is Jay Wiseman, and the rest of the BDSM community, so exhibitionistic as to think their myopic view of the world is what will garner them “tolerance” in the rest of it?
I wrote My reply here: http://tgstonebutch.livejournal.com/936194.html
“Nobody fucking cares except your sex partners.”
If that were actually the case, then I agree, it wouldn’t have to be brought out. I also agree that “Us vs. Them” is horribly counterproductive – it’s why I dislike the term “vanilla” or “mundane” for people that aren’t kinky. And yes, we do need to counter the idea that what we do isn’t normal.
Unfortunately, everyone from Kentucky H.S. to Jack McGeorge have proven that other people DO give a damn, and in fact will go out of their way to persecute you for what they think you might do, much less what you actually do.
That’s why I agree with people like Gloria Braeme, the NCSF, and the Woodhull Foundation that it’s important to BE out if you can be. You don’t have to advertise it – but you don’t have to hide it any more than a wedding ring, a bouquet of roses, or a bachelorette party is hidden. They all advertise sexuality, too. Until my saying “Yes, I’m going to a leather fetish conference” is greeted the same way as “I’m going to a wedding reception” – there’s work to be done.
I never use the term “vanilla” for people, only for sexual action and mood – including mine.
Yes, dividing humanity into vanilla and non-vanilla people creates an artificial and unproductive us versus them mentality. I would also consider it a damn presumption to call people “vanilla”. As you say, you can’t always tell what people do in their bedrooms. Calling strangers “vanilla”, I would be pretending I know the entire erotic spectrum of people whom I’ve never witnessed having sex even once, and whose erotic fantasies I can’t mind read.
Personally, my love life is kinky and vanilla, so it would be especially ridiculous of me to boast of how awfully off-putting vanilla sex must be, when in fact we enjoy all sorts of kissing and fucking with our power dynamics in semi-slumber below the surface somewhere. And if, hypothetically, what I call vanilla sex happened to make up the entire spectrum of what I got off on sexually, I would also consider it a damn presumption if strangers, whose preferences are other than mine, with explicit or implicit condescension went on about how pitifully narrow and boring my sex life must be.
I think Gloria Brame made a very good point in her speech, that we need to focus on the universality of human rights, regardless what people’s consensual sexual activities are.
Counteracting the mountains of misinformation, fear, lies and prejudices about BDSM is another useful thing, and a dire necessity. This also involves reflection on how kinky people and communities present themselves: looking closely in each instance whether misinformation, lies and negative stereotypes are actually being counteracted, or whether they are being reproduced, or their reproduction enabled.
But engaging in some sort of pretense of “objectively” weighing some sexual interests against some other sexual interests (such as kink versus vanilla) is pointless and leads absolutely nowhere.
@Ranai – I think we’re in total agreement here. My point was not a political one, but an interpersonal one. I am not a political creature, and I do not want my sexuality to be politicized.
One of my personal heroes is Anna Deavere Smith. She talks a lot about how people build up these safe houses of identity, be it gay, straight, Jewish, Liberal, Conservative, Black, etc… The problem with these houses is that you tend to stay in these houses because of their safety and familiarity.
She said once “My goal is that instead of making houses, some of you will determine instead to carry tents and pitch them not in safe environments but in what I call the crossroads of ambiguity. This is where we need to be to learn, to engage, where we must use languages, where we must use empathy.”
It’s a model I try very much to take to heart. I want to learn about and understand people outside of my familiar “homes.” So when I hear comments like the one Jay made, it sets off many a red flag.
I find it very refreshing to read a blog entry by someone who’s suspicious of this us vs. them construction.
Some the fierce self-identification as “non-vanilla” that happens is certainly defensive overreaction to experiences with prejudice. However, I think there are alternatives to forging identity from reaction to negative experiences. Another source which you mentioned, the longing to feel special. I wish some of the people who are extremely invested into their kink preferences as an identity tried out the thought experiment “Well, what if I weren’t kinky?” and realise that they could still be unique and interesting humans.
Thanks for recommending Anna Deavere Smith, she sounds very interesting. I looked her up and saw that one of her books, Letters to a young artist, has also been translated into my language. What she expresses in the quote is close to my heart too: not to lock ourselves up in a constructed identity forged from one or two attributes, but instead to recognise ourselves and others as multidimensional.