Context and Intent

Oh dear.  I was really hoping I’d be able to get through this election cycle without feeling the need to come here and start kicking butts.  However, now people have pushed me past my limits and ironically enough, that’s why I’m so pissed off.  Today’s blog is about limits and people who do or do not respect them.

Donald Trump, self proclaimed billionaire (not that we’ll ever know since he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to release his tax returns) is the Republican nominee for President of the United States.  He got this nomination despite the fact that he’s a misogynist, a narcissist, a racist, a sexist, and a blow-hard who has no respect for anyone but himself… and Vladimir Putin… and possibly his tax advisors.   He’s mocked women, the disabled, and the LGBTQ community with abandon and yet, there he is still running for president.

Ah, but wait, maybe he won’t be for long.  Maybe his comments about grabbing women’s pussies and kissing beautiful women without giving them a say in the matter will finally sink him.  Dare we hope?  No, it appears that his fan club is still rooting for him.  Sunday in my Facebook feed I saw one meme posted and reposted by a number of people.  According to this meme, they don’t seem to understand why people are offended by Trump’s words and yet made Fifty Shades of Grey a best seller.  Seriously?  You can’t figure this out?  Okay I’m about to explain it to you so read carefully,

It’s all about context and intent.  

As George Carlin reminded us a few decades ago words on their own are useful tools but not inherently offensive.  It’s how they’re used that becomes problematic.  'Snatch', 'Box', and 'Pussy' are slang terms for female genitalia.  But you could be taking about a cat that needs to go to the vets office when you say, "Snatch that pussy and put her in a box."  

to use them to say that you can and do sexually assault women is beyond the pale of anyone, let alone a person running for elected.  Equating this to extremely badly written mommy porn is ludicrous.  I am aware that there are scenes in Fifty Shades where the heroine’s limits are violated.  Many people have written about that and taken the author to task over it.  However, the vast majority of people who read the book weren’t aware that would be happening when they bought it.  

Then there's the excuse that what he said was just locker room talk.  Plenty of athletes, both professional and recreational have put that fallacy to rest.  But even if it had been just the same kinds of things that guys talk about in the locker room, it's still not right.  As my mother would say, just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't make it right.  

And so dear readers, that’s what it’s all about.  Context.  Intent.  On the one hand we have people who read a work of fiction that describes sexual scenes between consenting (most of the time) adults.  On the other hand, we have a very high profile businessman who is now running for the office of president, describing how he can and does get away with a crime.  

‘Snatch', 'Box', 'Pussy’, ‘Twat’,‘Cunt’ ; the words are not the issue.  It would be no different if he said he grabs women’s genitals or their vulvas.  It’s not the words.  It’s the intent.  It’s the context.  Donald Trump used a slang expression to describe how he commits sexual battery against women.  And that makes all the difference in the world.

Book Review: Counsel of the Wicked by Elizabeth A. Schechter

One of the "professions" I've had for many years now is as a book reviewer -- much like many of my "professions" it would be nice if it paid but at least I get free books and a chance to express my opinions. As you may have figured out, all of us butt-kicking women love to share our opinions about anything that pushes our buttons, lightens our lives, or simply stirs our imaginations. When I enjoy a book, having read it and sharing it with others means a great deal; when a book is a struggle, that's when I want to be paid for it. Book One of the new Elizabeth A. Schechter series, Rebel Mage, is a pleasure to bring to your attention. Book 1 is entitled Counsel of the Wicked but don't let the cover fool you; while that is our main character, whether or not he is "wicked" is one of the subjects of the book and I suspect the entire series.

Warning: While I am trying not to spoil the book, the rest of this post may contain information some readers would prefer to discover on their own. To make a more in depth and serious review, I need to touch upon these matters. Do not continue reading of you dislike any type of spoiler.

As you hopefully recall from my interview with Schechter, defining her books is difficult yet Fantastic Fiction Publishing labels this Bisexual Romance and Fantasy on the back cover. It is certainly a fantasy book. This appears to be set post devastating world-wide collapse of civilization; on Earth or another planet is unclear. There is some technology but it is hoarded by Elders in charge of specific towns. At first we think that these towns are all that is safe in the world because it is all our main character, Matthias, has ever known. Except that isn't quite true; he doesn't live in the town, he lives outside of it because his mother, a rape survivor, is condemned by their town for having a child out of wedlock. Sounds like the neo-con religious fanatics have taken over, huh? The "new" powers in charge have counseled the world in a very wicked fashion.

Matthias is undoubtedly our main character, about half the book is spent looking at his experiences as an outcast, his abuse at "The School" the High Elder sends him to, and his life on the run after he is rescued from that nightmarish place. Schechter gets us into his mind and his heart from chapter one and so we can feel great empathy with him even if he has a very limited world view and knowledge. Is he bisexual? He seems more uninterested in sex except to please his partners. He survives sexual assaults in "The School" and yet it felt like he worked through that fairly quickly once he and the rebel group that rescues him were on the run. As a survivor, I could read this two ways -- an attempt to keep the protections of the group by using sex to appease them or forcing himself to reject the abuse and go back to his normal sexual activities. Matthias seems to have no sexual interests and he doesn't seem driven to keep his rescuers happy. He is selective about whom he shares his body with and this demonstrates that no matter his situation, he has maintained his personal power. He can do this because he has been alone and needed to care for himself, having more than one friend, needing help to the degree he does at "The School" those are new experiences for him. I would expect some emotional fallout eventually from everything that has happened to him once the rebel group gets a few days to recover and calm down.

Before "The School" Matthias' only friend was Balthazar, the son of the town's Elder who also happens to be the High Elder on the Council of Elder.  Note the clever word play that Schechter has used here -- "counsel" and "council." But are these true wicked people in this story? There are hints that they are not. Balthazar is naïve because he has had a sheltered life of privilege. Oddly, Matthias attempts to let his friend know what his life has been life seem very recent. Of course, Balthazar wants to be more than friends and his pressuring of Matthias for more left a distaste in my mouth but also foreshadow some truly horrific events later in the book. Balthazar is definitely bisexual; we see him having sex with one woman who is a leader among the rebels who have survived outside the Council controlled towns. Unlike with Matthias, I couldn't manage to feel empathy for Balthazar at any point in the story. When the novel switched to following him around, I just wanted us to get back to Matthias. That's sad because a lot of good world building was revealed through Balthazar's own adventures.

It is primarily after Balthazar leaves the Council towns that we see hints of what has happened to create this dystopian world. Information through the eyes of the High Elder, the other "students" at "The School," and the rebels they encounter suggest this is not Earth but another world which has survived a great war only to be thrown into pockets of civilization. Just how far the authority and influence of the Council of Elder goes is yet to be revealed. Matthias himself has newly discovered talents that are only being nursed by otherworldly allies.



Schechter tackles a lot of difficult subjects in this 290 page paperback. I've mentioned the destruction of civilization, the rule of the corrupt, and even sexual assaults, but there are other topics as well. Religion is the cover for much of the corruption in this book but these are not Earth religion so get into a tizzy about it. Gender roles and control over the female body are also addressed though given that our main character is male with male love interests it may seem larger to me because I am a woman. There is no clean authority in this book when it comes to women; both the Council of Elders and the rebels who are led by women have no problem dictating what women should do in terms of their careers and reproductive lives. I'm curious to see if Matthias will care about this in future books and I hope that he does or his status as "hero" will be lessened in my eyes. All of these subjects are dealt with in a matter-of-fact fashion that is also sensitive just not in a "I'm teaching you a lesson" way that can detract from the story and character development.

There explicit sex in the book though I've seem far more explicit... heck, I've written it! In general the sex flows naturally from the storylines and character development though the scenes between Matthias and Solomon (one of the "students") once they are on the run felt a bit forced; do you really make time for sex when the baddies are on your heels? Maybe folks do this but I can't imagine it myself. That doesn't make this story bad, it just follows in the expected flow of sex in most popular books. If you can't handle explicit sex or complex social ideas and violence, don't buy this book! It is as simple as that.

Council of the Wicked is a good setup for at least one more book, possibly more.

Some Thoughts on Rape as a Man's Issue, Part 2

Continuing my thoughts from last Friday I wanted to share the story of one male rape survivor who is also my partner because he and I discussed the study and my post about at some length.  I'll call him "S" to offer him privacy.  Those who may know him please respect that if he wanted to share this more with you, he would have done so already. He's allowing me to bring up what I do below in the hopes of getting folks to think.

My partner, S, and I have a lot in common even though we are 11 years apart in age.  Sadly, one of the things we have in common is surviving a series of childhood and teen sexual attacks, harassment, and rape.  We know when my abuse started and what happened at various ages; we aren't sure with him because he's decided he doesn't want to drag up the details.  It is a valid way to survive and live now even I'm always concerned there might be a flashback around the next corner.

His one rape we did talk about after last week's post here on this blog happened when S was a teenager, I believe 15 years old.  Here is what S has told me in the past: He was jumped by a group of older boys and men in the boys' bathroom at school after the normal day was over.  They threatened, they had at least one knife, they each anally raped him, then they shoved the knife inside and cut him up. Afterwards he pulled himself together, washed up as best he could, and went home.

S told no one until he told an online therapist years later and then told me a year after that.  His parents and sister still do not know.

The next morning he noticed a wide streak of white hair on his head so he dug around and found a hat.  He kept wearing hats, refusing to take them off even if he got into trouble with his parents, until the hair grew out enough that it was cut off.  Extreme shock seems able to do that to hair.

But S's way of surviving this went beyond not talking and wearing a hat.

S started growing out facial hair, wearing more "butch" clothing, taking on very public extracurricular activities so that he was never alone and was very much in the public eye.  The men/boys who raped him taunted him for being girly, for being a loner, he was going to stop those things from attracting any more attention.

S told me during our conversation last weekend that he never thought of it as "rape" because rape didn't happen to boys or men, only girls and women.  It took him a few years to even think of it as sexual assault.

"What was it?" I asked him.

"It was just the cost of being different," S automatically muttered then recovered and said, "I didn't have the words to describe it."

I hugged S so hard and so long after that.

I get the normal protective reaction that I'm sure other women and men have when they learn that their loved ones have been raped -- anger, thoughts of revenge, fear that I could harm in some inadvertent fashion.  But having been through this myself I know that my feelings and need to do something can in many ways be stealing the power from the survivor.

Instead I told S that he was a strong man, that he did an amazing job of getting through school, and that he was powerful for continuing to survive it.  If his rapists goals were to make him conform he's overcome that and turned into his own man.

The physical scars from the knife part of the rapes have impacted our love life so thanks a lot bastards for damaging one way my lover could enjoy sex!  However we embrace a multitude of sexuality so, once more, he's proved himself stronger than the rapists.

While his rapists harmed him deeply I think our rape culture harmed him even more.

This culture sets up the idea that men are rapists and women are victims. This culture denies that men/boys can be victims and therefore they great difficulty even doing the internal work to survive because to even admit that something was done against their will might strip a male survivor of manhood since the rape culture tells them that men can't be raped.  They turn the anger inward and harm themselves or outward and harm others; female survivors do this to but we have more public resources to help us fight those two anger directions.

S's rapists ultimately failed as he learned to be himself again and overcome the anger trying to harm him or make him harm others.

S proves himself to be more of a man every day than any of those rapists could ever hope to be as they cave into their impulses and violence probably over and over and over again since study upon study show that multiple rapes and multiple types of violence are very common among rapists.

Some Thoughts on Rape as a Man's Issue, Part 1

Today's thoughts were kicked off by this Slate article that looked at men and boys as victims of rape. This is very important to me, in part, because I worked during my college years to include men during rape awareness campaigns, not as potential perpetrators, but as potential victims. It is also important to me because I've had male family members and lovers, past and present, who are sexual assault survivors.  Not all of them were abused by other men and boys, though the majority were.

The key to understanding the article and the findings that men and boys are being raped at a much higher level than we had previously thought is this fact, according to the article:

in 2012, the FBI revised its definition and focused on penetration, with no mention of female (or force). [1]

Specifically the definition from the FBI is Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. [2]

Let's unpack the sentence above.

Rape, according to the FBI, involves penetration of some object or body party by another person without consent of one of the people (called a victim).  There is nothing about a penis, and although we might argue that that is implied in the case of oral sex, I think that such nitpicking misses the point, which is that someone has not consented to penetration, and therefore a crime has been committed.

This means that anyone can be raped, and anyone can commit rape. Does that scare you?  While I can understand why this might feel scary, I think it is more reassuring to me that we may be on the verge of taking sexual violence a bit more seriously, at least at the FBI level.

You've probably heard the phrase "rape culture." Often we talk about women as objects, women as victims, women as survivors, what women can do to stop it or discourage it, women women women.

Every now and again we hear about how men can prevent rape, but generally in the sense of preventing them from becoming rapists, or how men can help protect women from becoming victims of rape.

This gendered rape discussion seems to create feelings of anger on both sides of what shouldn't ever be a debate -- forcing another person to engage in any type of sexual activity should never be okay, regardless of age, race, sex, orientation, or anything else.

If you do not have rights over your own body, then you have no rights at all.

Just accept the fact that men and boys are raped, and they are raped at a higher level than we ever imagined.

Who are their rapists?  Sure, other men and boys are the majority of perpetrators of rape against men and boys, but women and girls are also rapists.  Don't think that's so?  Go back and reread the new definition of rape.

Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

You can probably imagine how threats of violence or the use of weapons could create this situation, but that is "force," and the new definition doesn't require that. So if there is no force, how can rape happen?  (Some of the social and relationship pressures I'll discuss next also apply to women/girls, but I'm focused today on men/boys as survivors.)

This is a question of consent and what consent means.  The state of California has recently revised and expanded its rape definitions to include a long discussion of consent. [3]  I highly recommend you follow Source [3] to read it thoroughly, because I think it is brilliant and also has the possibility to change how we look at sexuality, especially if we can push for similar changes around the nation.

Let me just highlight the consent paragraph for you all: "Consent" means positive cooperation in act or attitude pursuant to an exercise of free will. The person must act freely and voluntarily and have knowledge of the nature of the act or transaction involved. A current or previous dating or marital relationship shall not be sufficient to constitute consent where consent is at issue in a prosecution. In prosecutions in which consent is at issue, evidence that the victim suggested, requested, or otherwise communicated to the defendant that the defendant use a condom or other birth control device, without additional evidence of consent, is not sufficient to constitute consent.

Wow, just think about this.  The phrases exercise of free will and freely and voluntarily are really standing out to me, because these call into question a ton of social and cultural expectations.

We teach our males that they must want sex all the time.  We pound it into their heads with TV, movies, music, clothing, discussions, books, religion, almost anything you can think of.

We hear repeatedly as girls that the only thing boys want is sex, so we teach our daughters and sons this, and we expect our boyfriends and husbands to constantly want sex.

As a society we spend millions of dollars on scientific research to create medications to help men "get it up."

In movies and TV, there are jokes about slipping these pills to men without their knowledge or laughing off complaints about too much sex when these complaints come from men.

As a society we taunt men who aren't interested in sex at the drop of a hat and question their masculinity, so they self-medicate or feel horrible if they just happen to not want sex tonight.

We promote sex as the happy ending to a couple's argument or the thing you have to do on anniversaries or for birthdays.

I can imagine that the pressure to have sex is very high for men and boys.

Is that pressure, then, the same as social rape?

I think this is a question we need to give some serious time to in our society, because just focusing on the female-victim/male-perpetrator concept is not solving our sexual problems.

______________
Sources:
[1] Slate Article
[2] PDF from FBI on the legal changes
[3] Stanford University rape definition article

#YesAllWomen -- The Chocolate Priestess's Story

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I wanted to expand on a post I did on Twitter and Facebook for the #YesAllWomen movement... or at least I hope it will become a movement that actually turns into actions and changes.  One way to try and do that is to continue to share stories so I'm going to start off what I hope is sharing by the rest of my sisters writing this blog.  Original text from my FB post is in Italics.

I am a survivor.

Some people still use the word victim perhaps because that is what the police use or what those who want to "help" use.  The problem with using or accepting the word victim is that it emphasises your powerlessness.  While your power may have been taken from you it was not all taken from you.  The fact that you survived, that you are here, shows that.  You could have given up, you could kill yourself, but you didn't, you haven't, you are here.

You are a survivor.

I survived childhood abuse ranging from the psychological to the sexual at the hands of men, boys, and even a mother. I tried to tell but nothing helpful was done.

When I was about 2 and a half, the boyfriend of my only sister who still lived at home digitally raped me while he put a hand over my mouth and told me that my sister liked this.  My parents weren't home and my sister was in another room.  He was fast and brutal, he was done by the time my sister came back into the room.  I didn't tell her because according to him she liked this sort of thing.

What type of little sister doesn't want to be like her big sister?

The next time he assaulted me it was with his brother at their house.  They opened their pants and brought out their dicks, they didn't touch, they didn't have to because their words, tone of voice, and actions threatened me.  I ran this time, I fell down the stairs trying to make my way back to my sister who was talking with their mother.  I told, the mother and brothers denied; I can't remember what my sister did other than take me home, but the boyfriend was with her.  I told my mother but the boyfriend said I was lying.  My mother believed me but didn't do anything other than forbid me being with the boyfriend without her there.

He came into my room a few months later at Christmas just to show me that he could still get to me if he wanted to.

The way my mother dealt with it was a pattern that made my mother partner to the abuse.

When I was assaulted by a cousin and witnessed him assaulting his sister and told both my mother and their grandmother who was their guardian... my mother kept me away from them for a good five years until we were in the same school.  I found out years later that my cousin raped his sister regularly after that point all through high school until she finally left.

By the time I was raped at the age of six by a high boyfriend of a high babysister, I didn't even bother telling my mother.  I just hid my bloody underpants in the trash and demanded a lock for my door.  I think she must have known because I never had a babysitter after that; my parents took me everywhere or we just stayed at home.

Her actions said that this was just something that happened that girls had to learn to deal with... I often wonder what happened to my mother when she was a girl but she never wanted to talk about it and she's dead now so I'll never know.

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I could have given up at that point but for some reason I instead started defending others and I learned to defend myself.

I should have given up, hidden away, since that was the pattern my mother showed me.  I didn't and I think I didn't because I had nieces and nephews ranging in age from only six months younger to 18 years younger.

Maybe my personality just isn't cut out for not defending others?  Maybe it's the same drive that pushed me to be a storyteller, leader, teacher, and dominant in my household.  By all rights it should have be nurtured out of me especially when coupled with my mother's psychological abuse that tried to get me to be the servant of all... YUCK!

I channeled her "lessons" into protecting others and by the time I was 16 I was starting to apply those lessons to protecting myself.

I survived a psychologically abusive boyfriend in high school who used to use his pets in an attempt to coerce me into activities I didn't want. I can't say the way I fought back was ideal but the coercion stopped.

I had a few boyfriends in high school and I stupidly went for the asshole instead of the nice boys who wanted to just please me.  I don't think it is because I really liked bad boys more, because frankly other than his attempts at violent emotional manipulation he wasn't bad in most ways.  He used to threaten the kittens on his farm, actually put one in a microwave and threatened to turn it on unless we went back to his bedroom and did something... I fought back by turning the tables on him sexually and I actually beat him up a few times in response to his threats.  The threats stopped.

Now I'm not saying that was a great way to fight back but frankly I never should have had to fight back at all!  He could have just asked for sex or even tried to seduce me into sex, that's part of our mating rituals, but threatening tiny animals?

These experience taught me some important things -- go for the nicer boys and you have the power.

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I survived sexual assaults when I was at college both in the USA and in Italy. I fought back each time and even contacted the police who managed to catch one of them.

Of course there may always be someone out there with more raw physical strength or the benefit of surprise.  You can't control others, only yourself.  I think it is very sad that I was trained by my high school in self-defense workshops to defend myself but it came in handy.

I was sexual assaulted by a complete stranger in my own dormitory in the basement one day.  I had seconds to think of what to do with him on top of me on the couch where I had been just watching TV waiting for my laundry to be done.  I told him that this was cool but I really needed to check my laundry and then I'd be back and not distracted by it.  I don't normally lie, I don't see the need 99.9% of the time, but I had lived with lies my entire life, I know how to do it and I did it well then.  I went out of the room toward the laundry and then up the stairs to get my RA who called campus security and the police.  The police were almost pleading with me to press charges, make a statement; I was surprised that they thought I'd do otherwise.  It turned out that this man had done this at least three previous times; he did it once more but because of my report the campus security was able to react faster and soon the police had him.

I don't blame the other women he assaulted for their assaults; I do blame them for not doing more about it after the fact.  I know that won't be a popular thing to say and I've probably pissed off my sister writers here on Butt-Kicking Women but I feel strongly that this is the truth.  As long as women do nothing, as long as we just mourn and cope then we continue to be powerless not by because we are but because we chose to be.  When you are quiet, when you refuse to press charges, when you shy away from letting others know, then you support your abusers continued behavior and you become his partner in crime just like my mother.

I didn't just stop there -- I wrote letters to the school newspaper and my hometown newspaper letting them know what happened to me.  I even stepped out into the hall when tour guides were bringing prospective students and parents to campus and told my story if I heard the tour guide make a stupid claim about how safe the dorm was.  I'm sure the university higher ups hated me.

In Rome I was fondled three times on the public bus system -- those were crimes of opportunity and crowdedness and I could have ignored them but I didn't.  The first I was with my boss from the library where I worked and told him immediately as I stepped away; he glared at the perp and stepped between us.  The second time I jerked away and told the guy off and some wonderful old lady started hitting him with her big purse.... big purses my Italian girl friends told me held big books so you could hit men who did that in public.  It was so common that no one stepped in when the old woman hit the perp and young women were prepared to carry big books to do this.

The third time I am most proud of my action because this time I grabbed the assaulting hand, curled mind into a fist around it, and punched back with it into the perp's own groin as hand as I could.  He gasped and pulled the stop cord and got off as quickly as he could.

I stopped taking the bus after that and just walked everywhere I needed to go unless I was with friends who could all gather around in a group.  Was that being afraid and letting my fear guide me or was it removing myself from potential threats?  I'd like to think it was the second.

I helped a group of other survivors in support groups, worked for the sexual violence awareness program on my campus, and as many of you know worked as an educator on sexual issues for a several years even when it brought me negative attention back in NYC at Columbia University. I've worked to educate not just the general public and those in the support groups but also health care providers.

I've done many things that I hope have been helpful not just for women but for men as well in regards to sexual violence and sexuality.  I pushed at Drake University to have a men's table for our Sexual Violence Awareness Week.  I reached out to men I knew had been raped or assaulted just to offer a shoulder, an ear, just plain old recognition that it happened to them, too.

I've spoken up to defend the men in my life when they have been targeted by other men for a perceived weakness in their manhood.

After I stopped letting myself be attracted to the "bigger man" and starting dating real men, I realized that they, too, are targeted by other men.  This ranges from the messages they receive in mass media to the fearful looks they get from women when they are in elevators or just walking down the street to actually assaults and insults from other men.

Before I got married my then boyfriend and I were walking down a street from my summer apartment to campus where I was working.  The frat house were on the way and as we walked some asshats decided that they needed to not catcall me but insult him by telling him how he didn't deserve a hot babe like me (also insulting to me by the way since I wasn't a work of art for them to jerk off to but another human being).  I turned around at one point and marched back and told the ringleader off. He was shocked, didn't know what to do, my boyfriend had to pull me away before I started getting physically violent.

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See just like I was motivate to protect my nieces, nephews, and others, I was motivated to protect him.  I've done this for other male friends and partners, too, but I also try to get them to talk and act on their own.

These asshole who were raised to think that they have a right to take whatever or whomever they want they don't listen to women or girls, they might or might not listen to their mothers, but they very well might listen to you.  Men, boys, fathers, uncles, grandfathers... the ball here is in your court.  Either teach yourselves and each other to control yourselves or you may discover that women and girls will reach out collective limit and fight back in a way you really don't want.

My point -- stand up for yourself and your loved ones, teach your children to stop all of this gender and sexual aggression, or in my opinion you are also the abusers that the rest of us must survive.

I haven't and won't do the one thing that is really going to make a difference -- raise my sons to be human beings and my daughters to be human beings, too.  I haven't had kids, I won't have any, for a lot of reasons.

Instead I try to empower the young women and men I've taught, I try to treat boys and girls I interact with fairly and evenly, but I'm not a parent so I have to trust that those of you who are can realize that YOU are the only real change that can work.

What have you done to stop the cycle of violence?

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Image Credits, Sites I found each image at:

Image 1: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/yesallwomen?source=wtfrt&position=2&query_id=-1

Image 2: http://radioornot.com/blog/yesallwomen-and-chriss-dad-is-right/

Image 3: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/470663166675144705/TETKi-RX.jpeg

Image 4: http://eyesonlife-ginahunter.blogspot.com/2014/04/violence-against-women.html

Has Consent Been Erased?

This article on TruthOut by Jill D. Weinberg got me thinking about consent, vanilla sex, BDSM, and the portrayals each "side" creates of each other.  The article looks at the entire "Fifty Shade" brand in regards to how it might be harmful to folks who are starting to engage in S&M (and it's associated forms of sexuality or sexual play) and those who have been doing it for some time. While I think the article makes some good points it leaves out an honest look at the history of and the current culture of BDSM so I want to address that as someone who has been doing all of this for over 24 years now and who has done some research into the history of the Scene and a lot of talking/reading about the changes to the Scene over these two and a half decades.

"Fifty Shades" may be more honest about how some kinky relationships work than we want to believe.



While I have no doubt that Weinberg's subjects (52 of them according to the post) told her that consent was really important, very common, and taken very seriously, I've seen many online discussions and even live debates about the need (or not) for safewords and contracts growing over the past decade.  The correct answer you are "supposed" to give to any researcher is that these (safewords, contracts, negotiation) are important because you don't want to show the community or yourself in a poor light.  This correct not only because "we" want to prove we aren't crazies or serial killers but because the idea that we are better than vanillas is touted in every Scene community I've been part of or visited.  Vanilla (folks who don't identify as part of BDSM/SM/Kink) aren't as self-aware, they don't discuss things, they don't think things through, they just fly on instinct and tradition or so we tell ourselves repeatedly.

Abuse happens in the Scene, it happens every day.  Even though I applaud the NCSF's attempt to research issues of abuse I have my worries about how honest people will be even in a blind study. Their previous study on the value of consent vs. the reality can be found here.  The NCSF discovered rate of consent violations in that study isn't the 2 out of 52 that Weinberg reports but over 30%!

It simply isn't true that most people use contracts any more.  That I do makes me an oddity and even then my current contact is not ideal in any sense of the word but it is the outgrowth of doing all of this for years and years with one partner; we are not role-models for new relationships. I have my doubts that the majority ever did use contracts even though the value of them was promoted back in the early to mid-1990s when I was starting into the public community. Repeated today we are told how unlegal our contracts are, that they are more a matter of mutual honor or a why to lay things out so you both know what you are getting into.  Well, duh!  I was never told our contracts were legal documents and these discussions often have the tone of warning about them -- don't be fooled into thinking you can't leave just because you have a contract, little girl.

At the other edge of the contract discussion though are those who report on ways they have legally found to tie their partner to them.  Doing these things (and we aren't talking legal marriage, folks) is said to make things more "real" and take away the slave's right to just walk away.  I have my doubts about such advice since most of the documents being discussed would require the submissive to be proven to be mentally unable to make decisions... in that case how are they making the decision to be in the relationship in the first place?

If you pay attention to these discussions going around the Scene today it feels like consent and safewords are what "real" masters/slaves don't need or are only for the newbies.  Sure we tell the younguns that they need a safeword, maybe even a safecall though I've found that less and less discussed, but they are also told not to use it "control the scene."  This idea confuses safewords as being all the same and that wasn't what I taught many years back.  Safewords are ways to give information but the anti-safeword folks often say "just communicate" ignoring the fact that some folks want to say things in Scene that would communicate that things should stop even if that isn't what they want.  The Scene can be linguistically complicated, safewords were an idea to address those complications.  Safewords then become tools for the newest members or for those too unskilled in communication.

Then there are the safewords are for fake folks.  This idea can primarily be found on master-slave boards online.  Here people brag about how they don't have safewords or that having one would make them unreal.  I totally get bragging about how little your partner may need to use a safeword after years together as a sign of how well you've gotten to know each other but bragging that not having any way to communicate beyond the linguistic complications makes you more real seems odd to me.  Of course these folks also tend to preach that real slaves can't leave, can't make choices, and furthermore never want to do so.  I agree with the Weinberg article that I mentioned first in this essay -- having a slave stay because he choses to is far more sexy than having one who feels they have no choice. But there are folks in BDSM who strongly disagree.

So if folks in the community are currently disagreeing about the need or value of safewords, contracts, and even ongoing consent do they at least agree that rape and assault can happen and should be avoided?

I have seen many discussions online, in organizations, and at events about the rate of sexual assault (and whether or not it is real, an insult to say the least to those who have been assaulted) in the Scene and the responsibility of the community to do anything about it other than educate and provide resources for "victims."  People who speak up about violations of their limits or flat out assaults and rapes are often warned by those in charge to stop and sometimes they are kicked off of online and meatlife communities.  As a "community" I have seen far more accused believed than accusers even when the accuser have bruises, hospital records, and evidence of threats to back up their claims.  The standard lines I've read and heard from those poo pooing the claims -- you just weren't a good enough slave, you could have walked away any time, and even that you want to get revenge on your ex.

Wow!  Those seem very similar to charges that survivors of domestic abuse heard and continue to hear, doesn't it?  Apparently the talk of consent, safewords, and contracts isn't taken seriously when we are smacked in the head by a complaint.  It is easier to fall back onto the ideal of what the Scene is like than to realistically look at the folks we munch with, chat with, and play with.

I've never seen or heard anyone claim that an unpartnered dom or sub should give up safewords or not have their consent respected.  But once you starting using those magic words owner and slave (and the variations of them) suddenly folks come out to say you aren't real if you need safewords, or that they have "moved beyond" the need for safewords or contracts, or that it lessens their dynamic if those are involved.  We talk about these things in brief in our book if you want to check it out:



I see this far more often in the maledom/femsub community than in the femdom/malesub.  Is this a carry over of the idea that men need to be in charge and that women just "naturally" submit to them especially in the bedroom?  If you have tell someone to submit, if you have to show her how to do that, if you have to keep driving home the fact that her uterus makes her less, then it isn't natural.  There are naturally submissive folks out there, there are people who love to serve others, but that's not a gender thing, it's an individual thing.  I can't say how frequent this idea of "no safeword = more real" is in the lesbian or gay communities really but I'd be surprised if these same discussions about the unnecessary safewords and contracts for real owner-slave households aren't going on.

One problem unlining this is the idea that some peoples' relationship are more "real" than others. This might be a type of competitiveness or a way to bolster your own feelings by making yourself seem more important compared to others.  It may also be a romantic view of the past before the advent of the Internet and the popularization of kink into the mainstream -- complaints I hear even more often than arguments about safewords and consent.

If you want to see the past of BDSM then you need to look at the honest histories of the "Old Guard" but also some of the underground clubs and circles that existed prior to the late 1980s when it all started to become more "public". Hopefully next year there will be a history book out about several of these things but for now, for anyone believing in an "golden age of kink" before the Internet debased it all, I recommend you read V.M. Johnson's "To Love, To Obey, To Serve: Diary of an Old Guard Slave" that the tops club I used to run read and discussed soon after it came out.  Not a single person in that club wanted to go back to those "good old days" even though they would have been in the more powerful positions.



That these discussions about consent, the responsibility of the community to police itself, and the "realness" of relationships points out several things about the Scene today.  We are an expanding community and as such the variety of opinions will be greater.  We will also attract people who have no interest in BDSM at all and merely see our meeting spaces as arena in which to hunt for new victims.  One of the most common traits of serial rapists and abusers is their ability to hide very well in mainstream society; in kink communities these people can recite the words, play in public, even take on leadership positions then abuse their "slaves" in private.  Our community is primarily online now ranging from folks who never meet offline to those organizations that have been around for 40+ years using the Internet to communicate.  The Internet allows us to lie, it encourages us to lie, so the self-proclaimed great master can get a following much later than the leather daddy who was a founder member of a Old Guard club.

Lies are the foundation of abuse. Lies strip people's ability to get information they need to give consent or withdraw it.  It is so easy for someone to lie about themselves at any time.  I learned to not tell my potential partners my own limits and interests during initial negotiations after repeated discoveries that things my partners claimed they were into were things they either just tolerated or actually hated.  On occasion that could have been intentional lies but often it was merely adapting their answers to reflect mine because they wanted so badly to get into the Scene or try it out with me.  As a result for many years now I haven't told potentials my limits or preferences in formal negotiations until after we've documented theirs.  (I'm a freak about negotiating as fully informed as possible.)  Regardless of why they lied, the lies damaged any foundation we might have built upon.  Abusers constantly lie to trick their victims and those around them so they can continue their abuse.

I think we can educate all we want but until we tackle the "need" to lie, the need to be in "real" relationship, and even the idea that you must be in a relationship to be kinky we will continue to struggle with abuse in BDSM.  Until we as a greater society deal with our constructed ideals of gender and sex and accept the naturalness of individualism then books like "Fifty Shades" will resonate with some people and reflect the reality of some people's lives.  It isn't erasing consent, it's pointing out the serious problems we have with consent right here, right now.

So those are my thoughts on the reality of kink and consent.  What's your experience?

Cut the crap!

Cerise writes:

I have recently noticed an alarming trend in our language.  It is a specific form of negative body-talk.  So many articles, ads, and women use very violent imagery when discussing parts of their bodies.  Think about it:  banish your butt, burn fat, carve off your curves, destroy your belly, slice your flab, melt your belly, dump your gut, kill your cravings, blast your thighs.  Is this a nice way to talk about yourself?  What would you say to a product that promises to destroy women's bodies?  Doesn't sound so nice now, does it?  What about slicing, cutting, burning?  Why is it okay to use language like this?

I can't decide where this language comes from.  Does it spring from our acceptance of violence against women in popular culture?  Does it come from our habit of insulting overweight people (and, for that matter, not-so-over-weight celebrities?)  Is it just an expression of the very real loathing some women feel for parts of their bodies?  

Well, stop it!  I don't care where it comes from.  It is not okay to talk about yourself or anyone else this way.  Don't buy products that promise to act out violence on your body.  Don't accept this sort of language.

When I took a college course on propaganda (very cool course, by the way), we discussed the insidious impact of propaganda.  Even if you are a very smart, educated person, it seeps into your thinking.  Even if you know it is propaganda, if it is repeated often enough, it soaks into your head.  Even if it is clumsy, stupid propaganda, if it is not contradicted, it is hard to resist.  Advertising is perhaps the most pervasive form of propaganda in our society.  Don't say it is trivial, it is not.  Don't think you can ignore it, you cannot.  But do not accept it.  Do not let it go unchallenged.  The best way to combat propaganda is to recognize it for what it is and to actively disagree with it.

Through a Shattered Looking Glass

Recently Ariel Castro stunned many with his ramblings at his sentencing. He made a meandering twenty minute statement before the court where he blamed everyone but himself for the kidnapping, torture and rape of Michelle Knight, Gina De Jesus, and Amanda Berry.  He stated, "I am not a monster." He claimed he was "sick." He asserted that there was "harmony" in the house and that the women weren't really prisoners;he simply kept "them there without them being able to leave."

He stunned many when he said: "But, uh, most of the sex that went on in that house, practically all of it was consensual. This – this – these allegations about being forceful on them, that is totally wrong. There was times that they would even ask me for sex. Many times. And I learned that these girls are not virgins from their testimony to me. And they had multiple partners before me. All three of them."

News programs and talk shows covered every angle of his statement. Clearly he is a mad man! Surely his level of self delusion is great! They rightly concluded this is a man who deserves his thousand year sentence without parole. But then they moved on to the next thing without further reflection.

Is what Ariel Castro said that "stunning?" Are the delusions he is operating under unique to him or did we see, just for a moment, beyond the image in the mirror to the fractured reality?

Just this week, it was reported that prison officials and their lawyers are trying to avoid culpability for the rape of a 14 year old inmate by a corrections officer while she was in their custody. They argued, "“Vickers could not have engaged in sexual relations within the walls of the detention center with [the victim] without cooperation from her. Vickers did not use force, violence or intimidation when engaging in sexual relations."

Furthermore, an anonymous source told the Tri Parish Times, "These girls in the detention center are not Little Miss Muffin."

So here we have it! The state is arguing that the 14 year old girl consented to have sex with the corrections officer and thus there was no wrongdoing; there were no monsters! And an anonymous source has been quick to point out that girls in detention facilities are inherently naughty.

Let's put this into perspective here. Mary Doe, the fourteen year old victim, was an incarcerated fourteen year old. Prior to her incarceration she had lived a life rife with tragedy and sexual abuse beginning at age 5! Now she is in prison where she is completely dependent on the system. She is alone; her mother died when she was nine and the uncle who was given custody sexually assaulted her AND tried to kill her. Then came a much older male who had the power to make her situation marginally better or far worse. What choice did she really have? Maybe she just wanted to survive. Does that mean she wanted to have sex? Does that mean the sex was consensual?

And, why is this even a question because Louisiana's statutory rape laws say it's rape. She was fourteen years old!

Yes, this is the shattered looking glass of rape culture we are staring through here. The one where certain politicians pontificate about "legitimate" rape and moralize that a pregnancy from  rape is "something God intended." Perhaps it is a comfort to Ariel Castro to know that the daughter he fathered with Amanda Berry was planned by the almighty.

Ariel Castro kidnapped Michelle Knight when she was twenty-one, Amanda Berry at age sixteen, and Gina DeJesus at age fourteen. He believes he isn't a monster. He believes he provided a good home and that his victims wanted to be there, and wanted him. After all, they weren't virgins. The nation is shocked.

The state of Louisana argues they are not culpable in the case of a corrections officer in their employ who repeatedly raped a fourteen year old inmate. It wasn’t really rape because she didn’t fight. And after all, she wasn't a virgin. The nation doesn’t see the ugly reflection. It doesn’t see that these events are connected that they are simply shards from the same broken mirror.

*Edited by TB