Why domestic discipline is not domestic violence

Last week (at least it was last week when I started this post) I read Jessica Wakeman's piece over at The Frisky about her first D/s relationship and was going to write about the similarities/differences with my own first spanking relationship. Except that within the essay was a link (that didn't work but I found eventually) to Amanda Marcotte's post at Pandagon about that article Jessica wrote for Bitch Magazine regarding domestic discipline two years ago featuring, among others, yours truly and my dear friends, Mija and Pablo (see this post for my thoughts on that article). Needless to say it rather distracted me from the post I intended to write.

I'm not sure how I missed Marcotte's post as I was reading Pandagon fairly regularly at the time (and would be now if I was awake more), but it was probably a good thing I did miss it as most likely I would have taken it quite personally ("these people are fucked the fuck up")*. Instead I shrugged off it and its comments as sort of like watching and listening to random people in a bar discuss an event they saw on TV in which you actually played an intimate part. Plus the idea of A. (or Pablo) as an ideologically-motivated pater familias or a misogynistic wife beater made me laugh.

At least, initially I shrugged it off. But...it kept bugging me. As it's been two years since her post, it seemed just a bit late to write a post in response.  However the more I continued to think about it, the more I began to feel that a post addressing why domestic discipline is not domestic violence had a great deal of merit.

Definitions: domestic discipline vs. domestic violence

Domestic discipline is planned, contained, sexually-oriented acts of power exchange with regard to real life deeds that may include physical violence between two people who have explicitly consented to those acts, the violence, and the mutually-defined structure of power exchange.

Domestic violence is behavior that seeks power and control through physical and/or psychological coercion over a partner who has not consented to being controlled (staying with the partner is not consent) and frequently includes spontaneous, unrestrained emotionally-mediated outbursts of physical and/or psychological violence.

Domestic violence is about manipulation and focuses exclusively on the desires of the abusive partner, whereas domestic discipline is far more centered on the needs and desires of the submissive partner.

Within domestic discipline, both partners create a construct in which one partner gives authority (in varying degrees) to the other partner in a way that produces sexual arousal for both. Within this construct the dominant partner will speak and act in ways that would be cruel, unfair, and absolutely inappropriate outside of the construct. Nobody ever really, truly requires a partner "take them in hand." When the submissive partner says he or she "deserved" his or her punishment or the dominant partner beats the other with a rattan cane, both are fully aware that they are acting within the construct they have both chosen and actively participated in constructing.

Safe, Sane, and Consensual

I failed to see how it’s much different from domestic violence, except that the women in this situation tend to minimize the conflict through stylizing the violence and submitting to it in a tacit exchange for their partners’ agreeing to have a limit on how much beating and abuse is handed out.

The difference is quite simple and stark: consent.  Just as in any BDSM relationship, the motto remains safe, sane, and consensual. Even in the "consent to non-consent" relationships, it always begins with consent. With discussions of fantasies and limits (hard and soft) and safe words.

Part of the process of breaking a victim down is slowly introducing her to this narrative in bits and pieces while depriving her of her independence...

Except that in domestic discipline, the overwhelming majority of the time it's the submissive (male or female) who is the one who introduces the domestic discipline narrative to his or her partner and pushes him or her to "be stricter." Or the two partners meet because they are both interested in the same narrative and join a spanking-fetish group of one sort or another. This is markedly different from the bullying that occurs in domestic violence where the abuser's narrative is forced onto his or her victim.

Some abusers will indeed use spanking as a form of violence, particularly when one partner is into spanking/DD and the other isn't. Such was the case in this situation I wrote about where the guy was (and may be still, alas) "disciplining" his girlfriend without any consent on her part because he thought "she needed it." No consent = abuse.

I've also seen situations where one partner wants the other to spank him or her and seeks to get him or her to do so by engaging in greater and greater deliberately provocative behavior (aka "bratting for it"). It's one thing to "brat" with someone you know is into spanking and may view it as a form of foreplay (though a lot of spankos are just as likely to find it annoying as hell). But doing so with someone who is not into spanking or DD is also a form of non-consensuality. Do note, however, this does NOT excuse the non-spanko partner from responding with violence (you have agency, asshole). Bratting for it may work in John Wayne movies and spanking stories, but it's not going to turn someone into a spanko anymore than a girl in a bikini will turn a gay guy straight.


It's all about sex

DD is not BDSM, which is a sexual game, though some DD couples do also enjoy incorporating BDSM elements into their relationships

This is absolutely false and indeed Jessica made a point of linking domestic discipline to sex in her article ("each and every one considers herself a 'spanko' whose fantasies have long revolved around being spanked."). DD is a sub-fetish of BDSM.  It is why you find DD groups at places like FetLife or SpankoLife. Or why DD groups on Yahoo are considered "adult." It is true that those in the "Christian Domestic Discipline" community are probably markedly uncomfortable admitting that what they do is connected to gay leathermen. It is also true that there are some Christian DDers who have a difficult time acknowledging DD is about sex. But even evangelicals who believe in the "headship" of husbands look down on domestic discipline as a sexual fetish. At the end of the day they are simply using a traditional, religious, patriarchal narrative to make palatable what is very much sexual. And we feminists who practice DD are pretty shameless in declaring that what we do is directly related to our clitorises.

...It seems that domestic discipline is a way of thwarting conflict in your relationship by assuming that every conflict or problem in the heterosexual relationship is the woman’s fault (because she’s childish, scattered, rebellious, whatever) and that it’s up to her man to discipline her.

This sentence requires unpacking, and I'll just start at the beginning.

Her point about thwarting conflict in relationship is an important one that deserves far more discussion in the domestic discipline community than it gets. I am always disturbed when I hear couples say they are using DD to avoid arguments. Conflict is a part of ANY relationship, healthy or not. Spanking (or sex, job, exercise, etc.) should never be used as a substitute for good inter-personal communication skills. Ever.

That said, once the conflict is resolved, DD couples will use spanking in the same way that non-kinky people use intercourse to make up. It may not be the way you have sex, but it includes all the aspects of love, intimacy, and affection that one associates with sex.

It's not about gender 

And I use the androgynous term partner because it could just as well be a woman as a man. Marcotte insists that one, domestic discipline only exists within hetero couples, and that two, the man is always dominant. Now based on reading Jessica's article, I can see why she thinks this. While I thought Jessica's description of domestic discipline was very perceptive on a number of levels, she made a crucial mistake in stating that female-dominant or same-sex domestic discipline is merely "theoretical." There are plenty of couples in which the wife is the one disciplining the guy (I really could have linked to a bazillion places for F/M couples). And there are also women disciplining women (if I ever find my Nanny Bea, I can add my name to that list) and men disciplining men. One very astute commenter at Pandagon pointed out that

it’s actually my impression that there’s long been more female-D/male-s than visa verse. My assumption has been that that’s because male-D/female-s overlaps with traditional gender roles, so people who like that sort of thing don’t need to go to a subculture to find it.

Indeed that's exactly been my experience as I've started switching. It took me a little while, but once I found the F/M community, I found more blogs and websites than I could ever possibly visit even if I was healthy and had all the time in the world. And I think Jessica's own male-D/female-s interest kept her from looking for that subculture, leaving the reader to falsely assume that DD is about male superiority by default.

That is not to say misogyny is lacking within the DD community, as well as in the larger BDSM community. Yes, there are men (and women) who engage in domestic discipline (and D/s)** because they believe all women are meant to submit to men (we all know that guy[s] who thinks all dominant women are just waiting for the right dominant man to submit to -- who would be him, of course!). There are men (and women) who are disturbed by feminism and find domestic discipline to be sexually, and yes, politically and religiously attractive. Add thousands of years of patriarchy and a society which is still rife with sexism, and it can make the distinction between ideology and wank fodder difficult.

My first draft of this post was snarky, sarcastic, and downright indignant. Marcotte and her commenters come across as condescending and distinctly uninterested in DD as a form of sexuality. However after more reflection, I had to acknowledge my own lingering discomfort with the language of domestic discipline -- so much so that I don't even like calling what I do "domestic discipline" because of its 1950s "Father-Knows-Best" connotation, preferring to use "punishment fetish/kink" or "What It Is We Do" instead -- even if the fantasies that make me orgasm most often involve domestic discipline. It's because of that discomfort that I almost never read fiction that includes domestic discipline, and when I do, it usually features female-dominant or same-sex couples. Or it's real-life accounts from couples where I know sexism is not the motivation. It's hard for me to not take a "sexist-until-proven-innocent" approach so I can imagine how hard it must be for people outside of our community to hear that my boyfriend spanks me when I go to bed late and not think something terribly sexist is occurring even though it really is true that gender has little to do with the disciplinary arrangement I have with A. 

I agree with Marcotte that feminism is being defined too much these days as choice and not enough as empowerment, especially given the growing climate of dis-empowering women regarding their reproductive rights or equal pay. And I'm not going to suggest -- as I often see women in the BDSM community doing -- that embracing my choice to engage in DD is some grand feminist act, anymore than my eating Cheerios for breakfast is. Domestic discipline is sex and sex is...sex with all of the love, intimacy, transcendence/spirituality, and personal fulfillment that it involves. It's not feminist or misogynist. It's certainly not a movement to return male-female relationships back to the 1950s (even if it may mean that for some who practice it). It's sex.***

But I will say that making women feel bad about the kind of sex they have contributes to their disempowerment. And that is most definitely NOT a feminist act. 


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*It is also quite possible that I knew about it at the time but deliberately chose not to read it because I suspected this sort of response and now, two years later, forgot that I wasn't going to read it. As you might imagine, my illness-induced poor short-term memory makes reruns far more interesting. ::grin::

**The line between DD and D/s is a murky one. The best way I would differentiate between the two off the top of my head is to say that DD includes a sort of parent-child dynamic while D/s has more of an adult master/slave dynamic - PG vs. R-rated, if you will (or perhaps Freud vs. Hegel). But, of course, there is enormous overlap between the two. Indeed in Jessica's article in Bitch, as well as in The Frisky post that originally sparked this post, she uses the terms interchangeably. But I'll save that question for a whole other post.

***I am fully aware that sex is political and among the many ways the patriarchy has traditionally sought to control women. In this case, it's other women -- not the patriarchy -- trying to control women and so while yes, DD may be political, engaging in it is not an act of sticking it to the Man. Unless, perhaps, it's a female-dominant relationship.

The perfect body for three-minute porn

Last year A. requested I make a few sexy videos of myself for his birthday including both dominant and submissive themes. Eager to grant my beloved's birthday wish, I set about creating story lines and writing scripts for the three minutes of video my camera will shoot.

I did so with a muggy dread at seeing my body in all its fullness and folds on camera, peppered with carbuncles, cellulite and bruises in their multicolored stages of healing -- so very unsexy when they aren't on my backside. The video of me as a slave in which I was completely naked was -- and remains -- the most difficult for me to watch. However upon checking myself out in the mirror when I was dressed up in a black lace bra, black stockings, and black garter belt for my dominatrix character, I was surprised to find myself thinking that I looked, well...hot. Neither was I adverse to watching myself in this costume on video.*

For one of only a few times in my life there was symmetry between my body and the construct. Between the ideal depicted in popular culture, in this case the full-figured dominatrix, and what I was trying to attain in my imagination. It was then I realized that one of the reasons it has been so hard for me to accept my body over the years has been that as someone who has lived much of my imaginary (and sexual) life as a little girl, seeing a fleshy woman with mountainous breasts and lavish hips in the mirror has always been a source of tremendous dissonance.

It's not that my body is devoid of "little" characteristics. I'm 5' tall. My feet can fit into shoes as small as size 5 1/2 if they're wide enough. The fingers on those miniature stretchy gloves are often still too long when fitted onto my tiny hands. And the hair stylist I used to go to referred to my hair as "baby hair" because it's so thin it slides right through "adult-sized" barrettes.

However I did not have the body of a child for much of my childhood. I can remember watching Annie as a nine-year-old, with Aileen Quinn dressed in dainty cream and navy sailor suits and perky royal blue rompers with puffed pants and wanting terribly to dress like that. To look like that. Except I would have looked laughable in them. Despite being the same age as Aileen/"Annie," I had finally resigned to wearing a bra that year as my C-cup-sized-breasts could not longer be allowed to hang about. A few months ago my grandma presented me with a picture of my 11th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I suddenly understood why strangers were so shocked when I told them how old I was. In a my black and white flowered dress with the collar dipping down to breasts bulging against the cotton fabric, I would have sworn I was in my mid-20s.

Being a woman who is sexually submissive is about being small. Easily overpowered and dominated. You do not see many tall, fat submissives in BDSM porn. Not only is there the cultural aesthetic favoring the thin, but large women also take up too much space with estrogen-rich fat that the male dominant should be filling with testosterone, muscle, and patriarchal authority.

Yes, I'd like to see porn with more fat -- and tall -- women playing submissive characters along with their traditional roles as dominatrices. Though if I'm honest, I know I'm being more than a little hypocritical as I personally would not feel comfortable putting my own body on film for more than my lover to see. It may be that there are spanking porn producers out there who are more open to various body shapes and sizes but simply do not have many larger women auditioning.

I suppose I could say I have the perfect body for a switch. I'm short enough that my feet dangle above the floor when I'm over his knee and I have enough weight to throw around as the demanding domme. The perfect body for my dearest to both pet and worship. The perfect body for three-minute porn just for A.

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*Needless to say, neither was A. He was quite pleased with all three.

How BDSM is and is not sexist

Back in October I tried to write a bit about sexism within BDSM, but my brain was way too mushy to articulate the problem coherently. However while catching up on some long overdue blog reading yesterday, I found this thoughtful, intelligent post over at Subversive Submissive that spelled it out in more detail.

From my perspective, BDSM is a product of human sexuality and its wide variety of expressions and is not inherently sexist nor inherently feminist. Because we live in a sexist and heterosexist society, we mainly see maledom-femsub parings, while any other combinations, including those involving trans and queer folks, are marginalized; and female dominants are largely still expected to be fetish objects for submissive men. (Or they aren’t really thought to exist.) Also because of the sexist culture in which we are socialized, there are a lot of men (in general) who are accustomed to getting what they want from women, and there are a lot of women (in general) who have a hard time saying “no” and sticking to it

I particularly liked the point about how BDSM pairings that do not fall within the traditional maledom-femsub paradigm are marginalized as I think this is why any discussion of, say, domestic discipline is always, always gendered even if many of us who engage in the practice do not look at it in terms of gender. She also talks about how BDSM practice can be used to mask sexist beliefs, as in male dominants who believe that all women are naturally submissive regardless of whether a woman may identify as dominant (I think we've all run into that guy). It's a really great post and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety (it's not particularly long).

Gotta love the bubble butt

Another link to an Alternet article, this time about butts and the changing aesthetic in favor of big booties, which I imagine will please many a spanko.

In mainstream U.S. culture, "bubble butts" have typically been associated with "lowly" subject positions or "vulgar" sexuality. Calling too much attention to one's behind is considered uncouth in polite society, a nasty reminder of forbidden or distasteful acts. A big butt is associated with "unnatural" sex, excrement or the excess and physicality identified with "darker" races. This body metaphor helps us constitute social identities and subject positions.

...In recent years, however, Americans have been enjoying a butt fling. Voluptuous female buttocks have become a valuable commodity, exploited in advertising campaigns, music videos and specialty men's magazines. This butt appeal has produced a profitable commercial market for "bootyful" women.

One of the things I found interesting -- and rather puzzling -- was a reference to the fact that many men were reticent about saying that they like women with larger asses. This was particularly interesting in light of a number of comments following the piece in which several men agreed that they like women with voluptuous derrieres, but felt the need to add a disclaimer that the woman shouldn't be fat. The knee-jerk fat-phobia, not to mention blatant objectification of women in the comments section was a bit depressing. The article itself, however, detailing the sexual freedom and ethnic and class associations with bubble butts was fascinating.

Lending power

Just wanted to post a link to an article by Stacey May Fowles about BDSM at the left-of-center political site Alternet. It's actually an excerpt from a new book called Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape edited by writer Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti of Feministing fame. It argues that feminism and female sexual submissive fantasies can indeed comfortably co-exist.

Personally, the more I submitted sexually, the more I was able to be autonomous in my external life, the more I was able to achieve equality in my sexual and romantic partnerships, and the more genuine I felt as a human being. Regardless, I always felt that by claiming submissive status I was being highlighted as part of a social dynamic that sought to violate all women. Sadly, claims of sexual emancipation do not translate into acceptance for submissives -- the best a submissive can hope for is to be labeled and condescended to as a damaged victim choosing submission as a way of healing from or processing past trauma and abuse.

However, after several paragraphs of thinking "tell it, sister!", I was disappointed when Fowles then turn turned the frequent feminist mantra of "BDSM porn is bad". She argues that while members of the BDSM counterculture who understand the sacred BDSM rules are capable of understanding the artifice of porn,

the average young, male, heterosexual porn audience member begins to believe that forcing women into sex acts is the norm -- the imagery's constant, instant availability makes rape and sex one and the same for the mainstream viewer. Couple that private home viewing to get off with the proliferation of graphic crime shows on prime-time television and torture porn masquerading as "psychological thrillers" in theaters, and our cultural imagery screams that "women as sexual victims" is an acceptable reality.

Sigh. How many times do we have to have this discussion? Porn -- mainstream or fetish -- is NOT REAL. The majority of teenage boys know this just as well as seasoned BDSM vetrans. I mean, most teenage boys manage to watch all sorts of movies and television programs and know they are fiction. Why assume they are not capable of doing that with porn?

Now, she is right that BDSM is not a community exclusively made up of enlightened feminists. And there are plenty of those among our population who do tend to mix up reality and fiction a bit too much. But this is because the practice of BDSM gets messy. Damn messy. And that is not the fault of porn but the fault of people being fallible human beings.

It's almost as if the author, in letting go of the feminist dogma regarding mindnumbingly dull democratic sex, felt she had to latch on ever more tightly to the other part of feminist dogma that insists porn is bad. As one commenter stated, "There's the problem...You're tied up, butt in the air awaiting the crack of leather, and your mind wanders to feminist ideology. How about just having some good, consensual, kinky fun and saving the ideological crapola for the coffee house?"

Speaking of commenters, I highly recommend a read through the comments section. My particular favorite was one from someone named AMerrickanGirl:

The whole point of BDSM is not to "lose power". It is to allow someone else to borrow your power, with your enthusiastic permission.

Wanting to pleasure someone through pain is not the same as wanting to hurt them.

The politics of pleasure is messy

I wanted to point out a piece in Alternet excerpting a new book called Feminism and Pop Culture. What I liked about the article, aside from the fact that it gave a nice review of the rise of sex-positive feminism (aka "do me" feminism), was how ambivalent it was. That the "politics of pleasure" is complicated, with women both empowered to embrace their sexuality yet still finding their greatest value in being sexually objectified.

It made me think about the messy nature of spanking – particularly Domestic Discipline – and feminism. In the discussion on feminism and DD at the Punishment Book almost a couple of years ago (it so does not feel like that long ago), what was remarkably lacking in all the talk about choice was empowerment. Feminism requires both. You can make choices that are inherently anti-feminist when they fail to empower women. Women are empowered when they have the ability to fully embrace their sexuality, regardless of how unequal it may appear. Women are not empowered when they are subordinated to men because of their gender. Both of these occur within the DD community.

There is a great deal of feminist backlash within the DD and BDSM community, including blogs which insist that a woman is required to be submissive because she was born with a vagina or dominant women (and submissive men) who feel distinctly unwelcome in their local BDSM community (which is often run by dominant men). I think sometimes that because we're trying so hard to show that you can be a feminist and a sexual submissive, we fail to call out the sexism that exists in our community. But it's there. It's so there.

Interestingly enough, I often think that within our community the ones who suffer the most from entrenched patriarchy are submissive men. While acting out our sexuality might make us feel a bit uncomfortable with some of our feminist peers, submissive women have it easier in that respect than submissive men because society is still far more accepting of submissive women than submissive men. People grasp M/F on a primal level, but feminism has not yet brought us to the point that people feel comfortable with F/M, except in kinky pop culture references here and there (and frequent illogical dominatrix analogies).

At some point I'd like to write more about this, but my brain has been really mushy the last two weeks, so it won't be tonight. :::grin::

When dominatrix analogies go bad

Gary Kamiya at Salon.com managed to work the world of S&M into the whole Sarah Palin buzz. Except it's very clear that he doesn't quite understand how the world of S&M works.

Because to anyone who isn't a true believer, Palin comes across not as a fantasy pinup, but as a dominatrix. And the S/M demographic isn't going to put the Republicans over the top in the swing states.

Now, a dominatrix is generally synonymous with a strong and yes, harsh but definitively attractive and appealing figure, particularly to sexually submissive men. Thus, "fantasy pin-up" and "dominatrix" could well mean the exact same thing. A dominatrix shouldn't be scary to anybody but the person who genuinely wants to be scared by her for his or her sexual gratification. Kamiya's implication is that if someone isn't a "true believer," they would hardly see her as appealing. The word I think he means -- though it lacks the sexual analogy he's going for -- would be bully.

What bothers me is the assumption that a dominatrix -- a woman whose form of sexual expression, or even sexual orientation, is to dominate -- is somehow a bully. That a woman who dominates men is something scary and wholly negative, even if any domination that takes place is between two consenting parties. It's why so many women who commented on the piece found it to be blatantly sexist.

For the die-hard Republicans who at the convention, her whip-wielding persona was a turn-on. You could practically feel the crowd getting a collective woody as Palin bent Obama and the Democrats over, shoved a leather gag in their mouths and flogged them as un-American wimps, appeasers and losers. "Drill, baby, drill!" the chant ecstatically repeated by the GOP faithful during Rudy Giuliani's speech, acquired a distinctly Freudian subtext after Palin spoke. The more Palin drilled the Democrats, the more hotly the base yearned to drill her. (We will leave it to shrinks to determine whether the GOP hardcore has the hots for Palin because she's reaming the Democrats, or because authority-worshippers tend to have secret fantasies of being reamed themselves.)

The problem for the GOP, however, is that for independents, Palin comes across as someone who's going to drill them.

So, in other words, for Republicans she's a dominatrix. For independents (and I assume Democrats and those on the Left), she's a sexual predator. Clearly the analogy section in the SAT (Do they have that anymore? Or is it only in the GRE?) was not Mr. Kamiya's strong suit. And it still gives me that icky feeling of strong women are to be feared. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a funny sort of piece, and I'm sounding a bit pedantic. But words matter. Especially when they pick up some nasty baggage that should be left behind.

Don't get me wrong. After reading this, this and this and watching this, Governor Palin scares the shit out of me enough that I just might vote for Obama instead of McKinney.

But "strong woman" should never equal "scary".

Fat girls are kinky too

Not quite two weeks ago while I was shaving, I smiled to myself as I thought about a post from Mija several weeks back where she talked about how she scheduled brazil waxes around pelvic exams "in case the lack of hair caused questions." I smiled because I normally do the same thing too (though not necessarily for the same reasons). But as I finished shaving my labia, I suddenly remembered that in a couple of days I was going to have a colonoscopy. Shit! It wasn't a pelvic exam, but it was down there. Would they notice?

I continued thinking about it as I got out of the tub. So why does it matter? Given the current fashion for bare twat, I couldn't possibly be the only patient they will ever see with a hairless snatch. So what was bothering me? What was I really worried about?

I'm fat (something I talked about on my non-kink blog yesterday). And fat girls aren't supposed to be kinky. They're not even supposed to be sexual. We're thick, sweaty, lazy, lonely, depressed blobs who do nothing but eat and watch television. Fat girls who try to be sexual -- think of fat Monica on Friends -- are silly at best, repulsive at worse.

Would the doctors be grossed out by my smooth but pudgy pussy? Would I be the one they talked about later on in the break room? You should have seen this three hundred pound girl we worked on today. She actually had a bare beaver. I mean, I've seen them on the hot girls...but her? Ewww...

Of course, why the hell should I care if they are or not? At least that's what I told myself. And keep telling myself.

And I'll keep telling myself that until I no longer give a second thought about when my next pelvic exam is while I'm shaving my flabby but sexy, worshiped, busy cunt.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to buck up my courage after that awful experience three and a half years ago, and show that picture of my ass at the Grand Canyon off a bit more. See the left sidebar -- if you haven't already.

So sorry you're vanilla...

Lately I've been catching up on my "nerd porn" as A. likes to call it. No, not videos of guys with pocket protectors rambling about cosines and Star Trek (though as a nerd myself, I find a lot of nerds are quite hot), but thoughtful writing on sexuality. Mostly posts from the newer editions of the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy, many of which I highly recommend and hope to blog about in the not too distant future.

During my make-up reading, I also happened across an old post at a favorite political blog, Alas, a blog, which linked to an absolutely brilliant post by Trinity on what causes kinkiness -- or rather, vanilla-ness.

WHAT CAUSES VANILLA?

How long have you been vanilla?

Are you sure that you're not simply too nervous to submit or dominate because past traumas make you too nervous to relate to others on a truly intimate level?

Have you ever really examined your vanilla desires?

The vast majority of sexuality depicted in the media is vanilla. Are you sure your desires now don't stem from not seeing alternate models much in the media?

How can you experience true intimacy with someone if you're afraid to share erotic pain with them? Aren't you missing something?

It's really a shame that our screwed up vanilla-normative society ruined you like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with that -- you know, being vanilla -- but I have always thought that it lacks scope for the imagination.

But then, maybe that's just because I've never had vanilla sex.

The very first Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy

Just a quick post (a few days late, as usual) to let you all know about the first Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy that includes a staggering number of fascinating posts discussing sex-positive feminism, pornography, BDSM (including a recent post of mine), and sex work.

There's lots of good stuff amidst all the links, and I encourage you to check it out.

Take it all, Bitch

As you might imagine, What It Is We Do can be a bewildering concept for both kinky and vanilla feminists alike. Hell, it's a bewildering concept for us feminists who engage in it, as the epic thread that followed my post from a little over a year ago at the Punishment Book can attest. In her article, "Slap Happy," in this month's issue of Bitch Magazine (Spring, No. 39) author Jessica Wakeman doesn't necessarily provide any answers to make it less bewildering, but she does give the reader plenty to think about.

I think it's important to remember that she walks several fine lines among word limit and the need to contextualize, describing who we are and what we do -- and what we think about what we do, and how the whole thing relates to the issues of female choice and empowerment to an audience of women who may or may not be sex-positive and know absolutely nothing about domestic discipline. In dealing with all this, she makes points and asks questions that were very thoughtful, if somewhat provocative at times. And, yes, despite walking all these fine lines, there are elements she gets wrong too.

Wakeman's thesis is that domestic discipline is a method that some couples use to make their relationships work. A lifestyle that can provide a certain yin and yang that is missing in the contemporary male-female relationship. She quotes at length family historian Stephanie Coontz, who talks about how marriage has changed more in the last 35 years than in the last several thousand and how couples are finding new ways of "doing" a relationship. And couples have more choice about how to do that relationship than ever before, including consciously utilizing domestic discipline.

In the process of explaining this novel-but-not-novel way to do a relationship, Wakeman tries to contextualize DD within the recent history of feminism and the much longer history of male dominance and female submission.

"If an imbalance of power, based on centuries of socialization, is bubbling just below the surface of a relationship, some couples deal with the conflict by establishing some boundaries and choosing to accept then."

This was sort of an inversion of how the writer of the blog Whatever she says describes their relationship: "Most women are the 'boss' of their marriage. The only difference is that I've admitted it and she has acknowledged it." It seems fair to say that DD is a way of acknowledging that we're not all the same. Some have different strengths and weaknesses and we've simply negotiated those differences in power in ways that work for us rather than let them fester below the surface and cause problems with the relationship -- a marked departure from the past where gender roles were fixed and there was no negotiation.

In looking at the rhetoric of blogs like Loving Domestic Discipline, Wakeman rightly acknowledges that "taken at face value, domestic discipline reeks of feminist backlash." Female dominance -- even equality -- is a scary prospect for a lot of men (and women) and there are indeed those who utilize DD in an effort to get women back into a traditional, feminine submissive role. Let's face it, to newcomers looking at the endless blogs and Yahoo groups on domestic discipline, most seem to revolve around women who are bitchy, get into fights with their husbands, get super-bitchy, get spanked by their husbands, then everything is better without ever looking at why she's bitchy or that she may well have some damn good reasons to be bitchy. Not to mention all those spanking stories where the woman is strong-willed, irrational, stubborn, and irresponsible. They reinforce the notion that the emotions of women require the management of stable, reasonable men.

On the other hand, while second wave feminism made great strides in demonizing domestic abuse, "the resulting taboo," says Wakeman, "pushes couples in DD relationships into the closet." Along with a brilliant quote from Mija about how "there's nothing feminist about sublimating your desires because society says you shouldn't have them," Wakeman subtly reproves her audience for creating an environment that is hostile to the choices some women make about what to do with their bodies.

While trying to address the question that many non-kinksters have regarding the relationship between childhood abuse and spanking, Wakeman makes it clear that "for DD women, there's no readily apparent thread connecting actual childhood discipline with their current lifestyle." And she does a good job of placing DD squarely within the spanking fetish by noting that, while not all spankos practice DD, all those who practice domestic discipline are confirmed spankos.. "...[T]he line between spanking intended for a boudoir thrill and spanking as an outside-the-bedroom consequence can be blurry..." Indeed, as I have argued in the past, punishment and DD are really just sub-fetishes within the larger fetish of erotic spanking.

Wakeman's most interesting and challenging question in this article was asking how much of our yearning for discipline is about a strong societal norm for female perfection.

"Their fallibility frustrates and overwhelms them...Many American women strongly feel the drive to be perfect: to be educated, to be a breadwinner, to be a good mother, to be a good wife, and to be beautiful to boot. Is it possible some women -- whether kinkily inclined, formerly abused, neither, or both -- turn to domestic discipline the same way others find solace in punishing behaviors like eating disorders, cutting, or obsessively working out?"

Ouch. I can't answer "no" right away. I found the timing eerie, reading this a week after writing my own post on my obsession with perfection (though I failed to include a gender element in my discussion). And it's certainly been a topic of mine at the Punishment Book. Indeed, when I first started acknowledging I had this preoccupation with spanking and punishment, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps it was a variation on cutting. While most of me says it's not -- as I say in the article, my sexuality expresses itself as a child who gets off on shame and punishment -- if I'm being brutally honest, there's a part of me that can't say definitively no, it's not at all about my inability to deal with my own fallibility. I have a hard time accepting the fact that I'm finite, and I have most certainly been guilty of using spanking as a means of trying to attain that ever impossible perfection.

Now, like many of you, my first reaction to this article was heavily influenced by my disagreements with it, as well as being rather chagrined that I was introduced in the article as the one who self-spanks over the phone with her boyfriend. It's embarrassing enough having to admit that to fellow spankos, but to be introduced to the feminist world like that was a bit...er, uncomfortable.

The first issue involves a little linguistic nitpicking.

"Mija and Natty control the nature of their DD relationships with a power referred to in the BDSM community as 'topping from the bottom'. In such situations it's the submissive partner who's actually in control; the 'top' is required to have permission from the bottom before inflicting any BDSM action."

I would not consider what I do as topping from the bottom. That is really a form of manipulating the top to do what you want her/him to do -- not that I haven't had my moments. Oh, I hope you don't spank me with the belt! That, my friends, is topping from the bottom, though it's brazen enough that A. generally knows I'm trying to get him to do something very specific. However, because he's the top, he controls whether or not he's going to go on to spank me with the belt. Thus, I maintain my status as bottom and he as top.

Negotiating the framework of our disciplinary relationship, with me having a say in how it will proceed doesn't strike me as topping from the bottom; it's simply negotiation. Once we have negotiated what we want to do, A. then decides how to execute the framework we've both decided upon and I submit to those decisions, save for a safeword or phrase that might stop everything until we can decide what's wrong and where to proceed from there. Basically, the same as in any sort of BDSM safe-sane-consensual scene.

But, of course, the main point of disagreement was on the issue of gender and DD. About half way into the article, in parentheses, Wakeman states:

"Theoretically, a man can be the submissive in a heterosexual domestic discipline relationship, and a DD relationship can be same-sex, but based on both Internet presence and the couples that I interviewed, it's far more common to find heterosexual, female-submissive practitioners."

In the year since I was interviewed for this article, A. and I have started switching more regularly.  It is true that we don't switch in terms of discipline but it has little to do with gender; I'm the one who gets off on it and finds it more effective (my musings as to why are here). However, as I've started topping more, I've started seeking out more F/M blogs and am realizing there are a lot more than I realized when I was primarily a bottom.

As A. and I talked about this article, we both agreed this was the one point where we thought Wakeman got it wrong. He suggested that there are a lot more men in DD relationships than are reflected online because men are less inclined to blog about their activities (as, apparently are female tops). It's true too that F/M couples don't use Yahoo groups to quite the extent that M/F do, though to be sure, there are quite a number of disciplinary F/M Yahoo groups. It does have me wondering what is different about F/M domestic discipline that it doesn't express itself online in the same way that M/F does (pictures -- it's more visually oriented is my first thought). Men do not seem to be articulating submissiveness, nor are women articulating dominance in the same ways and in the same amounts as submissive women. Is there still a strong societal standard against men expressing submissiveness and women domestic dominance?

A. also believes that a lot of men are simply going to dominatrices when they can't get what they want from their partners. A frequent commenter here, Indiana, asked in an email, "Is it true that societal forces make it more likely that a woman will consent to spanking than a man?" I would argue that I think the societal force is more along the lines of making woman feel less comfortable dominating (or rather, our form of domination has traditionally been in manipulation rather than in blunt force) so that it is very difficult for submissive men to find a partner willing to provide the strong female hand they need and desire. It's a lot easier to slip back into traditional roles than chip away at new, less comfortable ones.

While, yes, it's true there isn't as much of a same-sex presence online (though it is there), that reflects the fact that heterosexuality is the norm. Out of any given population group, same-sex couples are always going to be in the minority (well, you know, except maybe the Castro district in San Francisco) but it was unfortunate that same-sex couples were excluded, as Jigsaw Analogy noted in the comments for the previous post, as it would have demonstrated the problem genderizing this lifestyle entails.

So, yes, I cringed when Ms. Wakeman stated that "The crux of domestic discipline is that women's behavior is inherently rife with transgressions, and the discipline provided by their intimate partner will be a leveling force." The context of this comment is unclear to me. I'm not sure if this was meant to represent the views of Mr. Loving DD and his ilk rather than my or Mija's view. And if it was, I wished that there was more contrast between what Mija and I do, and what MrLovingDD does (that is, if he does it at all or just writes very good "wank material" as one friend has called it). He genders behavior, we do not and I don't think that point is very clear.

If it was meant to truly describe the essence of domestic discipline as practiced by the majority, then I think she (or her editor) missed a very important point. F/M domestic discipline is not a fringe group within DD and making it so within this article marginalizes their sexuality (though there is the point that it is "feminizing" men, which is still a form of female submission in its own way). By insisting on maintaining a gendered perspective on dominance and submission, it keeps women boxed into rigid definitions that ultimately dis-empower women.

However, again I think it's important to keep in mind the audience for whom this article was written: feminist women who may know a little something about erotic spanking but know absolutely nothing about domestic discipline. And it's damn hard to explain it to an outsider. It is impossible for the target audience to look at this completely outside the construct of gender, as much as I think they should. I mean, the relationship that A. and I have -- that all nine of us at the Punishment Book have with our partners -- is not necessarily the norm when you take into consideration DD blogs and groups in their entirety. Would I have liked an article that looked at how some women are practicing DD without the stereotypes? Sure, but first people have to actually know what the hell it is.

I should also note that Ms. Wakeman was under a great deal of pressure to sensationalize this story, (i.e. make this a story that poked fun at us freaks) or simply couldn't sell the story because it was too edgy (and the magazines she pitched it to were hardly the Ladies Home Journal). While we're used to What It Is We Do, most people are not, and I think the compromise she found at Bitch in describing this as a way that women are seeking to "do" a relationship is a reasonable one even if I disagree with the gendered approach.

On Monday when my county-appointed housekeeper arrived to do my laundry, she told me the harrowing tale of how her daughter was beaten by her husband the weekend before. He started to choke her when she refused to give him the car keys because he was drunk, all the while shoving his knee into her three month pregnant belly. For hours after the cops came and dragged him off to jail, they could not get a heartbeat on the fetus. Eventually a heartbeat was heard, though they will not know the extent of any damage until birth. It was a poignant reminder to me that while we have come to a point where I can exercise my right to play with dominance and submission, we have not reached a point where the raw, non-consensual execution of it has ceased. And for a lot of people, it is impossible to divorce one from the other, even if I can.

But it's hard when you're a woman who has done all the things you're supposed to do to be a good feminist to hear someone suggest that you're doing something that puts the whole thing back to the days when the police wouldn't be showing up to take a wife-beater to jail. That you're embracing a construct with thousands of years of misogyny backing it up. I think that's why places like the Punishment Book, This Thing We Do, as well as the increasing number of feminist voices -- female and male -- among the domestic discipline community are so valuable. And why consciously grasping the choice we have to practice What It Is We Do in a non-gendered, mindful way is a profoundly feminist act.

Some homework on feminism and spanking

Alrighty, dear readers, my brain fog is still palpably thick. Or as A. might say, "it's a right pea-souper." So I'm going to assign you some homework as I slowly chip away at my post whilst groping around in the haze (it also means I'm going to be a bit slow in getting to email -- I'm so sorry!).

The new spring issue of Bitch magazine is now online and gracing discriminating newstands everywhere. Why, you ask, am I suggesting you read Bitch on a blog about spanking? Well aside from the fact that it's a great magazine about pop culture and feminism, and, as the great bell hooks said, feminism is for everyone (including -- maybe even especially -- spankos), I also recommend you go out and find yourself a copy because this issue contains an article featuring yours truly (as well as others) and domestic discipline (it is, alas, not one of the articles available online -- yet).

I found a great deal in the article that was thoughtful and valuable. And, of course, there are a few areas where I very respectfully disagree. But I figure it might be nice to have a discussion about it if at least some of you have read the article. (Lordy it's been awhile since I said that -- albeit in a college classroom). Or, more importantly, I'm totally stalling while I wait for the fog to lift.

In the meantime, while I go back to watching television and trying not to drool on myself when I doze off, I leave you with a quote from a beautifully written post that was included in a recent feminist carnival. Go on. Go, read the entire post. You'll be glad you did. (My, aren't I in a toppy mood tonight?)

So, we took school seriously, we dated boys who were enlightened and honoured our stellar futures, we went on to postsecondary education, we delayed marriage, we started our careers and bought our houses before beginning our families, we nurtured our careers, earned our promotions, followed the social issues, donated to the progressive charities, hired the childcare, earned as much as or more than our husbands, pushed against the glass ceiling, talked the talk, walked the walk. We had everything, did everything, exhausted ourselves fighting the good fight, achieving the good life. One thing we / they forgot though … we somehow missed out on some of the original intention — choice.

I followed the rules, lockstep. I didn’t follow the only possible path — I get that. There were variations I could have chosen...Basically, though, I followed the rules. That’s how it felt — what we were really good at was the same thing our mothers were good at — following rules. This particular set of rules was about emancipation not subservience, but they were set expectations, nevertheless. It took me a long time to figure that out. Don’t get me wrong; I was grateful for the opportunities provided by those expectations and by the women who trailblazed to create them — I still am. But here I am, 42, and living in a box that is roomier and has better views than the one that contained my mother… but a box even so.

So… one night this week, I will meet Him. For four or five hours, I will accept a new set of rules, where I call him Sir, and he calls me pet, and I kneel, and he ties me up, and I shiver, and he spanks. The difference is that they will be rules that he and I negotiated together...

Fragments

I came across a poem describing a feminist the other night when I was catching up on some blog reading that, with all the talk about feminism and BDSM over at the Punishment Book, felt so appropriate.

sometimes,
wrists red,
thighs spread or sewn
with purple tape to match
the next morning’s bruises.

Go check out the entire thing here.

My Appalled Feminist and Me

As I've alluded to at times here and over at the Punishment Book, I've been struggling a lot with my punishment fetish this last year. And I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to articulate the whole thing. Well, I've started to with this post at the PB today about how my Appalled Feminist and I have come to some sort of uneasy truce about the whole thing.

It's a context thing

A few days back Adele Haze offered a bit more insight regarding my annoyance when total strangers tell me I need to be spanked. She pointed out that just because a women writes about sex doesn't mean she's asking to be treated crudely. And basically, if you're an ass to a woman, you're less likely to spank her ass.

However she also made a point that I've been pondering too, namely, that men say a lot of bizarre and obnoxious stuff, with statements regarding my need for a spanking being fairly tame. And it's true. I had a guy a few weeks back who sent me an email saying that he likes to read my blog and jack off. My reaction was sorta okay...eww...

I think most people would agree he was being crude and generally most guys are not only not that openly vulgar to women but have a certain level of disdain for men who are. Yet my experience among spanko males is that many don't have the same level of discomfort in being so forward regarding telling a woman with whom they have no relationship that she needs to be spanked. And it's a lack of general disapproval of such indiscretion that bothers me.

But that's still not quite it exactly. There's something else I just couldn't put my finger on.

So I kept thinking.

Then I realized that there's a part of me that really hates that I like this whole spanking thing. She sort of puts up with it because she's convinced herself -- and not without merit -- that this is an act of radical sexual expression and liberation. Which, of course, it is. But something happens at that moment a guy I don't know (and some who I do know) says to me "you need to be spanked" in which the Appalled Feminist and the Cheeky Brat come together in perfect harmony, with the Cheeky Brat thinking nuh uh and the Appalled Feminist thinking fuck off, dickhead.

And it all comes down to context.

When A. tells me I need to be spanked, it's totally erotic. But that's because there's already established chemistry there.

When spanko friends say it to me, there's generally already an established relationship of mutual respect in which I know they have regard for me in my totality -- beyond being just some brat who needs to be taken in hand. It's playful. It's safe.

When someone who doesn't have regard for me in my totality says it, my Appalled Feminist and Cheeky Brat come together to protect me. And they are all the more vigilant because that boundary gets crossed far more often by Mr. Dimwit Spanko than by Mr. Wanker.

"You need a spanking"

Optimism is such a wonderful thing.

I mean, consider the cool confidence of the fellow who left me an offline message on Yahoo messenger the other day that went something like, "Hi/ I saw your blog/ You do need a spanking."

Blind to the fact that as a total stranger, that's not really his call. Completely oblivious that he's flirting with someone else's girlfriend. He just leaves his witty, remarkably original message believing that I'll be so overwhelmed by his charm I'll reply back.

Okay, yes, I did mention in the last post that I'm in my insatiable pain slut mood, so I'll grant him that physiologically I'm desperate for a good caning.

He's not the first total stranger in my spanko life who's told me I need a spanking. But I gotta say, it's such a total turn off for me. I don't think A. ever said that to me until three or four months into our online relationship. And then it was in a specific context. And even then there was still a teeny tiny part of me that resented it.

Needless to say, when a total stranger says that to me, I really resent it.

I know that for some women it's really hot. And that's totally cool.

But for me, it's like I have to be able to consider you some sort of equal before you can comfortably utter those words to me. And if the first words out of your mouth are those words, then you have clearly demonstrated that you're not.

Sexual submission

We've been having a thread over at soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup about sexual submission and innate personality traits and someone asked me what I thought makes someone sexually submissive. So here's what I said.

What makes you submissive, or even into spanking (if you prefer it on that basis)?

What makes somebody gay? What makes someone a switch?

Sexuality is an enormously complex phenomena involving neurophysiological aspects, environmental factors, spirtuality -- you name it. Therefore I think it's impossible to state what one thing does it.

Environmentally I grew up in a family and went to schools where spanking was present. But I like spanking and my sister doesn't. What made me go one way and her the other?

My boyfriend claims his desire to dominate sexually has come from growing up with five older sisters. However, because he grew up having to be submissive to women he could have just as easily grown up to express his sexuality in a submissive way. What made him go one way instead of the other?

Now, I do think the way I grew up has flavored the way I express my sexuality. And as I've been reexamining a life that has been very influenced by the Church and the medical profession (due to chronic illness) I am also appreciating there are aspects I don't want to be apart of my sexuality.

For instance, my illness has involved a number of dietary restrictions (at the moment, sugar because of antibiotic-induced yeast infections). While a couple of my fellow bloggers at the Punishment Book have utilized their kink as a means of enforcing dietary restrictions, I know because I grew up as a fat girl who had food frequently withheld as punishment for being something I couldn't help, using the threat of spanking would be an extremely unhealthy thing to add to my relationship with my boyfriend. Food and my relationship to it and my body are something I have to work out on my own and any sort of spanking would just muck up the whole thing for me.

I would also go further and say that I am concerned about the way others who express their sexuality submissively utilize D/s. Like those who say they want a DD relationship with their husband so they'll stop fighting all the time or have stopped fighting after starting one. I feel like this is an unhealthy substitute for developing good interpersonal skills.

I can say that I, and some sexual submissives, can at times lack a certain connection to who they are and therefore exhibit a certain inability to set boundaries or make healthy choices (and I know some sexual dominants who have the EXACT same problem) and being submissive can seem easier because it lets someone else do the thinking for us. I DON'T believe D/s is a good way to deal with this problem. Only I can decide who I am. Only I can develop that sense of self that can provide the foundation for making healthy decisions about boundaries and behavior. Attempting to use D/s to provide that is an ineffective way to learn healthy coping and behavioral skills and can even get in the way of ever doing so.

Ultimately I'm sexually submissive because, well, it's a hell of a lot of fun. :)

Race, privilege and spanking

I have so many spanko musings I want to write about as I've been spending a lot of time in bed with nothing to do but think. But I'm still too tired to write much or even talk much so it's going to have just ferment for a bit.

But, I do have a bit of reading for you all. No tests will be forthcoming but comments will get you extra credit. ;)

First off is this article from Alternet about a course on African-American sexuality. Let's face it: most of us blogging or posting to newsgroups about spanking are white. Not all certainly, but...well, the vast majority. And it's something I've found rather curious.

Among his students, he finds that "certain things are considered taboo because they're considered things that white people do. For example, gay and lesbian identity is considered white, introduced to blacks during slavery and not organic to Africa. Religiosity also comes up; sexual practice is conflated with religious prerogatives."

And it's not just us bloggers, most academics studying sexuality are white too.

...a notion prevails that sexuality studies is something that white people do and something that people of color have done to them. This paradigm sets up a power dynamic that can leave people of color dissociated from the sexuality research field.

And we're not just talking about homosexuality or interracial dating. The topic of BDSM is also part of this course on African-American sexuality.

"We've had this motif that runs through the course: It's called power," Baham says. "I ask the students: How about if we play with power? How about if we play with violence? How about if we play with slavery? I talk about BDSM as a political act. [In BDSM], all the issues with gender roles, slavery, violence and power, all of these come to a head...Baham starts by talking about spanking or being spanked as an example of what BDSM can entail. He'll often bring in a guest speaker from the BDSM community. Through these discussions, the students are able to see the potential for BDSM to be, as he puts it, "a redemptive and spiritual act." His students often mention having a slight interest in the topic, but that they don't know what it is and think that it's a "white thing." Despite this, students report that the idea of "doing things that are aggressive or submissive is exciting. There's a tremendous amount of interest, but real lack of information on it," Baham says.

A lot of it reflects white privilege, something most white people don't think about much but something Peggy McIntosh wrote a very famous essay about many years ago in which she listed the various daily effects of white privilege. Now, DarkDaughta has used McIntosh's essay as a template to list the effects of sexual conservatism privilege. As a spanko I found myself nodding frequently as I read through the list. I need to read it a few more times to give a serious review of the post, but I certainly encourage you all to read it as well. Granted, as a spanko I'm often able to blend in with "vanillas" far better than those with more visible sexuality, and I certainly wouldn't consider any oppression I've suffered from because of my sexuality to be near the level that those who are black or gay have suffered (though the "who's suffered more" game is frequently pretty pointless).

And of course, when you mix gender, race and class all up together, it gets really, really interesting.

But at any rate, some stuff I've read recently that pertains to issues surrounding our kink that I thought some of you might find interesting too. If nothing else, it's something to keep you busy until I have the energy to write something of my own.

Maybe?

I think my spanking mojo is coming back. I got that familiar tingle when A. called me a bad girl this afternoon.

Yup. Just maybe it's finally coming back...



P.S. A belated Happy International Women's Day to you all. I should have Blogged Against Sexism here too (I did over at BTS) but as my spanking mojo didn't wake up until this afternoon, I didn't think to do it here. Hope you celebrated the dignity and power of women in many wonderful ways. :)

Consent

After a discussion last night with someone in a spanking chatroom about the issue of consent, I felt the need to write a bit about the importance of consent in a disciplinary relationship over at the Punishment Book.

I hate to be cliched and all, but, you know, the whole "safe, sane, consensual" thing. Your partner has to want to be in a disciplinary relationship. If he or she doesn't, then you can't force it on them.