Abuse From a BDSM Perspective

So, I’d never planned to post this on my blog. I’d posted my response on the article last March, when it first came out, and was happy enough to leave it at that. It just seemed too personal, too angry, too emotionally fraught for what I wanted out of this blog, which is supposed to celebrate kink and sex and love in all its many, varied forms. Not linger on the not-so pleasant side of ignorance and bigotry kinksters can too often find themselves on. 

But Google tells me that Riding the Iron Bull – Kink and Dragon Age: Inquisition has been read by a lot of people. It has the second-highest views out of everything on my blog and is the most viewed piece on my Tumblr. It has the most comments on it and has sparked a great conversation and, I hope, helped present a different perspective for people who may not be as familiar with this vantage point. For better or for worse, I'm in this conversation—I’m quite possibly many people’s introduction to it—so let's have it.

And, since a lot of the discussion seemed to be about living with integrity, it seemed a little hypocritical of me to not address this just because it makes me uncomfortable and shines too bright a light on parts of my past that I prefer not to.

Especially if it could be helpful in an important discussion that needs to happen.

There are reasons why people mistaking Safe, Sane, and Consensual BDSM for abuse upsets me. More than just the usual and obvious reasons that I love and live BDSM and don’t want to see it misrepresented time and time again. There are reasons why I feel obligated and outraged enough to speak out about it when it happens.

Because they’re not the same. They are polar opposites. And, believe me when I say that when the two get automatically and ignorantly lumped together, you are doing a grave and unforgivable disservice to both kinksters and to abuse victims. And, speaking for both groups, please stop. 

So, even though I wasn’t really planning on it, I’ll say it again:

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I hate you, Will Saletan. 

I hate you for your entire article. I hate you for just about every sentence in this ill-educated, utterly biased, closed-minded, completely skewed piece. 

But, mostly, I hate you for your article’s parting line: 

“But if you can’t accept consensual domestic violence as just another lifestyle choice, that doesn’t make you a prude. It makes you perfectly normal.” 

I don’t know you. I’ve never read anything else you’ve written. But I hate you for, if for nothing else, the phrase “consensual domestic violence.” 

It’s not even just as a kinkster that I object to this—though the kinkster in me can think of many, many, many nasty ways to teach you the very clear difference between consensual and non-consensual acts. 

I object as a person who knows domestic violence. 

And, clearly, if you were able to string those words together, Will Saletan, you know nothing about domestic violence. If you’d ever lived it, ever knew or met or seen or listened to a wife, a husband, a mother, a father, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or a child who’d lived through it, you wouldn’t be able to utter a phrase so thoroughly offensive and obtuse as that. 

And that is what you’re saying, no matter how you deny it. You cannot, as you state, logically parse out "consensual domestic violence" in three parts. That's ridiculous. It completely discounts the fact that "domestic violence" is a well-known, oft-used term. No one uses "domestic" and "violence" together to mean anything other than "domestic violence." You’re calling it "consensual abuse," which is not what BDSM is. It shows a complete lack of even a basic understanding of both the English language and logic. 

Because domestic violence—or really any kind of abuse—is someone trying to kill your soul then forcing your broken, beaten body to limp around like nothing’s wrong. It’s them forcing you to live through a kind of death over and over and over again and making you feel as if there is no way to stop it. It is them breaking you down so they can use the pieces to build themselves up. I can think of few things that parallel that kind of hell, much less something that surpasses it. 

To put the word “consensual” in front of that. To say that anyone would willingly ask for, sign-up for, or seek out that kind of treatment. To link that kind of evil to behavior and relationships within the BDSM world, relationships built on care, trust, and love. It’s reprehensible, Will Saletan, and you should be ashamed of yourself. 

It’s the equivalent of saying that all healthy, happy sex is consensual rape or all sales transactions in stores are consensual thievery or that all jobs are consensual slavery. The acts, stripped down to their basest levels, look the same, don’t they? Robbed of all context and basic understanding, these acts that are dichotomous in nature—that should only be uttered together as complete contrasts—all deserved to be looked at and treated as pretty much the same, right? 

I’m not saying that abuse doesn’t happen in the BDSM world or that people haven’t used BDSM to cover flagrant abuse. But the abuse I’ve suffered didn’t come at the hands of kinksters. Most of the abuse I’ve seen or heard of wasn’t committed by kinksters. The BDSM community is populated by people and within all societies and groupings of people abuse happens. But saying that the existence of abuse within the BDSM community means BDSM causes or leads to or opens itself up to abuse is like saying that the Girl Scouts cause abuse because there have been Girl Scouts who’ve grown up to abuse or be abused. It’s a logical fallacy and makes you sound like an idiot.  

I am a masochist, Will Saletan, and it’s taken me years to be able to say that without shame or confusion. I’m not this way because I was abused. It’s because I was abused that’s it’s taken me years of shame and confusion to accept this part of myself. It’s because all my life I’ve listened to people just like you, Will Saletan, who’ve told me that this part of myself makes me sick, makes me wrong, makes me deviant and outside of society, that I’ve hidden this part of myself, questioned and struggled with it. Because bigoted, uneducated people like you equated something that brings me joy and pleasure with its antithesis. Linking something I love to something I hate. 

Because for anyone who’s enjoyed—loved and longed for—this lifestyle, we know that BDSM isn’t about breaking people down; it’s about building people up. It isn’t about taking someone weak and making them take it; it’s about showing someone that they’re strong enough to take what they want. Even without your or the world’s permission or approval. 

We may never be mainstream. And that’s okay. When we say we want acceptance from the mainstream, we aren’t saying that we want everyone to be just like us. We’re just saying that we don’t want to lose our jobs or our kids or our lives because of who we are. We don’t want the world to look down their noses at what they think we do and who they think we are. We don’t want to be seen as just statistics and stereotypes who deserve ill-treatment and misfortunes because you think we asked for it. We just want to be seen for who we really are and not for the lesser creatures people like you want to portray us as. When we say we want acceptance, what we want is to be accepted; it’s as simple as that. 

And that doesn’t make us freaks or abusers or victims, Will Saletan. It just makes you an idiot.

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I understand that BDSM isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I understand that it makes some people uncomfortable. I get that. I accept that. And I think that’s perfectly understandable and well within everyone’s rights. No one has to be into what I’m into. No one has to even like that I’m into it.

But, please, stop pretending like you have the right to tell me or people like me that we can’t or shouldn’t be into it. Please stop pretending that you know more about who and what we are than we do.

Because you don’t. You just don’t. And we have science, statistics, and psychology on our side to prove it. Even Will Saletan had to kinda eat crow because of the backlash of these articles. And, after doing some very basic research, he realized that maybe—just maybe—there’s more to this involved, complex lifestyle than his prejudice was willing to allow. Is this article still biased? Is it still rather insulting? Oh yes. But that’s kind of the point. Even our detractors’ arguments—from the people who want to hate us and dismiss us on principle alone—don’t stand up well against just the most rudimentary Google search. And, if your argument is that flimsy, don’t you have to—aren’t you obligated to—re-examine it a little?

Or at least don’t you owe it to the people you’re insulting the favor of not spreading your factually inaccuracy all over the internet like you’re an expert in a field you’ve never even bothered to study?

And please stop using abuse victims as shields. Because you’re doing us no favors. In fact, you’re hurting us. Especially those of us who happen to be kinky. Because one of the most common issues abuse victims face is people—ourselves included—thinking that we deserve the abuse we receive. 

Imagine how much more complicated that becomes when you’re kinky. 

When abuse no one should have to suffer gets mistaken for the play you love. 

By yourself, making you stay too long in unhealthy relationships that invert and corrupt concepts and actions that aren’t meant to harm. 

By the people you love, who can’t and don’t want to understand what and who you are so they don’t want to hear about it, leaving you with no means of support or compassion if things go south. 

By the police, who do too often think you deserve what you get and treat you like a waste of their time. 

By society, who is all too happy to paint you as a cautionary tale and a bad punchline to scare other people into toeing the norm. 

By a media, who recklessly glorifies and commodifies the fantasy-done-wrong of abuse-sold-as-BDSM while simultaneously sex-shaming real-life kinksters.

The fact is that, yes, abuse happens in kinkland. Jian Ghomeshi has made this horrifically clear. But conflating the two makes it harder to help victims, even if that wasn’t the intention. Because, as Dan Savage told Sarah Bessey, “Shaming people for being kinky is about as effective as shaming people for being gay. Screaming ‘Jesus!’ at gay people doesn't turn us straight. It does, however, turn some of us into deeply conflicted, sexually repressed, self-hating gay messes. Likewise, screaming ‘Jesus!’ at kinky people—male or female, dom or sub—won't turn them into vanilla people. Just messes.” We are who we are. Just people trying to live our lives and find love and happiness. And people trying to make us into who we’re not won’t solve any problems; it’ll just bury them deeper until they become problems none of us can afford to ignore.

So, please, stop screaming for a second and try a radical, new approach: Talk to us. Ask us stupid questions. Ask us embarrassing questions. Ask us obvious questions. Please, I’m begging you, ask us thoughtful and non-intuitive questions.

Because, believe me, whatever you have to say—if you say it with real, open, and honest curiosity that’s willing and wanting a real, open, and honest response—it can’t be more offensive that what we’ve already heard.