BDSM

What exactly does ‘queer’ mean?

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It used to be that people who described themselves as queer were simply gay, lesbian or bisexual. Some rejected the idea of reclaiming the slur on principle while others believed it was an effective way to change the meaning and thus the power of the word. Now fewer and fewer people are referring to themselves as gay, lesbian or even bi. Most just say they’re queer. Why is this the case, and whom does it serve?

https://twitter.com/SourPatches2077/status/1626037367542005760?s=20

‘Queer’ ultimately means whatever the person using the word means – and that’s the point. Referring to oneself as queer is a deliberate, often well-meaning attempt to signal one’s inclusivity. If you do say you’re gay or lesbian and insist that means you’re same-sex attracted, trans activists will call you a bigot (Don’t believe me? Scroll down to the bottom). Better not open that can of worms and make someone feel invalidated. One big happy rainbow family.

Queer is a word that describes sexual and gender identities other than straight and cisgender.

Planned Parenthood

Notice ultra-woke Planned Parenthood uses the word straight instead of heterosexual; this framing avoids associating biological sex with sexual orientation so it’s accommodating to gender identity.

The Unitarian Universalist Association, however, presents a much more expansive definition:

Although this definition is less widely known, many so-called queer people identify with the fourth definition. For them, it isn’t about sexual orientation or even gender identity necessarily, but the simple act of kicking against sexual norms. As a radical feminist, I believe some norms should be smashed, including gender, but not for the sake of it. That’s just nihilistic teenage rebellion. In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett demonstrated that rather than happening in a social vacuum, social shifts happen in the context of pre-existing power dynamics. In a patriarchy, the sexual revolution of the 1960s inevitably found a way to exploit women while claiming to liberate them. A modern iteration would be SlutWalks which, conveniently for straight and bi men, give them exactly what they want.

I don’t care if men wear makeup, carry purses, wear their hair long or don’t know how to change a tire. Gender critical people often say they don’t mind men in dresses. Yeah, well radical feminists do, and not because the cocks in frocks are performing femininity. Now, one might think feminists would appreciate men adopting the feminine gender role. The first problem arises when men leverage gender identity to claim that doing so makes them women. The second is what femininity means to them. Men no longer perform femininity while acknowledging they’re men like they once did in the goth, glam, and hair metal scenes. Thanks to porn, more men than ever are internalizing the fetishization of the female body, transposing themselves as the female object of desire. As sexual submission is indelibly linked to femininity, these men get a charge out of pretending they’re a member of the subordinate sex, frequently identifying as masochistic “sissies”. This is evidenced by the explosion of sissy hyno porn and forced feminization. These men are otherwise known as auto-gynephiles. Men like the Oakville high school teacher with gigantic prosthetic breasts and protruding nipples, a dude who calls himself Rosemary Times and exposes himself in public and women’s spaces (NSFW), darling of professional gender critical feminists Debbie Hayton, and, as radical feminists have suspected all along, Lia Thomas. The list of AGPs is endless.

Once you see these things, you can’t unsee them and it becomes clear why cross-dressing in this context is neither innocent nor a human right. Men don’t have to worry about trans-identified females creeping into their washrooms, locker rooms, and changerooms to perv on or film them, film themselves while committing lude acts, or assaulting them. Women simply don’t tend to have that compulsion and even if they did, they could easily be overpowered by men. Trans activists always accuse “TERFs” of being prejudiced against trans people when in fact the issue is the ever-present reality of male violence and, that threat aside, the right of both females and males to privacy.

Because queer theory fundamentally values transgression, there have always been people – men, largely – with “marginalized” sexual interests within LGBT culture, notably becoming more visible in the 1970s with drag, transvestism, and transsexualism. As such, the LGBT/queer trajectory has been and remains controlled by men, initially with gay men and now, increasingly, straight trans-identified men. It was largely gay male culture, which can be quite misogynistic, that embraced practices like BDSM, leather families, porn, prostitution, etc. Some lesbians did as well, but to a much lesser extent and it wasn’t a feature of the culture of women-identified-women. In other words, these practices aren’t inherent to homosexuality or bisexuality. What does someone who likes to flog or be flogged, choke or be choked, or have multiple partners have in common with any random homosexual?

After the AIDS crisis and the recognition of same-sex marriage, LGBT advocacy increasingly shifted from sexual orientation to sexual identity. This allowed the kink community to gain a stronger foothold. Bottom feeders like pedophiles saw the opportunity to stake their claim, convincing some prominent queer activists to begin referring to them as “minor attracted persons” or MAPs. Michel Foucault, a founder of queer theory, has been accused of raping children and was at the very least a child sexual abuse apologist. Since Foucault and John Money, numerous prominent queer/trans activists have tried to destigmatize pedophilia and normalize the idea of child sexuality, that children are sexual beings, including Peter Tatchell and Jacob Breslow. Alok Vaid-Menon, posting from his Blackmatter Facebook account, once referred to girls as kinky and deviant. A queer Pre-K teacher in California published a post on social media questioning childhood innocence.

Bearing all of this in mind, it doesn’t take an evangelical Christian to question the appropriateness of bringing children to drag shows, which until very recently have been understood even by liberals as adult entertainment. That male drag performers are grotesque sexist caricatures of femaleness should be considered damaging to children, especially girls. We now have several instances on camera of men performing as scantily-clad female strippers interacting with children, taking their money or encouraging them to stuff cash into their g-strings. Even when performers are conscious of what’s appropriate, somehow some parents aren’t. These videos are real. The political persuasion of those sharing them is irrelevant. Those who believe Drag Queen Story Hour is innocuous might be surprised by what some LGB people have to say about the messages children are really getting from these events, including stories that encourage them to believe they may be born in the wrong body, can become the opposite sex, and should change their gender to fit their personalities.

The question isn’t whether LGBT people are perverts or predators. The question is, why do organizations like the Pedophile Information Exchange and the people who associate or sympathize with them always glom onto queer politics? Because the queer community and queer advocacy are usually male-led and unfortunately, male sexuality can be very problematic. Combine that with a movement whose ethos is rainbows and love on the surface and transgressive sexuality de rigueur underneath, and ‘queer’ can either be something beautiful or something monstrous.

Sex, power, and the myth about consent

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Yesterday, it was reported in the news that Jian Ghomeshi, a well-known Canadian broadcaster and radio host, is no longer employed by the CBC. The CBC has vaguely stated that the reason centres around information they received about Ghomeshi. Ghomeshi claims that he was fired because his employer was afraid that the details of his sexual life might become public and create unwanted controversy. Ghomeshi is now suing his former employer for about $50 million and wasted no time in posting his side of the story on his Facebook page, claiming that he’s a victim. Some people question why he would spill the beans on his BDSM lifestyle, but I think it makes sense if it’s all going to come out eventually anyway. Juicy details will inevitably emerge as a result of the suit, so maybe he figured he’d just get in front of it. It’s certainly one way of demonstrating that he thinks he has nothing to hide and has done nothing wrong.

Some time ago, I read an article by a woman about a bad date she allegedly had with Ghomeshi, whom she characterized as a womanizing, sexually aggressive creep. At this point, what we know is that a number of women allege that Ghomeshi physically attacked them.

One of the things people are arguing about is the issue of consent; it doesn’t matter so much whether Ghomeshi enjoys having kinky sex as the fact that these women are saying that he acted violently toward them, and not in a way that they had discussed or consented to. In other words, the allegation is that he didn’t just have a raunchy, rough tumble in the hay with them – he outright assaulted them. And you can’t consent to assault.

So why are we talking about consent? As a feminist issue it’s getting lots of attention. But becoming more sexually liberal as a society, so in addition to talking about consent in the context of rape, we’re also becoming more knowledgeable about alternative or fringe sexual lifestyles. Books, movies, other sources of information and forms of entertainment have added to the discourse and practices such as polyamory are getting more mainstream attention. It is possible for adults to engage in genres of consensual sex that most people don’t find arousing or pleasant. Leaving aside what “most people” actually means – because we don’t really know what people do behind closed doors – what I’d like to argue here is that consent isn’t a magical ingredient that makes everything okay all the time. While unequivocal consent is critical, it doesn’t automatically cleanse any given situation of ethical questions. This is where I think discussions about BDSM can get messy, so naturally it’s at this juncture that I think we have the most to gain in terms of how we approach the topics of sex, power, and gender.

I don’t practice a BDSM lifestyle. Never have, never will. I only know people who do. I think there’s a level of comprehension about what it is and how it works that a person on the outside can’t fully grasp. It can take on an endless number of variations and involves complicated protocols. Practitioners say it’s not a license for random debauchery; it’s a structured way of satisfying one’s urges that’s based on trust and communication. And what many people take to be kinky (e.g. hair pulling, handcuffs, spanking, etc.) doesn’t really qualify as kinky in the BDSM world. Buying a racy toy at a sex shop is a far cry from joining a leather family.

Now, I’m the sort of feminist who believes that patriarchy still governs our daily lives on multiple levels and that consent does not erase this reality. I believe that like any form of oppression, sexism can be internalized and reproduced even by victims, in different ways and for different reasons. So the contention that no exploitation can possibly exist where a woman provides her consent just doesn’t fly with me.

In a recent Twitter spat, someone told me flat out: you either accept all forms of sexuality or you don’t. This was their response to my opinion that in a patriarchal society, a man who craves the sexual domination of women is a misogynist. My opponent’s argument was that this was like stating that homosexuality is wrong because it’s underpinned by the same moralistic attitude. The thing is, the only reason anyone would be critical of homosexuality would be as a result of religious or cultural conditioning. There’s absolutely nothing inherently wrong about the idea of people of the same sex acting on their attraction for one another. I agree that ignorance still factors into social norms regarding sexuality. We’re raised to think in predetermined ways about what’s acceptable and what’s not, so anything that falls outside of “respectable” or “vanilla” sexual encounters is frowned upon without much examination. But those norms are in large part constructed to control women. And equating criticism of one person acting violently toward another to criticizing homosexuals who have consensual sex is terrible logic that not only uses homosexuals as pawns but also ignores some important considerations.

No, we don’t have to accept that all forms of sexuality are okay. Just because something turns someone on, they shouldn’t necessarily be able to pursue it with abandon by virtue of that fact. There are people who are sexually aroused by morbidity, including things that very few people would consider acceptable. Even in cases where consent exists (I’m thinking of men who agree to allow other men to cannibalize their sexual organs), whatever the reason or cause for that type of fixation, it’s not healthy. Not everything that manifests as an emotion or a preference is alright. That’s an empty existential argument. It’s irresponsible to pretend that consent neutralizes the ethical questions that might surround a given sex act.

Sure, one could describe an outsider determining when exploitation exists as being paternalistic. But women who are abused and prostituted often don’t recognize that they’re involved in an abusive situation because they’ve been rendered dependent on someone who is manipulating and controlling them. Stockholm Syndrome is a thing, and a community that glorifies torture, sadism and masochism attracts people who wish to prey on others as well as people who’ve already been groomed into submission. One might argue that BDSM itself, when done properly, doesn’t involve coercion or deception. But the culture out of which the practice arose is patriarchal. How has this practiced managed to avoid internalizing any of that? And how does a person who’s devoted to equality and justice justify the eroticization of domination?

How is it ever okay for a person – male or female – to be gagged, made to vomit, choked or punched? Why would anyone get turned on by having those things done to them or by doing it to someone else? Analyzing what it means to want to be humiliated or to want to humiliate someone else isn’t a matter of imposing normalcy on people with freaky habits. It’s not healthy. There’s a difference between raw, even rough passionate sex, and domination. We don’t always understand our impulses. We might want to be ravished – but that’s nothing close to, say, being tied up and having sensitive areas of the body zapped with electrical currents. Or walking on all fours with a dog collar around your neck.

Some people feel that there’s a physical connection between pain and pleasure because they can push us beyond our boundaries both physically and emotionally. They can be transcendent. I think that in some cases, this is all a person might crave, and someone they trust helps them to fulfill that desire. For them, gender, income, etc. don’t matter – they’re just two human beings sharing a private experience of their choosing. Why should that be our business? Because we live in a world that’s ordered and structured by social inequality. How many aggressors hide behind the sexual freedom defense because they know that the sphere of sexual behaviour has been staked out as strictly individualized territory and is thus supposedly impervious to criticism?

Governments shouldn’t be in the business of moralizing, but protecting is a different story. It’s simply not true that everything that happens between consenting adults is between them and them only. Consider the case of a battered wife. She doesn’t consent to the battery, but if she stays in the relationship and refuses to call the police, the abuser has license to continue. Should we do nothing?

There’s a reason for the distinction between civil and criminal law. In common law, a tort is a private wrong, whereas a crime can involve something the assailant does to just one other person – and even behind closed doors, on their own property – but they can be charged with a crime by the government on behalf of society. When a harmful act is serious enough, our legal institutions say it involves all of us. That’s an important tenet. The concepts of consent and privacy in sex and relationships have legitimate bases and should be respected, but they shouldn’t be exploited by extrapolating those concepts to every private situation imaginable in order to shield individuals from accountability. You can’t draw an imaginary boundary around your bedroom and pretend that anything goes.

Furthermore, when a person who holds a position of privilege acts in a violent way toward someone who lacks that privilege, don’t we understand that as an act committed against that entire group of oppressed people? When a person hurls a slur at one individual, is there only one victim? The same logic applies to men who commit violent acts against women. It’s not a one-on-one situation. And why should it make any difference whether the act was of a sexual nature, or whether she begged for it?

Even if a woman is intelligent, emotionally stable with no history of abuse and fully understands the implications of a dominant sexual relationship (which I recognize is true of many women who participate in BDSM), the man isn’t home free as far as I’m concerned. What are we to make of men, all of whom possess male privilege whether they’re raging sexists or not, who argue that they’re not doing anything wrong as long as a woman consents to sexual aggression, torture, submission, discomfort, control, or violence? The key question is this: Why, in a patriarchal society, would a man crave the domination of women, sexual or otherwise? He already has plenty of power and privilege over women. Why the thirst for even more control?  What is it about that exactly that excites him, and why? The only way this makes sense from a pathological standpoint is if a man harbours feelings of powerlessness, a fear of rejection, loss, or uncertainty. That’s parasitic. And oppressive. It’s not any woman’s responsibility to be a punching bag for someone else’s benefit. Those things should be worked out between the person who has those urges and a trained therapist whose labour is compensated. When a person with privilege tells themselves they’re powerless and refuses to take responsibility for solving that problem, that’s dysfunctional. And potentially dangerous.

When I ask myself whether I would lose respect for a man if he was okay with indulging in rape fantasies, even if it was my idea, the answer without any doubt is yes. It’s my firm belief that a decent man would be alarmed by such a request and understand that it’s not the request or the consent that determine its ethics; it’s the question of whether it plays into the patriarchy that’s still a reality today. Any ethical person who possesses privilege should recoil from an opportunity to further entrench that privilege even if it’s sanctioned, and even if it piques their sexual interest (and arguably, especially when it piques their interest).

In the course of my discussions about the subject of BDSM and sexism, some people have asked me: What about women who want to dominate men? When we consider that women live in a world dominated by men, it’s understandable that a woman might feel empowered or aroused by the opportunity to dominate a man who agrees to submit to her. As long as male privilege is a reality, we can never substitute a man for a woman and pretend that the situation is comparable. Personally, I don’t find the idea of dominating anyone appealing. Such a compulsion may signal an underlying issue that won’t go away with temporary relief from some emotional discomfort.

It’s important to note that although there are men who fetishize femininity and submission, this doesn’t represent an equalization or neutral endeavour. Men who engage in these practices usually use misogynistic language, calling themselves (or asking to be called) “bitch”, “slut”, “sissy”, etc. These terms debase women, not men.

Ultimately, no matter who you are, the idea of dominating another human being in whatever way is rooted in ego and the fetishism of power. If we have urges involving aggression or violence either in or out of the bedroom, I think we need to examine this because even if some people believe it’s natural for them, that doesn’t make it natural or acceptable in general, and it matters most of all because this has the potential to cause harm. That’s not simply a private concern. It’s a social issue.

Although we all live in a highly subjective reality, we have to be willing to acknowledge that some things just are wrong. Defining that is a messy business that will continue to evolve, but it’s precisely because it’s a controversial subject that we should seize the opportunity to establish why weird isn’t wrong, unusual isn’t wrong, and we should always be open to talking about what “wrong” actually means. The idea of wrong already rules our lives in legal and social terms, so why not bring it out into the open so we can figure out what it means for us today, rather than blindly condemning or condoning an entire subset of practices that might be quite different, one from another? We like to pretend that morality is relevant only when it concerns issues such as poverty and greed but irrelevant where it might infringe on individual and especially perceived sexual rights.

I’m all for sexual expression, but not where we use the principles of individuality and personal freedom as tools to take advantage of the willingness of others to be vessels for violence. Exploitation with consent is still exploitation. If you can’t explain why your actions are ethical other than to say, “It’s none of your business” or “They wanted me to do it”, that’s not good enough. We have to do better than that.