Oct 172018
- Sexual spanking is a subset of BDSM that manages to be something even people who don’t consider themselves kinky sometimes try. Even the Kama Sutra includes techniques on spanking. VICE’s Broadly has an article on Dr. Rebecca Plante’s Sexual Spanking, the Self, and the Construction of Deviance in 2006, based on sexual scripts theory.
- It’s been a troubling couple of years as male figures from entertainment, politics and other realms are revealed to have committed non-consensual acts, usually followed by attempts to discredit the abuser and/or excuse the infraction. Just like the Jian Ghomeshi case from a few years ago, writer Stephen Elliot has tried to avoid the allegations against him published on the privately-circulated “Shitty Media Men” list by saying he’s into BDSM as a submissive. From the lawsuit: “Defendants are aware the published statements are false because of Plaintiff’s published sexual preferences, including his preferences as a submissive male in a BDSM context, which are commonly known in the parties’ industry.” Sad to say, people like Leopold von Sacher-Masoch demonstrate that submissive men can be predatory and abusive. I hope this argument doesn’t hold up in court.
- Lasting Marks is a documentary short about the notorious Operation Spanner case in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, in which a group of adult men were arrested for engaging in consensual sadomasochism. It’s narrated by one of the men arrested, Roland Jaggard.
- Cara Sutra looks into the historical context of maledom-femsub vs. femdom-malesub, and why one is far more acceptable than the other, becoming a feature of popular film and book romances. Even submissive men themselves have internalized shame from the culture about their desires, while dominant women are subjected to prejudice and stereotypes.
- One of the questions we discussed in the recent documentary panel was, what is BDSM, and what isn’t? This relates to the perennial debates of “what is pornography?” and “what is sex?” Are the various fetishes grouped under “wet and messy” part of BDSM? Are video and audio clips produced in order to stimulate the ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) sexual, and therefore a kind of pornography? And should the producers of such media be banned from payment processors like Paypal? Producers of media generally considered sexual have had enough problems with getting payments processed, but now this has extended to ASMR producers. Apparently, some denizens of the 8chan message board have nothing better to do with their time than falsely report ASMR producers for selling adult content, which can result in the near-monopoly companies banning the producers for life and/or having their funds frozen for months. Background on anti-pornography actions by the banking industry
- To look at the “what is and isn’t BDSM?” question from another angle, Brides.com has an essay “The Complete Guide to Rough Sex.” The article’s second paragraph hastens to make it clear that “Rough sex doesn’t necessarily mean BDSM of any kind. You can have rough AF sex without tying anyone to the bed or bringing out a riding crop.” The dividing line between BDSM and rough sex, as far as Brides.com is concerned, appears to be whether gear is involved. However, the essay’s discussion of rough sex covers consent, negotiation, boundaries and aftercare. All of this could have been copied and pasted from a BDSM guide. So is “rough sex” just BDSM without extra equipment?
- The Guardian explores the closing of many gay male leather venues in London, and the evolution of the scene. “Rising rents, competitor fetishes and competition from online dating apps have all been a turn of the screw.”
- Drummer’s Jack Fritscher wrote a profile of the late Cynthia Slater, co-founder of the Society of Janus back in the 1970s, a true pioneer.
