by Joseph D.
All sex is a power play. We like to deny it. We like to pretend that sex is birds and bunnies and bubbling brooks, that sex can’t be evil, nasty power dynamics, but that’s what makes it hot for people, whether they cop to it or not. Even the most vanilla sexual scenario has a subtle interplay of power back and forth. In the leather S&M scene, they take those seeds and exaggerate it until it’s laughable. You watch people having S&M sex and it’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen. It’s like cops and robbers or Indians and cowboys with your pants down.
Dan Savage – Sex Advice for the Clinton Age, The New York Times Magazine, Oct 4, 1998
Whoa! You weren’t expecting that sharp right turn, were you? The guy has the world’s ear, he’s telling them the truth about sex, and then wham! another rude slap on the chaps. Of course, prejudice against gay men who wear leather is still pretty rampant. Yes, we’ve made progress in the past couple of decades toward winning acceptance in the gay community and, at least through fashion, in society at large. Yet such a put-down in print by a hip sexpert ought to serve as a reminder that we still have a ways to go, that we still have work to do, at least if we care what people say about us. Savage’s jab at us cannot be blamed entirely on a generalized, culture-wide fear of anything offbeat; Dan Savage is no Ann Landers. So is there anything we can do to improve our image? It might be worth considering whether we ourselves have contributed to such attitudes. It might be worth considering whether, on some level, we share those attitudes.
HOW DO WE, IN THE BDSM COMMUNITY, SEE OURSELVES?
Consider the way we talk about our BDSM lifestyle and what we do. We talk a lot about “playing,” by which we mean having the kind of sex we like. We call a particular preferred activity a “fantasy.” We stress the importance of “setting the scene” when we play, and by this we refer to things like music, lighting and costumes. We even think about our behavior while we are “in a scene” as being an instance of “role-playing,” which might include such stereotypical roles as Master and slave, Master and dog, daddy and boy, cop and perp. We sometimes even adopt pseudonyms, like stage names, within the community that reflect our preferred roles.
In some very important ways, this is all good. For one thing, it is probably salutary not to think always of sex as being so terribly serious, so bound up with religion, law, custom and biology. The therapeutic benefits of retaining an ability to play games throughout adulthood should not be underestimated. Sex can indeed be a very good escape from the so-called real world. Sex can be fun.
What’s more, by talking about the BDSM lifestyle and what we do as “playing,” we signal, both to the public and to our partners, that we recognize the difference between the consensual activities in which we engage and the non-consensual activities which they mimic. In so-called real life, flogging someone is a crime called battery. Tying someone up is a crime called false imprisonment. Calling someone a cocksucking faggot is (in many jurisdictions) a crime called hate speech. It is obviously important for the public, and the police, to understand that we are not abusing one another. And it is useful to be able to insure that a potential partner can sense that one is not a dangerous psychopath.
Our activities are not only consensual, they are—and this is a stricter standard—also safe. Regardless of how genuinely one’s partner might wish to be physically or psychologically harmed, even to the point of death, no member in good standing of the BDSM community would agree to assist in the realization of that fantasy. Our jargon is a sign hanging on the fence that runs along that boundary.
Finally, by acknowledging that we are playing, we affirm our sanity: that we know the difference between what we are doing and what we appear to be doing; and that what we are doing is not psychologically harmful to either of us, indeed is psychologically beneficial to both of us.
HOW ARE WE SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE?
And so, all this talk about “play,” “scenes” and “roles” serves a useful purpose. It should be retained. On the other hand, such language may also, perhaps, have a price. There may be a price in public relations and a price in personal satisfaction as well.
The price in public relations can be appreciated from Dan Savage’s comment and others like it. Some people will simply see us as ridiculous. We affect the appearance of tough guys, but underneath we’re homosexuals, and everybody knows homosexuals are weak, right? We appear to dominate or submit, but then one of us is overheard asking the other if the ropes are too tight, and the other says yes. We demand or desire bootlicking, but we first make sure there’s nothing dirty on the boots. We claim to trade in pain, but then we explain that for us it’s actually pleasure. What we do looks like a charade, and we look like fakes.
WALKING THE TALK
OK, maybe many of us don’t really care what other people think. Fine, but what about ourselves? Does our theatrical vocabulary come with any personal cost? To blow the question up to Worfian proportions, does our language influence the way we think about ourselves and what we do? Does the tail (language) wag the dog (thought)?
It might. It seems reasonable to suspect that, if we have always in the back of our mind the idea that what we’re doing is not genuine, not authentic, not real, then we are going to feel that what we are doing is consequently not valuable, not honest, not true. And if what we do is a sham, doesn’t that diminish us? Diminish our partner? Might not the disconnect between our so-called real life and our so-called fantasy life keep us from being whole? Isn’t it likely that some of us, subconsciously, view sex as being somehow illicit because we have always to keep it in its proper place, separate from our legitimate selves? And if we have this anxiety about sex, are we maybe enjoying sex less than we could?
CLOSING THE REALITY GAP
Perhaps a corrective is called for. Perhaps we need to make it explicit once in a while that when we talk about “playing roles” and “setting scenes,” we are using metaphors. Because, in fact, it doesn’t have to be all pretend. Sex is real, or can be. Let’s consider how it might be possible to view at least some of the fantastic things we do as being quite real.
Let’s start with something easy: bondage. Though there is a market for symbolic bondage, most guys who are into being tied up want to be really tied up (or chained or confined). Most bondage bottoms, in other words, want to be truly unable to escape, or else to have to exert genuine effort and ingenuity to escape bonds that were applied by a top who intended them to be inescapable. This situation is fairly easy to attain. It is not terribly challenging to restrain someone in such a way that he would have at least great difficulty getting free. It really is possible to make the fantasy come true.
“Yes,” you say, “but the bottom knows that the top will release him whenever he says the word. That makes the whole thing a game.” Wrong. The bottom trusts that the top will release him. That’s an important difference, or can be if we want it to be. Think of it this way: Billy trusts Ray enough to place himself completely at Ray’s mercy. In the context of that trust, the submission and the restraint are quite real. Of course, the physical reality hasn’t been changed; the way of thinking about that reality is what has been altered.
Bondage is an activity; what about roles? Can they be thought of as real? Can “role,” in other words, be converted into “status”? Let’s take the quintessential roles, Master and slave. In what sense is it possible, in a safe, sane, and—most challenging of all—consensual way, to make oneself into a Master or slave? Well, let’s look at true slavery in a realistic way, starting with the mundane (practice) and working up to the more abstract (politics). (In other words, let’s postpone for a few sentences the unarguable ethical unacceptability of historical slavery.)
Historically, slavery has been first of all an economic system (even if not a viable one). That implies that slaves have value, and that implies that they should not be unduly harmed. Many of the images we have of historical slavery represent in fact abuses of the system. To kill or maim a slave is to destroy or ruin one’s own property, and so, in the best of cases, slaves were given adequate physical care. The lesson for s/m is that, just because we feed, clothe and give medical attention to our “slaves” doesn’t, in and of itself, negate the slavery.
The way we respect the mental life of our “slaves” has historical precedent as well. They may have been in the minority, but certainly there have been slaves who were valued for their intelligence and so were educated, encouraged to create art and even permitted to work in gainful employment. The lesson for BDSM is that, just because you’re intelligent and financially self-sufficient doesn’t mean that you can’t assume the status of slave. Earning a big paycheck as a pinstriped executive doesn’t, in and of itself, disqualify you from being a slave.
My point is that the type of slavery we engage in may be a pretty cushy slavery, but that by itself doesn’t prevent it from being slavery.
The big obstacle, of course, would have to be consent. Historically, slaves don’t consent, and that is the root of the “unarguable ethical unacceptability” of slavery. But, if one wishes, there may be found a way around even this. Suppose we think of consent as the gateway to slavery. The only difference, then, would be that, instead of being captured in war, we voluntarily submit. For us in s/m, the gate must remain always open, but nothing prevents us from thinking of our status, while we remain inside the enclosure, as in every other way analogous to true slavery. The first thing, of course, that keeps us from leaving is desire. So long as we remain inside, we continuously submit. That submission, moreover, can even be, if we wish, effectively unconditional, thanks again to the crucial element of trust which led us to submit in the first place. We may have available to us a different mechanism of escape and a far easier escape (the withdrawal of consent) than has typically been available to historical slaves, but that need not negate the slavery. Escape is the gate; slavery is the space inside the gate.
HOW REAL DO YOU WANT IT?
So far I’ve been talking about merely altering the way we think about what we do, not about changing what we actually do. There are ways, however, to take actions that can make our situations ever more realistic, perhaps as realistic as we like. To continue with slavery as an example, there are innumerable ways to make the withdrawal of consent relatively less accessible. If what really turns you on is reality, there are ways to make your return through the gate back out to freedom less likely to occur. Some of these are quite commonplace, but (keeping in mind that the goal here is the achievement of a sense of authenticity) they need not be dismissed as trivial. A Master, for example, will quite often lock a chain around a slave’s neck and keep the key or combination for himself. In that situation, the slave would (short of the ultimate withdrawal of consent) have to go to some trouble and possibly some expense to remove the chain. The chain, then, is a very real (though not infallible) obstacle to escape. Near the other extreme on the spectrum, a Master might require a slave to hand over his financial assets. In the context of trust and desire, the slave might very well happily—and with a sound mind—do just that, thereby setting up a considerable obstacle to escape and so making his slavery resemble fairly closely the economic dependency that characterizes historical slavery.
Such paths are not right for everyone, but they are available.
BRINGING DIFFERENT REALITIES TOGETHER
In addition to changing the way we think about sex, and in addition to making our sex lives more realistic, we can also, if we choose, find ways to bring our everyday lives more in line with our BDSM lifestyle and sexuality. We can approach wholeness from both directions, in other words. The very act of identifying oneself as gay is in fact a step in that direction. Adopting a “gay lifestyle” (whatever that may mean for you) is another step. Choosing to wear leather and, especially, choosing then to “live in leather” is an act of reconciliation between so-called real life and fantasy life.
You don’t have to stop there, however. There are more idiosyncratic steps you can take to bring your own life more in tune with your true self. Suppose somebody fantasizes about hanging out with construction workers, cops or soldiers. Well, guess what: construction workers, cops and soldiers really exist, and they have twenty-three chromosomes just like you. It is actually possible to meet some and see what happens from there. Come to think of it, you could even become one yourself. Turned on by horseback riding? Take a lesson. Motorcycles? Sign a check. Shaving? There’s a Duane Reade near you. Want to spend a night in jail? Exercise your First Amendment rights and stage an impromptu demonstration on the now-barricaded steps of New York City Hall. Does the smell of warm sockfeet get your valves pumping? There are places called shoe stores and they’ll pay you to expose yourself to foot odor forty hours a week.
The point is that the gulf between the BDSM lifestyle, sex and the rest of life can be narrowed, without harm to oneself or anyone else, and quite likely with handsome benefits as well. Many of us have come a long way down the road from guilt about our attraction to men and our affinity for kink. We can come further. The journey might be easier if we shed some of the baggage of denial and think and speak of sex a little less in terms of play-acting and a little more in terms of living.