I have a tendency to think of people 1% less kinky than me as "freakin' prudes!" and people 1% more kinky than me as "freakin' freaks!"
The weird feeling comes in when I realize that to a whole lot of people, I'm the freak. (I'm also a prude to a whole lot of people, I'm under no delusion that I'm the top of the perv pile, but I can deal with that.)
I overheard some classmates at lunch talking about how people who are into bondage are "sick fucks" and pretty much sexual predators. I guess if I were a Sexual Freedom Fighter I would've gone over and set them straight with a long peppy lecture on "safe! sane! consensual!" and "many normal, healthy members of your own community!" and such, but really I just moved to a different table.
It's weird though, to think of me--little ol' me, donates blood to strangers, never runs a red light, helps old ladies write their grandkids--as a scary deviant in someone's eyes. I can understand that some of the things I do might seem gross--but "ketchup on Cheerios" gross, not sexual predator gross.
Still, even if people can be shockingly wrongheaded about my completely silly and harmless personal habits, I'm not going to put my own reputation on the line in order to make some sort of grand "Civil Rights for the Ass-Whipped!" stand. And neither is anyone else with mainstream credibility, apparently.
The problem with the press for BDSM is that the only people who are generally willing to publicly admit to being into it are not the sort of people who generally make it look good to outsiders.
ReplyDeleteI've fucked around with BDSM enough to know I'm not into it, but this is, like you said, a matter of personal sexual aesthetic, not morality. I think a large percentage of our population has been indoctrinated with the Cosmo version of sexual norms.
Aebhel - Whoa. I think your comment just made me understand why people who are into BDSM are disproportionately big ol' geeks. It's because BDSM is, in a certain sense, picking your nose in class.
ReplyDeleteIf BDSM goes against social norms in the same "Gawd, barf out" way that C++ t-shirts do, that would explain why they have such an overlap in their following. You have to be the sort of person who puts "but it feels good" over social norms to be willing to try it.
And I know you know this, but I'm going to scream it anyway, just for my own enjoyment: I FUCKING HATE THE COSMO VERSION OF SEXUAL NORMS!
It's funny, for me, because to a very great degree I'm insulated from the 'normal' views on sex. I don't watch TV, don't have many friends, and the ones I do have are kinky, geeky perverts. Who, I think, have a disproportionately healthy attitude toward sex.
ReplyDeleteThen I go read Cosmo or talk to someone outside my little circle, and my brain explodes.
Well, unlike homosexuality, which involves who you fall in love with, it's not exactly necessary to have a civil rights crusade for something that by definition only happens in private.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I'd actually want kinky geek norms to be the normative attitude anyway. Being outside the norms and a little bad and wrong and freaky is a big part of the fun.
Labrat - Oh, I agree kink doesn't need a damn Civil Rights movement, that's just sarcasm on my part, but I do wish it were more accepted the way, say, oral sex is--you don't get the right to talk about it in public but nobody hates on it either.
ReplyDeleteI guess the issue is outing. If Jon brags to someone talkative or I fail to cover a rope mark or whatever the hell, I want to be embarrassed, not devastated. People have lost their jobs when private consensual kinks were outed, and that's not right.
I don't want to be totally normal, but I also don't want to hear "we don't want a freak treating vulnerable patients!"
...Definitely a good point, one I hadn't considered. Around here more than a little eccentricity of all kinds is tolerated as long as someone can do their job well, and it makes it easy to forget that it's not that way everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThere's a case for some tolerance, though:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSEIC36625320080123
Bruno - I'm kinda conflicted on that story. On the one hand, they weren't hurting anybody, but on the other hand... I think practicing BDSM is a sexual act (also a HEY EVERYONE LOOK AT ME act) and I don't think there's a right to do that in public.
ReplyDeleteBut I unno, that girl's into the lifestyle thing and I can't make heads or tails of the damn lifestyle thing. I guess it's technically her choice and all that and none of the bus company's business as long as she's not indecent, but... feh. I can only muster up so much respect for someone who uses their sexual fetish as a reason not to have a job.