I’m currently reading Staci Newmahr’s Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy. It captures some interesting data but it’s a frustrating book. I’ll dig into why that is in a future post. For the moment I want to tackle one very specific phrasing that caught my eye. It’s on the subject of power in BDSM scenes and how it’s described.
Power and control are obviously significant parts of BDSM play and the author is careful to qualify them with terms such as ‘apparent’ and ‘illusion’. In describing the various phases of a scene (negotiation/play/aftercare) she wants to make it clear that what’s being constructed is an elaborate facade. A type of theater where the actors themselves have to suspend their disbelief. I should add that this isn’t unique to this book. A lot of academic BDSM books adopt similar descriptions, presenting it as an insight into the underlying reality that the players themselves don’t acknowledge.
I always find this approach a very facile one. It ignores the complexity of power in other situations and reduces the value of the descriptive term. Outside of kink we’re happy to use descriptions of power in a nuanced way, without the need for heavy qualifiers. For example, we would be comfortable describing the CEO of a company as having power. He has a degree of control and a corresponding freedom that his employees don’t have. That doesn’t mean he can do anything. It also doesn’t mean that his employees have no options. They can always quit and walk away from their job. But we don’t feel the need to describe his power as illusory just because he requires a degree of cooperation from those who wish to work for him.
To pick another example, when describing the dynamics of a conventional relationship, people will often use terms related to power and control. Those dynamics can play a role in all sorts of relationships, not just D/s ones. Yet nobody feels the need to say something like – “His wife is really in charge of vacation planning, she makes all the decisions. Although of course it’s only an illusion of control because he could always leave her if he wanted.” The second part is implicitly understood, but it doesn’t make the first part any less true.
When I’m stripped, bound and gagged in a BDSM scene, I’m giving up control and relinquishing power. There’s no illusion or suspension of disbelief necessary. I don’t get to control where she puts that needle, where the cane lands, where she puts the but plug (although I can probably guess in that case). The fact the dominant doesn’t have absolute power doesn’t make it an illusion of power. Yes, I can stop the scene at any time and walk away. I can also quit my job at any time and walk away. Neither fact means I’m the one with the power.
It seemed appropriate to finish with a shot featuring a classic demonstration of power – the hand to the throat. This is from the Divine Bitches site. I originally found in on Thy Queendome Come tumblr.
“what’s being constructed is an elaborate facade. A type of theater where the actors themselves have to suspend their disbelief.”
…and in the final analysis it’s theatre of the absurd, except that there’s method in the madness.
Some people see it as a way of achieving a kind of quasi-religious transcendence through ritual and performance. It is here that what we call drama and theatre have their origins.
For an acute and intelligent take on this try reading, or better still, going to a performance of Jean Genet’s ‘Le Balcon’.
I certainly see some of my own sessions in terms of ritual and a quasi-religious transcendence. But some are just fun ways to create intense and sexually interesting sensations. I think it’s hard to talk definitively about kink in a simple way, which is why the intellectual analysis of it struggles so often.
Thanks for the tip on the play. I’ll look out for that.
-paltego
Hi paltego,
The issue of who has the real power is a conundrum. I believe that the most significant aspect of “power exchange” is that people who engage in it are trying to consciously do so for mutual fulfillment. Certain powers are relinquished but some never are. As you pointed out, the possession and wielding of power isn’t absolute.
It’s true that there can be a staged theatrical quality to scenes. Sometimes when I’m in a scene I feel that I’m also a spectator observing it, trying to evaluate it. What I’m hoping for is to cross the line into subspace which isn’t really about someone having power over me or me figuring anything out.
Mostly, I think the discourse concerning how power is deployed in BDSM is often an attempt to trivialize and explain the power away from it, to recast it as an intellectual topic rather than as an intense primal experience. That’s what I’m doing before I settle into a scene. Too much of that can drain the magic out of the experience. That’s when a jolt of pain or an unexpected humiliation does me good.
Best,
scott
Mrs. Kelly’s Playhouse
Hey scott,
There’s certainly a wide variety of theatrical qualities to scenes. Some roleplays can look very much like improvisational theater. Other scenes, which are much more animalistic and sensual, look far closer to conventional sexual intercourse. And there’s a thousands shades between those two extremes. Plus, as you say, the element of subspace, which changes the interaction again.
I don’t have a problem with trying to apply some intellectual analysis to BDSM. I think it’s an interesting thing to do. I just dislike the black and white lines that often seem to get drawn in the process. It sometimes feels like the authors are trying to fit into the preconceptions of their readers (i.e. other academics) rather than the reality of the primal experience. Or at least what can be an intense primal experience in some cases.
-paltego