I’m always interested to read mainstream descriptions of kinky behavior. When you spend a lot of time reading sex blogs it’s easy to get blasé about all sorts of activities. Seeing it filtered through a vanilla perspective can help illuminate how other perceptions might differ.
Take for example the article from yesterday’s post featuring the unfortunate domme who was arrested for needle play. It’s not particularly judgmental (compared to some of these articles), but it still talks about drawing blood, sticking needles into genitals and suturing. I can imagine most vanilla people, and quite a few kinky ones, reading that and going “Ewww! That’s crazy. What kind of insane masochist would do that?” Yet I’ve done all those things, and they don’t really hurt that much *. I’d say an old fashioned caning is way more painful. Hell, smashing my toe in the dark into the corner of the kitchen table is more painful. Familiarity normalizes them.
It’s also a good example of the importance of language. Call it play piercing and it sounds relatively innocuous. Play isn’t exactly a scary word and lots of people get decorative piercings these days. Describe it as needle play and the intensity ramps up a little. Describe it as needles stuck into genitals and it sounds nuts. I touched on a similar theme with respect to the idea of sadism a couple of weeks ago, and it’s a concept that applies pretty broadly in BDSM. Spanking sounds fun and lighthearted. Corporal punishment not so much. Breath play is innocuous next to asphyxiation or smothering. Would you rather say you were pegged or that you were anally penetrated with a dildo? And talking of which…
I found this on the Pegging with a Smile tumblr. I’m afraid I’ve no original source for it.
* One possible exception to the “don’t hurt that much” comment is suturing. It’s OK if you use hypodermic needles to pass the thread through the skin (as I experienced here), but using a genuine suturing needle hurts like hell (as described here).
This also puts me in mind of the article you posted from Salon a while ago about spanking. The guy who wrote it, who was into spanking, said in the article ‘I’ve never hit a woman in my life.’ What he meant by this was ‘I’ve never engaged in an act of domestic violence’ but a lot of people in the comments didn’t see it that way and came down on him like a ton of bricks. A lot of ridicule of the ‘you’re so fucked up you can’t see it’s really obvious what you do is wrong’ variety. And then there were counter-arguments from the people who saw it his way. It all got rather heated.
I’m somewhere in between on this – while it was clear what he meant, and there obviously is an important difference between spanking someone who wants you to spank them and striking someone in anger, I do think there’s a tendency sometimes in D/s to use words like ‘play’ to avoid the fact that these things can be dangerous. Breath play is a good example – it’s pretty vital not to lose sight of the fact you’re actually choking someone. So while I think it’s fine to use the nicer words because we are doing this for fun, after all, I always like to keep the other interpretation of it in the back of my mind. It helps me to stay safe.
That’s an interesting point. I prefer to use more innocuous and gentle terms in an effort to make activities more acceptable to non-kinky people. I’d rather tell my friends I’m into play piercing than that into sticking needles into my genitals. But there is the flip-side as you point out. Some stuff is genuinely dangerous and using the word ‘play’ diminishes the appearance of risk. In fact when it comes to breathplay I actually don’t do the choking/strangulation approach. The danger seems too high for me. I only like to do it via smothering or covering my face. Less risk of damaging delicate tubes that way.
Language is a slippery thing. Always tricky to get it right.
-paltego
It is tricky to get right, but I think one thing that’s good about BDSM is that people do name and categorise what they want to do. I have friends who have had sexual partners go to hit them or choke them without asking, and those partners were people who wouldn’t have thought of themselves as fetishists or into kink, as far as I’m aware. They knew that it turned them on, and had had previous mutually enjoyable sexual experiences doing that, but weren’t willing to actually think through what they were doing. Naming it is a step forward, I think.
That’s very true. If everything is simply mashed together as ‘sex’ then it’s much harder to negotiate and consent. If you can’t name something you can’t reason about it. Or even know that there is something there to be reasoned about. That’s another fine point. Thanks.
-paltego
i find spanking a great exercise, but some see it as cruel, malevolent, etc. if it’s done under consentual adults, what’s so terrible?
I think spanking is one of the most interesting kinky activities from a cultural perspective. Unlike a lot of kinky activities it has a mainstream existence, some people spank their kids. And even those that don’t are aware of the concept. That makes it a really complex activity.
Personally, I find it a lot of fun. Where somethings make me spacey and subby, spanking is more playful and energizing. As you say, if it’s done between consensual adults, there’s really no problem.
-paltego
I think a lot of it comes down to the severity of the play. A lot of non-kinky people will accept spanking as ab it of fum whether M/F or F/M. But caning or whipping confuses them and they are unable to accept it. When you reach the furthest shores of our kink even some people who are indulging in some C/P and bondage games can become unhappy about it. I myself have been branded by my Mistress and have found that many people who are quite happy to accept severe canings and whippings find this abhorrent. That said I’m not immune myself and despite my efforts there are some practices that I find disturbing even though I attempt to be broadminded about it. In the end we all have our own tastes and limits and we shouldn;t be surprised if other peoples aren’t the same as ours.
Definitely the severity of the play is a factor. But I think the language we use can either emphasize or moderate that severity. Somethings (like whipping) have no other descriptions, so they always sound severe. But impact play sounds less scary than spanking, which in turn sounds less scary than beating. But they could all be used to describe the same activity. I think there’s also a feedback effect, so a less scary name makes the activity more approachable, which over time reduces the need for the less scary name.
Branding is an interesting example. It has a big cultural baggage, thanks to cattle brands and (back in history) slave brands. That makes it scary. I suspect if they were called ‘decorative skin marks’ or ‘fire symbols’ there’d be less of a reaction!
Thanks for dropping by to comment.
-paltego