Dierdre Skye's take on “the flaw of BDSM culture”:
What does our economic system have to do with BDSM?
Everything.
For starters, BDSM has become a hotbed for consumerism, with toy sites offering accessories costing hundreds — or even thousands — of dollars. With enough toys and props, bed is no longer “the poor man’s opera,” as in the old proverb, but instead becomes another opportunity for keeping up with the Joneses. Advocates of making BDSM more visible are, of course, also advocating for their ability to show off expensive accoutrements.
BDSM practices also adhere more closely to the worker/boss model than to that of the master and slave. America’s workplaces and its dungeons both maintain a fiction of equality between the parties, even though one has extensive power over the other. In both the board room and the bedroom, Americans — raised in a society where freedom is king — find it difficult to accept that not every “yes,” whether a signature on a binding arbitration agreement or a request for more punishment, is an indicator of meaningful consent.
The flaw of BDSM culture, then, is that it confuses the ultimate rehash of capitalism’s most troubling dynamics with transgression. In a culture where domination and cruelty are normalized everywhere, BDSM seems less like a rebellion and more like a surrender.
Consider this: US schools have emphasized workplace readiness — the virtues of servitude, not personhood — at earlier and earlier ages for more than two decades, at the cost of art, music, and other “non-essential” subjects. Can the graduates of these schools, when they become adults who gratefully accept both their low-wage job and their lashing from a “loving dominant,” be said to have chosen their path?See also:
- Consent: It’s Not Just For Sex, and yet “almost no one has ever consented to having a job.”
- "The BDSM community is not trying to end rape culture. They’re trying to eroticize it."
- The BDSM Scene’s Whiteness is Classism At Work Supporting Racism and Sexism
- Willy Wonka responds to Fifty Shades of Grey
- A discussion of “rolequeerness” and deconstruction of the parallel boss/worker and dominant/submissive narratives.
- “BDSM is fascism applied to sex.”
- "The BDSM community is a rape school."
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Fri
Oct
17
The economics of consent: Why BDSM and consumer capitalism are closer than you think