{"id":256,"date":"2013-04-22T03:35:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T03:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennytrout.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/22\/dear-50-shades-fan-bdsm-doesnt-need-or-want-your-defense"},"modified":"2014-07-24T20:11:41","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T00:11:41","slug":"dear-50-shades-fan-bdsm-doesnt-need-or-want-your-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=256","title":{"rendered":"Dear 50 Shades fan: BDSM doesn&#8217;t need or want your defense."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: red;\">WARNING: This is going to get real. Real real. So I&#8217;m putting it behind a jump. If you don&#8217;t want to hear graphic details about my sex life, this isn&#8217;t the post for you. And needless to say, adults only.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I was having a great day. The kids spent the night away, I slept until noon, and when my husband got home from work he came straight to the bedroom. He stuffed my panties in my mouth, spanked my pussy hard, then fucked me, fisted me, and roughly fingered my ass while asking stuff like, &#8220;Do you like that, whore?&#8221; and then when we were done, he made me a fried egg sandwich and we cuddled and watched <i>Adventure Time.<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/>\n<\/i>Okay, I admit, it&#8217;s not as sexy as a scene from an erotic novel. But I&#8217;m confident when I say it has more in common with other, actual D\/s relationships than anything in <i>50 Shades of Grey <\/i>is.<\/p>\n<p>When I got on the internet and checked twitter, I found myself tagged in an ongoing conversation due to someone recommending <i>The Boss<\/i>. Which is awesome, thanks and keep doing that. But when I expanded the conversation, I saw that the tweeter was arguing with a <i>50 Shades of Grey<\/i>\u00a0fan who said:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p><span style=\"background-color: #f6f6f6; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">I also think real life SUBS AND DOMS would be insulted to think people are calling them abusers &amp; victims NO JUDGING<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This tweet was written by a person who clearly doesn&#8217;t consider herself a part of a BDSM relationship. Otherwise, she would have spoken from a place of experience and not a place of speculation on the desires of Doms and subs. But because she read <i>50 Shades of Grey<\/i>, she feels her opinion has weight. Not only does she feel she can represent the people actively involved in various different BDSM lifestyles, she feels that in the hierarchy of social justice issues, domestic abuse and sexual violence against women fall below defending the rights of people who engage in a consensual activity that doesn&#8217;t really need to be explained to anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few months, I&#8217;ve noticed that the conversations about BDSM, <i>50 Shades<\/i>, and abuse follow a pretty specific pattern:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A says they feel <i>50 Shades of Grey<\/i>\u00a0promotes abuse.<\/li>\n<li>B says A doesn&#8217;t understand the complicated dynamic of a BDSM relationship.<\/li>\n<li>A clarifies that they weren&#8217;t talking about the sex (although A isn&#8217;t thrilled with the sex either), and suggests that large numbers of people in BDSM relationships don&#8217;t find the book representative of their positive experiences.<\/li>\n<li>B ignores this and, in order to derail the conversation, begins to stridently defend the right of people who enjoy BDSM to not be judged (when no person on earth is exempt from the judgement of their fellow humans in the first place).<\/li>\n<li>The conversation ceases to be about the abuse, and begins to be about whether or not the rights of BDSM practitioners are being respected by the mean old Judgie McJudgersons who don&#8217;t understand kink.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>In other words, the\u00a0<i>50 Shades<\/i>\u00a0fan redirects the conversation from a discussion about abuse and rape culture tropes in the books in order to concentrate on perceived wrongs against a community they are not a part of, all because they don&#8217;t want to admit there&#8217;s anything problematic about the books.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Now, before I go on, let me\u00a0acknowledge\u00a0that there have been cases where law enforcement and the judicial system have misunderstood and mislabeled consensual BDSM as domestic violence, assault, or even murder. This is unfortunate and could absolutely be prevented by better education about BDSM and sexuality in general.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But that doesn&#8217;t mean that raising awareness about BDSM relationship dynamics is so important that we can&#8217;t discuss domestic violence and sexual abuse for fear of damaging progress in that area. Especially since the consequences of silencing the voices of domestic violence survivors and advocates is so much greater than the consequence of someone misunderstanding another person&#8217;s sexual proclivities. The National Organization for Women estimates that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.now.org\/issues\/violence\/stats.html\">4.8 million woman a year will be physically or sexually assaulted by a partner<\/a>; that&#8217;s roughly 13,000 women a day.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Does it suck to turn on a police procedural drama to see yet another depiction of a BDSM dungeon as a dirty, chaotic place full of depraved people in latex? Yes. Does that type of ignorance contribute to the legal misunderstandings that have happened in the community? Yes (but then, so has <i>50 Shades of Grey<\/i>). Am I willing to sacrifice 13,000 women a day to stop those things from happening? No. Because I believe we can discuss both issues without marginalizing either of them.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For every two\u00a0<i>50 Shades<\/i>\u00a0fans demanding silence on the topic of abuse, there is one actual, experienced BDSM practitioner begging to discuss the very real danger of abuse in the subculture. This is something most of us\u00a0<i>want<\/i>\u00a0to talk about, as BDSM and other acceptable kinks are gaining mainstream attention.\u00a0But that discussion must include <i>50 Shades<\/i>, and that&#8217;s not something the <i>50 Shades<\/i>\u00a0fan wants to hear.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thinking back to how my afternoon went. It was nothing like anything I&#8217;d read in <i>50 Shades of Grey<\/i>. During the entire encounter, I was never afraid that my husband wouldn&#8217;t stop. I knew that if I used the safe word, it would be okay, we could do something else. He wouldn&#8217;t blackmail me with his past emotional tragedies to try and shame me for using the safeguard we agreed upon to protect our mutual trust. I know for a fact that he doesn&#8217;t think I&#8217;m whore, slut, or any of the nasty things he calls me, because that&#8217;s <i>my<\/i>\u00a0kink and he does it because I <i>asked him to <\/i>and he gives as much attention to my sexual needs as to his own. It&#8217;s what makes the D\/s dynamic work so well in our relationship. Trust, love, and honest communication.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But Ana is never allowed to ask for anything. She isn&#8217;t even allowed to say no to things she doesn&#8217;t want, because Christian&#8217;s needs are paramount. But a <i>50 Shades<\/i>\u00a0fan is going to tell me and women like me that <i>we&#8217;re<\/i>\u00a0the disempowered ones who need to be given a voice? And that the only valid voice in this case is one that is arguing that our relationships should more closely resemble the one between Ana and Christian, even if we&#8217;re loudly protesting that such a relationship isn&#8217;t what we want? How does that make any sense?<\/p>\n<p>Ana and Christian are not an example of a healthy BDSM relationship, and when <i>50 Shades<\/i>\u00a0defenders- whose only exposure to BDSM has come through this single source- frame it as though it is, they&#8217;re actually harming the image of BDSM more. But that&#8217;s not something they want to hear. They want to feel like they&#8217;re protecting a misunderstood and beautiful people, who do sexy things in expensive high rise apartments.<\/p>\n<p>If someone wants to criticize me for my sexual preferences, that&#8217;s their problem, not mine. I&#8217;m a big girl, and I can handle it. I don&#8217;t need- and I think many, many other sexual deviants out there would agree- anyone to read a damn book, decide they have learned more from a fictional account than I have learned in my lived experience, and then rush to my defense needlessly. I am a sub, not a brainwashed sex zombie. I am fully capable of defending my sexual tastes if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>So, I&#8217;ll end by just reposting what I tweeted in response:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p><span style=\"background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;\">I am a real life sub. Please do not use 50 Shades to defend my lifestyle, because it is not representative. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WARNING: This is going to get real. Real real. So I&#8217;m putting it behind a jump. If you don&#8217;t want to hear graphic details about<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/?p=256\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dear 50 Shades fan: BDSM doesn&#8217;t need or want your defense.<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7888,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/7888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennytrout.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}