Here’s the thing: polar hierarchies in sex don’t interest me. At all. I find nothing remotely desirable about being dominated or dominating someone else, mimicking rape or coercion, being hit or whipped. It’s not because I am boring, vanilla, or that I don’t get the politics of consent and why BDSM “isn’t violence”. (My) truth is, it mimics the violence around us and I am not convinced that by simply mirroring what we don’t like, we subvert it and take back our power.
Also, I literally can’t remove the history of it from its current practice. The Marquis de Sade was not a decolonial hero. Being a slave was really problematic for us. I find it hard to put some of the words that BDSM requires into my vocabulary of desire and seduction. And almost every single one of us, as women and gender non-conforming people, will experience violence in some form – physical, sexual, emotional, psychological – from childhood to old age. We speak of abolition in the same breath as the sexiness of handcuffs and constraint and truth be told, I don’t get it.
Of course this is not to say that BDSM should be banned, stigmatized or marginalised. We are in a world of “choice” right? What adults do with consent is their choice. But I feel like we need to have a political conversation about why BDSM becomes the main way we are now expressing what constitutes an ‘alternative’ to unpleasurable heteropatriarchal sex, especially as black people and as feminists.
Sorry about this fam. I know that BDSM is considered the ‘edge’ of our edgy sexuality. I’m just not feeling it. And I know I am not alone (phew!). So…what else is sexy?
Written by: Anonymous seahorse
2 comments On BDSM Doesn’t Work For Me. What Else Is Hot?
OK!
Let’s file this under “unpopular opinions”, because it’s certainly that and I am SO glad it was written!
The author’s views definitely reflect mine on BDSM and the intersection of race as a Black woman. As someone who spends quite a bit (maybe too much?) time reading slave narratives and the use of brutality to cow people of African decent into subservience for capitalistic gain, I struggle to find anything pleasurable or “sexy” about BDSM.
Kudos for penning this brave take!
I hear you on this, I joined some forums to learn about the lifestyle and the experiences of people; also to see if it was something I could be a part of.
I ranked very averagely in the various tests and also came to see this perspective of racial fetishism. There were submissive who would outrightly put race play as a hard limit. I understand this from my own experiences as an African woman living in a majority white city that is relatively small and interracial love and relations are still seen as unique and strange. Normal sexual relationships are hard enough as they look at you with wonder or ready with stereotypes of what they call “black girl magic”. Mostly porn-fueled in my opinion.
Anyway, I digress, I like your perspective on the matter