Saturday, January 15, 2005
Discussion on Harry, Violence, SM
From: Is this legal?
See Harry thing for what started the discussion.
Alessandra:
Few things came to mind: if he had worn an SM sado costume, would anyone even comment there was a problem? Most of the same people that criticize the Nazi costume, and this type of violence, gladly legitimize sexual violence in so many ways.
You look at the British tabloids and they are so crude, in the sense that they demean and denigrate women especially in so many ways. No one thinks twice about that.
Liberals in Britain were just in uproar recently regarding the BBC Springer opera program that had a lot of aggression and crudeness, chasticizing anyone who dared say it shouldn´t be publicly produced and broadcast as some big censor monger.
It´s always the same "I can do aggression if I want, but other people can´t."
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 11:59 am | #
It's interesting to think about why, if Harry had dressed as one of Genghis Khan's Mongols (who slaughtered entire cities), none of us would care much.
I suppose we still care about the Nazis' victims but are indifferent to those of the Mongols.
Reminds me of the SF novel set in the Unimaginably Far Future, where Hitler has become merely "the Emperor Hitler," lumped in with Napoleon, Alexander, Caesar, etc.
Anderson | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 12:07 pm | #
Going Nazi was a bit of a stretch since the Nazis never had the chance to establish ongoing colonialism.
Not to nitpick, but the Nazis certainly had colonizing schemes in the Ukraine and Poland that they implemented in some degree. I suppose "ongoing" saves the claim, since the war was only 6 years long. But Hitler saw himself as leading a soon-to-be colonial power: "Russia is our India."
Anderson | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 3:24 pm | #
Of course you're right, and that's why I said ongoing. They lost the war before they could make a name for themselves as a "colonial power."
So like I said, it was a stretch to dress up like a Nazi at that party. If it had been a "genocidal regimes and victims" costume party, maybe. But then, I might have shown up dressed like a Founding Father or a Native American, and offended people as well.
Konrad | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 5:11 pm | #
I wondered why the media didn´t inform us about the other costumes. It would have been lovely.
"It's interesting to think about why, if Harry had dressed as one of Genghis Khan's Mongols (who slaughtered entire cities), none of us would care much."
Isn´t that exactly what a huge part of socialization does? It dehumanizes people towards many types of violence and its victims, and it highlights only a few other types of violence and victims, as a result of who has enough power in society to pull these strings.
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 5:24 pm | #
I could be Mistaken, but SM did NOT bomb Britian, Did Not kill upwards of 12 Million People, Lock people in Concentration and Labor Camps, Members of the Royal Family Fought in WWII, Lord Mountbatten nearly went down with his ship in a WWII Naval Battle...etc
As a child of a family who spent nearly the Entire war in a Labor camp, maybe I get it more than others. IMO This Stunt was just Plain Stupid, nothing else.
Also, Comparing Nazi'a to Gengis Karn is like comparing a Stick of Dynamite to a Hydrogen Bomb. Both Kill but The Bomb is more destructive and More Current. And before anyone says it, It's NOT Being PC to be shocked by this Nit Wit's behaivior.
S.D. | Email | 01.14.05 - 9:20 am | #
I think you missed my point. SM is a legal form of torture, of violence, of destructive behavior. It is legitimate in the eyes of many people who criticize other forms of violence. Bombing is not the only type of violence we have in the world. Neither is genocide. Related to SM, if we encompass SM in the much larger sphere of sexual violence, there are more victims of sexual violence in human history than Nazi victims.
I was talking about the different degrees of legitimacy that practices of violence and disrespect have in society.
I was not equating one thing (SM) to another (Nazi violence), although they even intersect in some respects. But that´s another topic altogether.
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.14.05 - 9:33 am | #
"Also, Comparing Nazi'a to Gengis Karn is like comparing a Stick of Dynamite to a Hydrogen Bomb. Both Kill but The Bomb is more destructive and More Current."
More current, certainly. More destructive? I don´t care to look up what Khan thought, but a lot of these past emperors, kings, religious empires, colonizers had as their mentality to completely annihilate the enemy, even the peaceful ones. (Indian genocides, remember? European middle age massacres?)
Proportionally speaking, given that some peoples were murdered to the very last being, there have been more destructive empires than the Nazis, for sure.
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.14.05 - 9:56 am | #
Look, I think BDSM is squicky, and I think it is usually a sign of serious psychological wounds and unhealed damage. (I also think it's a natural result of authoritarian parenting and religion, q.v. Mel Gibson, not unrelatedly.)
So there's my *personal* feelings about S&M.
I also understand that it is entirely about the consensual, and given that it is between consenting adults it is a) no more my business to legislate (despite the risks) than any of my other squicks, like adults getting boob jobs or eating raw meat. I can argue against it, but have no right to try to legislate it. (I can however be in favor of laws regarding food serving/selling safety, without being morally inconsistent, because secretly serving someone contaminated food violates that consent thing.)
And b) again with the consensuality, there is nothing whatsoever to link it with the Reich or any other totalitarian regime past or present, who are notably lacking in any concern for consensuality among those they imprison, torture, or otherwise harm in their pursuit of power.
Non-con is kind of the point, really, isn't it?
bellatrys | Email | Homepage | 01.15.05 - 8:58 am | #
bellatrys:
I agree that it revolves around the concept of consent but I see it differently.
First because of what you yourself state:
"a sign of serious psychological wounds and unhealed damage." Not only a sign, but the resulting behaviors.
I also don´t understand why you label what you wrote as "personal," it matters if it´s accurate or true. Which it is.
Did you know there are people in the same line of psychological dysfunction that try to cut off parts of their body, to multilate their own selves?
It is "consensual" in the sense that their sick minds consent to the sick actions. So are you to sit there and applaud? No, only an ignorant, sick society would do that. And what happens to these people? Usually they are put into a psychiatric institution, if anyone cares about their serious mental problems. Why don´t people celebrate this as they do with SM and say, Oh, but if they want to do it, it´s their right? Simply because it doesn´t have sex in it. If you mix sex and violence in this sick society, you have a tremendous degree of legitimacy. If you take out the sex, Oh, my God! Look at the horrible, mental disease!
Now, suppose you have a person who enjoys beating another, the latter being someone who "likes" to get beaten, and they do it in the streets, until the victim is bloodied with broken bones. By mutual "consent." Is this your idea of 1) freedom 2) healthy consent 3) legal behavior?
If you had your child with you, and your child asked you about the violence, would you teach your child that this is freedom and they should respect it?
I am making points exactly about the issue of consent. Which we probably agree is a complicated subject. If we have the concept of informed consent, why don´t we have a concept of healthy consent?
One of the reasons that SM is so legitimized is because in a society where men want to have absolute freedom in any sexual sphere including the violent one, the result is a lot of sexual violence gets legitimized in society along with SM, it´s just one part of a bigger problem.
Also, only in a sick society could anyone say a person who likes to beaten doesn´t have serious mental problems. This is not healthy, and neither is the other side of the coin.
One more point:
Take a Nazi soldier that enjoys torturing people. He takes a woman and tortures her. This woman doesn´t have a mental disease, so she doesn´t enjoy it.
You take the same Nazi, and he tortures a diseased SM woman, who says she enjoys it.
Question: Is the Nazi´s enjoyment of the torture itself not the same in the first as in the second case? The fact that in the first case it was done to a mentally healthy person and in the second to a diseased person does not alter what it is: torture.
The ability of the victim to "consent" or not is what changed. And only a diseased person would "consent" to their own torture as a form of enjoyment. And then we have to go into exactly what is this type of enjoyment - and we get back to your perfectly apt definition: serious mental trouble.
Which also brings up the question: in this sick society, if Harry´s party had been an SM party, and he had worn the same Nazi costume, would people still say it was in bad taste?
geez, Alessandra, could you maybe learn something about S&M, maybe actually get to know the views of people who do it, before you spew about it?
Konrad
I guess we could say the same thing to people who are "spewing" about the Nazis and Harry.
It´s not a question of not knowing the views of SM people or of the Nazis, but of knowing there are serious problems with both.
“Great liars are also great magicians” - Adolf Hitler
Alessandra
UPDATE:
Alessandra, it doesn't sound like you know or have dealt with very many BDSM practicioners at all. Or have even read much about it, from authentic sources.
FWIW, all of the ones I know personally are women.
And all of them do have ... boundary issues in re taking other people for granted, in my opinion.
At the same time, *because* I'm thinking of people I know, or have worked with, that's *exactly* why I say it isn't my business any more than it's *their* business to tell *me* I can't do dangerous painful things for fun like rock-climbing or horseback riding.
Get it? Risky, painful, pleasurable, consensual, gameplaying equals Seriously Different from noncon. It's also rather like telling people they can't be villians in movies or plays on stage, because Herod kills children, doncha know.
And I think that *open* BDSM is INFINITELY more healthy and normal than the covert, sublimated versions of it practiced by various Catholics of my acquaintance, the kneeling on rocks, or putting rocks in shoes, or ice-cold penitential showers for lustful thoughts, or flogging selves with rosaries for lustful thoughts, or...
Honestly? They should just find themselves a dominatrix and deal with their issues and be honest with themselves about it, instead of pretending they're liberating themselves from their urges.
bellatrys
As I said, to know there are problems with SM is different than to not know what SM is. A lot of SM roleplaying is exactly emotional damage from traumatic childhood experiences, many relating to body function or sexuality or abusive parenting. A lot of stuff with punishment, guilt, fear, embarassment, aside from the violence questions.
People can have such a different mix of emotional damage and psychological problems that will lead them to want to do SM (other people aren´t clones of these women you know). There is also the question of degree of abuse, denigration, pain. Not everyone does the same thing, the same way, with the same consequences.
A lot of SM inflicts or maintains psychological or emotional damage. There is nothing healthy or valid about this. But only a person with a reasonably healthy psychology can even make the choice to shun things which will hurt them. And here we are back to the issue of “healthy consent.” If your psychology is damaged to the point where you cannot make sane choices for yourself, why is this any different than a person without sufficient information to make na informed consent? And yes, this is also about personal responsibility. If you do not have enough of sanity not to kill yourself, should you be allowed to do it? How much damage should you be allowed to do to yourself before someone interferes? This is a very complex issue.
****At the same time, *because* I'm thinking of people I know, or have worked with, that's *exactly* why I say it isn't my business any more than it's *their* business to tell *me* I can't do dangerous painful things for fun ***
But that is exactly the attitude that sustains most systems of domestic and sexual abuse. “It´s not my business to know, think, analyze, I´ll just be blind and deaf to what people want to do in private. And if there is abuse, too bad, not my business.” So there is a huge problem with this attitude, for many related reasons. Secondly, there are ton of problems of inequality of power and rights in interpersonal relationships and family systems. So personal lives are everyone´s business in this respect, even when they are not abusive.
What are the differences between SM and rock-climbing?
First, you don´t abuse yourself when you rock-climb, you may feel physical strain, but you don´t try to destroy your *self*. Neither do you try to destroy or denigrate another person´s self or self-esteem, or try to reproduce and reinforce childhood trauma. This is what happens in a lot of SM dynamics (with different degrees). That´s why it is sick.
Denigration, infliction of punishment, guilt, is not a part of horseback riding, in normal ways. SM has a lot of violence going on in the psycho-emotional sphere. Aside from the physical-sexual sphere. There are certainly different types of aggression in many sports, or risk taking, but there are differences. Interesting to note that there are similarities too.
****Get it? Risky, painful, pleasurable, consensual, gameplaying equals Seriously Different from noncon. It's also rather like telling people they can't be villians in movies or plays on stage, because Herod kills children, doncha know.****
So, you must be thinking Harry was very cute with his Nazi costume, it´s provocative and pleasurable? Oh, and these awful, what? prudes picking on poor Harry... they want conventional party clothes! what party poopers...
If you have no business telling sick SM people how to torture one another, why do you or anyone else have any business telling Harry how to have fun at a party? It was like a play, wasn´t it? Or did he actually kill people at the party? So he can´t tell you how to “have fun” and you can´t tell him.
***Honestly? They should just find themselves a dominatrix and deal with their issues and be honest with themselves about it, instead of pretending they're liberating themselves from their urges.***
There is no version of BDSM that is healthy. (not having defined BDSM here, I think intent/degree/consequences is often where the border is crossed from healthy sexual interactions)
Re the dominatrix thing -If you are emotionally damaged, you don´t seek someone who is going to make you even more emotionally damaged to “be honest with yourself.” They should seek out a good therapist, which is hard to find these days, and they are probably looking at at least a few years to see some significant improvement, given how deep a lot of this stuff goes. And stays there.
Did you notice you tried to impinge this “people who applaud at SM are hip and people who object are these repressive prudes?” Was that ever lame.
On a lighter note, did anyone see how Harry apologized for the incident?
I read Harry said he apologized for it ***and he wanted to take the opportunity to pre-apologize for the next things he may do which people will find offensive...***
that´s what you get for having a "royal" family...
Alessandra
Alessandra:
There is a distinction worth grasping here. There is a difference between telling someone "I dissaprove of your behavior" or "I think your behavior is in bad tase" and legislating what someone can or can't do. I think the Prince's behavior is in bad taste and offensive because he is taking on the closest thing I can think of to the symbol of ultimate evil and horror as a joke. At the same time, if he were an American citizen, I would fight for his right to be an idiot.
Similarly, I'd march for you right to say "I think S&M is wrong" despite the fact that I think your entire argument is based largely on sloppy thinking.
Michael Benson | Email | Homepage | 01.18.05 - 9:50 pm | #
yes, despite being briefly diverting, I haven't seen any evidence the Nazi costume incident holds much real significance.
The most relevant discussion on the subject to me would be how this incident bodes for the future of a family granted celebrity and a royal lifestyle at public expense. I'd be interested to hear from British people on this subject, but I haven't seen any around.
Konrad | Email | Homepage | 01.19.05 - 10:57 am | #
Michael Benson:
"There is a distinction worth grasping here. There is a difference between telling someone "I dissaprove of your behavior" or "I think your behavior is in bad tase" and legislating what someone can or can't do."
-------------------------------
I don´t think you grasped my point. In this sick society, if Harry´s party had been an SM party, and he had worn the same Nazi costume, would people still say it was in bad taste?
The answer is no. Most people would say if you are going to torture another person, a Nazi uniform is quite fitting. So the difference is not regarding censorship laws but legitimacy of different types of violence. Most of the people who are screaming that Harry was wrong in wearing his Nazi costume to this "colonial and native" party, which on a grand scale represent many of the same dynamics that happen on a microcosm in SM (a lot of stuff to do with slavery too), would be saying it´s quite all right not only to dress as a Nazi to a SM party, but it´s quite all right to torture people!
It´s just a tad ironic for people who think it´s moral to torture other human beings to point little fingers at the Nazis. A take on Orwell, no doubt: torture is freedom. Only in a very sick and violent society.
Alessandra
Michael Benson:
Similarly, I'd march for you right to say "I think S&M is wrong" despite the fact that I think your entire argument is based largely on sloppy thinking.
-------------------------------------
Well, I think hate speech and hate crime laws are based on sloppy thinking too, and since they entail suppression and criminalization of thought and speech, that right you speak of has already partly gone down the drain. What wonderful times we live in.
Alessandra
See Harry thing for what started the discussion.
Alessandra:
Few things came to mind: if he had worn an SM sado costume, would anyone even comment there was a problem? Most of the same people that criticize the Nazi costume, and this type of violence, gladly legitimize sexual violence in so many ways.
You look at the British tabloids and they are so crude, in the sense that they demean and denigrate women especially in so many ways. No one thinks twice about that.
Liberals in Britain were just in uproar recently regarding the BBC Springer opera program that had a lot of aggression and crudeness, chasticizing anyone who dared say it shouldn´t be publicly produced and broadcast as some big censor monger.
It´s always the same "I can do aggression if I want, but other people can´t."
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 11:59 am | #
It's interesting to think about why, if Harry had dressed as one of Genghis Khan's Mongols (who slaughtered entire cities), none of us would care much.
I suppose we still care about the Nazis' victims but are indifferent to those of the Mongols.
Reminds me of the SF novel set in the Unimaginably Far Future, where Hitler has become merely "the Emperor Hitler," lumped in with Napoleon, Alexander, Caesar, etc.
Anderson | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 12:07 pm | #
Going Nazi was a bit of a stretch since the Nazis never had the chance to establish ongoing colonialism.
Not to nitpick, but the Nazis certainly had colonizing schemes in the Ukraine and Poland that they implemented in some degree. I suppose "ongoing" saves the claim, since the war was only 6 years long. But Hitler saw himself as leading a soon-to-be colonial power: "Russia is our India."
Anderson | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 3:24 pm | #
Of course you're right, and that's why I said ongoing. They lost the war before they could make a name for themselves as a "colonial power."
So like I said, it was a stretch to dress up like a Nazi at that party. If it had been a "genocidal regimes and victims" costume party, maybe. But then, I might have shown up dressed like a Founding Father or a Native American, and offended people as well.
Konrad | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 5:11 pm | #
I wondered why the media didn´t inform us about the other costumes. It would have been lovely.
"It's interesting to think about why, if Harry had dressed as one of Genghis Khan's Mongols (who slaughtered entire cities), none of us would care much."
Isn´t that exactly what a huge part of socialization does? It dehumanizes people towards many types of violence and its victims, and it highlights only a few other types of violence and victims, as a result of who has enough power in society to pull these strings.
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.13.05 - 5:24 pm | #
I could be Mistaken, but SM did NOT bomb Britian, Did Not kill upwards of 12 Million People, Lock people in Concentration and Labor Camps, Members of the Royal Family Fought in WWII, Lord Mountbatten nearly went down with his ship in a WWII Naval Battle...etc
As a child of a family who spent nearly the Entire war in a Labor camp, maybe I get it more than others. IMO This Stunt was just Plain Stupid, nothing else.
Also, Comparing Nazi'a to Gengis Karn is like comparing a Stick of Dynamite to a Hydrogen Bomb. Both Kill but The Bomb is more destructive and More Current. And before anyone says it, It's NOT Being PC to be shocked by this Nit Wit's behaivior.
S.D. | Email | 01.14.05 - 9:20 am | #
I think you missed my point. SM is a legal form of torture, of violence, of destructive behavior. It is legitimate in the eyes of many people who criticize other forms of violence. Bombing is not the only type of violence we have in the world. Neither is genocide. Related to SM, if we encompass SM in the much larger sphere of sexual violence, there are more victims of sexual violence in human history than Nazi victims.
I was talking about the different degrees of legitimacy that practices of violence and disrespect have in society.
I was not equating one thing (SM) to another (Nazi violence), although they even intersect in some respects. But that´s another topic altogether.
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.14.05 - 9:33 am | #
"Also, Comparing Nazi'a to Gengis Karn is like comparing a Stick of Dynamite to a Hydrogen Bomb. Both Kill but The Bomb is more destructive and More Current."
More current, certainly. More destructive? I don´t care to look up what Khan thought, but a lot of these past emperors, kings, religious empires, colonizers had as their mentality to completely annihilate the enemy, even the peaceful ones. (Indian genocides, remember? European middle age massacres?)
Proportionally speaking, given that some peoples were murdered to the very last being, there have been more destructive empires than the Nazis, for sure.
Alessandra | Email | Homepage | 01.14.05 - 9:56 am | #
Look, I think BDSM is squicky, and I think it is usually a sign of serious psychological wounds and unhealed damage. (I also think it's a natural result of authoritarian parenting and religion, q.v. Mel Gibson, not unrelatedly.)
So there's my *personal* feelings about S&M.
I also understand that it is entirely about the consensual, and given that it is between consenting adults it is a) no more my business to legislate (despite the risks) than any of my other squicks, like adults getting boob jobs or eating raw meat. I can argue against it, but have no right to try to legislate it. (I can however be in favor of laws regarding food serving/selling safety, without being morally inconsistent, because secretly serving someone contaminated food violates that consent thing.)
And b) again with the consensuality, there is nothing whatsoever to link it with the Reich or any other totalitarian regime past or present, who are notably lacking in any concern for consensuality among those they imprison, torture, or otherwise harm in their pursuit of power.
Non-con is kind of the point, really, isn't it?
bellatrys | Email | Homepage | 01.15.05 - 8:58 am | #
bellatrys:
Look, I think BDSM is squicky, and I think it is usually a sign of serious psychological wounds and unhealed damage. (I also think it's a natural result of authoritarian parenting and religion, q.v. Mel Gibson, not unrelatedly.)
So there's my *personal* feelings about S&M.
I also understand that it is entirely about the consensual, and given that it is between consenting adults
I agree that it revolves around the concept of consent but I see it differently.
First because of what you yourself state:
"a sign of serious psychological wounds and unhealed damage." Not only a sign, but the resulting behaviors.
I also don´t understand why you label what you wrote as "personal," it matters if it´s accurate or true. Which it is.
Did you know there are people in the same line of psychological dysfunction that try to cut off parts of their body, to multilate their own selves?
It is "consensual" in the sense that their sick minds consent to the sick actions. So are you to sit there and applaud? No, only an ignorant, sick society would do that. And what happens to these people? Usually they are put into a psychiatric institution, if anyone cares about their serious mental problems. Why don´t people celebrate this as they do with SM and say, Oh, but if they want to do it, it´s their right? Simply because it doesn´t have sex in it. If you mix sex and violence in this sick society, you have a tremendous degree of legitimacy. If you take out the sex, Oh, my God! Look at the horrible, mental disease!
Now, suppose you have a person who enjoys beating another, the latter being someone who "likes" to get beaten, and they do it in the streets, until the victim is bloodied with broken bones. By mutual "consent." Is this your idea of 1) freedom 2) healthy consent 3) legal behavior?
If you had your child with you, and your child asked you about the violence, would you teach your child that this is freedom and they should respect it?
I am making points exactly about the issue of consent. Which we probably agree is a complicated subject. If we have the concept of informed consent, why don´t we have a concept of healthy consent?
One of the reasons that SM is so legitimized is because in a society where men want to have absolute freedom in any sexual sphere including the violent one, the result is a lot of sexual violence gets legitimized in society along with SM, it´s just one part of a bigger problem.
Also, only in a sick society could anyone say a person who likes to beaten doesn´t have serious mental problems. This is not healthy, and neither is the other side of the coin.
One more point:
Take a Nazi soldier that enjoys torturing people. He takes a woman and tortures her. This woman doesn´t have a mental disease, so she doesn´t enjoy it.
You take the same Nazi, and he tortures a diseased SM woman, who says she enjoys it.
Question: Is the Nazi´s enjoyment of the torture itself not the same in the first as in the second case? The fact that in the first case it was done to a mentally healthy person and in the second to a diseased person does not alter what it is: torture.
The ability of the victim to "consent" or not is what changed. And only a diseased person would "consent" to their own torture as a form of enjoyment. And then we have to go into exactly what is this type of enjoyment - and we get back to your perfectly apt definition: serious mental trouble.
Which also brings up the question: in this sick society, if Harry´s party had been an SM party, and he had worn the same Nazi costume, would people still say it was in bad taste?
geez, Alessandra, could you maybe learn something about S&M, maybe actually get to know the views of people who do it, before you spew about it?
Konrad
I guess we could say the same thing to people who are "spewing" about the Nazis and Harry.
It´s not a question of not knowing the views of SM people or of the Nazis, but of knowing there are serious problems with both.
“Great liars are also great magicians” - Adolf Hitler
Alessandra
UPDATE:
Alessandra, it doesn't sound like you know or have dealt with very many BDSM practicioners at all. Or have even read much about it, from authentic sources.
FWIW, all of the ones I know personally are women.
And all of them do have ... boundary issues in re taking other people for granted, in my opinion.
At the same time, *because* I'm thinking of people I know, or have worked with, that's *exactly* why I say it isn't my business any more than it's *their* business to tell *me* I can't do dangerous painful things for fun like rock-climbing or horseback riding.
Get it? Risky, painful, pleasurable, consensual, gameplaying equals Seriously Different from noncon. It's also rather like telling people they can't be villians in movies or plays on stage, because Herod kills children, doncha know.
And I think that *open* BDSM is INFINITELY more healthy and normal than the covert, sublimated versions of it practiced by various Catholics of my acquaintance, the kneeling on rocks, or putting rocks in shoes, or ice-cold penitential showers for lustful thoughts, or flogging selves with rosaries for lustful thoughts, or...
Honestly? They should just find themselves a dominatrix and deal with their issues and be honest with themselves about it, instead of pretending they're liberating themselves from their urges.
bellatrys
As I said, to know there are problems with SM is different than to not know what SM is. A lot of SM roleplaying is exactly emotional damage from traumatic childhood experiences, many relating to body function or sexuality or abusive parenting. A lot of stuff with punishment, guilt, fear, embarassment, aside from the violence questions.
People can have such a different mix of emotional damage and psychological problems that will lead them to want to do SM (other people aren´t clones of these women you know). There is also the question of degree of abuse, denigration, pain. Not everyone does the same thing, the same way, with the same consequences.
A lot of SM inflicts or maintains psychological or emotional damage. There is nothing healthy or valid about this. But only a person with a reasonably healthy psychology can even make the choice to shun things which will hurt them. And here we are back to the issue of “healthy consent.” If your psychology is damaged to the point where you cannot make sane choices for yourself, why is this any different than a person without sufficient information to make na informed consent? And yes, this is also about personal responsibility. If you do not have enough of sanity not to kill yourself, should you be allowed to do it? How much damage should you be allowed to do to yourself before someone interferes? This is a very complex issue.
****At the same time, *because* I'm thinking of people I know, or have worked with, that's *exactly* why I say it isn't my business any more than it's *their* business to tell *me* I can't do dangerous painful things for fun ***
But that is exactly the attitude that sustains most systems of domestic and sexual abuse. “It´s not my business to know, think, analyze, I´ll just be blind and deaf to what people want to do in private. And if there is abuse, too bad, not my business.” So there is a huge problem with this attitude, for many related reasons. Secondly, there are ton of problems of inequality of power and rights in interpersonal relationships and family systems. So personal lives are everyone´s business in this respect, even when they are not abusive.
What are the differences between SM and rock-climbing?
First, you don´t abuse yourself when you rock-climb, you may feel physical strain, but you don´t try to destroy your *self*. Neither do you try to destroy or denigrate another person´s self or self-esteem, or try to reproduce and reinforce childhood trauma. This is what happens in a lot of SM dynamics (with different degrees). That´s why it is sick.
Denigration, infliction of punishment, guilt, is not a part of horseback riding, in normal ways. SM has a lot of violence going on in the psycho-emotional sphere. Aside from the physical-sexual sphere. There are certainly different types of aggression in many sports, or risk taking, but there are differences. Interesting to note that there are similarities too.
****Get it? Risky, painful, pleasurable, consensual, gameplaying equals Seriously Different from noncon. It's also rather like telling people they can't be villians in movies or plays on stage, because Herod kills children, doncha know.****
So, you must be thinking Harry was very cute with his Nazi costume, it´s provocative and pleasurable? Oh, and these awful, what? prudes picking on poor Harry... they want conventional party clothes! what party poopers...
If you have no business telling sick SM people how to torture one another, why do you or anyone else have any business telling Harry how to have fun at a party? It was like a play, wasn´t it? Or did he actually kill people at the party? So he can´t tell you how to “have fun” and you can´t tell him.
***Honestly? They should just find themselves a dominatrix and deal with their issues and be honest with themselves about it, instead of pretending they're liberating themselves from their urges.***
There is no version of BDSM that is healthy. (not having defined BDSM here, I think intent/degree/consequences is often where the border is crossed from healthy sexual interactions)
Re the dominatrix thing -If you are emotionally damaged, you don´t seek someone who is going to make you even more emotionally damaged to “be honest with yourself.” They should seek out a good therapist, which is hard to find these days, and they are probably looking at at least a few years to see some significant improvement, given how deep a lot of this stuff goes. And stays there.
Did you notice you tried to impinge this “people who applaud at SM are hip and people who object are these repressive prudes?” Was that ever lame.
On a lighter note, did anyone see how Harry apologized for the incident?
I read Harry said he apologized for it ***and he wanted to take the opportunity to pre-apologize for the next things he may do which people will find offensive...***
that´s what you get for having a "royal" family...
Alessandra
Alessandra:
There is a distinction worth grasping here. There is a difference between telling someone "I dissaprove of your behavior" or "I think your behavior is in bad tase" and legislating what someone can or can't do. I think the Prince's behavior is in bad taste and offensive because he is taking on the closest thing I can think of to the symbol of ultimate evil and horror as a joke. At the same time, if he were an American citizen, I would fight for his right to be an idiot.
Similarly, I'd march for you right to say "I think S&M is wrong" despite the fact that I think your entire argument is based largely on sloppy thinking.
Michael Benson | Email | Homepage | 01.18.05 - 9:50 pm | #
yes, despite being briefly diverting, I haven't seen any evidence the Nazi costume incident holds much real significance.
The most relevant discussion on the subject to me would be how this incident bodes for the future of a family granted celebrity and a royal lifestyle at public expense. I'd be interested to hear from British people on this subject, but I haven't seen any around.
Konrad | Email | Homepage | 01.19.05 - 10:57 am | #
Michael Benson:
"There is a distinction worth grasping here. There is a difference between telling someone "I dissaprove of your behavior" or "I think your behavior is in bad tase" and legislating what someone can or can't do."
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I don´t think you grasped my point. In this sick society, if Harry´s party had been an SM party, and he had worn the same Nazi costume, would people still say it was in bad taste?
The answer is no. Most people would say if you are going to torture another person, a Nazi uniform is quite fitting. So the difference is not regarding censorship laws but legitimacy of different types of violence. Most of the people who are screaming that Harry was wrong in wearing his Nazi costume to this "colonial and native" party, which on a grand scale represent many of the same dynamics that happen on a microcosm in SM (a lot of stuff to do with slavery too), would be saying it´s quite all right not only to dress as a Nazi to a SM party, but it´s quite all right to torture people!
It´s just a tad ironic for people who think it´s moral to torture other human beings to point little fingers at the Nazis. A take on Orwell, no doubt: torture is freedom. Only in a very sick and violent society.
Alessandra
Michael Benson:
Similarly, I'd march for you right to say "I think S&M is wrong" despite the fact that I think your entire argument is based largely on sloppy thinking.
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Well, I think hate speech and hate crime laws are based on sloppy thinking too, and since they entail suppression and criminalization of thought and speech, that right you speak of has already partly gone down the drain. What wonderful times we live in.
Alessandra
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