safe sane and consensual

Day 11: What are your views on the ethics of kink?

This is much too broad a topic to write about here in a blog post, so I will address one aspect of “kink ethics” that has been bothering me of late: the soft tyranny of Safe Sane and Consensual (SSC). Uh oh, now I’ve stepped in it. I’m off the reservation. There, got my mixed metaphors out of the way:)

SSC as a concept is a great thing, but there is a problem with it. It’s morphed from something that was formerly a rallying cry, a call for rational, clear thinking to a thing resembling a cudgel to be used to keep the pervy riff raff in line.

Everybody wants everyone to be safe; I think that should go without saying for 99% of us. However, some people who practice BDSM don’t want to be “safe”. I’ll use extreme breathplay as an example. Some normal, awesome people enjoy it. I don’t, but you sure as hell won’t hear me tell someone else that their kink doesn’t fall within the lines (read: prison bars) of SSC, and thus is wrong. This is where SSC becomes kink shaming – which drives me bat poop crazy.

SSC is one way to keep people safe, a set of guidelines perhaps. But it’s not the be all and end all of kink (yes, I realize nobody is saying it is – I loathe strawmen). SSC should absolutely NOT be a way for fellow pervs to deem other pervs beyond the pale.

So why am I writing about this? For those of you who’ve been following along with me, you know I am not a pro Dom. I don’t do clubs. I don’t scene. I am a relationship Dom (mostly). Is that even a term? Doesn’t matter. Why does SSC get under my skin so much? Because I am also a writer of BDSM erotica (and eventually erotic romance).

I am not here to call anybody out…but I have seen some things that disturb me vis-à-vis SSC and BDSM fiction.

I’m going to be blunt here. Fiction is fiction – it is not kink prosletyzing.

If someone wants to write about unsupervised body suspension, mummification, extreme breathplay, texting while driving, whatever it is that causes the SSC acolytes to fall to the ground in grand mal seizures, then they should be able to do so. Fiction is not real life – it’s shit the author made up. That’s it.

An author wants to tell a story – something that makes the reader feel. A writer wants to craft something that connects with the reader as a human being. You don’t tell a story by hitting all your marks in SSC dogma. If you try that then you end up writing a how-to manual. How-to manuals are great for what they are. But they aren’t the same thing as a story manufactured out of whole cloth. When I see someone tear down an author’s work because something occurs in their story that doesn’t conform to SSC, I scratch my head.

Do we berate someone like thriller writer Chelsea Cain? She depicts absolutely ghastly things in her books. But they’re great books, great fiction. Her books are not a how-to for serial killers, or profilers, or cops. They’re fiction; shit she made up. Do we wag our finger at her for depicting something that violates all laws, morals, and basic human decency? No, we see her books for what they are: great, gripping yarns. The end.

(BTW – if you haven’t checked out Chelsea’s Gretchen Lowell series, you must do so. Like yesterday. Incredible characters, incredible voice. You will not regret it. Sorry, I can’t help it – I am a Chelsea Cain fan.)

But, in BDSM fiction we are seeing just that. It’s happening by inches, but it’s as relentless and unstoppable as the grind of a glacier. BDSM is being normalized, mainstreamed. Is it due to 50 Shades of Grey? I don’t know. I suppose it could be part of it. I think it’s actually more of a function of the commercial success of erotic romance in general.

What particular sub-genre of erotic romance sells the most books?

Paranormal? Maybe in 2010.

Menage? Nope.

Yes, you guessed it – it’s BDSM. I think it’s a GREAT thing. I really do. But, I wonder if the attention currently focused on BDSM is going to turn it into something many of us no longer recognize? Only time will tell.

I’ve seen other writers struggle with their erotica being lumped in with erotic romance, and suffering the ire of erotic romance readers because the story doesn’t include an HEA or strays into areas (such as non-con themes) deemed to be too dark. It’s not fair, but it’s happening.

I’m rambling here, so I am going to wrap this up. I guess what I am getting at here is that the very thing that differentiates kinky people from others – the “forbidden” nature of our orientations – is undergoing some change. How is it possible that BDSM is being both normalized/regulated (SSC dogma) and sanitized (the mainstreaming of BDSM in fiction and the popular consciousness)? I don’t know, but it’s happening.

What does this mean? My guess is that it means one of two things: either the spotlight will eventually move on to something else (and us sickos can get back to the business of being regular sickos), or it doesn’t move on – and it really becomes a new world for kink. Things might get even more interesting!

This post morphed into a mini-rant about a single topic, so maybe I will just call this Day 11 part I 🙂

Until next time.

Trent

“50 Shades of Dom hatred”

I read this in a posting over on Kitty Thomas‘ blog a while back. I think it might be a perfect summation of what the success of the 50 Shades of Grey erotic trilogy means for the BDSM community in the short term. If you haven’t read, please click on over and have a look. Well worth your time.

Ironically enough, the success of E.L. James’ series is not a black or white, good or bad thing for BDSM practitioners (I don’t really like ‘kinksters’ as a descriptor). In the short run, there are both positives and negatives, while in the long run I think it will be almost uniformly helpful to BDSM – but not for the reasons you may think. In fact, in an odd way, the success may help push BDSM back into the “underground” somewhat. I will explain why in a bit.

Here are some of the short term benefits as I see them:

“normalizing” of BDSM (i.e. people will realize that a whole lot of other people are interested in this stuff)
sparks discussion in an honest manner not littered with snickering and general snark (I can’t tell you what kind of damage farces such as Exit to Eden do to BDSM; luckily nodody saw that movie, so it could have been a lot worse)
more people will try it or talk about it with their significant others – this is only a good thing IMO
will be a boon to erotica and erotic romance writers in a general sense ( a rising tide lifts all boats)

Short term detriments:

kink tourists – people will “join in” as more of a lark than any real urge to explore their sexuality
people will develop an unrealistic idea of BDSM based on the novels; by all accounts the novels are at best sugar-kink and at worst vanilla with a thin kink veneer.
50 Shades “clones” pushed by publishers
PC police descend on the community – you thought it was bad when SSC was used as a cudgel to keep us unruly pervs in line? Now, comes “mainstream” kink – a contradiction in terms – that we’ll have to fall in line behind (or argue against).

In the long term though, I think 50 Shades could do for BDSM fiction what Twilight or the Harry Potter trilogy did for young adult and fantasy fiction, respectively. Like those books, the literary merit of the story or authorial talent ceases to matter – it’s the activity and the conversations sparked that matter.

How long has BDSM been whispered about, snickered about, or outright ridiculed? You can still be fired for being kinky, and quite legally at that. But it is NOT legal to be fired for being gay or lesbian. Now, the 50 Shades phenomenon is getting “regular” people talking about BDSM in :::shock::: a serious manner.

Now, many of the readers will be truly shocked and/or repelled by what those of us regard as “real” BDSM. That’s OK with me; it by default restores the “forbidden” to BDSM that may have been part of its initial appeal to many of us. That being said, we do need more honesty and openness about sexuality, and even if it results in a tsunami of kink tourists, this will encourage such openness. Maybe only 5% of these tourists decide to explore more deeply, and tap into something within themselves that speaks to needs far beyond the confines of the 50 Shades storyline? Is that ultimately a good thing? Hell yes, it is.

There are many of us who consider ourselves more or less “kinky” and actually regard being different as a badge of honor. However, the success of the series shows that there is a vast cohort of people who are at least intrigued by BDSM. As Kitty Thomas has stated many times on her blog, these readers may not be as vanilla as they think they are. The suppression of the (at one time) very popular “bodice ripper” storylines in the Romance genre by the PC police doesn’t mean readers aren’t still interested in it. That to me is the most fascinating subtext to the 50 Shades phenomenon: readers want to read this stuff – a LOT of this stuff. If they can’t get it in the more “acceptable” Romance forms, then they will get it somewhere else.

Maybe 50 Shades helps revive the “bodice ripper” in the same way self-publishing is starting to revive the moribund gothic romance genre? My guess is that it continues to benefit erotic romance (which has seen more and more successes that embrace some rather dark storylines) and to a lesser extent, erotica. It’s way too early to tell, but more genres mean more choices. This is always a good thing for readers and authors both.

What do you think? What is your take on the 50 Shades phenomenon?

Trent

30 Days of Kink – Day 11

Trent’s Thoughts on 50 Shades of Grey

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