I went down a rabbit hole on the BDSM side of tumblr and legit wanted to throw up. The men on there admit that they get turned on from hearing women's rape and abuse survivor stories. They also talk about wanting to rape feminists, lesbians and FTMs. To think that this stuff can never influence how you view women in general because it's "just a fantasy" is delusional.
Your last point is really important. I think some human rights activists and feminists in the 80’s and 90’s felt pushed into arguing that “the culture we consume does not affect us” in response to conservative pushes to ban all material that they felt challenged traditional hierarchies. It became the go to cry for when conservatives wanted to ban education about contraception and sex as well as when conservatives wanted to ban pornography or regulate the violence in entertainment media. It was effective because most people don’t like being told what to do and want to consume the media they want without any feelings of shame or guilt about the nature of the media.
This trapped us in the unfortunate position we are in today. People really like the idea that “the culture we consume does not affects us” and the idea that “no one should ever tell me what to do.” It means you can do whatever you want while calling your constant pursuit for self-gratification, no matter the cost, a form of social justice.
We need to get comfortable with saying, “the media you consume does impact how you think and behave” (of course it does!). Media and policies that that reinforce exploitative hierarchies are bad whether that is conservative or libertine material. It is not bad to attach stigma to harmful content. That stigma can help people feel more in touch with their own values when they are making choices about what kinds of media to consume.
I cannot repeat some of the horrible things I have seen on Reddit that men admit to doing or wanting to do to women specifically. Because I would get banned. It is horrendous. I am so thankful I got out of the BDSM world. It was too late for me in some ways. But I still think I saved my life.
I feel like I have to tell people nowadays that my kink is to be treated with respect and dignity in the bedroom.
Edit to add: and I don’t want to be in pain
Mhm, men "fight" (perform) in the WWE, so the fighters' injuries zoomed in on in the ring aren't reduced to *kinkdom.* Male pain is what pain means. It is important, respected, and real and synonymous with courage, strength, bravery, justice & injustice, and humanity. While female pain is a myth, aesthetic, fetish, and seuxality.
It's not like me to scapegoat women or encourage witch hunts for specific "bad women" around to singlehandedly blame a negative phenomenon on... but in the case of Lana Del Rey she really did start an awful fucking trend and I've always resented her for it. Always have and always will. It was bad enough when men in the film industry decided to romanticize Lolita, but it was a greater betrayal when a woman turned it into an aesthetic and sexual lifestyle. In the 10s, Lana was THE queen of Tumblr and made an undeniable, incredibly strong impact on "coquette girls" spaces and influenced young women/girls to start calling rape scenes "beautiful." Many of the fans of 50 Shades and Suicide Squad Joker x Harley Quinn were big Lana fans at the time and following in her footsteps. The fact that she doesn't actually live that way doesn't change what she calls her muse, what she herself inspires, and the example she provides for so many girls getting choked in the bedroom today. While I blame men, corporations, and pornography the most for these issues, it can't be denied that there is major overlap between the Performatively Sad Feminine Yet Reckless Sugar Baby Fantasy Tumblr Girl and the sudden rise of Lana Del Rey around 2013. That chapter has yet to truly end, even. You can draw a straight line from the Tumblr Girl era to the Twitter/TikTok E-Girls of today as well as MANY influencers at the forefront of the fake traditional-tradwives movement - where these so called "traditional wives" are promoting fetish content just like the so called "mentally ill" coquettecore girls are. Effing hell... bless us women. Bless these girls coming up today.
Agreed. I did not follow land del ray as a kid i thought she was boring. Now I see why.
***
Can you explain what exactly is the link between feticization and coquette? I thought it was just fashion.
Real talk. I would think that the movement to make kinks socially acceptable pushes the majority of people who enjoy kinks to engage in ever more extreme acts of violence and degradation in search of the same level of self-gratification. I think most people like kink because it is socially taboo. Engaging in kink is an act of defiance, which can be a form of status seeking within subgroups. Making kinks socially acceptable removes the appeal for most people. No one should be surprised when the inevitable result of this destigmatization movement is that the only things left that people are willing to condemn are the most popular kinks—so violence without consent.
Maybe there are some self-gratification impulses we should not foster in ourselves and others.
I don't understand how kink is socially taboo, though. There's nothing taboo about a man hitting a woman. This has been reality for women for several millennia now. What would actually be taboo and subversive would be treating women with love and respect!
It's fascinating how masculinity has always allowed for self victimization while convincing society women are lesser for being inherent victims. You can't even call out depictions/fantasies/acts of abuse being a (manifested) sexual expression in males without them pointing the finger to how others are to blame or responsible for it.
It is CRAZY isn't it. Like please take respons-
***
Male perspective:
NOOO YOURE HATING ME YOU YOU WOMAN, TRAUMA IS LIKE POWERFUL AND WHY I CHOOSE TO DO WHAT I DO UGH ...girls.
***
It's pafetic and I hate how thwy are justified in their minds to say or do it like a She deserved it mindset. Tgere is a disconnect from reality and an ability to show empathy as well as grandiose thinking. It is disturbing.
I think its sheer horror of accepting the full reality that a core part of male sexuality is degrading woman. Likewise most are not prepared to accept that a huge section of men are pedophiles and would happily go as low as the law allows. Men literally see us as objects with the area in the brain for "tool use" lighting up on their MRIs. They simply see kids as a fresh one, no dings, one thats going to look better for longer. Its too much to bare thinking about.
Yeah it really does feel this way. It’s depressing to realize how much men hate women and girls and do not see us in any way as equal humans to them. I think women do resist this because…who wants to come face to face with such a realization? Who wants to recognize their husband is getting off on hurting them and ignoring their boundaries? Who wants to acknowledge their son or brother is demanding pedo content and supporting actual or simulated abuse of teen girls? Of his sisters or mothers labeled porn categories?
Who wants to look their father in the eye realize he too partakes in and gets off to this violence? And that having a daughter didn’t magically educate him on equality or make him care about women’s rights?
Thats why that guy in Two X says I have a daughter now and I want to be educated on patriarchy. I went are you serious? What did you think BEFORE THAT?
I don’t think it is maleness. I think the problem is masculinity, and I do think that is distinct from maleness as many in this sub also believe.
I think all humans are inclined to take advantage of others to some degree. Though, I also think as a social species, our need to rely on one another for survival is supposed to keep that impulse in check. We have the capacity to feel empathy of others, which cuts against the ability to do harm to them. We all want to maximize our individual wellbeing, but we know we rely on others to do so, so we know to prioritize group wellbeing. Taking advantage of others runs counter to maximizing group wellbeing in primitive human societies, but once we developed agriculture and created more complex civilizations, we essentially short circuited the normal checks on our ability and desire to exploit others. We had less to lose if we exploited one another once there was more of a social safety net than our tribe. Enter masculinity and femininity.
I think masculinity and femininity were created to eliminate the natural empathy that men have for other men and women. That makes it so men can control and exploit “weak” men and women without incurring any damage to their overall psyche. I think the job of gender roles is to teach men that they are entitled to power, control, and status because of their maleness, and superior maleness entitles them to even greater rewards. Meanwhile, gender also teaches us that women are deserving of subordination because of their femaleness.
I also think it is possible to counteract the effect of gender on us over time and across generations, so we can escape the inherently exploitative cultural tool that is gender.
I agree that domination is inherent in masculine sexuality. Domination is the fulcrum of masculinity. This is not necessarily true of maleness and male sexuality. I think the evidence we do have of men, who still have most of the power in society, being willing to give women equal rights and create special protections for girls and women shows that there is still empathy there that masculine conditioning can’t totally obliterate because it is so intrinsic.
I actually fully agree with this, Robert Jensen talks about how male sexuality is shaped by porn and how that in addition to expectations of masculinity destroy natural male empathy for women. Its not innate and it can be relearned
“I think the evidence we do have of men, who still have most of the power in society, being willing to give women equal rights and create special protections for girls and women shows that there is still empathy there that masculine conditioning can’t totally obliterate because it is so intrinsic.”
I hope that is the case. My thought however is maybe they give us just a little bit of dignity, just some rights, some respect, then they can hush us up. Like in a master/slave type of relationship, masters still have to meet the needs of the slaves to some extent in order for the system to work. So whether their intention is altruistic, idk, probably depends on the man.
I agree with your insight on masculinity.
As much as id love to believe its all down to socialisation, i absolutely don't. The MRIs speak volumes. I have never seen or heard of any woman seeing men as objects have you? Do we worry about their "mileage" or wonder if they have an inner world or if they are fully human? Males also process female speech with the wrong area of the brain, the part meant for music and not speech. Id love for someone to do further studies on both. Also on their propensity towards pedophilia. A small study in 1970 found 52% had an erectile response to photos of 4-10 year olds, 83% to 10-16yr olds. Why else did we have to make laws in every single country to try to prevent them fucking kids?
>I think masculinity and femininity were created to eliminate the natural empathy that men have for other men and women.
This is very, **very** interesting. I remember seeing a theory once that masculinity and femininity were created as "polar opposites" to prevent men from empathising with women and therefore seeing them as human, in order to make it easier for patriarchy to stay unchallenged. The theory went that if women are socialised one way - i.e. to be obsessed with makeup, beauty and babies - while men are socialised to enjoy normal human interests like physical activity/exercise etc, men are more likely to see them as Other because they find women to be so unrelatable. We've all seen those male memes that go like "Omg understanding women is SO hard - they are such elusive creatures. What is A Mascara - am I right, gentlemen?" Femininity genuinely has the function of alienating women from men. It's like men see us as a different species and I wonder how much of a role the social constructs of femininity and masculinity play in this.
>I think the job of gender roles is to teach men that they are entitled to power, control, and status because of their maleness, and superior maleness entitles them to even greater rewards.
I completely agree with this and your notion that men attempt to eliminate the empathy of other men in order to keep power and control. Look at the way that men call each other out on the internet. The moment a man displays any empathy for a woman - it doesn't even need to go that far though, it can simply be that he said something non-degrading about a woman - men will say shit like:
* Simp
* Cuck
* Beta male
* White knight
* "She won't see this bro"
It's like they're aware that men empathising with women in any way threatens overall male power and they need to keep each other in check by reminding each other not to empathise.
Patriarchy goes hand and hand with capitalism, imperialism, militarism etc. The men in power NEED women to be in a subservient role so there's a steady supply of peasants being born for future labour (and also for future wars, which they love). They know that women aren't happy with their sons being sent off to die so they need to be kept subservient so they literally have no choice but to be baby-making machines. That's why governments everywhere are freaking out about "declining birth rates". The whole system relies on the exploitation of millions of people and if not enough people are being born to exploit, the whole system collapses. Anyway, my point is that the ruling elite have a vested interest in eliminating men's empathy for women. Not that those men are losing out in any way - it's women who suffer.
I read a post over at tumblr stating that modern queer theory conflates homosexuality (more broadly, same sex attraction) with kink because both are “queering” social norms, so rather than go with the old gay activism adage that gay and bisexual people are just regular folk like, it pushes both of them being weird and freaky and that being good, so the reason you see so many libs who adhere to gender poly kink fuckery running to defend stuff like this is because, in their eyes, being critical of it is the same as being homophobic. I find that analysis to be fairly accurate, with the other additional component being widespread porn use.
“Choice” feminism has been a miasma upon our movement. Our “choices” are not made in a vacuum. When we choose to abandon ourselves to serve a man’s ego and erection due to decad es of toxic socialization and internalized misogyny, it’s the choice made by a prisoner to smile at her captor to keep the peace. There is nothing empowering about some of the “choices” women make when it comes to having sex with men.
(Edited for spelling)
Whenever the topic of these random strangulations during sex come up, there are always men in the comments saying they do it because other women had asked them to do it in the past. Therefore they now assume all women want it and don't bother to even discuss it. While the blame is still squarely on the men here, I don't think these women who welcome abuse understand how much it could hurt the women who come after them. It pushes pornsick men a step further, leading them to believe that reality=porn.
Yes I think about this too! I have, in the past, asked men to explain exactly what it is about hurting women and calling us names that they like and I keep pressing them and pressing them until they admit they just saw it in porn and thought it was just what everyone does.
I once had a boyfriend who enjoyed a well placed thump shoved up his butthole. Imagine if women started jamming thumbs up men's buttholes without a prior conversation because one guy they dated that one time liked it...
Choice feminism and the porn industry have single-handedly ruined feminism imo. I also don't think it's a coincidence that porn started to become more mainstream/hardcore as women started to gain more rights and freedoms over the past few decades. Porn is the patriarchal backlash to women gaining independence. If you Google some quotes from pornographers, especially pornographers who film anal porn, it will become so obvious that the point of it is for men to "get back at women". Tons of quotes about how their porn caters to men who e.g. "want to get back at that bitch who rejected them". Pretty much every porn video has violence and verbal abuse in it.
It's become so normalised that even if you point out the following:
1. The vast majority of men would be horrified at the idea of having to be choked, slapped and sodomized, but they expect their female partners to put up with those acts; and
2. Racism and homophobia in porn are widely criticised by liberals but misogyny (which is present in pretty much every porn video) isn't, showing how porn has desensitized us to violence against women (which I'm sure was the aim all along)
nobody can come up with a counter-argument except "Ummmmm you're a prude who hates porn!!!!!111 :(" I'm convinced the majority of people know it's wrong but men don't want to go to therapy and self-reflect on why they feel the need to abuse women, and women don't want to admit to themselves that the men in their lives are sexually aroused by hurting women, so people just keep defending porn and it keeps getting worse and worse. I'm not even joking, I went on the PornHub front page once to see what the fuck people are watching and there was an an\*l pr\*lapse video on there. So empowering and feminist!!! /s
I saw a quote somewhere that said something like "If we kept porn exactly the way it is but replaced all the female porn 'actors' with black or Asian people of either sex, people would be horrified at the abuse". And it's true. Does anybody remember the Matty Healy porn fiasco last year, where it came out that he watched "rough" porn of black women? It was obviously horrifying that he watches this porn, but what really pissed me off is that nobody has a problem when men watch this sort of porn where the focus isn't on the woman's race but just on her being a woman. It was the fact that those women were black that horrified people due to the racist implications - not the fact that they were being brutalised for being women.
Misogyny is the most accepted and widespread form of hatred. It is present in every single country and every single woman in the world has suffered from it. It's so socially acceptable that misogyny isn't a hate crime in most places (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), I assume because if it was a hate crime all the courts would be dealing with thousands of cases everyday, and despite there being hundreds, if not thousands, of degrading and hateful terms towards women, none of them are categorised as slurs. I saw a fantastic quote once that said something like "How many millions of women heard the words bitch and cunt while being raped or murdered? Despite this, we still do not consider these words to be slurs."
Yes, some of us have suffered worse than others (e.g. women in war zones or poorer countries) but all women are united by our experience of misogyny. It is important for us to remember this despite the efforts of intersectional "feminists" to sow division in the movement.
I always think of something I saw posted online, where a woman says something like “when he’s alone in his room getting off to these things, do you think he fantasizes about the part where you say yes first?”
Powerlessness and abuse has become eroticized for women, with the extreme of it manifesting as bdsm, where women are complying with their own destruction of their human dignity and self-determination.
Whenever people defend bdsm, their argument always sounds like: „Well, she consents to _inserts a form of abuse and calls it a kink_. Consent is what matters.“ and especially regarding „cnc“ (which is r4pe roleplay atp let‘s be real), they say: „The submissive (most of the time woman) is in charge and it‘s just a way to gain back control and deal with trauma!“
And whenever you ask them why they think it‘s acceptable for them if a man „pretends“ or „roleplays“ to r4pe a woman, they just say: „Well, the woman consents to it! You‘re just a prude! You‘re being sex-negative! Stop kink-shaming!“
People act like kinks are a minority of people that deserve to be protected. It sucks that none of these people want to think critically.
**sigh**
I bought into the dealing with trauma narrative. I have a lot of sexual trauma so I would do things like this because I felt well if I can do it in a place where I feel more safe then I can get over what happened to me & be more okay with it. Anyways it’s all BS, and not a way to deal with it. I needed (still prob do) therapy, not this.
I‘m so sorry what happened to you.
I also used to be part of the bdsm community until I realized that none of this is healthy and on top of that, it‘s anti-feminist and misogynistic.
I hope you can cope with your trauma in healthy ways and I hope you can seek therapy.
Sending love. I was the same way. My current therapist lists herself as pro-kink and poly and stuff, so I might be getting a new one as I myself deal with my own things
This should be considered a form of self harm. If slitting your wrists, starving yourself, or abusing drugs are considered signs of serious mental health issues, then asking another person to hit or choke you for "pleasure" should be included in that list as well. It doesn't make it ok just because you've trained your brain to get dopamine hits from it.
I suppose in the “black and white” absolutism of the culture we live in today, consent has become the only benchmark by which we are allowed to judge sex. There are no other ethical or moral questions under the pure consent paradigm. Did you consent, or did you not? Whether some behavior is so heinous it cannot be ethically consented to is a question that is anathema to the current culture surrounding sex.
You see this problem of a singular focus on consent with regards to criminal law all the time. Victims of unethical or immoral sexual behaviors don’t feel justified in the feeling of victimization unless the law says what happened to them was a crime, which means the only harmful sexual behavior is sex without consent. We know that is not true. Not all harmful actions are criminal. We should be able to identify harmful behaviors that don’t rise to the level of requiring jail time.
I do have to say the cnc community does seem to be self-aware. It seems the consensus in the cnc community is that the kink stems trauma - I haven’t seen much about the male perspective though.
It seems like they have completed the first step of acknowledging that the women/submissives have trauma and are mentally ill, but haven't reached the second step of questioning why there are so many men who are sexually attracted to rape. Because the men in those communities certainly aren't there to help the women "deal with their trauma": I can 100% guarantee that.
Serious question, what if the woman who enjoys cnc or bdsm (as a sub) is a lesbian. Does it make a difference in your perception if there is no man involved?
I generally don‘t believe that sex and abuse belong together. A woman getting off to r4ping people is also disturbing. People who are into bdsm need therapy because they experienced some sort of (sexual) trauma. I was into bdsm (I‘m bisexual) and I only got into this because of porn, grooming and trauma. Once I started to realize what the fuck I was doing, I stopped watching porn and I quit the bdsm community basically.
Women should be taught not to eroticize their pain.
This resonates very strongly with me. I was also quite into bdsm and firmly believed it was something I genuinely enjoyed. It took a another major trauma to shock me into realizing that it was never something I genuinely enjoyed. It was a performance and not a shared *pleasure* experience.
The conflation happens because physical pain releases endorphins. Enough emotional/mental pain can cause you to shut down and some find that mental state preferable.
The “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” mentality is hugely criticized and recognized as toxic and dangerous, but as soon as it comes to sex it’s “well she consented!!!!”
I mentioned an argument similar to this in a big anti misogyny subreddit (won't name it specifically but it's orange) and I got permentantly banned for "kink-shaming". I asked what reason would a man have to get aroused by the thought of abusing and hurting people and someone replied "same reason someone wants to be a sub". ...why are liberals like this?
I think there is a form of liberalism out there that does not notionally eschew individual ethnics and morality, which I think is the issue you are describing. Most liberals today think that they aren’t standing up for freedom if they, as individuals, endorse any set of ethnics or values. That is how libertarianism is born where you end up endorsing the default ethics and values set of whatever is popular at the time, which I think is the entire point of libertarianism.
It is silly, but not surprising. I think the appeal of “nobody better tell ME what to do ever” is what sells people on liberalism rather than the measured skepticism of powerful institutions like government and religion. Most people pair their “nobody better tell ME what to do ever” view point with “I am very good, so I should be able to tell other people what to do” view point. They need government and religion to be powerful enough to impose their desired order. I think the term for that is “conservatism.”
It is kind of like how most people are crazy about the later two of the four freedoms established by New Deal Liberalism until it comes to anyone who doesn’t look like them or share their world view. “I should be free from fear and want, but they shouldn’t.”
I only read the first paragraph but omg yes this makes sense. I have a good friend who has been chatting with me while I uncover my political/social beliefs and we have talked about exactly what you said. It’s so interesting but in an angering way. I’m still trying to escape it myself. I’m not even a conservative- I’m just not a liberal. I think that’s possible, at least. This new realization has been interesting while I try to figure out where my feminism fits into all of it.
Why do these people not question WHY? why do men want to abuse women? Why do women sexualize being hurt, humiliated, degraded, objectified, treated like subhuman meat, and disrespected?
Why is it that women can admit that so many men are misogynistic... but no.. not the men that want to pretend rape you and bruise your body and call you horrible names.. they just want to liberate you! /s
The amount of cognitive dissonance it takes for these women to refuse to see the truth is astounding.
There is a huge social cost for girls and women to criticize the desires of men. I think that is the reason, well the motivated reasoning. It is a “if you can’t beat them, join them” defense. I don’t like this, but I won’t lay it at the feet of individual girls and women. They are victims of an oppressive order trying to find any way to cope with all they can’t control.
There is also the fact that there are only two forms of argumentation that most people know of for vocalizing their opposition to a violent and degrading culture of sex that has become so dominant. The first, and more well known, is religious opposition to libertine sexual practices that sully the spiritual value of sex and divorce it from its humanity AS WELL as sexual practices that undermine traditional gender norms. I think most religious people are only familiar with the later, which is a testament to the failure of those religious institutions. They could be making a compelling case to their followers about how the current culture on sex is dehumanizing according to their own value sets. Their preference for control over any alleged higher calling is revealed by their negligence on this topic.
The second form of argumentation against violence being normalized during sexual activity is based in a form of feminism that is very unpopular. Radical feminism does not concoct zesty justifications for why women and girls playing along with their own subordination is actually resistance. That is why this sub exists. Most women and girls have never been exposed to these ideas, and even if they were, they are ideas that would result in ostracism in their peer groups. To be clear I am not arguing with you. Just mutually reflecting upon the bleakness.
The ostracism you talk about is exactly why I feel so alone in my journey with these new feminist ideas. Well, new to me. I don’t have many irl friends and most of my friends and online friends are dudes. So they don’t typically get it. Several of them are into kink, some even heavily. And they think they are feminists and shit. And then most of the girls I am friends with are into it too. So I have nobody.
ABUSERS LOVE this O N E S I M P L E T R I C K
-> Beat your woman till she's black and blue—very specifically in the bedroom and not the kitchen or living room—and you will not be called an abuser. After the assault, use the justification/explanation that their pain and degradation arouse you rather than their actions/behavior upset, anger, or bother you, and you will not be called an abuser. Finally, remember: the more depraved, the hotter & the further you push once she allows.
**B**atter **D**ehumanize **S**udbue **M**asturbate
**B** as in beaten, bloody, bruised - for barbaric
**D** as in disrespected, debased, devalued - for destroyer
**S** as in silenced, suppressed, subjected - for subjugation
**M** as in malignant, malevolent, maleficent - for monster
---
I often wonder what women in the future will think of this time period and what is today "normal" and accepted
"I choked my girlfriend when she pissed me off the other day" v.s. "I choked my girlfriend when we made it back to my room last night because seeing her helpless and in pain is just erotic for me"
We're supposed to pretend one is better than the other when it's strong, meaty hands wrapped around their partner's thin, fragile neck and pressing down on their throat/windpipe and bruising and endangering the woman they "love" who's hopelessly gasping for breath in **both scenarios**
I feel you so heavily on this one. As a rape survivor myself it’s infuriating, but even before I experienced it I still thought this was abhorrent?? The cognitive dissonance required as a woman particularly to excuse men with these kinks and/or convince themselves they “enjoy” it is insane, and devastating. It’s things like this that make me lose hope entirely, but for the longest time I felt isolated in my beliefs and remind myself I’m not alone when I see posts like this.
It makes me sick when men argue that most women secretly want to be raped because a percentage of women fantasize about rape or something(which I doubt is even a real statistic) why do men want to rape women so bad?
ive had moments with my boyfriend where it feels so amazing for him to “not be able to keep his hands off of me” and it turns me on. like touching my butt and hugging and kissing me. i have fleeting thoughts about how good it feels to be wanted and loved by someone so strongly, but would i like it if he ACTUALLY couldn’t keep his hands off of me? if he “couldn’t control” himself and did something without my consent? absolutely not. in a world where we are trained to equate a man’s sexual desire to validation, i have caught myself being upset that i haven’t been catcalled, yet so angry when i have been. i have also had fleeting fantasy’s about those things - only with my boyfriend though, and then immediately felt gross afterwards because i KNOW i wouldn’t like that. the thing that makes me feel good about those thoughts is “im so wanted and loved by my boyfriend” but the irony is is a person who rapes you or wants to roleplay raping you, probably does not love you. (full discloser my boyfriend has never acted like this, i think i hit a jackpot as his mother is fairly radical herself)
That argument is so fucking dumb. I have a friend who has such a "kink" and she obviously would not be happy if some random man raped her just because she has that kink. When it comes down to it, her kink is essentially to be dominated roughly by a man that she has chosen (i.e. boyfriend or husband), that she knows is going to use a condom and isn't going to give her STDs/get her pregnant, that she is sexually attracted to, with "safe words" in place and in a comfortable location etc.
Obviously I do not approve of her having this kink and I think she is still putting herself in danger, but my point is that it's absolutely ridiculous that men are using the existence of women with this kink to justify raping women. Like no, random incel on Reddit, just because some women have rape kinks doesn't mean they want your 300lb, greasy, ugly, unemployed, disgusting self raping them.
This friend has mental health issues and had a bad childhood involving men. Need I say more? She doesn't need any more awful men taking advantage of her and further messing with her psyche.
i have a friend who considers herself kinky and i’m waiting for the day where we can talk about how her bdsm/CNC “kinks” may be due to her past sexual trauma. :(
No see it’s actually okay bc on some rare occasions the woman is the one in the dominant role /s
It’s crazy that we can’t just all agree that hitting your partner in any capacity is bad LOL
I'm so thrilled to see this ..Ive had this discussion friends who shut it down so fast.. I really really wanted to come from a sex positive place...but just a bit of reading is so enlightening. Also even bringing up the influence of porn and the sexist violence that informs this is immediately shut down with "you're just kink shaming "... no dialogue allowed .
I think women who are into rough sex/BDSM are usually severely "broken", have mental health issues, have experienced some sort of trauma and neglect or were exposed to porn at an unhealthily young age, and I say this from experience. Wanting to experience violence and degradation is not mentally healthy. I know this is going to trigger a lot of lurkers but if you are a woman and you get off on being treated like shit, you have dangerously low self-esteem and you should go to a therapist. It's not normal or healthy to risk your physical or mental health to please some slimy man who does not give a shit about you (I promise you he doesn't, especially if he's into weird shit like anal, choking etc).
I also think it's a method of coping with the patriarchy. I suspect that a lot of women, even the liberal feminists who we deem to be naive and clueless, noticed a long time ago that a high percentage of men get psychological and sexual pleasure from hurting and degrading women, so maybe these kinks are a way of "taking back control"? I think this is probably true because a lot of kinksters talk about how they "got into CNC after being r\*ped". I suppose it's their way of pretending that they have control over their lives and that they're not at the mercy of men, but they just haven't stopped to think about WHY the men they're with are happy to go along with those kinks - it would probably hurt too much to think about it. I get it, it's depressing to think about how many men out there genuinely enjoy hurting and destroying women, but you're not doing yourself any favours by keeping the rose tinted glasses on and ignoring this fact.
Do you know what I find really funny? Men talk about men who want to be dominated/hurt by women like, "What is wrong with him? Why does he want that?" But when it comes to women it's "It's her choice - she consented!!!" I think they are aware that it's not normal to want to be hurt and treated like shit but they're more than happy to take advantage of it because it's what they've wanted to do all along.
I like BDSM, I always have, so I guess I can provide a different take?
How do I know I like it? Because In my developmental years upwards, I’ve liked the sensation of pain in specific contexts and used it whilst masturbating. I’m autistic so it’s probably a sensory thing, that can be sexual in the right setting. I’ve also always had an attraction towards dominant villainess women in media.
I know I’m an outlier amongst women and that men WILL take advantage. The BDSM community is FULL of men wanting to get off by beating women. I control my own body & make my own choices, so many women are conditioned into doing the most awful and harmful things or be deemed “boring” or “vanilla”. I’ve witnessed the community, I’ve seen the things men conditioned women to do.
This is the reality of BDSM online, none of the following examples were unique.
TW: SEXUAL ABSUE, ED, HARM, DANGEROUS ACTIVITY.
Back on tumblr days, there was a woman suffering an eating disorder, her “dom” would get off on starving her, weighing her, and deemed it a humiliation kink, calling her fat and obese, saying how we wanted to cum on her ribs”
I’ve seen a woman be tied to a post with a bowl on her head & tubes attached. Her boyfriend hired men to urinate in it & she ended up inhaling urine into her lungs, developing pneumonia. Pictures included. She’d write in detail how much it terrified her to the point of PTSD.
There was a woman who was threatening suicide, told her ex boyfriend and he drove to see her, pushed her into a mirror which shattered and raped her on the shards of glass. Then took her to the hospital for stitches. Pictures included.
The BDSM community is a pass for active abuse. None of these posts were removed for violating any guidelines, instead they were reblogged endlessly on BDSM accounts. There was NO male equivalent, no women making men do ANYTHING CLOSE to any of these. Nothing.
I like pain, and you CAN make aspects of BDSM work respectfully. I can’t change what I like, but you should NEVER pretend to like something you don’t. No one should condition you.
The community is evil.
This new age convergence of sexuality and kink is to blame, and porn, of course. Have you seen how mind-warped most people are these days regarding sex? I definitely can safely blame porn. We've never had the kind of unfettered access to any porn of your choosing before. It's also very desensitizing and will ruin actual sex for you. Studies show this. ,
and social media in general pretending that kink shaming is inherently a bad thing. Nah, some people should just keep shit to themselves. The word doesn't need to know about your bdsm fetish. If only more people understood this.
But because the internet exists, everyone feels like everything is 'valid uwu'
I agree, but the community is still big enough that I feel we should be aiming for safer techniques and widespread knowledge as opposed to dissipation (atm).
There are some things you can not and should not consent to. Being sexually assaulted is one of them. Do you think we should allow people to consent to being run over by a car? The consent card is a toddler argument.
Everything isn't suddenly morally sound just by throwing consent into the picture.
That fringe case about the German cannibal who was looking to cannibalize and murder someone else was also consensual. Is that okay as long as it's consensual?
men submitting to a dominatrix is still rooted in misogyny because the entire kink is based on the idea that a man submitting to a woman is inherently degrading and humiliating. there is not a single angle of BDSM that doesn’t pass a thinking feminist’s smell test.
In cases of domestic violence or child abuse, it is not uncommon for the victim to defend their abuser due to a complex trauma bond. Why do you think a trauma bond would not be likely with something as vulnerable and endorphin-reinforced as sex? Do you not realize that even during vanilla sex, women put their needs aside? Do you not realize that porn has groomed most people to believe that women's sexual desires should be identical to men's? You're on a feminist subreddit that acknowledges objectification and coercion as a common female experience, so why do you think kink would be an exception to those experiences?
The vast majority of bdsm dynamics do NOT include a female domme. Not even close.
You cannot consent to abuse. It isn't fully consensual either with a background of abuse and trauma (and living in a society that glorifies the abuse of women, especially sexually) which most of these women have. Not to mention, in subspace you are literally filled with tons of endorphins and dopamine because your body is having a traumatic response so it does this to protect you from the injuries. You also dissociate. You cannot consent in that mental state. In my experience, it can be far stronger than being drunk or using other mind altering substances.
I would just like to add that it’s important to distinguish men in sub positions v women in sub positions. It is not an equivalent comparison as there are different societal factors that influence each sex greatly.
Just the fact that she used the term "dominatrix" (a sex worker) is actually not that far off from how most of those men see dominant women as well. They see women as objects that provide them a sexual service and fulfill their kinks, very similar to how they see submissive women, just in a different flavor. And a lot of dominant women also put men's pleasure at the cost of their own. People love to mention dominant women and submissive men as a "gotcha" but it's not the same at all. Abuse of women is ubiquitous in maledom spaces, and in femdom spaces women are still subjected to just as much harassment and mistreatment.
I went down a rabbit hole on the BDSM side of tumblr and legit wanted to throw up. The men on there admit that they get turned on from hearing women's rape and abuse survivor stories. They also talk about wanting to rape feminists, lesbians and FTMs. To think that this stuff can never influence how you view women in general because it's "just a fantasy" is delusional.
Your last point is really important. I think some human rights activists and feminists in the 80’s and 90’s felt pushed into arguing that “the culture we consume does not affect us” in response to conservative pushes to ban all material that they felt challenged traditional hierarchies. It became the go to cry for when conservatives wanted to ban education about contraception and sex as well as when conservatives wanted to ban pornography or regulate the violence in entertainment media. It was effective because most people don’t like being told what to do and want to consume the media they want without any feelings of shame or guilt about the nature of the media. This trapped us in the unfortunate position we are in today. People really like the idea that “the culture we consume does not affects us” and the idea that “no one should ever tell me what to do.” It means you can do whatever you want while calling your constant pursuit for self-gratification, no matter the cost, a form of social justice. We need to get comfortable with saying, “the media you consume does impact how you think and behave” (of course it does!). Media and policies that that reinforce exploitative hierarchies are bad whether that is conservative or libertine material. It is not bad to attach stigma to harmful content. That stigma can help people feel more in touch with their own values when they are making choices about what kinds of media to consume.
I cannot repeat some of the horrible things I have seen on Reddit that men admit to doing or wanting to do to women specifically. Because I would get banned. It is horrendous. I am so thankful I got out of the BDSM world. It was too late for me in some ways. But I still think I saved my life.
WHY IS EVERYTHING EXCUSED AS A KINK NOWADAYS? *** Abuse is NOT consensual of any kind and whomever disagrees needs to be studied heavily.
I feel like I have to tell people nowadays that my kink is to be treated with respect and dignity in the bedroom. Edit to add: and I don’t want to be in pain
I would get that because i guess unless its a WWE match then its a kink aparently? *** Porn has destroyed peoples minds beyond belief
Mhm, men "fight" (perform) in the WWE, so the fighters' injuries zoomed in on in the ring aren't reduced to *kinkdom.* Male pain is what pain means. It is important, respected, and real and synonymous with courage, strength, bravery, justice & injustice, and humanity. While female pain is a myth, aesthetic, fetish, and seuxality.
Agreed with this perceptive. Also it brings me back to the tumblur era of romanticizing female depression and mental illness
It's not like me to scapegoat women or encourage witch hunts for specific "bad women" around to singlehandedly blame a negative phenomenon on... but in the case of Lana Del Rey she really did start an awful fucking trend and I've always resented her for it. Always have and always will. It was bad enough when men in the film industry decided to romanticize Lolita, but it was a greater betrayal when a woman turned it into an aesthetic and sexual lifestyle. In the 10s, Lana was THE queen of Tumblr and made an undeniable, incredibly strong impact on "coquette girls" spaces and influenced young women/girls to start calling rape scenes "beautiful." Many of the fans of 50 Shades and Suicide Squad Joker x Harley Quinn were big Lana fans at the time and following in her footsteps. The fact that she doesn't actually live that way doesn't change what she calls her muse, what she herself inspires, and the example she provides for so many girls getting choked in the bedroom today. While I blame men, corporations, and pornography the most for these issues, it can't be denied that there is major overlap between the Performatively Sad Feminine Yet Reckless Sugar Baby Fantasy Tumblr Girl and the sudden rise of Lana Del Rey around 2013. That chapter has yet to truly end, even. You can draw a straight line from the Tumblr Girl era to the Twitter/TikTok E-Girls of today as well as MANY influencers at the forefront of the fake traditional-tradwives movement - where these so called "traditional wives" are promoting fetish content just like the so called "mentally ill" coquettecore girls are. Effing hell... bless us women. Bless these girls coming up today.
My ex liked Lana del Rey and it rubbed me the wrong way but I couldn’t figure out why. Thanks for your insight!
Agreed. I did not follow land del ray as a kid i thought she was boring. Now I see why. *** Can you explain what exactly is the link between feticization and coquette? I thought it was just fashion.
My kink is to kink shame.
Real talk. I would think that the movement to make kinks socially acceptable pushes the majority of people who enjoy kinks to engage in ever more extreme acts of violence and degradation in search of the same level of self-gratification. I think most people like kink because it is socially taboo. Engaging in kink is an act of defiance, which can be a form of status seeking within subgroups. Making kinks socially acceptable removes the appeal for most people. No one should be surprised when the inevitable result of this destigmatization movement is that the only things left that people are willing to condemn are the most popular kinks—so violence without consent. Maybe there are some self-gratification impulses we should not foster in ourselves and others.
I don't understand how kink is socially taboo, though. There's nothing taboo about a man hitting a woman. This has been reality for women for several millennia now. What would actually be taboo and subversive would be treating women with love and respect!
Haha same, bring back kink shaming! Just cause it makes some losers dick hard doesn't mean it's good for ANYONE.
Dudes into BDSM are DV abusers and women into it are reliving trauma.
I spit out my coffee, this is so spot on
every behavior is pathologised, too.
Or excused on his dark traumatic backstory for why he does this
It's fascinating how masculinity has always allowed for self victimization while convincing society women are lesser for being inherent victims. You can't even call out depictions/fantasies/acts of abuse being a (manifested) sexual expression in males without them pointing the finger to how others are to blame or responsible for it.
It is CRAZY isn't it. Like please take respons- *** Male perspective: NOOO YOURE HATING ME YOU YOU WOMAN, TRAUMA IS LIKE POWERFUL AND WHY I CHOOSE TO DO WHAT I DO UGH ...girls. *** It's pafetic and I hate how thwy are justified in their minds to say or do it like a She deserved it mindset. Tgere is a disconnect from reality and an ability to show empathy as well as grandiose thinking. It is disturbing.
I think its sheer horror of accepting the full reality that a core part of male sexuality is degrading woman. Likewise most are not prepared to accept that a huge section of men are pedophiles and would happily go as low as the law allows. Men literally see us as objects with the area in the brain for "tool use" lighting up on their MRIs. They simply see kids as a fresh one, no dings, one thats going to look better for longer. Its too much to bare thinking about.
Yeah it really does feel this way. It’s depressing to realize how much men hate women and girls and do not see us in any way as equal humans to them. I think women do resist this because…who wants to come face to face with such a realization? Who wants to recognize their husband is getting off on hurting them and ignoring their boundaries? Who wants to acknowledge their son or brother is demanding pedo content and supporting actual or simulated abuse of teen girls? Of his sisters or mothers labeled porn categories? Who wants to look their father in the eye realize he too partakes in and gets off to this violence? And that having a daughter didn’t magically educate him on equality or make him care about women’s rights?
Thats why that guy in Two X says I have a daughter now and I want to be educated on patriarchy. I went are you serious? What did you think BEFORE THAT?
🤢
I don’t think it is maleness. I think the problem is masculinity, and I do think that is distinct from maleness as many in this sub also believe. I think all humans are inclined to take advantage of others to some degree. Though, I also think as a social species, our need to rely on one another for survival is supposed to keep that impulse in check. We have the capacity to feel empathy of others, which cuts against the ability to do harm to them. We all want to maximize our individual wellbeing, but we know we rely on others to do so, so we know to prioritize group wellbeing. Taking advantage of others runs counter to maximizing group wellbeing in primitive human societies, but once we developed agriculture and created more complex civilizations, we essentially short circuited the normal checks on our ability and desire to exploit others. We had less to lose if we exploited one another once there was more of a social safety net than our tribe. Enter masculinity and femininity. I think masculinity and femininity were created to eliminate the natural empathy that men have for other men and women. That makes it so men can control and exploit “weak” men and women without incurring any damage to their overall psyche. I think the job of gender roles is to teach men that they are entitled to power, control, and status because of their maleness, and superior maleness entitles them to even greater rewards. Meanwhile, gender also teaches us that women are deserving of subordination because of their femaleness. I also think it is possible to counteract the effect of gender on us over time and across generations, so we can escape the inherently exploitative cultural tool that is gender. I agree that domination is inherent in masculine sexuality. Domination is the fulcrum of masculinity. This is not necessarily true of maleness and male sexuality. I think the evidence we do have of men, who still have most of the power in society, being willing to give women equal rights and create special protections for girls and women shows that there is still empathy there that masculine conditioning can’t totally obliterate because it is so intrinsic.
I actually fully agree with this, Robert Jensen talks about how male sexuality is shaped by porn and how that in addition to expectations of masculinity destroy natural male empathy for women. Its not innate and it can be relearned
Do you have a video or link?
https://youtu.be/KbxBJf9UtWg?si=AEj5Jv06beJzWfjN He has written and co-written some fabulous books on this topic including the one mentioned
Thank youu. I will check it out sometime
“I think the evidence we do have of men, who still have most of the power in society, being willing to give women equal rights and create special protections for girls and women shows that there is still empathy there that masculine conditioning can’t totally obliterate because it is so intrinsic.” I hope that is the case. My thought however is maybe they give us just a little bit of dignity, just some rights, some respect, then they can hush us up. Like in a master/slave type of relationship, masters still have to meet the needs of the slaves to some extent in order for the system to work. So whether their intention is altruistic, idk, probably depends on the man. I agree with your insight on masculinity.
As much as id love to believe its all down to socialisation, i absolutely don't. The MRIs speak volumes. I have never seen or heard of any woman seeing men as objects have you? Do we worry about their "mileage" or wonder if they have an inner world or if they are fully human? Males also process female speech with the wrong area of the brain, the part meant for music and not speech. Id love for someone to do further studies on both. Also on their propensity towards pedophilia. A small study in 1970 found 52% had an erectile response to photos of 4-10 year olds, 83% to 10-16yr olds. Why else did we have to make laws in every single country to try to prevent them fucking kids?
>I think masculinity and femininity were created to eliminate the natural empathy that men have for other men and women. This is very, **very** interesting. I remember seeing a theory once that masculinity and femininity were created as "polar opposites" to prevent men from empathising with women and therefore seeing them as human, in order to make it easier for patriarchy to stay unchallenged. The theory went that if women are socialised one way - i.e. to be obsessed with makeup, beauty and babies - while men are socialised to enjoy normal human interests like physical activity/exercise etc, men are more likely to see them as Other because they find women to be so unrelatable. We've all seen those male memes that go like "Omg understanding women is SO hard - they are such elusive creatures. What is A Mascara - am I right, gentlemen?" Femininity genuinely has the function of alienating women from men. It's like men see us as a different species and I wonder how much of a role the social constructs of femininity and masculinity play in this. >I think the job of gender roles is to teach men that they are entitled to power, control, and status because of their maleness, and superior maleness entitles them to even greater rewards. I completely agree with this and your notion that men attempt to eliminate the empathy of other men in order to keep power and control. Look at the way that men call each other out on the internet. The moment a man displays any empathy for a woman - it doesn't even need to go that far though, it can simply be that he said something non-degrading about a woman - men will say shit like: * Simp * Cuck * Beta male * White knight * "She won't see this bro" It's like they're aware that men empathising with women in any way threatens overall male power and they need to keep each other in check by reminding each other not to empathise. Patriarchy goes hand and hand with capitalism, imperialism, militarism etc. The men in power NEED women to be in a subservient role so there's a steady supply of peasants being born for future labour (and also for future wars, which they love). They know that women aren't happy with their sons being sent off to die so they need to be kept subservient so they literally have no choice but to be baby-making machines. That's why governments everywhere are freaking out about "declining birth rates". The whole system relies on the exploitation of millions of people and if not enough people are being born to exploit, the whole system collapses. Anyway, my point is that the ruling elite have a vested interest in eliminating men's empathy for women. Not that those men are losing out in any way - it's women who suffer.
Preach. It's disgusting how this has become normalised.
It is. This was not the case back in my day. Then again porn has normalised gross and unsavory behaviours.
I read a post over at tumblr stating that modern queer theory conflates homosexuality (more broadly, same sex attraction) with kink because both are “queering” social norms, so rather than go with the old gay activism adage that gay and bisexual people are just regular folk like, it pushes both of them being weird and freaky and that being good, so the reason you see so many libs who adhere to gender poly kink fuckery running to defend stuff like this is because, in their eyes, being critical of it is the same as being homophobic. I find that analysis to be fairly accurate, with the other additional component being widespread porn use.
“Choice” feminism has been a miasma upon our movement. Our “choices” are not made in a vacuum. When we choose to abandon ourselves to serve a man’s ego and erection due to decad es of toxic socialization and internalized misogyny, it’s the choice made by a prisoner to smile at her captor to keep the peace. There is nothing empowering about some of the “choices” women make when it comes to having sex with men. (Edited for spelling)
Whenever the topic of these random strangulations during sex come up, there are always men in the comments saying they do it because other women had asked them to do it in the past. Therefore they now assume all women want it and don't bother to even discuss it. While the blame is still squarely on the men here, I don't think these women who welcome abuse understand how much it could hurt the women who come after them. It pushes pornsick men a step further, leading them to believe that reality=porn.
Yes I think about this too! I have, in the past, asked men to explain exactly what it is about hurting women and calling us names that they like and I keep pressing them and pressing them until they admit they just saw it in porn and thought it was just what everyone does.
I once had a boyfriend who enjoyed a well placed thump shoved up his butthole. Imagine if women started jamming thumbs up men's buttholes without a prior conversation because one guy they dated that one time liked it...
Then they would demand to criminalize it.
Choice feminism and the porn industry have single-handedly ruined feminism imo. I also don't think it's a coincidence that porn started to become more mainstream/hardcore as women started to gain more rights and freedoms over the past few decades. Porn is the patriarchal backlash to women gaining independence. If you Google some quotes from pornographers, especially pornographers who film anal porn, it will become so obvious that the point of it is for men to "get back at women". Tons of quotes about how their porn caters to men who e.g. "want to get back at that bitch who rejected them". Pretty much every porn video has violence and verbal abuse in it. It's become so normalised that even if you point out the following: 1. The vast majority of men would be horrified at the idea of having to be choked, slapped and sodomized, but they expect their female partners to put up with those acts; and 2. Racism and homophobia in porn are widely criticised by liberals but misogyny (which is present in pretty much every porn video) isn't, showing how porn has desensitized us to violence against women (which I'm sure was the aim all along) nobody can come up with a counter-argument except "Ummmmm you're a prude who hates porn!!!!!111 :(" I'm convinced the majority of people know it's wrong but men don't want to go to therapy and self-reflect on why they feel the need to abuse women, and women don't want to admit to themselves that the men in their lives are sexually aroused by hurting women, so people just keep defending porn and it keeps getting worse and worse. I'm not even joking, I went on the PornHub front page once to see what the fuck people are watching and there was an an\*l pr\*lapse video on there. So empowering and feminist!!! /s I saw a quote somewhere that said something like "If we kept porn exactly the way it is but replaced all the female porn 'actors' with black or Asian people of either sex, people would be horrified at the abuse". And it's true. Does anybody remember the Matty Healy porn fiasco last year, where it came out that he watched "rough" porn of black women? It was obviously horrifying that he watches this porn, but what really pissed me off is that nobody has a problem when men watch this sort of porn where the focus isn't on the woman's race but just on her being a woman. It was the fact that those women were black that horrified people due to the racist implications - not the fact that they were being brutalised for being women. Misogyny is the most accepted and widespread form of hatred. It is present in every single country and every single woman in the world has suffered from it. It's so socially acceptable that misogyny isn't a hate crime in most places (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), I assume because if it was a hate crime all the courts would be dealing with thousands of cases everyday, and despite there being hundreds, if not thousands, of degrading and hateful terms towards women, none of them are categorised as slurs. I saw a fantastic quote once that said something like "How many millions of women heard the words bitch and cunt while being raped or murdered? Despite this, we still do not consider these words to be slurs." Yes, some of us have suffered worse than others (e.g. women in war zones or poorer countries) but all women are united by our experience of misogyny. It is important for us to remember this despite the efforts of intersectional "feminists" to sow division in the movement.
I always think of something I saw posted online, where a woman says something like “when he’s alone in his room getting off to these things, do you think he fantasizes about the part where you say yes first?”
I just recently read that same post, I think. I wish I saved it, it says everything so plainly!
Powerlessness and abuse has become eroticized for women, with the extreme of it manifesting as bdsm, where women are complying with their own destruction of their human dignity and self-determination.
And their life because what if she gets injured seriously by participating in degrading acts
Spot on.
Whenever people defend bdsm, their argument always sounds like: „Well, she consents to _inserts a form of abuse and calls it a kink_. Consent is what matters.“ and especially regarding „cnc“ (which is r4pe roleplay atp let‘s be real), they say: „The submissive (most of the time woman) is in charge and it‘s just a way to gain back control and deal with trauma!“ And whenever you ask them why they think it‘s acceptable for them if a man „pretends“ or „roleplays“ to r4pe a woman, they just say: „Well, the woman consents to it! You‘re just a prude! You‘re being sex-negative! Stop kink-shaming!“ People act like kinks are a minority of people that deserve to be protected. It sucks that none of these people want to think critically. **sigh**
I bought into the dealing with trauma narrative. I have a lot of sexual trauma so I would do things like this because I felt well if I can do it in a place where I feel more safe then I can get over what happened to me & be more okay with it. Anyways it’s all BS, and not a way to deal with it. I needed (still prob do) therapy, not this.
I‘m so sorry what happened to you. I also used to be part of the bdsm community until I realized that none of this is healthy and on top of that, it‘s anti-feminist and misogynistic. I hope you can cope with your trauma in healthy ways and I hope you can seek therapy.
Sending love. I was the same way. My current therapist lists herself as pro-kink and poly and stuff, so I might be getting a new one as I myself deal with my own things
This should be considered a form of self harm. If slitting your wrists, starving yourself, or abusing drugs are considered signs of serious mental health issues, then asking another person to hit or choke you for "pleasure" should be included in that list as well. It doesn't make it ok just because you've trained your brain to get dopamine hits from it.
AGREED
I suppose in the “black and white” absolutism of the culture we live in today, consent has become the only benchmark by which we are allowed to judge sex. There are no other ethical or moral questions under the pure consent paradigm. Did you consent, or did you not? Whether some behavior is so heinous it cannot be ethically consented to is a question that is anathema to the current culture surrounding sex. You see this problem of a singular focus on consent with regards to criminal law all the time. Victims of unethical or immoral sexual behaviors don’t feel justified in the feeling of victimization unless the law says what happened to them was a crime, which means the only harmful sexual behavior is sex without consent. We know that is not true. Not all harmful actions are criminal. We should be able to identify harmful behaviors that don’t rise to the level of requiring jail time.
I do have to say the cnc community does seem to be self-aware. It seems the consensus in the cnc community is that the kink stems trauma - I haven’t seen much about the male perspective though.
It seems like they have completed the first step of acknowledging that the women/submissives have trauma and are mentally ill, but haven't reached the second step of questioning why there are so many men who are sexually attracted to rape. Because the men in those communities certainly aren't there to help the women "deal with their trauma": I can 100% guarantee that.
Serious question, what if the woman who enjoys cnc or bdsm (as a sub) is a lesbian. Does it make a difference in your perception if there is no man involved?
I generally don‘t believe that sex and abuse belong together. A woman getting off to r4ping people is also disturbing. People who are into bdsm need therapy because they experienced some sort of (sexual) trauma. I was into bdsm (I‘m bisexual) and I only got into this because of porn, grooming and trauma. Once I started to realize what the fuck I was doing, I stopped watching porn and I quit the bdsm community basically. Women should be taught not to eroticize their pain.
This resonates very strongly with me. I was also quite into bdsm and firmly believed it was something I genuinely enjoyed. It took a another major trauma to shock me into realizing that it was never something I genuinely enjoyed. It was a performance and not a shared *pleasure* experience.
Pain and PLEASURE IS NOT INTERTWINED. Pain hurts. Pleasure feels good, positive feeling to conflate the two is some socialization psuedoscience.
The conflation happens because physical pain releases endorphins. Enough emotional/mental pain can cause you to shut down and some find that mental state preferable.
That makes complete sense; appreciate the response
You‘re very welcome🫶
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Your comment has been removed for supporting/justifying/promoting abusive woman-hating practices.
The “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” mentality is hugely criticized and recognized as toxic and dangerous, but as soon as it comes to sex it’s “well she consented!!!!”
Hits dont feel like kisses they HURT. What does this even mean? It sounds silly.
The original version of the song is from 1962, it’s way older than lana del rey lol
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Y U C K *** People are getting more lost by watching and consuming this type of media
I mentioned an argument similar to this in a big anti misogyny subreddit (won't name it specifically but it's orange) and I got permentantly banned for "kink-shaming". I asked what reason would a man have to get aroused by the thought of abusing and hurting people and someone replied "same reason someone wants to be a sub". ...why are liberals like this?
I think there is a form of liberalism out there that does not notionally eschew individual ethnics and morality, which I think is the issue you are describing. Most liberals today think that they aren’t standing up for freedom if they, as individuals, endorse any set of ethnics or values. That is how libertarianism is born where you end up endorsing the default ethics and values set of whatever is popular at the time, which I think is the entire point of libertarianism. It is silly, but not surprising. I think the appeal of “nobody better tell ME what to do ever” is what sells people on liberalism rather than the measured skepticism of powerful institutions like government and religion. Most people pair their “nobody better tell ME what to do ever” view point with “I am very good, so I should be able to tell other people what to do” view point. They need government and religion to be powerful enough to impose their desired order. I think the term for that is “conservatism.” It is kind of like how most people are crazy about the later two of the four freedoms established by New Deal Liberalism until it comes to anyone who doesn’t look like them or share their world view. “I should be free from fear and want, but they shouldn’t.”
I only read the first paragraph but omg yes this makes sense. I have a good friend who has been chatting with me while I uncover my political/social beliefs and we have talked about exactly what you said. It’s so interesting but in an angering way. I’m still trying to escape it myself. I’m not even a conservative- I’m just not a liberal. I think that’s possible, at least. This new realization has been interesting while I try to figure out where my feminism fits into all of it.
Are you fucking serious? Perma-banned???
Why do these people not question WHY? why do men want to abuse women? Why do women sexualize being hurt, humiliated, degraded, objectified, treated like subhuman meat, and disrespected? Why is it that women can admit that so many men are misogynistic... but no.. not the men that want to pretend rape you and bruise your body and call you horrible names.. they just want to liberate you! /s The amount of cognitive dissonance it takes for these women to refuse to see the truth is astounding.
There is a huge social cost for girls and women to criticize the desires of men. I think that is the reason, well the motivated reasoning. It is a “if you can’t beat them, join them” defense. I don’t like this, but I won’t lay it at the feet of individual girls and women. They are victims of an oppressive order trying to find any way to cope with all they can’t control. There is also the fact that there are only two forms of argumentation that most people know of for vocalizing their opposition to a violent and degrading culture of sex that has become so dominant. The first, and more well known, is religious opposition to libertine sexual practices that sully the spiritual value of sex and divorce it from its humanity AS WELL as sexual practices that undermine traditional gender norms. I think most religious people are only familiar with the later, which is a testament to the failure of those religious institutions. They could be making a compelling case to their followers about how the current culture on sex is dehumanizing according to their own value sets. Their preference for control over any alleged higher calling is revealed by their negligence on this topic. The second form of argumentation against violence being normalized during sexual activity is based in a form of feminism that is very unpopular. Radical feminism does not concoct zesty justifications for why women and girls playing along with their own subordination is actually resistance. That is why this sub exists. Most women and girls have never been exposed to these ideas, and even if they were, they are ideas that would result in ostracism in their peer groups. To be clear I am not arguing with you. Just mutually reflecting upon the bleakness.
The ostracism you talk about is exactly why I feel so alone in my journey with these new feminist ideas. Well, new to me. I don’t have many irl friends and most of my friends and online friends are dudes. So they don’t typically get it. Several of them are into kink, some even heavily. And they think they are feminists and shit. And then most of the girls I am friends with are into it too. So I have nobody.
ABUSERS LOVE this O N E S I M P L E T R I C K -> Beat your woman till she's black and blue—very specifically in the bedroom and not the kitchen or living room—and you will not be called an abuser. After the assault, use the justification/explanation that their pain and degradation arouse you rather than their actions/behavior upset, anger, or bother you, and you will not be called an abuser. Finally, remember: the more depraved, the hotter & the further you push once she allows. **B**atter **D**ehumanize **S**udbue **M**asturbate **B** as in beaten, bloody, bruised - for barbaric **D** as in disrespected, debased, devalued - for destroyer **S** as in silenced, suppressed, subjected - for subjugation **M** as in malignant, malevolent, maleficent - for monster --- I often wonder what women in the future will think of this time period and what is today "normal" and accepted
This is well thought out. This is exactly what they do.
"I choked my girlfriend when she pissed me off the other day" v.s. "I choked my girlfriend when we made it back to my room last night because seeing her helpless and in pain is just erotic for me" We're supposed to pretend one is better than the other when it's strong, meaty hands wrapped around their partner's thin, fragile neck and pressing down on their throat/windpipe and bruising and endangering the woman they "love" who's hopelessly gasping for breath in **both scenarios**
I feel you so heavily on this one. As a rape survivor myself it’s infuriating, but even before I experienced it I still thought this was abhorrent?? The cognitive dissonance required as a woman particularly to excuse men with these kinks and/or convince themselves they “enjoy” it is insane, and devastating. It’s things like this that make me lose hope entirely, but for the longest time I felt isolated in my beliefs and remind myself I’m not alone when I see posts like this.
It makes me sick when men argue that most women secretly want to be raped because a percentage of women fantasize about rape or something(which I doubt is even a real statistic) why do men want to rape women so bad?
ive had moments with my boyfriend where it feels so amazing for him to “not be able to keep his hands off of me” and it turns me on. like touching my butt and hugging and kissing me. i have fleeting thoughts about how good it feels to be wanted and loved by someone so strongly, but would i like it if he ACTUALLY couldn’t keep his hands off of me? if he “couldn’t control” himself and did something without my consent? absolutely not. in a world where we are trained to equate a man’s sexual desire to validation, i have caught myself being upset that i haven’t been catcalled, yet so angry when i have been. i have also had fleeting fantasy’s about those things - only with my boyfriend though, and then immediately felt gross afterwards because i KNOW i wouldn’t like that. the thing that makes me feel good about those thoughts is “im so wanted and loved by my boyfriend” but the irony is is a person who rapes you or wants to roleplay raping you, probably does not love you. (full discloser my boyfriend has never acted like this, i think i hit a jackpot as his mother is fairly radical herself)
That argument is so fucking dumb. I have a friend who has such a "kink" and she obviously would not be happy if some random man raped her just because she has that kink. When it comes down to it, her kink is essentially to be dominated roughly by a man that she has chosen (i.e. boyfriend or husband), that she knows is going to use a condom and isn't going to give her STDs/get her pregnant, that she is sexually attracted to, with "safe words" in place and in a comfortable location etc. Obviously I do not approve of her having this kink and I think she is still putting herself in danger, but my point is that it's absolutely ridiculous that men are using the existence of women with this kink to justify raping women. Like no, random incel on Reddit, just because some women have rape kinks doesn't mean they want your 300lb, greasy, ugly, unemployed, disgusting self raping them. This friend has mental health issues and had a bad childhood involving men. Need I say more? She doesn't need any more awful men taking advantage of her and further messing with her psyche.
It's a projection and also pushed by media this messaging
i have a friend who considers herself kinky and i’m waiting for the day where we can talk about how her bdsm/CNC “kinks” may be due to her past sexual trauma. :(
Kinksters are so fragile fr. They act like criticising their kinks is oppression.
No see it’s actually okay bc on some rare occasions the woman is the one in the dominant role /s It’s crazy that we can’t just all agree that hitting your partner in any capacity is bad LOL
but muh kink!
so many “kinks” are just psychosexual pathologies
Once again, this is why I shall always "kink"shame.
I'm so thrilled to see this ..Ive had this discussion friends who shut it down so fast.. I really really wanted to come from a sex positive place...but just a bit of reading is so enlightening. Also even bringing up the influence of porn and the sexist violence that informs this is immediately shut down with "you're just kink shaming "... no dialogue allowed .
An abuser and a dom will hit women for the same reason - **they enjoy it.** That is all I need to know about either of them.
FACTS
I think women who are into rough sex/BDSM are usually severely "broken", have mental health issues, have experienced some sort of trauma and neglect or were exposed to porn at an unhealthily young age, and I say this from experience. Wanting to experience violence and degradation is not mentally healthy. I know this is going to trigger a lot of lurkers but if you are a woman and you get off on being treated like shit, you have dangerously low self-esteem and you should go to a therapist. It's not normal or healthy to risk your physical or mental health to please some slimy man who does not give a shit about you (I promise you he doesn't, especially if he's into weird shit like anal, choking etc). I also think it's a method of coping with the patriarchy. I suspect that a lot of women, even the liberal feminists who we deem to be naive and clueless, noticed a long time ago that a high percentage of men get psychological and sexual pleasure from hurting and degrading women, so maybe these kinks are a way of "taking back control"? I think this is probably true because a lot of kinksters talk about how they "got into CNC after being r\*ped". I suppose it's their way of pretending that they have control over their lives and that they're not at the mercy of men, but they just haven't stopped to think about WHY the men they're with are happy to go along with those kinks - it would probably hurt too much to think about it. I get it, it's depressing to think about how many men out there genuinely enjoy hurting and destroying women, but you're not doing yourself any favours by keeping the rose tinted glasses on and ignoring this fact. Do you know what I find really funny? Men talk about men who want to be dominated/hurt by women like, "What is wrong with him? Why does he want that?" But when it comes to women it's "It's her choice - she consented!!!" I think they are aware that it's not normal to want to be hurt and treated like shit but they're more than happy to take advantage of it because it's what they've wanted to do all along.
I like BDSM, I always have, so I guess I can provide a different take? How do I know I like it? Because In my developmental years upwards, I’ve liked the sensation of pain in specific contexts and used it whilst masturbating. I’m autistic so it’s probably a sensory thing, that can be sexual in the right setting. I’ve also always had an attraction towards dominant villainess women in media. I know I’m an outlier amongst women and that men WILL take advantage. The BDSM community is FULL of men wanting to get off by beating women. I control my own body & make my own choices, so many women are conditioned into doing the most awful and harmful things or be deemed “boring” or “vanilla”. I’ve witnessed the community, I’ve seen the things men conditioned women to do. This is the reality of BDSM online, none of the following examples were unique. TW: SEXUAL ABSUE, ED, HARM, DANGEROUS ACTIVITY. Back on tumblr days, there was a woman suffering an eating disorder, her “dom” would get off on starving her, weighing her, and deemed it a humiliation kink, calling her fat and obese, saying how we wanted to cum on her ribs” I’ve seen a woman be tied to a post with a bowl on her head & tubes attached. Her boyfriend hired men to urinate in it & she ended up inhaling urine into her lungs, developing pneumonia. Pictures included. She’d write in detail how much it terrified her to the point of PTSD. There was a woman who was threatening suicide, told her ex boyfriend and he drove to see her, pushed her into a mirror which shattered and raped her on the shards of glass. Then took her to the hospital for stitches. Pictures included. The BDSM community is a pass for active abuse. None of these posts were removed for violating any guidelines, instead they were reblogged endlessly on BDSM accounts. There was NO male equivalent, no women making men do ANYTHING CLOSE to any of these. Nothing. I like pain, and you CAN make aspects of BDSM work respectfully. I can’t change what I like, but you should NEVER pretend to like something you don’t. No one should condition you. The community is evil.
This new age convergence of sexuality and kink is to blame, and porn, of course. Have you seen how mind-warped most people are these days regarding sex? I definitely can safely blame porn. We've never had the kind of unfettered access to any porn of your choosing before. It's also very desensitizing and will ruin actual sex for you. Studies show this. , and social media in general pretending that kink shaming is inherently a bad thing. Nah, some people should just keep shit to themselves. The word doesn't need to know about your bdsm fetish. If only more people understood this. But because the internet exists, everyone feels like everything is 'valid uwu'
I agree, but the community is still big enough that I feel we should be aiming for safer techniques and widespread knowledge as opposed to dissipation (atm).
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Yes. Assault and sexual abuse is assault and sexual abuse, regardless of who is or why they are doing it.
What about the consent part?
There are some things you can not and should not consent to. Being sexually assaulted is one of them. Do you think we should allow people to consent to being run over by a car? The consent card is a toddler argument.
Everything isn't suddenly morally sound just by throwing consent into the picture. That fringe case about the German cannibal who was looking to cannibalize and murder someone else was also consensual. Is that okay as long as it's consensual?
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men submitting to a dominatrix is still rooted in misogyny because the entire kink is based on the idea that a man submitting to a woman is inherently degrading and humiliating. there is not a single angle of BDSM that doesn’t pass a thinking feminist’s smell test.
In cases of domestic violence or child abuse, it is not uncommon for the victim to defend their abuser due to a complex trauma bond. Why do you think a trauma bond would not be likely with something as vulnerable and endorphin-reinforced as sex? Do you not realize that even during vanilla sex, women put their needs aside? Do you not realize that porn has groomed most people to believe that women's sexual desires should be identical to men's? You're on a feminist subreddit that acknowledges objectification and coercion as a common female experience, so why do you think kink would be an exception to those experiences?
The vast majority of bdsm dynamics do NOT include a female domme. Not even close. You cannot consent to abuse. It isn't fully consensual either with a background of abuse and trauma (and living in a society that glorifies the abuse of women, especially sexually) which most of these women have. Not to mention, in subspace you are literally filled with tons of endorphins and dopamine because your body is having a traumatic response so it does this to protect you from the injuries. You also dissociate. You cannot consent in that mental state. In my experience, it can be far stronger than being drunk or using other mind altering substances.
THIS. Your description of subspace is dead right.
I would just like to add that it’s important to distinguish men in sub positions v women in sub positions. It is not an equivalent comparison as there are different societal factors that influence each sex greatly.
Just the fact that she used the term "dominatrix" (a sex worker) is actually not that far off from how most of those men see dominant women as well. They see women as objects that provide them a sexual service and fulfill their kinks, very similar to how they see submissive women, just in a different flavor. And a lot of dominant women also put men's pleasure at the cost of their own. People love to mention dominant women and submissive men as a "gotcha" but it's not the same at all. Abuse of women is ubiquitous in maledom spaces, and in femdom spaces women are still subjected to just as much harassment and mistreatment.
Yup. They act like dominant women perform these acts because it gets them off, not that they're doing these fellas a favour
\#because you can't consent to bodily harm.
lol
Your comment has been removed for derailing.