a rhetorical invoice

Every once in a while, the copilot sends me an article on M/S to see what I think, and pretty much every time, I can’t get through it.  Since she’s requested my thoughts, here’s a catalog of recurring problems and unanswered questions, for future reference.

On violence

People use the word “violence” in a myriad of confusing and contradictory ways when they talk about kink, so I figure I might as well get this out of the way.  But for anyone with any kind of interest in ethics, especially any kind of interest in how to class anti-asexuality, this discussion might still be relevant.

(FL update)

“The sub is the one who’s really in control”

[cw: kink talk, D/s talk, consent talk, rape mention, food mention]

I’ve heard this line multiple times now, so it’s getting its own post here for the next time it comes up again.

this is just to say

I don’t have high hopes for the input of a White dude who practices M/s, wrote a book on it without even acknowledging the certain specters invoked by the word “slavery,” and who freaking calls himself a “shaman,” as if that term isn’t racially-coded as hell.

☣

[cw: kink community, violence/violation]

Information on open/public munches (informal meal-centered get-togethers) is… tough to come by if you’re not on Fetlife, but I was able to find a couple of groups in my city on Meetup instead.  I’ve been waffling for a while now on whether to show up to any of them.

Just last night, I sent a text to the copilot, asking about both groups and the names of the organizers, since she was involved in the Scene in this city for a while and I thought there was a chance she might know of them and have the inside scoop.  I figured probably one out of the two might be bad news and one out of the two might be either unknown to her or just fine.

Got back a text saying:

“Both of those leader-people have been accused of consent violations.  I’d steer clear of them.”

o-o

Here’s what makes this even more creepy to me.  When you look on the About Us page of the one that declares that it’s run by an experienced “veteran,” it even has a warning to exercise caution and that “Although they are the exception rather than the rule, predators DO exist in this subculture, and some of them even lead groups like this one.”

See, this is why I have trust issues.

Nonconsensual submission

When I think about D/s things that creep me out, it’s easy to conjure up scenarios of nonconsensual (and “consensual”) domination — and so it occurred to me to wonder, is the reverse, nonconsensual submission, something conceivable?  Isn’t that… kind of impossible?  Is that a thing?  Does that happen?

And then I realized that it’s kind of, sort of… already happened to me.

practice what you preach

I’m not going to write much on the subject right now because I am Tired, but the day I start believing the wider BDSM community’s claims about being overall “better” about consent than average (or even overall competent at all) is the day the copilot comes back from a BDSM convention without any stories of having witnessed a consent violation.

if that’s what it is, then what isn’t it

How to even start this…

Well.

It’s disconcerting that when I deliberately tried to write about scenes without D/s, twice now I’ve gotten responses that basically amount to “Actually, that is D/s.”  And by “disconcerting,” I mean it feels like I can’t write anything vaguely kinky without being conscripted.

“safeword games”

[cw: consent talk, framed within kinky contexts but probably generally applicable; impact play (hitting); creepy doms]