Right doesn’t equal sexy.

There’s already a lot of debate around the ethics of engaging with (and, specifically, enjoying) unethical pieces of media (…however that might be defined). This isn’t about that so much.

This post is about the opposite.

Content Notes: sexuality and porn talk (non-explicit); morality & pleasure talk, including possible scrupulosity triggers.

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.

Judgment Sets

Here’s another one of those things, besides the word “violence,” that gets confusing in ethical delineations of harm — assigning evaluation criteria based on who an act “involves.”

Appeal in Asymmetry

A post on relationship asymmetry, whether long-term or situational, because everything else written on the subject drains me and apparently if you want something done you have to do it yourself.

Centering

Discussions of how to call out a perpetrator rarely centre on the survivor’s needs. “Avoiding defensiveness” provides the pretence to shift the discussion back to the needs of the perpetrator. Once a perpetrator has been called out, a similar framework is used to undermine support for a survivor. The false supporters endlessly reassure us that they are not angry that a perpetrator was called out, it’s only the way they were called out. The fact that a survivor would speak openly about their experiences is seemingly taken as more violent and controversial than the violence of those experiences themselves, which warrant very little discussion by comparison. How a survivor’s public response might reflect their needs does not seem to occur to the false supporters as they are so preoccupied with their need to preserve an artificial social peace. Again we see liberal tendencies rearing their head, as the false supporters’ insistence on denouncing the resistance of survivors, on claiming to also despise the Culture of Rape while simultaneously diminishing any fight against it, is reminiscent of liberals who claim to agree with the grievances of protesters and yet condemn any actions they might take to address them.

—Betrayal: a critical analysis of rape culture in anarchist subcultures, bolding added.  I have my misgiving about this zine but it’s got some good stuff and I might be posting more quotes from it soon.

☣

[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.

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.

more fragments on pleasure and behavioral direction

The copilot asked me to write more about this.

Fetlife talk

Since Smurf/kinkyasexuals has come off hiatus, I decided to send them a message about Fetlife (with the links mentioned here).  This was their response.

It’s about four paragraphs of “Most of the users on FL are aware of the problems and we have no better options.”

After getting that response, I’m thinking I should have explained myself better.

Here are some quotes of posts in which Smurf has recommended Fetlife in the past:

Anon: [snipped]  …Where do you find partners, if at all? I am so out of place both in the kink and the asexual community, I’m not sure how to do this.

Smurf: [snipped]  … If online, I recommend fetlife.com: it’s primarily a social networking site, so you’re (only a little bit) less likely to have people hitting you up for sex.  There are also various kinky and asexual groups on there to mingle and ask questions in.  And you can find out what your local scene is like, if there are munches or play parties, and hit people up and make friends and go from there. (link to post)

Anon: Do you perhaps have any advice for asexuals on joining the kink community for the first time?  I’m 21 and interested in maybe going to local meet ups in the future but I’m not sure how ace-friendly they are likely to be.  Are there any key ways of telling one way or another, that you happen to know of?

Smurf: Honestly, not any one way more than the other.  I would suggest perhaps joining a site like fetlife.com, searching for a local munch, see if it has a group associated with it, and ask.  That’s the best way to do it without showing up to a munch unannounced and asking and potentially putting yourself in harms way.  In general, though, munches should be safe spaces.  There’s no way to guarantee how LGBTQIAP+ friendly a particular munch is before joining, unless you happen to know someone who’s been involved with the group before. (link to post)

In these posts, both inquirers imply themselves to be newbies to the kink community.  Smurf brings up Fetlife as if it’s something they may not have heard of before, which is a reasonable guess.  If it’s something they haven’t ever heard of before, then they can’t possibly be already aware of the TOU enforcement issues or the fact that the site deliberately misrepresents how secure it is.  Smurf did not bring up any of that alongside the recommendation.

(Also, when I discussed this with the copilot, she also added that FL is very much not an accommodating place for anyone sex-repulsed, given that explicit sexual imagery would be impossible to avoid.  This is, admittedly, par for the course when it comes to the kink world.  However, I think it’s important to tell people of what they’re likely to encounter instead of taking the “you should just know to expect that” approach, especially on a blog catering to asexuals.)

Anyway.

Seeing those posts initially, I assumed that Smurf was only omitting those details because they were not aware of them.

So I sent in that submission with the links.

Now I know that Smurf does know and has known about the issues with Fetlife for some time, including when those posts were made.

I’ll try to make my intended message more clear this time:

I think telling newbies to join Fetlife without warning them about the site’s deceptive practices is irresponsible, and I think the recommendation should be paired with those warnings in the future.

technique, theory, and criticism kinkspam

(kinkspam = “kink” + “linkspam.” bad joke.)

Through persistence, I’ve found some of the kinds of things I would have wanted shared with me when I started here and here (and long before then, really, but those posts offer my personal context re: why I’m interrogating kink).  In the interest of anyone else who may find themselves in a tangential position, I want to share these with y’all, too.

Or in other words: *LMM’s Washington voice* Let me tell you what I wish I’d known…

[general subject matter: abuse, ethics, bondage, and (un-)D/s]

Disclaimer: this linkspam has been curated with a sex-averse reader in mind and includes detailed notes, descriptions, and content warnings for most links; I’ve tried to make this post safely navigable for abuse survivors, but bear in mind, if you venture out by clicking the other links you may find through these, all bets are off.