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There is a heap of writing about BDSM, mostly erotic stories — fantasies conceived mostly of unrealistic scenarios in which nymphettes discover that they really like being cruelly abused by the true master, an insatiable young male with a huge cock. Fantasy is for those who have nothing better to do.
The real world is rather different: there is less writing about that. This page is about the real world. It is written because many people have adopted the language of leather without demonstrating an adequate understanding of the significances.
The real world includes two groups of BDSM players whose activities may be usefully distinguished, contrasted even. One is the play party practice of BDSM — a phenomenon which has developed largely since the early '90s and may now be observed in private and commercial premises in many countries. The other is a school of thought which goes back much further and was epitomised in the secret homosexual leather societies of the 1960s. I shall refer to this as Erotic Power Exchange (EPE).
The traditions of the secret leather societies turned importantly on a sense of trust and honour. Those traditions have been written about by others (eg. Guy Baldwin - Sacred Cows make the best Hamburger pick "archive" then "restoration1.html") and inform the subject here.
There is much talk of 'edge-play' in BDSM. It is in edge-play that most get their strongest experiences and which attracts the most conversation. What is it that makes edge-play so powerful? The edge is where it is at. The edge is the dividing line between what we are prepared to admit and accept, and that which lies beyond - what we truly fear. Beyond the edge our fear is real.
It is suggested that there are only two human emotions, positive affect and negative affect — in colloquial terms love and fear — and all the other feelings we experience are variations or compounds of these. These affects are also compounded with motivation so that our rational needs and desires also become part of the total equation. This makes for a great variety of feelings that we may experience.
Freud postulated the importance of the subconscious and Jung talked of 'The Shadow' as that part of our subconscious which we would deny - because we are afraid of it. Some contemporary thinking sees subconscious thoughts as still accessible and less deeply buried than Freud suggested, but never-the-less there are clearly some thought processes which are not at the level of our conscious awareness. In many respects our fears spring from this part of our mind. We are afraid of some elements of ourselves, those desires and feelings we dare not admit, those limits beyond which we do not trust.
Consent is the subject of another page, however my usage requires that consent can only be given by a person who has adequate knowledge of the scope of activities being consented to — this is "informed consent". This does not prevent surprises — such surprises may be specifically included in the expected scope. It is only necessary for the surprising activity to be within the scope of activities reasonably expected.
When a submissive consents to play which is expected to test limits, the consent is to venture into that shadow of fear and denial, to go to the edge of trust and perhaps to demonstrate that trust can extend even further than was previously believed. Any limits are the submissive's boundaries of conscious acceptability, and any play beyond those limits is by definition non-consensual.
Edge play or pushing limits may thus be seen as marginally non-consensual play. Many people will argue that this "consensual non-consent" is a fundamental part of their relationship.
A submissive giving informed consent must be aware of the kind of play that might be in prospect but may be unaware of the specifics, and thus still apprehensive and taut with anticipation, because what is being consented to is highly significant. This tension gives EPE its potency. Without the apprehension there is no challenge to our fear and the play is insipid.
When people negotiate a 'public' scene (such as at a play-party) there is a strong expectation that the limits negotiated and consented to will not be exceeded. Such scenes may provide particular delights for the players however there is usually a strong expectation is that play will be SSC and that the agreed limits will be respected.
In the context of such public BDSM play consent is highly qualified: the submissive is entitled to expect that there will be no significant surprises and that play will not challenge the submissive's deeply held (or denied) feelings. This does not mean that those feelings are not there of course.
The nature of consent is pivotal. Consent in negotiated play is fundamentally conditioned by the environment (social and emotional) in which play is to take place. Negotiated consent to bondage or to being flogged is just that — and does not extend to being subjected to emotional stress or the challenge of hitherto unacceptable fear, and the players retain their acceptable degree of social decorum. As Dragon says in BDSM for Beginners, "This is permission not submission." This is BDSM play but it is not EPE.
When you meet Ms Jones at the supermarket she presents a public image which is (usually) an acceptable facade or social veneer. She presents an appearance which is acceptable both to her and to most of the public she meets. To have an intimate relationship with Ms Jones we must be able to get behind this social veneer to meet the real person.
Many (most?) marriages only partly drop these facades. A sexual relationship does not require intimacy (see my page Intimacy) and it is common that people have many issues of their personal feelings which they are unwilling to discuss with their partner.
A submissive entering a power exchange relationship consents to the exploration of emotional boundaries and the limits of trust, and that potentially requires the dropping of these facades. This is territory where we may expect to be challenged, not just physically but emotionally, where we may be required to redefine our understanding of embarrassment, where our presumptions about our appearance and personal image are tested and may be significantly reconstructed, where we may be challenged to discriminate what is real from what is merely believed.
Clearly this cannot happen if one is pretending about what we think or feel. An intimate relationship depends on a frankness and honesty about our thoughts and feelings which is incompatible with the social veneer we would usually maintain. A girl dating may be careful to look her best to impress her guy - that is the veneer. If she enters an EPE relationship with him she must be willing also to look her worst, to show all her true colours. (She may also expect the same of him of course.)
Power exchange may spring from a negotiated scene, but necessarily goes far beyond negotiation. To be fully satisfying it demands great sensitivity and understanding by the dominant who must know the submissive well before beginning. It is not necessary that the scene be non-consensual; EPE play need not involve pain, or even touching, to be effective. What is required is the surrender of control in a way which exposes the submissive most intimately.
However it may look to the uninitiated, power exchange is not about the dominant gaining control. Neither is it about the submissive losing control, but rather of deliberately giving it up. (I can lose control simply by indulging blind anger — that is loss not surrender.) This surrender is demonstrated when the dominant has access to what was previously secret or denied.
Very few people would be willing to play this sort of scene in a public place or before witnesses. Sometimes of course that may be deliberately sought — the dominant may choose to challenge the submissive's self image in this context, however it is very likely that many witnesses will find such a scene quite disturbing to watch. Scenes of significant power exchange are very intimate and are appropriately kept very private.
Psychological health is about not being thrown or unduly upset by unexpected events. Dysfunction is losing our focus because we encounter dissonance between what we expect (which is often unrealistic) and what we see or feel. Psychological health is freedom from unreasonable expectation of others or ourselves; from believing inflexibly that something "must" be achieved, or that so-and-so "should" be the case (see any of Albert Ellis's eminently readable books on Rational-Emotive Therapy for a constructive and detailed development of this). When we let go our irrational beliefs we are able to allow others (and ourselves) our human limitations and learn to live happily with them.
Erotic power exchange need not be limited to sexual activities. Indeed, there is no clear line between the sexual and other aspects of our social relationships. When we engage in EPE it is inevitable that the exposure of our selves will have implications throughout all our activities. As I expose my innermost self and open my fears to my lover, I see myself more realistically. In every case this makes me stronger.
With intelligent and sensitive EPE we can learn to deal with many problem issues that confront us in our lives. Barriers of fear which are easily denied, may be gently confronted and explored until they are understood and thus lose their power over us. Fear of exposure, fear of loss, and worst of all fear of our fear, is the fuel of erotic power exchange. Confronting these, overcoming and learning to live with them makes us immeasurably stronger.
This is not just sensation play. EPE is exploration and revealing of our innermost selves and learning our own weaknesses. BDSM play may be a platform from which it is commonly launched, but EPE is something else altogether.
Peter
An interesting discussion of these issues may also be found in Defining The Bdsm Life Style: The Essential Prerequisite — the transcript of a talk by Jon Jacobs and Polly Peachum
Original: February ‘04
This page is part of “Living in the Light”
found at: http://www.tassie.net.au/~phoban/
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