Private fantasy, public reality: The RCMP, BDSM, and violence against women

[redqueen]

Last edited Mon Jul 9, 2012, 06:37 PM - Edit history (2)

http://feministcurrent.com/5600/private-fantasy-public-reality-the-rcmp-bdsm-and-violence-against-women/

Photos of a member of the RCMP, Cpl. Jim Brown, engaged in BDSM scenes were discovered online recently. The scenes were violent, degrading, according to many news reports, “reminiscent of (serial killer Robert Pickton's) crimes.”

The fact that Brown played a role in the Pickton murder investigation was particularly upsetting to the public.

(snip)

When the VPD were found to have been watching porn on the job instead of investigating the missing and murdered women, what we pretend is ‘private’ became public. When Catherine Galliford came out about the years of sexual harassment and sexual assault she faced while she was a member of the RCMP, what was once ‘private’ suddenly became ‘public’. We’ve long treated abuse as a ‘private’, ‘family matter’. We know better now. Brown’s ‘private’ life, wherein he fetishized the abuse and degradation of women, is not *just* a private issue. This is a case where what one does ‘in private’ clearly has a public impact. The ‘private’ behaviour of misogynist men is not simply a private fantasy, but it is a public reality — whether or not the men are outed about their behaviour.

(snip)

An article was published on Thursday about Terri-Jean Bedford, one of the women who brought forward the challenge to Canada’s prostitution laws (Bedford v. Canada) in an effort to legalize brothels. It noted her desire to open another house of bondage (the last bawdy house she ran was raided and shut down, leading her to file the case). The article touches on Bedford’s history of abuse, which she endured for much of her early life, beginning from the time she was a young child, but making no outright connection between her history of trauma and her life-path. Her private life, the abuse that was inflicted upon her, is a public reality. Many, many women have similar histories, hundreds of thousands of girls experience sexual assault and abuse throughout their lives. This is not a ‘private’ issue. This is a public reality. When abusing women is legitimized as a legal ‘business’ (which it would be were brothels to be legalized in Canada), those women’s histories of abuse is capitalized on. Prostitution sexualizes abuse. Fantasy becomes reality. Men’s ‘private’ fantasies are a reality for the women they abuse.


...

Really tough deciding what to cut.

[eridani]

1. Putting imagery like that in the public sphere changes its meaning entirely

--and I agree with sanctions against employees who do it in connection with their jobs.

However, I am seriously uncomfortable with a description of the BDSM subculture as being about male degradation of women. If that was true, how could it be that submissives significantly outnumber dominants all across the board? That applies for men and women, and for all sexual orientations. Male submissives are very often people with a great deal of money and power in the world. If they were acting out dominance of women in BDSM, why that role choice?

I personally suspect that there are more subs than doms for the same reason that there are more people in the audience than on stage, more readers than writer, more diners than chefs, etc.

The sense of sexual entitlement that is common among men in the general culture is the problem, and it is not at all the same thing as imagery common among a much narrower subculture.

[MadrasT]

2. I generally agree.

Also, in that subculture, the submissive is actually the one in charge. They establish the boundaries and give their consent to engage in specific activities.

Yes, there are some abusive dominants, but no more than in the general population.

(I am speaking with a decade of personal experience in that community.)

BDSM has its own rules, and it is not always as it appears to an observer.

[redqueen]

4. About the sub being the one in charge...

That truism has been touted widely, and also criticized, due to the way this issue has been buried and ignored.

http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/theres-a-war-on-part-1-troubles-been-brewing/
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/29/real_abuse_in_bdsm/
http://www.sfbg.com/sexsf/2012/01/23/bad-kind-pain-kitty-stryker-talks-sexual-abuse-bdsm-community

Not exactly a new issue, either.
http://say-nine.com/02/this-isnt-play-bdsm-and-rape/

[MadrasT]

5. I agree there is actual abuse in the community.

People are reluctant to talk about it. It is a problem, and I am glad people are looking at it.

Again, I don't think it is disproportionate to the rest of the world.

I don't participate anymore because I got bored with it. There was no abuse in my relationships, and the submissive was absolutely calling the shots, every time, in cases where the sub was female and in cases where the sub was male.

And when it spills over into the public sphere? Absolutely unacceptable. That is done without the consent of those affected.

Yes there are sick people in the community. I don't think the community, itself, is sick.

We can disagree, that is OK with me.

[redqueen]

6. Yep!

I love that in our group we can disagree about these things and just accept that we won't always agree on everything.

It's awesome.

[eridani]

9. In Seattle, the local BDSM community has a hotline for abuse

Also flyers about how abusers use the sub role as an excuse for abuse.

(Me, I'm strictly vanilla, but I've always believed the old consciousness raising group maxim that people are experts on their own experiences.

[redqueen]

3. IMO the fetishiziation of dominance and submission is inherently unhealthy.

That's all there is to it. I understand it's a free choice and people who consent are fully within their rights to do so. In all my experience with that culture, the female subs I met all had abuse issues. I know that was the case for me, and I suppose this kind of play is cheaper than therapy. It's also rife with actual, non consensual abuse.

This society fetishizes dominance, submission, unequal power. Is it really just a coincidence that we've also put up with bullying so long, made excuses for it, etc. That it's so easy for the public to go along with wars, to support the police despite widespread evidence of abuses of power, etc.

And to the stalkers, please find serious things to discuss. Mocking me is not doing anything productive or in any way promoting the interests of men.

On edit: Nevermind, I forgot that my complaints about the portrayal of women in video games, the portrayal of women in 'realistic' tv shows about whorehouses, and now my posting about the fact that an officer involved in the investigation of a serial killer was busy watching porn while on the job, and posing in pictures similar to the crime scenes they were working on... all of these issues have served as what apparently to you are good excuses to post ever more super sexxxy pictures of women in your group. Carry on. It's good to know where your priorities lie.

[eridani]

11. Portrayal of women in the culture at large, including video games, is a far more

--serious problem than the imagery of a minority sexual culture. Again, the majority of men (straight and gay) are submissive. This is the exact opposite of commonly available (fashion, news, video games) degrading imagery of women in which male dominance is assumed.

[redqueen]

12. In my limited experience I only ever encountered one male sub.

ALL the rest were doms. This is only about a couple dozen men, and I'm fully aware that the plural of anecdote isn't data... but the main argument I'm making isn't that it depends on which sex gets off on being the abuser or the abusee.

It's just the simple fact that it is, IMO, unhealthy to fetishize abusive relationships. I think too many people engage in the behavior thoughtlessly, and IMO that is harmful. I don't expect or want anything to be banned, I just think mindfulness about the dynamics involved is important... as well as serious and not token measures to protect those most vulnerable to being abused.

[eridani]

16. Female pro doms will tell you that submissive men are the only kind they know about

A perusal of any "alternative" weekly will indicate their services for sale. The only male equivalents are for the most part gay. Of all the possible gender/orientation combinations. heterosexual female subs are the group that is by far the most likely to keep their sex lives strictly at the personal fantasy level, simply because it is hard to find heterosexual male doms that will not at some level confuse sexual role-playing with real life. Even if they are trustworthy, how is a woman to know?

In the leather subculture, it is common for people to sometimes override their usual sexual preference just because kinky people are a minority, and finding trustworthy people to play with isn't easy, even in populated urban centers. I know of at least one female sub who will only play with gay male doms because 1) it is easier to trust them to not confuse BDSM roles with real life and 2) just sharing the LGBT subculture makes her more comfortable with gay men.

[redqueen]

18. I wonder how many female doms actually get off from abusing men,

as compared to those for whom it's just a job.

I also wonder how many female sadists would re-enact murder scenes for themselves and others to get off to.

[eridani]

19. Mostly it's a job. I have never seen an ad from a female pro sub--

--or for that matter, from a male pro dom. The RMCP guy was not any sort of sex worker, AFAIK, just a sick fuck publicizing his fantasies.

[loli phabay]

20. male subs

i think in my experience of the culture of bdsm the majority of males were sub, there are many parts of the scene its not all abuse, though some people find that is their fetish. the culture goes across the whole board of sex and all its corners.

[JNathanK]

7. Most female subs I've met have issues.

There's been a fair number that have taken an interest in me for whatever reason, I'm guessing cause I can come off as stern and aloof and I wear a lot of hard rock/punk type clothing, and all of them I've met have been victims of abuse.

[foo_bar]

8. I'm not sure if anecdotes can be extrapolated to society at large

I'm about as "vanilla" as it gets so my ox isn't terribly gored, although I have a vested interest in the subject as far as it pertains to people in my life (none of whom suffered sexual abuse, in their reckoning, but personal anecdotes are mainly useful for formulating stereotypes, as I understand it.)

One of the most persistent narratives in the popular and scholarly understanding of kink is that it is a result of childhood sexual abuse (see Weinberg 2006 for a bibliography). This argument is in fact articulated by a large number of kinky people in their self-explanatory narratives. It is also used by both psychiatry and radical feminism to depict kink as a disorder that is at least symptomatic of social wrongs, if not wrong in and of itself. Likewise, it is used to question the consent claims of kinky people, by arguing that they are traumatized and therefore incompetent to give meaningful consent.

<...>

While the inconsistencies in these surveys are very substantial, and warrant more research, we can make some provisional conclusions. The largest, best-designed study rejects any connection, but some studies do suggest that childhood abuse survivors are up to three times more likely to be kinky as adults. The mechanism has not been closely examined, but is most likely some type of conditioning or coping strategy, rather than guilt or low self-esteem.

In all events, abuse is not a robust etiology for kink as a whole: in every study, large majorities of kinky people report not having been sexually abused, and in the largest study (and the only study with a direct control group) there is no association whatsoever. Finally, it is clear that most abuse victims do not become kinky: if kink can serve as a coping strategy for abuse, it is only one such possibility among many.

http://kinkresearch.blogspot.com/2010/01/childhood-abuse-as-etiology.html?zx=20de057c6e514333

I think it's important to note that child abuse was once (and in some circles, continues to be) perceived as an antecedent to homosexuality ("In evangelical circles, sexual abuse is frequently offered as a major cause of homosexuality, if not the major cause..." 1,2), and I suspect there's a grain of statistical truth as far as traumatic childhood experiences portend non-normative sexual practices, or at least more visible ones ("A common finding in sexual abuse survivors is that they are more highly sexualized than their peers. (e.g. Saderson 2006 pp. 362-363)" Id.), but I think there's a larger issue regarding the ways society marginalizes taboo sexualities for the sake of political or psycho-medical expediency, while the mills of psychologists grind slowly:

Sadism and masochism have a history of being stigmatized medically. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) first classified them as a “sexual deviation” (APA, 1952, 1968) and later “sexual disorders” (APA, 1980). In response to lobbying on the part of BDSM groups who pointed to the absence of evidence supporting the pathologization of sadism and masochism, the APA took a step toward demedicalizing SM (Moser & Kleinplatz, 2005). The current definition in the DSM-IV-TR hinges the classification of “disorder” on the presence of distress or nonconsensual behaviors2 (APA, 2000). Drafts of the forthcoming DSM available on the Web emphasize that paraphilias (a broad term that includes SM interests) “are not ipso facto psychiatric disorders” (APA, 2010).

Demedicalization removes a major barrier to the creation of outreach, education, anti-stigma campaigns and human services. In 1973, the DSM changed its classification of homosexuality, which had also been categorized as a “sexual disorder,” and much de-stigmatization followed in the wake of that decision (Kilgore et al., 2005). With demedicalization, sex educators can adopt reassuring and demedicalizing language about SM, and outreach efforts are better able to address stigma in society at large.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3382736/

In the new proposals for the DSM-V, alternative sexual behavior has been depathologized. The American Psychiatric Association's Paraphilias Subworkgroup's DSM revisions acknowledge that you can be a fetishist, transvestite, sexual sadist or sexual masochist without having a mental disorder.

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs003/1102908923221/archive/1103050720626.html

While the DSM-V isn't a done deal, it seems that at least the APA in its majestic equality is moving away from the de facto pathologization of alternative sexualities that it previously classified as deviations, then disorders, then conditional disorders. Anyway... I've read feminist (and Marxist) critiques of BDSM in the past (the Marxist argument was that S&M recapitulates the unequal power exchanges modeled by capitalism, and participation in sadomasochistic rituals ultimately reflects the eroticization of economic bondage, as it were, and complicity with the bourgeoisie, and I can't entirely dismiss the thesis after that James Spader movie), but whether nature or social conditioning is to "blame" for the phenomenon, I think it's fair to recognize that BDSM might be a sexual orientation decided relatively early in life (although there's some controversy over the "being" vs. "doing" aspects of the identity, some of which mirrors past debates in the GLBT community: "Kolmes, Stock, and Moser (2006) noticed variation in respondents they surveyed: for some people who engage in BDSM it is an alternative sexual identity, and for others ‘“sexual orientation’ does not seem an appropriate descriptor”" Ibid.), and as such it seems unfair to generalize ("inherently unhealthy", "most have...issues&quot about people who may have little choice as far as their predilections are concerned, the vast majority of whom haven't suffered the sort of childhood sexual abuse that would arguably rob them of agency ("arguably" because I don't necessarily agree with the "incompetent to give meaningful consent" premise referenced above, but I can understand its utility in feminist theory at least in describing a gray area between volition and involuntary conditioning.)

[MadrasT]

10. Thanks that was really interesting.

This one is definitely a sticky wicket to navigate from a feminist perspective, especially if one is not on the "sex positive anything goes" bandwagon.

I am *not* a "sex positive" feminist, but I also don't have a big problem with safe, sane, consensual BDSM.

Not even sure how to reconcile that in my own head.

[seabeyond]

14. i know nothing about it. i know no one that has participated.

and i really have no interest in reading about it. there is nothing for me to reconcile.

i do not have to be an advocate in all things.

i am about the same with strippin and prostitution.

there is choice.

i can also recognize the abuse in these situtations. i ca recognize that many were abused as children. runaways. ect... (not referring to bdsm because i dont know about this)

[redqueen]

13. I disagree with pathologizing BDSM.

I also don't exactly agree with the use of 'meaningful consent' in this context.

When I refer to the lack of consent in BDSM play I don't mean that someone such as myself who was abused might be consenting to the scene due to previous abuse... I mean subs who use safe words and are ignored, who are afraid to use safe words, etc.

[seabeyond]

15. i hear that is an issue. nt

[eridani]

17. If you personally know of any subs in that position, you need to point them to

--a hotline, preferably one run by people who are part of a local BDSM scene. These folks are acutely aware of the abuse potential, and can provide culturally sensitive support.