Thursday, June 24, 2010

KinkForAll versus Stop Porn Culture: guess who’s filthier!

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Kink events, Myths and misconceptions, Politics of sex, Vanilla life, Writing and blogging

Over at the Washington City Paper, Amanda Hess wrote about her experiences at KinkForAll Washington DC 2 and Dr. Gail Dines’ Stop Porn Culture anti-porn activist briefing on The Hill last Tuesday. Her column is well worth a read, and exposes the should-be-obvious blatant hypocrisy with which fear-mongering anti-porn crusaders conduct themselves on a regular basis:

When it comes to anti-porn activism, sex sells. At the briefing, Wheelock College professor Gail Dines becomes perhaps the first person to utter the words “cum dumpster” at a Capitol Hill press event. Over the past 20 years, Dines has made a living observing such degradations. As the crowd picks at fruit plates, she rattles off a selection of titles she’s researched, such as Anally Ripped Whores and Gag on My Cock.

Where Maymay displays spreadsheets, the porn critics on Capitol Hill show pictures.

I encourage you to read the whole thing. It’s very succinct, and all told I think quite fair.

Last week, Amanda contacted me and asked me some questions for her story in an email. I want to share that email here because I think comparing and contrasting the published article with the email interview is illustrative for anyone who finds themselves in a spotlight.

OK, here are my questions for you:

1. First off, are you comfortable with me printing your full name?

Yes, but I’d strongly prefer you to use my more well-known pseudonym, ‘maymay.’ I’m not asking this because my real name is hidden or because I’m not “out” in any way, but you and I both know how much work online reputation management is, and I’d appreciate your assistance in helping me keep the quality of life online I currently have.

2. How about your age?

Go for it. I’m 25.

3. Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ bulletin suggested that some people had warned you that your ideas on Kink-for-All being open to the public could get you labeled as a “pedophile.” Had you ever been labeled a “pedophile” before that bulletin was sent out?

No. The first instance of those accusations was a direct result of Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ bulletin.

4. Some background on the first KFADC: What inspired the relocation from Bethesda Chevy-Chase high school to the Montgomery County Executive Office Building?

First off, let me say I’m no more privy to those conversations than anyone else is. The relocation is well-documented in the KinkForAll mailing list archives, where it was announced—that’s how I learned about the relocation. The KinkForAll mailing list and its archives are intentionally public in an effort to keep KinkForAll as a community as transparent, accessible, and accountable as possible.

Anyway, for the nitty-gritty about the relocation, see this thread: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/22853a9dc1f73131/d4ba9972d600038e

Quoting from Nikolas, Basically, the school board is prepared to make a big deal [legally and politically] about KinkForAll being at the school. […] One part of their argument is that there’s an increased chance of sex offenders being present on school grounds […] They are also invoking the school’s responsibility to shield children from material they deem inappropriate.

Obviously, I feel that the school board’s concerns are misguided, and I find it interesting that the concerns they cited are exactly the same concerns Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks and other critics of KinkForAll cite in an unsuccessful attempt to paint the event as “obscene” and “a danger to the community” in which it is held. The similarity of the concerns showcase the necessity for a more judicious attitude not merely about KinkForAll, but sexuality as a whole. I spoke about the first KinkForAll Washington DC’s relocation and its wider implications on the perception of youth sexuality at that event. The video of my presentation is available online, and has received more than 3,000 views in a matter of months:

http://vimeo.com/7783159

I think it’s unfortunate that some people jump to horrific conclusions about our community-based sexuality education initiative without doing basic research such as attending one of the events themselves. I mean, the unconferences are designed to be very accessible; they’re totally free.

5. In Boston, what inspired the move from the University of Massachusetts-Boston to Boston University?

Once again, I don’t have any special knowledge here. All of the information I have is publicly available on the mailing list. In this case, the thread you should read is here: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/d90859b29f491e1d/0409ff624bc21cca

I asked for this information in the thread: It would also be beneficial if Trish or whoever else has details about what *exactly* happened and also *why* UMass Boston is pulling out could share that information in writing[…].

The person who secured the original venue in the first place, Trish, said this in another email in the same thread: “There was a regime change in administration/coordination over the summer, and the commitments to give space to the old regime were not honored by the new regime.”

That’s all the information I have because that’s all the information on the mailing list. I again stress that I rely on the same sources that the public does for information about KinkForAll because those sources are one and the same. This is why KinkForAll is so transparent and so honest—the processes we use for producing unconferences are the exact same ones we use to document our activities and share them with the world. For more details on this venue change, you’ll have to ask UMass directly, or at least ask Trish.

Despite the fact that KinkForAll Boston lost its confirmed venue 8 days before the unconference was to be held, the unconference received no less than 3 alternative offers within a matter of days. Boston University was the venue ultimately chosen and the event was a wonderful success.

I think that this instance was a remarkable example of how KinkForAll really shines: the agility of the unconference model coupled with the passion of the unorganizers empowered the community to handle this major unforeseen hurdle with grace and speed. The host of KinkForAll Boston was the Women’s Resource Center at Boston University, the leader of which personally commented to me about how inspired she was and asked if future KinkForAll unconferences would be held at Boston University. I told her what I tell everyone who asks me that: KinkForAll happens whenever you want it to happen. If you want to have one, join the KinkForAll mailing list and ask for help unorganizing one yourself. :)

6. You’ve blogged about attempting to contact Hughes and Brooks about the bulletin. Did they ever respond to your requests?

A few days after Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ bulletin was distributed by the Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking listserve, I wrote a blog post directly addressing their concerns about KinkForAll unconferences, but I have yet to hear any response from them despite numerous personal invitations to dialogue. Go figure. That blog post is here:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/03/27/addressing-donna-m-hughes-and-margaret-brooks-concerns-over-kinkforall-unconferences/

I even personally invited both Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks to join the KinkForAll mailing list so that they could air their concerns to the community directly. I promised to help them liaise with the KinkForAll community at large and also reminded them that approaching our community as though it and I were one and the same devalued the contributions of the many committed unorganizers who actually produced most of the events. To date, I never saw a response either to my inbox or to the KinkForAll mailing list.

My correspondence to (and frustratingly not with) them are public, on my blog and on the KinkForAll mailing list, linked above and here: http://groups.google.com/group/kinkforall/browse_thread/thread/4020d397e88241ed/d129d5809c3a34d5#msg_0a2e3a25e924124a

Moreover, I think it’s worth pointing out that several other KinkForAll participants, notably KinkForAll Providence unorganizer Aida Manduley, also emailed Margaret Brooks, Donna M. Hughes, and their collaborator Melanie Shapiro personally. In addition to KinkForAll Providence, Aida organized a panel discussion at Brown University and invited all three academics to attend, but none of them did. Aida gave me permission to reprint her email to them, which I blogged about (along with information about the panel event, at which I spoke), here:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/04/23/panel-at-brown-university-when-educators-are-censors/

Naturally, I recorded the panel session in case Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks, or Melanie Shapiro might want to refer to the event after-the-fact, as they’d done to other events I’ve participated in previously. You can watch that video here:

http://maybemaimed.com/2010/05/08/certain-unalienable-rights/

As far as I’m aware, not one KinkForAll participant who has attempted to engage with these academics has received so much as an email reply. However, Donna M. Hughes and her colleagues have continued to publish misleading information about me, personally and by name, in more of their bulletins.

7. How do you feel about the anti-porn conferences recently held in Boston and D.C.? Can KFA attendees and anti-porn attendees find common ground somewhere?

If what anti-porn activists say can be believed, then I think KinkForAll participants and anti-porn conference attendees have the same goals. Dr. Gail Dines, who addressed Congress this past Tuesday, plainly said that porn has become the main source of sex education for boys and girls (and, presumably, differently-gendered young people who, y’know, also need sex education). This is one of the many problems that KinkForAll was carefully designed to address. Both KinkForAll participants and anti-porn activists want to see a world in which erotica intended to titillate rather than educate is NOT the primary source of sex education for anyone, young or old, because both groups fiercely believe that such material is not well-suited for the task of education.

Interestingly, KinkForAll Washington DC 2 was held the same day as Gail Dines’ Stop Porn Culture (SPC) conference, on June 12th, 2010. Several KinkForAll participants, including KinkForAll Providence unorganizer Aida Manduley and presenter Megan Andelloux, attended the SPC event where Donna M. Hughes was a prominent speaker. This resulted in some remarkable conversation on Twitter as the events’ hashtags intermingled, and I was heartened by Megan’s and Aida’s outreach. Their relentlessly respectful behavior in the face of what I can only describe as sheer contempt for their beliefs (Aida tweeted that Donna M. Hughes refused even to shake her hand) served to highlight the differences in KinkForAll participants’ mindsets versus those of anti-porn activists, and I hope I’ll continue to see positive change come from Aida and Megan’s efforts on that day.

8. Why do you think KFA scares some people?

KinkForAll acknowledges personal agency and engenders personal empowerment, two things that frighten every group that forces victimhood onto people, as anti-trafficking activists (such as Donna M. Hughes) often do to sex workers, and that anti-porn activists (such as Gail Dines) often do to men and women at large.

Moreover, KinkForAll’s principles, which presume everyone who participates regardless of race, creed, religion, age, (dis)ability, economic standing, sexual orientation, or gender has something of value to contribute, and its prioritizing of accessibility and serendipity by doing away with things like registration tickets and scheduling approval is a radical departure from more traditional conference and learning styles that many people, especially academics, are comfortable with. And we’ve all seen people fear what they find uncomfortable. So, I think KinkForAll scares the people mired in their fears rather than reaching for their dreams, and I think it appeals to optimistic people more likely to see possibility and diversity in uncertainty, rather than seeing persecution and disempowerment wherever they look.

I hope that one day, the people scared of KinkForAll—and possibly even me by association—will feel intrigued and safe enough to attend one of the unconferences, where they’ll be greeted with a smile and a handshake.

9. Why is it important to broadcast as much info about the KFA proceedings online as possible?

First and foremost, KinkForAll offers an unprecedented opportunity to improve sexuality resources of all kinds, especially educational ones. Recording media such as videos and audio and publishing them online free for the world creates a distributed yet well-organized library of discussions, presentations, lectures, online workshops, and more about all kinds of sexuality-related issues ranging from technology to health and beyond.

When people like Wisconsin DA Scott Southworth can threaten schoolteachers with imprisonment merely for following laws about sex education, I think broadcasting the crowd-sourced and novel discussions that happen at KinkForAll unconferences is more important than ever! Self-righteous morality crusaders actively undermine the efforts of accredited sex educators like Megan Andelloux (similarly targeted by Donna M. Hughes as I was) who are trying to help people overcome horrific social stigmas and devastating legal, medical, or other battles just to live free of oppression. I think supporting a grass-roots, public-domain infrastructure for inspiring conversations about the intersection of sexuality and the rest of life, as KinkForAll does, is vital to keep fear and intolerance about our sexual selves at bay.

Also, quite plainly, recording and broadcasting or documenting not just the unconference proceedings but everything else involved with it is useful when someone like you asks me about what happened, when, and why. This transparency has been an incredibly powerful shield of protection because being able to call up relevant information from a publicly archived space, and knowing that it’s accurate as it can be corroborated by anyone at any time, makes it ridiculously easy to fight claims of wrongdoing. Such accusations simply can not stand up to the facts, which everyone has equal and easy insight into. :)

Of course, not everyone feels safe being video recorded because, in society’s fevered fear of sexuality, they might lose a job or custody of their children just for being seen at a KinkForAll unconference. That’s why KinkForAll participants pay careful attention to issues of personal privacy and, among other things, supply a simple red (or sometimes bright orange) sticker that can be worn to signal one’s preference not to be photographed or video recorded. I’m saddened that the cultural fear of sex that activists and academics like Donna M. Hughes, Margaret Brooks, Gail Dines and numerous others closely associated with the anti-porn movement perpetuate still causes so much suffering. Many people worry about their safety and wellbeing, just because they’re kinky, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex, or because they have any fetish at all, or because they sometimes watch porn, or because someone thinks they’re “addicted” to sex or masturbation, or, in the case of young people especially, because they’re merely trying to learn about their body.

Nevertheless, I’m hopeful that once enough media is out there, its ripple effect will make being and celebrating who we are safer than hiding who we are. Because in reality, as I learned first hand, the closet is not a safe place to be, no matter how much more uncomfortable coming out might feel at first.

And anything else you’d like to say about either KFA or the anti-porn initiatives: I’m all ears.

Amanda

I think anti-porn initiatives are a smoke-screen for real issues that affect society, real issues such as the stigmas of STIs like herpes, paranoia over youth sexuality, and legal, personal and political implications of sex blogging—real issues that KinkForAll participants are addressing in increasingly creative and empowering ways both at the unconferences themselves and in their daily lives. None of these problems will disappear with the disappearance of pornography, even if pornography were their root cause, an anti-porn activists’ claim for which there is absolutely no evidence despite decades upon decades of religiously-backed drum-banging.

I think we all need to be careful not to get distracted from the important work of making the world a more sexually healthy place by red-herring rhetoric and faulty research such as that of Stop Porn Culture. Gail Dines, her organization, and her colleagues blatantly misdirect conversation and use language and visuals calculated to trigger an emotional response of fear and anger in her audience, just as Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks did in their bulletins about me. These people consistently (and I dare say deliberately) ignore the diversity of both erotic imagery and real encounters—Gail Dines made no mention of pornography that does not include women, of which there is plenty in the form of gay male erotica for instance, in her speech on Tuesday—and disingenuously claim to speak for the women who they work so hard to silence, such as the countless sex workers whose lives are devastated by unwanted “rescues”.

So I think that people and feminists in particular need to be ever-vigilant not to let the language of feminism and gender equality be co-opted in order to support anti-women policies, to justify discrimination or censorship, or to enable the imposition of self-righteous moral or religious doctrine on anyone, ever.

Moreover, I think that the information age has made it more critical than ever that people develop information literacy and critical thinking skills. We’re all just people with websites. Go make up your own mind.

Cheers,
-maymay

Two things struck me as I was preparing my reply to Amanda.

First, her questions were incredibly pointed, and it was difficult for me to come up with short answers. I grew increasingly impressed with Amanda’s obvious intellect the more I analyzed the questions. Although she offered to speak with me on the phone in addition to sending me an email with her questions, I chose the email because I knew I’d be busy at my day job.

Looking back on our exchange, I’m glad I asked for an email instead of a phone call because I’m far more eloquent in writing than I am in speech, as regular listeners to Kink On Tap surely know. I had the opportunity to ask for some input from people close to me, including Aida and Emma, who were a great help in getting my thoughts organized enough to make my points clearly.

Second, I noticed that the column Amanda wrote included no content directly from our email exchange. This reifies what I already knew: you do not get to tell the story you want to tell when you speak to news outlets of any sort, whether large and well-known or small and self-published. Instead, you only get to influence it. If you want to tell your story, you damn well better tell it yourself.

It should be noted that Amanda was surely working under both time and length constraints, among others. I thank her for writing her piece, and for being the only journalist I know of to do so after attending a KinkForAll unconference and experiencing it in person, albeit for only a portion of the day. If only KinkForAll’s detractors would show us that courtesy…. (You know who you are.)

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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Addressing Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks’ concerns over KinkForAll unconferences

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Community, Generation gap, Kink events, Myths and misconceptions, Politics of sex, Vanilla life

Following Marie’s example, let’s all take a deep breath.

Even though I feel defamed by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, I want to address the crux of their concerns about KinkForAll unconferences and ask for their advice. Discreetly tucked away at the end of a 6 page personal assault, they wrote:

The open and unstructured format of a KinkforAll event is dangerous because it encourages outsiders to attend, mingle, and speak anonymously with young people about unhealthy sex and violent sexual practices. These conditions offer an open invitation for sex offenders to attend, potentially placing both participants and the entire local community, especially children, at risk.

First, let’s remove the insinuations that participants at KinkForAll are specifically talking about unhealthy and violent sexual practices. Those judgements have no place in a rational discussion, so let’s read the sentence thusly:

The open and unstructured format of a KinkforAll event is dangerous because it encourages outsiders to attend, mingle, and speak anonymously with young people about sex and sexual practices.

Next, let’s remove the assertions like the one that “a KinkForAll event is dangerous” and approach the issue from a more open-minded perspective. Once again, such assertions preclude discussion because the conclusions are already determined and, following the KinkForAll motto itself, I prefer to inspire conversation, not shut it down. Therefore, I’m going to read Donna M. Hughes’ and Margaret Brooks’ writing like this:

The open and unstructured format of a KinkforAll event could be dangerous because it encourages outsiders to attend, mingle, and speak with other participants about sex and sexual practices. These conditions might offer an open invitation for sex offenders to attend, potentially placing both participants and the entire local community, especially children, at risk.

Well! Okay then. There’s a valid concern. So now that we’ve uncovered an actual concern underneath the corrosive insinuations, let’s talk about it.

I pose this question to Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, and I invite their responses in the comments: How can you help make a KinkForAll unconference a safer place for the local community and for all participants, including young people?

Here’s some of the things that other unorganizers and I have done at previous events. Tell me if you think any of this was inappropriate.

At KinkForAll Washington DC, in accordance with the venue contract, participants paid for the presence of a security guard who, as I understand it (I wasn’t actually the organizer of this event, as both Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes seem to believe), was instructed to refuse entry to the event to any person who did not abide by our venue contract. This venue contract included explicit clauses that anyone who had ever been convicted of “a misdemeanor involving sexual misconduct or a felony” would not be permitted to participate. This was also clearly stated on the sign-up table.

Here’s the full formal language, posted on the KFADC sign up table, among other places:

Note: As part of our agreement to use the facilities, we can not allow people to attend who have been convicted of or pleaded (1) guilty, (2) “no contest” or (3) nolo contendere to a misdemeanor involving sexual misconduct or a felony (whether or not resulting in a conviction).

Actually, that’s still on the sign up table. Donna, Margaret, did you just, I don’t know, overlook this? There’s also a video recording of Nikolas, the leading unorganizer of KinkForAll Washington DC, reciting this during KFADC’s opening. It’s pretty short. Skip to 1 minute and 14 seconds into the video to hear the specific quotations.

Obeying venue contracts is a very big deal to KinkForAll unorganizers, myself included. At each KinkForAll unconference that I’ve attended, one of the unorganizers stands up during Opening Essential Communications (the first timeslot of every day) and enumerates any venue rules on top of the global KinkForAll rules. One of these rules that every KinkForAll event must enact is that no sex shall occur during the event because the unconference is about talking with one another, not playing with one another.

At KinkForAll Providence, as I understand it (because, again, I didn’t actually organize that event either) the venue policies required that minors be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian, according to Aida Manduley, the Chair of the Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council, who was principally responsible for liaising with the Brown University venue and made these arrangements. As an aside, it is frustrating that Aida seems consistently under-credited for her work by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks. Nevertheless, why they fail to give her credit where credit is due is a matter for another time.

Beyond adhering to specific venue rules, local laws, and global KinkForAll rules (each designed to create de-sexualized and educationally-focused environments), individual participants are encouraged to bring their friends when they attend rather than show up alone. This effectively arms newcomers with the protection of their social circle at the events themselves. As most women will no doubt understand, it is safer to go to places where you have never been when you go with your friends.

In this way, the highly social atmosphere of a KinkForAll unconference also acts as a self-policing safeguard against abuse. This is very similar to the way that many other organizations protect their membership. The difference is that by creating highly participatory and engaging learning environments, KinkForAll participants don’t need “membership” or some other prior bond in order to act with respect towards one another. Just like any other social group, those who fail to be friendly towards others in the group are ostracized by the group.

This design was rather intentional, but it was not my invention. It is, in fact, a model of social educational gatherings well-known in the technology world and popularized by a phenomenon known as BarCamp. The concepts of “open space” that KinkForAll uses are directly, wholly mimicking the incredible BarCamp model of event organizing. And it works.

However, when I started KinkForAll with my then-partner, neither of us thought this was enough. We wanted more protections, particularly to protect people’s personal privacy. So we instituted some minor changes to the BarCamp “open space” model.

Specifically, we added the concept of a (perhaps crudely termed) no-photography signal, a bright red circle or stripe on one’s name tag that indicated to others a desire not to be photographed or video recorded. Combined with the freedom to use a pseudonym on one’s name tag and reminding participants to use others’ chosen names when referring to one another at events, we felt we’d provided enough of a framework for people to easily and simply protect their personal details, such as contact information or google-findability, if they wanted to.

Now, Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks would have us worry that this fact means malicious people could attend and we wouldn’t know about it. That’s certainly a possibility. It also means that young people, not to mention anyone else who has some reason to value their privacy, such as school teachers or librarians, doctors or lawyers, or anyone in a conservative industry such as banking, could also attend and we wouldn’t know about it. That’s the tricky thing about self-empowerment; when you provide tools to empower people, they can do “good things” or “bad things.”

The point, in case you missed it, is that providing tools, or making a conference framework unstructured, is not itself inherently “good” or “bad,” “dangerous” or “safe.” I think Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks have a valid concern, but, ladies, I think you’ve let your fears get the better of you, at least in this instance.

Since you’re clearly very passionate about protecting young people, as I am, I therefore invite you to brainstorm with me. Beyond all the things that I’ve described above, what else can we do to protect all the participants at KinkForAll events from potentially malicious people? Tell me what you think.

Better yet, join the mailing list and share your ideas with the people who are organizing these unconferences directly. Remember, just getting your ideas to me isn’t going to necessarily get them to the people who actually implement these events in all cases. (I’ll do my best to help you liaise with everyone if you offer some constructive feedback, though. Promise. :)

So, Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks, what do you think we can do to better protect all the participants at KinkForAll unconferences and the local communities where they happen? If you’ve got suggestions, we’re waiting to hear them. And you know what, I don’t care that you insinuated evil things about me. If I think your suggestions are good and aligned with the KinkForAll principles of freedom and education, I’ll support them.

And just in case it isn’t clear, you don’t have to insinuate that I’m an evil person to get my support for good ideas. You just need to have rationally thought-out, non-judgemental ideas. So if you do, even if you’re not Donna M. Hughes or Margaret Brooks, you’re invited to participate in this discussion as well.

Update: In order to inform Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes of my interest in their advice for how KinkForAll unconferences can be improved, I’ve sent them the following email, republished below:

Subject: 	I invite you to help me address your concerns over KinkForAll  unconferences
From: 	maymay <bitetheappleback@gmail.com>
Date: 	March 27, 2010 4:20:52 PM PDT
To: 	dhughes71@cox.net, mbrooks@bridgew.edu
Cc: 	dhughes@uri.edu
[…some email headers clipped…]

Dear Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks,

I recently learned that you published a bulletin on a website[0] that raises concerns about the KinkForAll unconferences of which I advocate in support. Many of the statements you present as fact are simply not true.

Since I understand that you have concerns about KinkForAll unconferences, I invite you to help me and the rest of the KinkForAll participant community address them. I’ve composed an initial description of some of the things KinkForAll unconference planners (“unorganizers”) have done to protect the participants at local events, as well as the communities where events are held. If you feel you can do so, it would be my privilege to work with you to further the safety of individuals, both young and old, at KinkForAll unconferences, while simultaneously improving the available educational resources about sexuality as well as all of the things that sexuality affects in people’s lives.

To work with me on this, I invite you to speak up on the KinkForAll mailing list,[1] which I know you follow quite closely, or to reply to my recent blog post discussing your concerns,[2] which I also know you follow quite closely. :)

In point of fact, I am deeply hurt by your statements, but I also recognize that you seem to share my passion for keeping people safe and self-empowered to lead happy lives. Therefore, if you have a good suggestion for how I and other KinkForAll participants can keep ourselves safe and improve the quality of our lives and the lives of our friends, neighbors, fellow citizens, and peers, I don’t really care that you insinuated evil things about me in the past. If I think your suggestions are sound, I’ll support them.

I am looking forward to hearing your suggestions for improving KinkForAll unconferences.

Sincerely,
-Meitar “maymay” Moscovitz

[…redundant external references removed; read my previous entry for more information…]

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Sunday, May 3, 2009

BDSM versus Kink: Nobody but your sex partner cares how you fuck

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM terminology, Community, Politics of sex

Lately I’ve been feeling as though I am a bit of a broken record. One of the things I am saying time and time again is that one of the goals I’d like to accomplish with KinkForAll is broadening the topics that the sexuality communities I’m a part of talk about. Since I happen to come from a BDSM background, the KinkForAll idea is spreading most quickly within the BDSM communities.

However, I am very concerned that the purposes of KinkForAll are not spreading nearly as quickly as the idea is. Specifically, the impetus behind KinkForAll has nothing to do with BDSM. Instead, it was about providing a space to talk about sexuality as it relates to and in the context of the broader themes of life: daily work, politics, legal issues, academic learning, technology, business development, interpersonal relationships, religion, and so on.

At KinkForAll New York City, currently the one and only event of its kind, I was heartened to see just how many presentation slots were filled with topics that were in no way directly related to the mechanics of how humans have physical sex. As I mentioned on the public mailing list,

In fact, one of the motivations behind the whole 20-minute presentations thing is to actively discourage demos, especially the typical “here’s how to hit someone” ones I see all over the place. KinkForAll as a venue can be utilized to much greater effect than most (if not all) demos can dream of doing by engaging participants cerebrally, with discussion or multimedia presentations on a variety of other, broader topics.

I encourage all KinkForAll participants regardless of locale to think outside the very narrow we-like-to-hit-people-with-stuff box.

Of course, the important question remains unanswered: why is talking within the “narrow we-like-to-hit-people-with-stuff box” such a problem? There are a few things all tangled up in this issue, so I’ll try to unravel them one at a time here (and probably in a number of upcoming blog posts). First, though, you must acknowledge that the exhibitionism with which the BDSM community still advocates for its own acceptance is totally out of whack with today’s realities. As the inimitable Gloria Brame writes in her Leather Leadership Conference 2009 keynote address,

In our push to be candid and guilt-free, have we come out a little too far? By emphasizing play at parties, or focusing on skills with toys, are we really providing education about the reality of being a BDSMer? Honestly, I love a good play party, and am not saying we should stop having fun. But beyond the people you play with, how many others need to know that you prefer a whip to a paddle or that humiliation makes you wet? At age 53, I would now much rather be known as a sadomasochist than as a dominatrix, precisely for this reason: I don’t think the straight world DESERVES to know what role I play in the bedroom. No more so, anyway, than I am entitled to know whether my mayor performs cunnilingus or my mail-carrier likes it doggie style.

One of the largest problems I see with such exhibitionistic advocacy is the “us versus them” mentality that focusing on activity rather than intentionality (for instance) traps people into. Putting it bluntly, and as Gloria Brame implied more diplomatically than I can ever do, nobody but your sex partner cares how you fuck so why does the BDSM community think that their myopic view of the world is what will garner us “tolerance” in the rest of it?

Ever since KinkForAll New York City, I’ve been doing a bit of research into the history of previous social justice movements, notably the GLBT rights movement. I think the BDSM community is currently doing a piss-poor job of steering the public discourse around what-it-is-that-we-do to our advantage. It may sound cold, but the fact of the matter is that the BDSM community has a gigantic image problem, and it is negatively affecting the way we live our daily lives.

It frustrates me when I look around my community and I don’t see anybody talking about that. And for what? Yet another boring flogging demo from your mile-long “class” list? Are you shitting me?

As she is wont to do, Emily Rutherford’s analysis of this phenomenon seems far less emotionally driven and far more academically thorough than my own:

Much as there was a time when the gay community was criticized for being overly focused simply on sexual practice, and not on larger, more abstract or theoretical questions about identity and community, so too (from what I’ve heard; I can’t speak as an insider) does the BDSM community seem to struggle with this problem. KinkForAll is addressing that, and here I think the word “kink” is actually key: I’ve come to see this word as encompassing any non-mainstream sexuality, maybe a further broadening or development or evolution of “queer.” I think we can use it that way; it’s not as if it’s a word that actually connotes a specific sexual desire or practice in the way that the B, D, S, and M of that acronym do.

Naturally, she is spot on. The B, D, S, and M of BDSM are wonderful (any regular reader of this blog knows just how much they are an intrinsic part of me), but they are a narrow, near-sighted view of sexuality that it behooves the BDSM community itself to break out of. And I mean now.

As KinkForAll New York City showed, the KinkForAll format and method has the power to radically reframe the public discourse around sex, gender, and sexuality away from the notion that people who practice BDSM or any non-mainstream sexuality are not normal, that we are fundamentally different from vanilla people, and towards an ideal of sexual equality regardless of activity. It should not matter that some men like to tie girls up or that I like to be tied up when I get fucked because nobody fucking cares except my sex partners, which is exactly how it should be.

It’s certainly important that there are people, like me, who openly, honestly, and publicly make ourselves and our sex lives visible to other people. I am in no way discounting the work of countless sex-positive advocates in prior generations who worked towards the appropriate representation of the kind of sex we want to have and distinction from the kind of sex other people have. As Sascha wrote recently,

it’s natural to want to feel different or special. I know that I’ve been guilty of using kink as a way to establish my otherness, to create a separation between me and the “vanilla” world.

But as Sascha also notes, creating an opaque separation between us and “the ‘vanilla’ world” is to be trapped in a ridiculous and unhelpful “us versus them” mentality that only serves to distance (consensual) BDSM activities away from the mantle of human rights.

I can’t help but be reminded of one of my favorite Little Britain characters, Daffyd Thomas, the only gay in the village. He goes around declaring his otherness and creating his own persecution, even though it seems that the rest of the village is bi-curious at the very least.

This is why it is not only helpful, but critically vital that KinkForAll does not become a BDSM-centric space, why sexuality-neutral venues (such as universities and local community centers) are far superior for KinkForAll events over dungeons and swinger clubs. This is why the whole thing is called KinkForAll and not BDSMForAll in the first place! Not that there’s anything wrong with adapting the KinkForAll model and creating a smaller, more BDSM-centric additional space. I’d go to that, too, I just don’t want to lose the broader diversity.

As I said on the netcast audio about KinkForAll that I recorded with Axe on his MasoCast, people who are not a part of sexuality communities and who do not have an awareness of the intricacies of our vocabulary use “kink” and “kinky” to apply to any non-mainstream sexual idea. We therefore must broaden the discussion and our use of the word so that we stop training people who’ll listen to respond with reactions like, “It’s all whips and chains and I’m not into any of that!”

The BDSM community is so focused on these, like, extreme sports-style skill sets that we forget, often, that’s not necessarily the most important thing… especially for people who need to know more about the world in which we live in [in order] to come out to our world.

This is why I want to see lawyers present on obscenity law at KinkForAll. This is why I want to see gender studies students debate gender theory at KinkForAll. This is why I want to see artists discuss sexuality in art at KinkForAll. This is why I want to see hackers showcase awesome technologies at KinkForAll. This is why I want to see community leaders leading by example at KinkForAll. This is why I want to see sex workers teaching skills for self-protection at KinkForAll.

Having all of this other stuff, this stuff-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-hitting-people-as-part-of-sex, does not negate the usefulness of having a Spanking 101 presentation (for example), but I can guarantee that not having all this other stuff will make a Spanking 101 presentation totally fucking useless.

So please, not just when you unorganize local KinkForAll events, but also when you go to local group meetings, talk to your friends, family, and peers, please remember to engage with them rather than separate yourself from them. The people in the rest of the world are not our enemies, unless we fail to make them our allies.

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Friday, May 1, 2009

An Extended Recording of KinkForAll on the MasoCast

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Community, Kink events, Technology

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Axe, whose latest project is called the MasoCast. The MasoCast is a podcast in which Axe converses about personal fetishes and sexual interests with his friends and acquaintances. When Axe asked me if I was willing to record a conversation with him, I jumped at the chance, but I also had a very specific agenda I wanted to promote.

Rather than discuss my personal fetishes, I wanted to talk about the two projects I’ve recently put huge amounts of my time and effort into, KinkForAll and MaleSubmissionArt.com. Axe and I talked for nearly two hours, recording the whole time. Afterwards, he sliced up our recording so that he can publish two discrete pieces.

The first piece Axe published of our recording is about KinkForAll, now online as episode number 6 of the MasoCast. However, in order to fit into the MasoCast’s short-form segments, a lot of our conversation had to be cut out. Some of the pieces that were cut from the recording for the MasoCast segment are outlined in the following list.

Thankfully, I have an earlier version of the KinkForAll segment for the Masocast that I want to publish myself for those interested in listening to an extra ten minutes of our conversation. This earlier version of the edit is 27 minutes long. Most of the additional material not included in Episode 6 of the MasoCast is towards the end.

Included in this recording are:

  • I discuss how KinkForAll is a coordinated effort among a group, but is focused on autonomy and individuals.

  • I remark that the KinkForAll model is shamelessly stolen and adapted from the BarCamp model, because that model is a good idea.
  • One of the central focuses of KinkForAll is to bring the value from connecting different communities together in a sexuality-neutral space.
  • There’s nothing about KinkForAll that isn’t public and transparent, which means that anyone—including you—can participate in one. Case in point, the public mailing list as well publicly budgeting the finances transparently.
  • KinkForAll has an agenda: it’s not just an event, it’s also about finding and supporting people who want to promote the freedom of sexuality information and other ideals that KinkForAll has.
  • KinkForAll is an engine that people can use to make other things happen. Case in point, now that we have A/V recordings of presentations, there is interest from some people in creating a free repository of audio and video sexuality presentations that are published online for free. That’s great, but let’s not turn KinkForAll into that, because it doesn’t need to be. Why not have a great sexuality unconference and a video library, and a blog network? There’s no need to play zero-sum games anymore because we have proven that individual, coordinated efforts are more successful than massive, centralized efforts.
  • Some future aspirations for KinkForAll events are more video recordings, a live feed during the event itself streamed over the Internet for anyone to watch and/or listen to remotely to more effectively include people who can’t be physically present.
  • We tried to involve the world in as open a way as possible, and I want everyone—not just the people who are physically present the day of the event—to partake in and contribute to the value that we created as part of the event.

I want to thank Axe once again for helping me to spread the word about KinkForAll through his podcast. Axe also deserves immense thanks for being one of several audio specialists who participated in KinkForAll New York City and helped us audio record nearly half of the presentations that were given during the event! All of those presentations are available online for free.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

KinkForAll New York City: Rest and Recovery and Then We Do It All Over Again

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Communication, Community, Gender fluidity, Generation gap, Kink events, Personal experience, Technology, Vanilla life

I spent today recovering from KinkForAll New York City, which was an unbelievably smashing success. I’m so incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish and so incredibly optimistic about the future, even if tentatively so. My tweet-stream from the day is now archived, and I’ve spent far too long reading and re-reading it already.

Organizing KinkForAll was a really new experience for me. I’ve never before seen a vision of mine that involved so many people so wonderfully executed. As I said during the discussion in the presentation Evan gave on Youth and Leadership, There’s a fine line between leadership and control.

Now that the first event has been a success, I can feel much more confident that the idea I’ve had for it is one that’s proven. Many people didn’t believe it could work, and I know there are still many others who are dubious—even close friends, like one I spoke to tonight. The biggest sticking points are obvious: 20 minute presentations are “too short,” playspaces “should be part of the event,” and of course, “encouraging cameras is a bad idea.”

To each of these I say that the NYC event, which was even more strict with regard to the timeframe than I thought it would be, had absolutely no playspaces and lacked even an after-party (which is unfortunate, because I think a simple after-party would be loads of fun after something like this), and only 1 day later already has 53 Flickr photos from the event posted online, proves the format and the methods we used are sound. Not only that, but I recall multiple people stopping me in the hallways and saying things like, “You know, I thought I’d show up and hang out for a half an hour, but now it’s 3 hours later and I really wish I didn’t have to go!” Further, and even more encouraging, several people also told me, “I really thought that 20 minutes would be too little time to do what I wanted, but I really love this 20-minute thing!”

There’s no question that this kind of event is something the sexuality communities at large really need. It’s not just BDSM people, but poly people, transfolk, queers, butches and femmes, and everyone else who takes part in public, social sexuality-related spaces obviously want to see happen. I’ve personally already heard from folks in Washington DC and Toronto who are interested in replicating similar events, and through several other channels multiple people in San Francisco have also expressed interest.

So yeah, talk about a smashing, unexpected success…. If you missed KinkForAll New York City, or if you were there but missed my presentation, Audacia Ray—one of the event’s two sponsors—offered to video record it and has put the video up on Vimeo for the world, and you, to see (below).


Maymay on Gender, Technology, and the Idea Behind Kink for All from Audacia Ray on Vimeo. (Watch other KFANYC videos.)

You can also download an audio-only version of the above video, which also includes an extra 10 minutes of Q&A that filled the rest of my presentation.

Of course, with such success I’ve got a whole new set of challenges. I don’t want this idea to be something intricately tied to my person—that’s entirely hypocritical and totally defeating of the point. At the same time, I want Toronto and DC and San Fran to experience the same kind of thing as we did in New York City. There are still some people in those areas that believe presentations need to be allowed to go longer than 20 minutes, that a playspace should be a requirement, and that other issues make holding the event itself too risky.

While a KinkForAll event in these other places cannot be identical to the one in NYC, at what point does such fundamental variation become something that’s not KinkForAll? Not something that’s necessarily bad, just something too different to bear resemblance. As I said earlier, how can I lead, without exerting undue and unnecessary control? It’s a balance I’m going to be challenged to strike accurately; I’ve never done that before.

Interestingly, some of the people who contacted me about wanting to run their own local events have expressed a specific distaste for the same sorts of things in the sexuality communities that I’ve also expressed many, many times before. This is no surprise, of course, but rather it’s an immense point of validation. In Evan’s presentation that I mentioned earlier, for instance, he mentioned trying and failing to bring some of the ideas present in KinkForAll to Black Rose. Later, others expressed similar frustrations at KinkForAll New York City, and still later more from DC expressed the same frustrations.

I’m sadly not surprised that efforts to catalyze established BDSM organizations have failed. In my experience, scene organizations are especially resistant to change and very, very ego-centric. They tend to enjoy power struggles for power struggle’s sake, and they fail to seize obvious opportunities for technical improvement when they do this. Naturally, I despise egotism when it gets in the way of good ideas because it actively creates very negative spaces, hence the free and open and autonomous nature of KinkForAll.

To do what I can for the incredible potential that’s here, I’ve thrown my hat onto helping KinkForAll Washington DC by signing up on the wiki page with “advocate+assist organization” for my participation, but it really isn’t my show, just as KinkForAll New York City wasn’t really my show. KinkForAll is all about doing, not saying, it’s about individual collaborations, not organizations, it’s about newness and innovation, not regurgitation, and —I want to make sure it remains an environment where actions and results speak louder than words.

To that end, I think the role of unorganizers like myself is really to make sure we exemplify that behavior. If we can continue to do that well, then everyone we recruit to help out will not only be much more helpful, but will also protect the goals and the methods of KinkForAll: flat organization, personal responsibility and autonomy, and results-focused behavior with a desire for creativity and positive social change in sexuality communities. I am unspeakably excited to see a KinkForAll Washington DC off the ground, so as my life begins to calm down, you can expect to see my activity in helping make the DC event a reality begin to ramp up very quickly.

I’m looking forward to it!

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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Wednesday Wanderings: Gendered Semantic Web, Vulcan Sex, and more

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Community, Erotica and pornography, Fantasy, Gender fluidity, Sexism, Technology, Wednesday Wanderings, Writing and blogging

Been working hard in other parts of my endeavors recently, and am especially happy to see interest begin to pick up in the HyperTextual Porn experiments I’m hosting and hoping to develop. In the mean time, here are some links for light reading for you:

  • I realize this will probably be “too techy” for some of my readers, but what the hell. This not-so-recent article on Read Write Web has caught my attention a while ago and I’ve been musing about this sort of thing ever since. Marshall Kirkpatrick summarizes sociology and technology researcher Corinna Bath’s findings as he asks “Will the Semantic Web have a gender?”
    […]the architects of the semantic web need to be very careful about the assumptions they carry into the creation of categories of relationships. Bath draws a historical parallel with the first phone books, where listings were organized by the names of the husband in each household. That appeared to the authors to be the logical way to do it at the time. It wasn’t until after years of feminist political organizing led to general cultural change that the phone books changed. Why is this important? Because systems like the phone book help color our view of the world we live in and are the building blocks of basic inequalities.

    Too often, Bath argues, “binary assumptions about women and men are not reflected [upon] or the (gender) politics of [a particular] domain is ignored. Thus, the existing structural-symbolic gender order is inscribed into computational artifacts and will be reproduced by [their] use.”

  • Speaking of the Web, Elizabeth writes about her concerns with WordPress.com’s censorship of what it deems “mature” content. This is precisely why I host my own blog on my own server, and part of why I’ve helped Kink in Exile and Essin Em do the same for themselves. If you need tech help doing the same, feel free to contact me, and since I reserve the right not to reply, you should have no qualms about “bugging” me with a request for help.
  • Ranat writes what is very probably the funniest and sexiest post I have read in a long time called Pon Farr and Other Ways to Get Away With Non-Consensuality (because we love Vulcans). I’m not sure if I had a geekgasm or a trekgasm while reading it, but some of its ideas could certainly fuel a number of fantasies capable of giving me just a plain old orgasm!
  • As he is wont to do, Axe humorously writes about the unequal door fees for women and men at most kink/fetish venues, and quotes my response to his question:

    Perhaps it goes back to the age old question: If women are just as into this stuff as men, where are these women? Why are men paying a hundred bucks to get into a swingers event and women can walk in for free? Are the men like myself who want to go to events like these so horrible and disgusting that the only way a woman will go is if she has nothing better to do?

    I posed this question via twitter and a few people responded.

    […]

    Maymay gave me some of his wisdom via twitter. “The reason kink/fetish events are cheaper for women is blatantly obvious: sexism. Women are products, men are the consumers.”

    Oh how I wish this wasn’t true. If only I were being the one consumed and used like a product.

    I also replied to his post in the comments:

    [W]hen I go out to kink events like this with a significant other, here’s how I expect to look at the costs:

    $5 for women + $25 men / 2 people = we each pay $15 entry fee

    I’d consider any woman or man in a supposedly equal relationship, D/s or otherwise, who doesn’t also do that sexist.

  • Tom Allen informs us about the Boy Scouts’ decision to include (some) sex ed topics in their program. Tom has this to say about the move, which I can’t second strongly enough:

    The sooner we, as a society, can kick off the notion that morality is tied to sexuality (or more specifically, sexual enjoyment among consenting partners), the better off we will all be.

  • Last but certainly not least, today FetLife.com announced the addition of a “Fluctuating/Evolving” option was added to the list of possible options for users to list as their sexual orientation on their profiles. John Baku had this to say about his choice to add the option:

    Things can not get simpler then being a straight guy which to be honest I find is a bad thing in my position. It basically means I have to wait until someone opens up my eyes to the different types of orientations and as well the issues and politics behind the different sexual orientation.

    I believe FetLife is the first site to get this right. Ever. Congratulations to them, and I hope more sites follow suit, not just for sexual orientation but for gender identity and other options as well. I eagerly anticipate the day when the notion of radio boxes for “male” or “female” will not be the only options!

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Sunday, October 5, 2008

FetSpank This! WordPress Plugin submits your posts to FetSpank.com

Category labels: BDSM in the media, Community, Technology, Writing and blogging

So here’s a funny thing. It looks like major Web 2.0 sites are quickly picking up copy cats in the fetish/BDSM communities. For kinksters, Facebook was quickly replaced by FetLife (friend me if you know me!) and now it appears that Digg has a pseudo-copy cat in the form of FetSpank. This is cool, and is proof-positive that the open nature of the Internet creates niche opportunities where content is king. I just wish we’d have picked a better prefix for our stuff than “fet,” cuz, well, ew.

That said, I figured that I might as well help this sex-2.0-specific copy catting adoption rate by writing a little plugin for WordPress-powered blogs (like mine) so that publishers can easily add a “FetSpank This!” button on their WordPress-generated content. So without further ado, I present to you the FetSpank This! WordPress Plugin.

Enjoy, and if you have any plugin-specific feedback, please leave comments on the plugin’s homepage.

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Monday, June 9, 2008

Sexism at Large in American Politics: Armed and Dangerous

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM safety, Masculinity, Politics of sex, Sexism, Vanilla life

I’ve never been extremely thorough about pursuing political current events, but I’m finding myself ever more personally withdrawn from American politics now that I’m living in Sydney and no longer living in America. However, I actually feel more knowledgeable about American politics now than I did when I lived in New York City, mostly because local people here won’t stop asking my opinions on things.

It’s funny to me, how much Australians are interested in the happenings in America. I suppose that makes sense, but as an American who (like the stereotype) never really realized how much of an influence America was to the rest of the world, it’s taking me a little by surprise.

Anyway, needless to say, I’ve been keeping up (a bit) with the Democratic national primary. It’s hard not to. The whole world was practically sitting on the edge of its seat wondering who will win. A black man or a white woman as candidates give rise to only two topics in the right’s conservative hypocrisy: racism and sexism.

This was such a heated race that I’ve even received regular emails from some people in my extended family about it. Their emails are extremely strongly-worded short essays with arguments as to why I should or shouldn’t vote for Obama or Clinton (though mostly only because of the candidates’ opinions on Israel, which I couldn’t really care much about anyway). I’m thinking of telling them to start a blog.

I really have no opinion one way or the other about the merits of either candidate—I’m simply not very well informed. That said, Debra Haffner linked this 5-minute video produced by the Women’s Media Center showcasing myriad clips of all the sexist remarks made about Hillary during her campaign. I rarely link videos in this blog, but this one is worth your time.

There’s a lot of sexist language harassing women in this video, since its goal is to showcase how the media is sexist against women. However, that’s just half the story. There’s at least an equal if not greater amount of sexist language in today’s media against men since, obviously, most public political discussion happens about and between men. Where’s the highlight reel of political pundits proclaiming that some candidate “doesn’t have the balls” to do something brave?

One reason I’m more than a little withdrawn from politics is because I know I’ll never be elected to public office. Even if I had the aspirations, I would simply never survive a smear campaign. I mean, look at this blog!

Indeed, back in the “good old days” when I used to stay at Paddles, the local NYC public BDSM club until 4 AM, that was even a joke. The lot of us, my friends and I, would stumble up the stairs in the dark and then burst out onto the street like mole-people, bleary eyed from a long night. We used to joke with another, “Well, I’m certainly not running for public office after tonight!” the implication being that we’ve done yet another thing that would get us booted immediately if the word got out.

While this threat is meaningless to me, since I don’t want to be in public office anyway, I have met more than a few people over the years for whom this is a real concern. They remain anonymous to this day precisely because they do, at some point, want to be in public office in order to make our government better, and most of them don’t even want to get into the areas of sexual rights. They’ll never have a blog like this, though, because having a blog like this—doing what I’m doing right now—means I’ll never win a race for public office.

But hey. I still get to vote. And of course, I will.

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

CBT? WTF is up with that?

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM psychology, BDSM terminology, Cock and ball torture (CBT), Femdom, Foot worship, Male sexuality, Myths and misconceptions, Stupid dominants, Stupid submissives

I just got an email I thought was pretty funny. In it, the sender implies a conspicuous lack of an item from my toy collection: weights. I mean, doesn’t everyone have weights, at least for cock and ball torture?

Actually, no, I responded…and why would I? I don’t actually like cock and ball torture that much. I don’t really mind cock and ball torture—I mean, it can be fun and all and I’ve done it and stuff, hell I’ve even felt Eileen pierce my ball sack with a needle and poke my penis a bit with one, too—but I just don’t really enjoy it. It’s not a fun kind of pain for me. I just don’t get off on it.

Even if I did, though, would I really need to go out and buy special weights specifically for the purpose of dangling them from my genitals? Eileen’s response to this idea was something along the lines of, “Why the fuck would I spend money on that? There’s tons of shit in my house that’s heavy and tons of ways I could attach it to you. I am way more creative than that.”

Evidently, this sort of attitude is nearly unheard of for submissive men. It’s one of those things, right along with foot fetishism and a desire to be forcibly feminized, that many people tend to automatically assume every single man who is submissive must be into. I mean, I must at least have a weight for cock and ball torture, right?

You see this everywhere. Cock and ball torture is probably in every single stereotypical representation of BDSM that I’ve ever encountered. Women, usually women dressed in stereotypically shiny outfits, who are kicking, punching, slapping, poking, clamping, or otherwise delightfully abusing the male genitalia. Again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Like I said before, if this is the kind of yodeling garden-gnome sex session you want to have, be my guest, but don’t assume that I’m going to want to do it with you.

And while I’m on the subject of yodeling garden-gnome sex, I’m sure there are a lot of dominant women who aren’t particularly enthusiastic about the idea of cock and ball torture, either. Like chastity and orgasm denial, this is so often just one more unbelievably penis-centric fantasy that the men who perpetuate the stereotype don’t even stop to think about what’s in it for their partners.

Cock and ball torture is so common, actually, it’s got an acronym: CBT. I kind of like this acronym, though, because it means I get to snicker quietly to myself when the HR director says something like, “Maybe we should invest in that CBT package to help our employees understand the new database system.” Of course, she’s talking about computer based training, which actually gives my filthy mind even more awesome fantasies in the office.

Anyway, I find the whole thing to be rather a big nuisance. It’s a little like going to a big city, New York for example, and assuming everyone you meet is a fan of the most well-known sports team, say the Yankees, right off the bat. Most of the people you meet are actually not going to be huge baseball fans at all, and some of them might like the Mets instead. Obviously, making the assumption that everyone you meet is a Yankees fan is kind of dumb.

Well, so is the assumption that all submissive men like CBT, or feet (which I think can be beautiful, but are often very silly looking). It’s more likely to make you look like an ass than anything else. So my advice is the same as it’s always been: stop treating sexual situations so differently from the rest of your life; if you’re not walking around making assumptions about sports teams based on where I live, stop making assumptions about my sexual preferences based on my submissive orientation.

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Monday, April 21, 2008

The Gadfly publishes an interview with myself and the VP of CV

Category labels: BDSM in the media, BDSM psychology, BDSM safety, BDSM terminology, Beginner BDSM, Community, Masochism, Sex

This is probably old news to a lot of you, but for those who don’t keep up with news from Conversio Virium, I wanted to direct your attention (however briefly) to the latest issue of The Gadfly, Columbia University’s undergraduate philosophy magazine. As part of their Winter 2008 issue, the Gadfly has published excerpts of an email interview that Tyler, the current Vice President of Conversio Virium, and I agreed to do with Stephanie Wu, the Gadfly reporter.

I think the article, which is titled Tie Me Up: A Gadfly Interview with Conversio Virium and begins on page 13 of the PDF, came out really well. I hope it gives CV some more positive exposure to the Columbia University community, and to other colleges and universities as well. Here are a few choice samples:

Gadfly: Are there ways to think about pleasure and pain apart from the classic continuum defined by opposites, with a line in between marking the transition? Is the relationship between pain and pleasure actually circular?

Maymay: I think there are as many ways of thinking about pleasure and pain as there are people thinking about it. When you generalize, you begin to see that more people share classic opinions than those who share the radical ones, but that is true of anything, not just pleasure and pain. People who do SM often find themselves broadening their own awareness of what kinds of interpretations of pain and pleasure are possible, thereby increasing their own maturity and capability to navigate the world around them.

It behooves us to be humble, to acknowledge that we don’t know as much as we think we do. SM doesn’t suggest a relationship between pain and pleasure. On the contrary, SM challenges the relationships science, theology, morality, and other cultural norms have already established about pain and pleasure. SM doesn’t aim to indoctrinate, SM aims to free us from such indoctrination.

[…]

GF: Besides an interest in pain, what commonalities do the activities covered by BDSM share that are unique from other sexual interests?

MM: These things are grouped together largely because there is no other space where people can talk about them. Not even the Queer clubs do enough to educate people about how to practice these forms of sexual activity safely (both physically and emotionally) and consensually, and that’s okay as that’s not their place. These activities are grouped because they share a common physical theme. This is rough sex. Like a sport, people can get hurt. Like a sport, people can become very skilled in doing it in a safer, more effective manner.

You can read the full interview (PDF) over on the Gadfly’s web site.

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