In a new subreddit devoted to male submissives and female dominants, Peroxide throws out some great prompts:
Here’s something I want to throw at you folks, hopefully you’ll find this interesting and maybe helpful. Try and be open minded about this, because it might sting, but I’d like to hear what you think.
There is a problem with The BDSM Scene. Period. It’s insular and self-interested, and it’s designed specifically for, to support, encourage and protect people other than us.
That’s The Scene as a system. Particularly for profit clubs and organisations (like Fetlife), the scene is first and for most for wealthy heteronormative Male dominant and female submissive couples.
Your individual scene may seem different, you may have friends there or a tight social network of people who don’t fit into the M/f box, but for the most part the reality is that the scene isn’t supportive of Female dominants, Male submissives or anyone who isn’t straight, white, cis, and wealthy enough to make a profit off of.
Now Maymay, who is sort of an e-friend and acquaintance of mine has written about this in greater detail and with more sourcing and hard data, but look at our thread about the scene, even though only a few people responded, I’m the only person a little involved in my local scene, and my reaction is Meh, at best.
So beyond the fact that it doesn’t support you, there is also some pretty ugly stuff coming out of Fetlife right now and maybe you want to get out. That link has some tools that will still let you get relevant event information without having to actually use Fetlife.
You might also want it just in case something goes wrong with Fetlife, because they’ve built a monopoly are a single point of failure for almost the entirety of the BDSM scene.
What I want to know is what do the users of FemdomCommunity make of this?
Does it bother you that much of the community that gathers around BDSM turns a blind eye to institutionalized oppression?
Are you involved in your local scene? and if so do you feel supported and included in it?
All I’ll say is that this simple fact, the fact that “there is a problem with BDSM as a culture,” to borrow Peroxide’s words, is consistently being missed by sex-positive folks defending BDSM from what they seem to view as unfair attacks from “outsiders” in the mainstream media right now.
But, and I’m no outsider, BDSM as a culture really needs to die. That doesn’t mean people aren’t gonna get the chance to be kinky because, news flash, identifying with the BDSM community isn’t a requirement for enjoying fucking kinky sex. Ending the existence of the BDSM community as a culture won’t end how people who do BDSM (like, y’know, most sexual people on the planet) get into BDSM, and thinking that it does makes you a fascistic piece of shit who’s telling others how to fuck.
The BDSM Scene is simply lying when it pretends it’s the only game in town for kinky sex. And the sex-positive micro-celebs who are defending its existence as a culture are on the wrong side of history. BDSM’s culture is toxic, abusive, and it’s going to die. (Very, very painfully, if I have anything to do with it.)
