Article 27327 of alt.politics.homosexuality:
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,alt.politics.homosexuality,alt.sex.bondage
From: an6141@anon.penet.fi (Even Steven)
X-Anonymously-To: alt.feminism,alt.politics.homosexuality,alt.sex.bondage
Organization: Anonymous contact service
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:29:21 UTC
Subject: Re: philosophers meet sm

Oh, come on, you didn't think Even Steven was going to pass THIS
thread up, did you? :->

For those of you outside of alt.sex.bondage, my handle is Even Steven,
and I am someone who has posted to alt.sex.bondage in the past holding
an opinion that there is a major moral problem with BDSM as a lifestyle.
A number of people have claimed that I "align" myself with the "radical
feminists" who claim that S/M in its variegated forms perpetuates the
"patriarchy" and squelches personal freedom, simply by virtue of my
stance against the propriety of BDSM at large.  As I had said once before,
in an earlier instantiation of this discussion, there are truths and
untruths in these "radical feminist" positions.

The true part is the most glaringly obvious part:  that BDSM DOES promote
power inequities between human beings.

The untrue part is simply the blinders worn by the feminists, in which they
purport that this is limited solely to male oppression of women in an
organized cultural fashion labeled as "the patriarchy."  BDSM proponents 
"point out" that BDSM occurs in a variety of contexts, not just male
dominating female, but female dominating female, female dominating male, male
dominating male, etc.  But the sad irony is their conclusion:  "See?  This
happens not just for men dominating women, but for a variety of people in a
variety of roles!  Some of them even switch between roles!  So therefore the
radical feminist argument is thus 'wrong!'"  (Why the fact that people
"switch" is relevant to the argument is something that is never elaborated
on, it is just boldly stated AS IF this proves something.)

The wrongness of the radical feminist argument is that it concludes that the
wrongness lies in BDSM being an "example" of men exploiting women, or of a
"patriarchy" and a "patriarchal" set of attitudes, which puts blame on men as
a "race" for exploitation of women as a "race."  But this is NOT the reason
that BDSM is wrong!  If this WERE the sole reason, then the BDSM proponents
WOULD have a coherent argument when they show (quite rightly) that it isn't
"just" men dominating women, rendering the feminist argument baseless.

It is not unlike another argument I am having with someone about the nature of
coercion.  It is not clear, but it appears that there is agreement that
coercion is a bad thing.  But coercion is defined as getting someone to do
what they don't want to do through use of force or threat of force.  An act of
getting someone to do what they don't want WITHOUT such force or threat of
force doesn't qualify, by this definition, for the label "coercion."  But
does it follow that, if coercion is wrong, and an act does not qualify as
coercion, that the act is thus NOT wrong?  Is the "thing" that is wrong with
coercion the fact that it involves force or threat of force?  Or is the
"thing" that is wrong with it the fact that it involves making someone do
something they don't want to do, REGARDLESS of whether force is used or
implied or not?  I say it is the latter factor that makes an act wrong. 
Others may disagree, and claim that acts of the latter type are OK.  I think
that may be one of the hingepoints at which people who think BDSM is OK differ
from those who don't.

The same principle is at work with respect to these "radical feminist"
arguments about the wrongness of BDSM.  If their argument is that BDSM is
wrong because it "perpetuates patriarchal values" that involve wrongful
subjugation of women, then counterexamples that involve BDSM transactions
involving other "combinations" besides men dominating women are sufficient
to render such an argument invalid.  But is the thing that is wrong with
BDSM the fact that "men do this to women, and this is a bad thing that men
have done to women," or is it the fact that "people do this to OTHER people,
and this is a bad thing that PEOPLE have done to OTHER people regardless of
their sex, race, creed, or whatever?"

Promotion of BDSM as a "valid" expression and exchange between two people,
of the idea that "power inequity/exchange" is a "natural" part of life, does
propagate ideas that parallel "patriarchic" notions of men "rightfully"
dominating women.  But it doesn't become "OK" simply because men topping
women is not the only manifestation of those notions!  Its ideas ALSO
parallel racist notions that one race rightfully dominates another.  Its
ideas ALSO parallel heterosexist notions that heterosexuals are superior to
non-heterosexuals.  Don't you see?  It's not a matter of WHO is dominating
WHO that is the problem, a problem that (supposedly) could be resolved by
broadening the set of examples so that the set of dominators and submittors
isn't limited to two exclusive disparate immutable sets of people.  IT'S THE
DOMINATING ITSELF THAT IS THE PROBLEM!  IT'S NOT A MATTER OF IT BEING MEN
DOMINATING WOMEN, WHITES DOMINATING NON-WHITES, ETC.  IT'S A MATTER OF THE ACT
OF DOMINATING BEING THE FACTOR THAT MAKES IT ALL SIMPLY AND IRRECONCILABLY
WRONG!

You can call the whole mentality that glorifies such domination "patriarchal"
if you choose.  I think that's another can of worms, whether the origin of
the mentality is attributable to a specific sex, a specific race, or whatever.
For an insightful discourse into the differences between THIS view of power
("power over") and genuinely empowering power that is not "over" another person
("power to"), read Marilyn French's book "Beyond Power."  I think she makes
similar mistakes of attribution, but it's the conclusions about which of the
two "powers" are legitimate and viable for human freedom and well being that
are most enlightening.

Some would respond that since the submission is "consensual," it becomes "OK."
The radical feminist argument would be that "women learn culturally to be
submissive, to accept their subservient role, so their consent is not freely
given."  The rebuttal would be that in BDSM it isn't "just" women submitting
to men, it's all sorts of other dom/sub combinations as well, so the radical
feminist argument is invalid.  I say, so what?  All women do NOT learn to be
subservient docile people who fit into the patriarchal scheme in the predefined
way.  Agreed.  But society continues to cultivate and exploit submission
in whoever DOES learn such behavior as the "right" way for them to live.  Be
they women OR men, be they one race or another, be they heterosexual or not. 
Again, it's NOT a matter of a particular class of people learning such
behaviors through cultural indoctrination or not.  It IS a matter of people
that DO learn such behavior being taught to "accept" it as the way things
"should" be for them.

Whether consent to a condition that makes you lower in status than another
person for no sound reason can be considered "valid" or "freely given" brings
us back to the issue of "false consciousness."  People who deride the concept
of people who have learned beahviors that go against their better interest
being in such a state (a state of false consciousness) claim that "you can
never know what goes on in a person's mind, you can only speak for yourself,
so ANY declaration that something is an example of false consciousness is
WRONG."  This is preposterous nonsense.  IF you are willing to make sound
informed judgements about the nature of situations that people are in
(something some people seem solidly unwilling to ever do), you can come to
conclusions that some situations ARE simply negative and debilitating. 
(Although the extremists will STILL claim that even the word "negative"
doesn't have negative connotations. :-> )  Having reached those conclusions,
you can determine that people whose life experience has taught them to
associate those situations with "pleasure" have been given a raw deal.

It is not unlike the situation in the book "Brave New World."  Huxley's world
involves people genetically engineered to fill the menial social roles (the
submissive positions) that society "needs" SOMEONE to fulfill if society is to
continue working.  As far as we can tell, there is no racism or sexism in
this, there are people of ALL races and genders in ALL social strata.  So is
it "OK?"  Of course not.  Huxley's whole point was that designating people for
such roles and getting them to accept such roles, regardless of the basis you
use to separate and stratify and classify them, is an abomination.

And unfortunately, the situation in the world that supporters of BDSM
lifestyles would propose is no different from Huxley's.  Well, different in
ONE respect: our technology doesn't give us the ability to "build" and
stratify races of alphas and betas and gammas.  But rather than deliberately
engendering such stratifications of people technologically, they would have
us "accept" whatever stratifications DO occur owing to people "learning" that
they "should" be submissive (or dominant, for that matter) and accepting that
as a "need" and as a valid way to live (whether this occured due to
patriarchal culture, white male culture, or individual experience).  People
who think themselves dominant should feel free to dominate as much as they
can, and people who think themselves submissive should "accept" their state
of affairs and believe it's "OK" to relegate control of their lives to others. 
And this holds for men, women, whites, blacks, straights, gays, etc.  And
since it is thus NOT racist, or sexist, it is deemed "OK."

And this is no less of an abomination.

Even Steven
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