Talking About BDSM

I really want to become a slave to a man or a woman. I love to get whippings and slappings. Is this normal?
–Slaving Away

Ah, BDSM. (That’s “bondage-domination-sadism-masochism”, for the uninitiated.) One of those desires that dare not speak its own name, particularly in India. It’s funny how in the last few years so many issues that queer individuals face have become part of the public discourse in India, but the question of power as a site of performance and pleasure in sexual relationships never seems to be discussed in any serious way. So let me get down to brass tacks for all you gentle readers before answering the letter at hand. Subs, dommes, tops, bottoms, BDSM, dominance and submission, fetish, kink, leather, S&M: these are all catchwords that describe a thriving sexual subculture in the West and parts of Asia, a community with its own rules, protocols of practice, and place within the queer rainbow. BDSM refers to a broad range of eroticized activities—sometimes sexual, sometimes not—that involve the explicitly unequal power relations and roles. I’m sure all of you have heard of people wanting to be tied up, handcuffed, or spanked by a partner or partners during sex. This is the stereotypical image of BDSM practice, but in reality the practice can include anything and everything from mind games, whippings, eroticized ritual humiliation, sexual role-playing, costumes, even plain old vanilla sex that involves a conscious element of power play. A lot of people say they were born with this desire—born as a dominant or submissive—and others say they developed a yen for this particular sexual activity over time. Some people refer to themselves as “switches”–that is, able to switch between being a dominant and a submissive–and others feel that their orientation is pretty much set in stone. Some folks in the scene only want to experience power play during sexual activity, some of them want it as a whole lifestyle. As with every other sexual and gender identity, BDSM folks span the spectrum of desire.

A lot of people on the outside view BDSM activities as violent or fundamentally unequal, but the most fundamental aspect of this kind of sexual play is consent. I can’t stress it enough. BDSM isn’t violent, it’s a consensually agreed-upon, ritualized performance of inequality. That is to say, the performance of dominance and submission in the erotic realm is underpinned by respect and equality between partners. Often partners will get together before embarking on a sexual encounter and work out the rules, boundaries, and expectations of both (or all) participants. The submissive partner is expected to come up with a “safe word” or “safe gesture” to indicate when the dominant partner is to stop the activities taking place—either because the sub no longer feels pleasure, is in pain, or is emotionally overwhelmed. Failure of a dom/top to stop the activity when the sub gives his or her safe word is regarded as a tremendous violation since the sub has effectively withdrawn consent. (And usually, tops/dominants stop experiencing pleasure themselves the minute they feel the submissive partner is no longer enjoying themselves during their interaction. Like I said, this is all about the safe performance and exploration of the boundaries of control and submission, not about actual control and submission.) The primary watchword of the BDSM community is “safe, sane, and consensual”—everybody involved in a BDSM scene, relationship, or long-term lifestyle is expected to respect the boundaries of their partners, engage in sexual activity that is basically safe (even if, as in the example of rope bondage, it appears dangerous on the surface), and be clear about consent.

I guess I’m going into all this detail to answer Slaving Away’s question because BDSM is, in many ways, and area of sexual desire and identity that even many queer people are reluctant to talk openly about. Stereotypes, prejudices, and outright silencing of this voice of sexual desire is all too common, and many people both straight and queer are afraid to come out about this aspect of their sexual desires. So after that long preamble, my response to Slaving Away is this: don’t worry about the question of “normal”. When it comes right down to it, we’re all highly individual in our desires. There’s no need to feel shame. Just make sure with whom you decide to pursue BDSM with respects your boundaries fully, communicates with you easily, plays safe, and doesn’t misuse the gift of your consent.

Gazing On Desire

I have often been asked about the nature of my desire as a lesbian woman. My budding feminist leanings have convinced me that community and desire go hand in hand for the average lesbian woman. Generations that have legitimized and propounded heterosexuality (and unequal power relations) have created one kind of desire, whereas a lesbian consciousness (which in India is largely created from individual self-reflection) has been built around silence and the social conditioning of being women. Thus lesbian desire is different from heterosexual desire. Can you please shed some light on this? How is the lesbian gaze different from the male gaze?
–Learning More

It’s really great that you’re reading and thinking critically about your sexuality. And I think that it’s very promising that you’re making the connections between patriarchical oppression and women’s sexual desires. However, I disagree with you that it is possible to make a clear distinction between lesbian desire and the heterosexual male desire. I can see why you came to that conclusion—heterosexual men and lesbian women both desire women but are clearly different from each other—but I think it’s very problematic to box yourself in because desire is fluid. For example, you may think that as a lesbian woman the only women you want are butch or androgynous women. So what happens if you suddenly find yourself attracted to a femme girl, the kind of person that heterosexual men are typically attracted to? What does it imply if a hetero man is primarily attracted to butch or gender-transgressive women? And what about gay men, bisexual women, straight women, and trans men and women? Do each one of us have desires and a sexual “gaze” that corresponds perfectly with our given sexual identity?

I wanted to open out the question to others, so I called Ponni Arasu, a queer activist and member of the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, and read her your question. “Oh dear,” she sighed,  “that’s such a large question. While I do see how these identities, such as ‘male’, ‘female’, ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘straight’ can be great sources of strength, they can be enormously oppressive to different expressions of desire. The letter-writer should know from her readings of feminist texts that talking in terms of heterosexual versus gay desire can be very problematic—for example, do gay men and lesbian women experience desire in the same way? It’s very important to use these labels critically and with self-awareness.”

Agreed. I understand how having a strong sense of identity around sexuality can be empowering, but it’s also important to continually problematize the ways that identity and desire intersect. One of these days you might find yourself falling for the kind of woman that you think only straight men want, and then you’ll have to radically reassess the whole notion of a lesbian gaze. Desire can be a fluid and mutable thing, and it’s better to keep an open mind now than to face that kind of confusion later. You can still have a strong identity as a lesbian woman without necessarily painting yourself into a corner with regards to the kind of women you desire and in how you should desire them.