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.

Where’s My Identity?

I am in a real panic. Please help me. I am a 21-year-old guy from Chennai. For four or five years I was thinking of myself as gay because I was only attracted to handsome men and never girls. But lately I have been having a lot of heterosexual fantasies and I no longer enjoy gay sex. I’m still more sexually attracted to men but I also get a lot of pleasure out of imagining sex with a girl. I just had sex with two guys and I didn’t really enjoy it even though I liked their looks. Whenever I see girls exposing even a little bit of their bodies I think about having sex with them and I love hetero porn as much as gay porn. Now I am unable to decide whether I am a bi or a pure gay. I feel that I should marry a girl for good sexual life. Can I do that when I get a chance in future?
–No Longer Sure

Hold up, buddy. There’s no need to torment yourself if you if you find yourself attracted to men and women both. Sexual desire is not an either/or proposition. You don’t have to be a “pure” gay, “pure” straight, or even a “pure” bisexual. The word “pure” doesn’t mean anything. People are frequently surprised by how their desires change over time. Just go with the feeling. Don’t feel hemmed in by the need to put a label on it.

Now on to the next thing: why do you believe you need to get married to a girl to have a good sex life? It sounds like you’ve been having a lot of fun as unmarried guy already. In any event, if you do decide to get married or have a long-term relationship with anyone, male or female—it’s a good idea to let them know that you have desires for both sexes. You may or may not want an open relationship, but it’s still one of those pieces of information that any long-term partner would want to know.

Mo Problems

I wrote to you earlier—I’m the 15-year old lesbian girl in Delhi. I have more problems now than before. One of my friends has told me she doesn’t want to be friends with me and another one is blackmailing me and threatening to tell my teachers that I’m a lesbian. I’m really worried about this. The other thing is that I’m in love with a girl who is a class senior to me and I want to tell her. Should I send her and anonymous love letter or is there some other process. Please help me. I feel like dying. I cry all day.
–Goody Dash

I remember your previous letter. It was published on April 26th. Honestly, your problems sound much bigger than what I can address in the scope of this column. You are dealing with shmucks for friends, falling in love, and the pressure to keep your sexual desires secret. That’s a lot for a 15-year-old kid and you have my fullest sympathy. Seriously, I my heart goes out to you.  My advice: call the TARSHI (that’s Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues, a non-profit in Delhi). They have a hotline for people who need to work through address issues of gender and sexuality in their lives. They’re very non-judgmental and caring, and they protect your privacy and confidentiality all the way. The helpline phone number is (011)-2437 2229 and the hours are 10 AM to 4 PM, Monday through Wednesday. Give them a call and see how they can help. And keep me posted about how you’re doing. You’ve got a definite supporter way down south in Chennai.

Electroshock Therapy Is No Good

I am a 28-year-old woman and I think I may be a lesbian. I am very much depressed due to this. I have come to know that I will never be able to marry and have true a life partner. I am destined either to live alone all my life or to marry a man I don’t love or want and be forced to have children. I often weep in bed due to this. Sometime ago, I read somewhere that psychotherapy can convert a homosexual into a heterosexual. In which hospital can I undergo this therapy? What will be the approximate expenditure I will have to incur?
–Want To Be Cured

I have no intention of telling you where you can get conversion therapy or how much it would cost, because conversion therapy doesn’t work. Being lesbian isn’t a disease or a psychological disorder; it’s a state of self. The other things you mentioned—the possibility of not finding a life partner, the pressure to enter a heterosexual marriage and have children—now, those are problems. But being lesbian itself is not the issue and it’s not something you should seek to change. Obviously, I can’t make you feel better about your orientation. You have to find a place of self-acceptance and peace, and I can’t do it for it for you. But I can tell you that conversion therapy is emotionally and psychologically undermining, and it’s not going to change anything anyway.

As for the other issues, I empathize with your anxiety. It’s absolutely true that as a lesbian woman, you will face a tremendous amount of pressure to get married to a man and have children—and stress, fear, and loneliness of trying to submerge your identity and desires in a heterosexual marriage are no joke. You may also have to confront the possibility of not ever finding a life partner (although in all fairness, everyone has that problem). But ultimately, this is the world we live in: a world of injustice that censures and punishes those who, in their desires and identities, challenge unequal social structures. What can we all do but keep fighting for equality? You are a lesbian woman: you have the right to make your own decisions about what kind of life you want to lead, whether you want to be partnered with anyone, and whether you want have children. It’s as simple as that. While those may not be rights that the state protects with any degree of regularity, they are rights that are yours simply by virtue of being alive. That said, what you need now is a solid support and counseling network to help you work through your feelings of fear and sadness. You can contact any of these organizations for help: Sangama in Bangalore, Sahayatrika in Trivandrum, or the Shakti Center in Chennai. We’re all here to help, and we’re all here for you.

Navigating The Genders

I am a 23-year-old boy. But even though I am a boy, I feel like a girl inside. I’ve always liked to wear girls’ clothing, like skirts and bras, and I have felt this way from my childhood itself. I feel that I am totally a woman. Can you tell me why this is happening to me? Are there other people in the world like me? Can I really change into a woman, and if so, how do I do this?
–J

I have to apologize to you, J, because I received your letter about a month ago and I put off responding to it because the question you’ve posed is just so dauntingly large. I’m sorry for making you wait so long. To answer your query, it sounds to me that you are a transgender woman (or gender-variant and genderqueer—I’ll be using all these terms interchangeably although there is quite an argument in the community whether it is really accurate to do so). That is to say, you are a person who has been born with the biological characteristics of a man but who identifies yourself as a woman. India has a rich heritage of communities of people who transgress and transcend the blindly accepted gender binary of “male=penis” and “female=vagina”, and who are redefining what gender means on the ground Essentially, the argument of many gender activists and theorists is that one’s gender is not necessarily linked to biological characteristics, that there are more genders under the sun than just “male” and” female”, and that it is necessary as a society to expand our socially accepted definitions in order to reflect the diversity of how gender is lived and experienced in the real world. For example, many people who identify as hijra state openly that they consider themselves women, plain and simple, and yet there are also others who identify as transgender and say that they fall into a third gender category that cannot be defined as either male or female. And that’s all to the good. The beauty of engaging with gender-variance is that it pushes all of us (including transgender individuals) to question our assumptions about gender and sex and to acknowledge the fluidity of such identities. It also allows non-genderqueer individuals to push the boundaries of their own genders: if a butch-presenting lesbian and a very femme transgender individual both identify as women, then they are both challenging assumptions about what womanhood means and expanding the limits of gender identity and embodiedness for us all—gay, bisexual, straight, transgender, and queer. All of this gender theory is my way of telling you that you are not alone. Not by any means. There are many communities of hijras in the north and aravanis in the south that you can tap into as sources of support and guidance. (You may, for example, have seen the recent news reports about the addition of “transgender” as a gender category to official documents and government applications in Tamil Nadu.)

Now, you raised the question of how to “really” change into a woman. In my book, you already are one. But of course, not everyone will see it that way, not among the aravanis and transgender population. In the opinion of many in the transgender community, one cannot truly call themselves male or female until they have undergone the sex-reassignment surgery. (This surgery essentially creates either a new set of genitalia and secondary sex characteristics for the person who elects to go through it and is often preceded and followed by a long-term course of hormone therapy.) However, the surgery is expensive and carries certain health risks, and not everyone chooses to do it. Does that make them less authentically the gender they’ve chosen? In my opinion, no. It’s ultimately your decision to make, and you have to be comfortable with it since you’re the one walking out of that hospital. We’re dealing in profound issues of identity here, and when it comes right down to it, only you can define who you are and set the terms of your own selfhood. Not me and not anyone else. It’s your right, J. So claim it.