So, whilst I’m courting mild controversy, here’s another one to spark debate… I commented, amidst the fascinating discussion on my “Daddy” post lately that:
the majority of my roleplaying fantasies – whilst ‘perverting reality’ – are either actually so fundamentally improbable (or set in eras so long ago) that there’s no risk of upsetting people who could have been traumatised by similar events in real life
Now, take the following little fantasy:
Floggings for orphan girls
Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in St Albans after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official has said. The girls received 10 lashes each at a women’s prison in the city. The local newspaper said the girls had been convicted of “acts of mischief” and attacking the director of the orphanage.
A hot little paragraph? Many here would, I suspect, find it so. One pictures what might have happened; wonders about the detail; imagines oneself as, perhaps, a spectator or participant; daydreams about whether it would be feasible to roleplay such a scene [obviously, with consenting adult partners].
Now take the following, from The Guardian last week:
Saudi Arabia flogs orphan girls
Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official has said. The girls received 10 lashes each at a women’s prison in Medina, Islam’s second holiest city… The Arabic language Okaz newspaper said the girls had been convicted of “acts of mischief” and attacking the director of the orphanage.
Well, of course, such barbarity in the judicial system deserves the utmost condemnation. I doubt any readers here (or more than a very few) would advocate such sentences and, in reading the report, would do anything other than feel the greatest sympathy for the young women involved.
Some will feel utterly repulsed as they read. I do. Yet, being frank, at the same time the kinky part of my brain can’t help itself: I find myself having to battle not to allow it to wander freely, fascinated, treading on treacherous territory. When I can manage to pervert the reality of ordinary daily life, it’s a real fight to avoid doing so from a report that talks about actual corporal punishment. The same’s true for accounts of historical thrashings, which many (myself included) find quite fascinating. I wonder: is it merely the passage of time that makes it acceptable to daydream?
Again a very interesting question, Abel! As I already wrote in my comment on your „Daddy” post, I’m neither comfortable with the new nor with the historical version of the story.
But I can relate to your observation that the description of real-life CP that takes place in our time causes an even worse feeling. My assumption is that the thought that this is taking place in our world in our time and that these women are somewhere out there right now, trying to deal with the memories of these horrible experiences, causes a higher feeling of guilt when using the story about their real suffering for arousing fantasies. The historical events took place in another time, the people involved are long gone and even if you wanted to, you couldn’t do anything to change what happened to them. Of course you couldn’t change the „new” event either, but you could theoretically for example support organizations that fight for the abolition of judicial CP or whatever, so you could do at least something against this form of abuse in general.
My assumption is that these contradictory feelings (feeling an obligation to fight for the abolition of judicial CP today while getting aroused by fantasies about judicial CP at the same time) make it much harder to bear the second version of your story. My mind usually feels the most comfortable with either pure fantasy scenarios (for example, taken from a fiction book) or consensual scenarios (for example, sumo-wrestlers accepting cane strokes as part of the motivation during their training). Sometimes there are situations, though, where I come across non-consensual real-life descriptions and have these contradictory feelings as well.
But, as Franklin so aptly wrote in his comment on the „Daddy” discussion: „You’re aroused by what you’re aroused by. You know what you would do and wouldn’t do.” I think as long as you are clear about the fact that you don’t condone any real-life abuse, you don’t have to feel guilty about your fantasies which you only act out among consensual adults but which can be triggered by descriptions of real-life events as well.
Not just the passage of time I suspect, but the fact that when we roleplay scenes like that we locate them in a very carefully constructed reality. We might imagine we’re living in a terrifying 19th century institution for example, but we’re not and we know we’re not. Whatever our roleplays are like, the recipients are and always will be people who are in that situation only because they choose to be. In a roleplay like this the “orphans” will be adult women who’ve chosen to suspend their disbelief sufficiently to enter into the scene and derive enjoyment from it. They’re not terrified powerless orphans being subjected to legalised brutality, but the fact that they have the freedom to pretend that they are is fundamental to the playing out of the scene. The consent of all parties is what makes it possible for us to inflict or accept a degree of pain which we would find abhorrent if it genuinely involved unwilling victims. Roleplay is fantasy stuff – and fantasies aren’t real by definition.
I agree 100%.
I felt repulsed as I read the Saudi account and yet very much enjoyed the fantasy of the St. Albans story.
Similarly when at school watching others being caned, was a little traumatic and yet in my lifestyle today, its very acceptable as we are all consenting adults.
The wierd way our minds work!!!
Abel, it is a complex question. But in my mind I wish the fantasy dream of these floggings given to these woman, be real.
I’ve been contemplating this since I read it. It raises interesting questions. For me, I don’t think it’s so much the distance of time that makes it acceptable. I think it’s – at the risk of seeming racist or something – more the perception that Sharia law is inhumane.
A judicial system that permits amputation is so skewed that it cannot imo be trusted to implement any sort of justice (I object to the death penalty too, whether it’s by hanging, beheading, lethal injection or whatever).
Then, the girls were between 12 and 18 – while I have no problem with an 18-y-o being punished (not necessarily cp) as an adult I don’t think it’s appropriate for a 12-y-o to be punished as one (and that goes irrespective of country – the US processing of children as adults for particular crimes is equally as flawed imo)
Then there is the ethical problem of whether corporal punishment should or shouldn’t be allowed in RL. Having been raised in a system where corporal punishment was used I have no real problem with the notion of it, with the proviso that it is age-appropriate and guaranteed abuse-proof.
I think (both in RL and fantasy) that sending the girls to a prison for their punishment was both overly harsh and weakening to the position of the headteacher. IMO the appropriate punishment should have been carried out by the head teacher or her deputy, in front of a Board of Governors (or equivalent) and in front of all the girls as a salutary lesson.
I think that part of it is when we read about things that happened in the 19th century, for example, we assume that there was an innocence involved, even for the people doing the punishing. Somehow there seems to be no malevolence involved. If we read about the same thing happening now, we know that the people involved in punishing the girls are fully aware of how things work now, and that there is probably a certain amount of just plain evil involved. Not sure why, but that’s how I’ve always thought of it. Back in the 19th century, that’s just how things were, but now we have different ideas, so punishing girls in that same way feels wrong to us.
Interesting discussion, Abel.
I think it’s a stretch to set up a moral difference between modern and historically-based fantasies. Patriarchy, violence and exploitation are still patriarchy, violence and exploitation no matter when or where they occur. Domino’s comments about Sharia law being more inhumane and Jen’s comments about the “innocence” of the Victorians don’t resonate at all with me. I’m not sold on the idea that because something happened in History, it *had* to happen that way because that’s just how things were back then — as if History moved on its own, and were not propelled by the choices and actions of people. In a hundred or so years, will people excuse Saudi Arabia cause, you know, that’s just how things rolled in the 21st century? There were people in Victorian times who protested abuse and cruelty; there were people who perpetrated cruelties; there were choices. Same as now.
But, I do think the difference in emotional response is completely valid. Of course our fear and outrage is more virulently aroused by a story of injustice in our own society, in the world we help to shape. That’s how it should work.
Abel already knows the distinction between reality and fantasy, consent and non-consent, fun adult roleplay and child abuse. But I think his question has more to do with the tangly questions of empathy, shame and desire; of what to do when our emotions clash with our erotic imagination. And while I don’t want to encourage kink-shaming — Haron’s wonderful recent post on guilt comes to mind — I have to admit, I think a little guilt in this instance is a good sign.
Because Abel is a Bad Person with Bad Morals and should condemn himself as Bad? Absolutely not. But because guilt is the natural byproduct of the collision of a well-developed sense of compassion and justice with a particularly wired sex drive. If this post had simply consisted of the Saudi Arabia excerpt with an enthusiastic, “Damn, that’s hot!” I would’ve been grossed out. Abel’s discomfort with these fantasies lets us know that he’s the right kind of sadist.
And I might as well stop using “Abel” as the example here and put in myself, or all of us, cause we’ve all got crazy-ass fantasies. And part of the reason these fantasies hold such an allure is because they induce guilt, because they seem so especially wrong. Such is the way of the sex drive. And that’s fine.
I don’t think we should be driven and dominated by our guilt. But I’d like to suggest that in this case, the erotic fantasy and the guilt that follows are equally valid.
I don’t think anybody in a hundred years will excuse Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia understands how the rest of the world works NOW. You can’t have 7th century moral rules in a world that has come so far. What I said about the 19th century seeming more innocent, it’s because back then the WHOLE world worked essentially the same way. Things have changed so much in the past thirty years, and we understand things in a much different way than we did even at the turn of the 20th century. We have become more enlightened in how we see human rights, so of course we could never understand how Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle Eastern country, could choose to use such barbaric methods to punish people. That’s the difference between the two scenarios. We understand how things worked back when the first example played out, and we’re removed enough to see it in an erotic way. We could never think of girls now going through the same thing without being disgusted.