Today’s spotlight is on my favourite of the “kinky rest” selection. “Domism: Role Essentialism and Sexism Intersectionality in the BDSM Scene” is a very long (make sure you’ve got plenty of time to read it), very thorough exploration of an interesting issue: are social interactions in the scene prejudiced in favour of dominant players?
It would be nice if some subculture sat outside every negative social dynamic, every kyriarchal oppressive dynamic, in pristine isolation, free of taint. It would be nice, but none can. And so the things that are wrong with the world are wrong with the BDSM community, and more specifically, with the formal community, the organizations and public parties: the Scene.
This is study in intersection. Among this relatively small group who are non-mainstream in one very specific respect, there are repetitions of and reactions to the oppressive patterns of the larger culture, but they’re not entirely straightforward. Partiarchal and heterosexist pattern manifest in some ways, power dynamics reorient themselves along BDSM role lines in other ways, and those things interact in ways that are completely unique to the BDSM community.
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[I]t’s easiest to start at the conclusion. In The Scene, it’s often the case that the social spaces — I’m not talking about the BDSM play itself, but the social interaction of the participants outside the bounds of play — privilege dominants and devalue submissives.
The article doesn’t make for a comfortable read, whatever your orientation. You may be temped to shout, “No, no, my corner of the scene is nothing like that!” But have a careful read, think about what you’ve experienced and witnessed, and I bet you’ll have some awkward twinges along the way.
Ooooo, that’s a good piece, and definitely worth the time it takes to read. Even though it’s trad-BDSM-centred, it’s plenty relevant to the spanking scene – maybe especially relevant, since spanking plays so much with traditional gender roles.