Best of the kinky rest – 1: “Kink as orientation?”

So, it’s time for the annual “Best of the kinky rest” collection here at The Spanking Writers. Now in its sixth year, this summer tradition (as I suppose it’s now become) recognises my favourite posts from the past year. I hope it might draw your attention to some excellent writing you may otherwise have missed, and perhaps even introduce you to a few new authors.

In this series, I’ll be honouring eleven excellent pieces of writing: one every other day, interspersed with my own usual posts. First up: a thought-provoking post by Indy, from early May, in which she addresses “the issue of BDSM/kink as a sexual orientation”.

Since our culture mostly discusses the idea of “orientation” in regards to gay / lesbian / bi / transgender / queer, it seemed to me that — if I dared refer to it as “my BDSM orientation” — then a comparison with LGBTQ was implied in my statement. Similarly, I thought of my exploration of my spanking desires as “coming out” to myself. Indeed, the first writings I ever posted on the internet were about that very issue.

Indy quotes Charles Moser, who “provides a list of characteristics that he associates with a sexual orientation, be it toward homosexuality or BDSM”:

• Lifelong – Difficult to Suppress
• Prepubertal Recognition
• Interest Despite Aging
• Immutable, but Fluid
• Emotional Price to Do or Not Do “It”
• Lust – Specifically and Especially Sexually Arousing
• Effect of Testosterone/Anti-Androgens

In addition, he notes that “not everyone who does a behavior (even repetitively) has an orientation. Also, an orientation can satisfy less than 7, but it is hard for me to imagine someone who satisfies all 7 not having an orientation.”

She continues:

I no longer have any desire to “fix” anything about my kinky orientation, and I’m angered that it seems common for mental health professionals to misunderstand what we do. We kinky people have problems just like everyone else, and they may even affect the way in which we express our kink. But the mere fact of enjoying impact play or D/s or other BDSM-spectrum activities is not one of them.

Standing up about this issue is important, and I share [Clarissa] Thorn’s concern that when we use the term “orientation” as a justification for our sexual practices, we have already lost the battle by tacitly agreeing that a justification is required.

Conversely, just because a sexual orientation is inborn in some way does not mean that it should be practiced if the very nature of the orientation precludes appropriate consent. An obvious example is a proclivity toward sex with children.

So in the end, with the important caveat that immutability is a poor standard for the moral acceptability of sexual activity, I find it useful to think of my spanking/BDSM desires as a sexual orientation. I don’t want to be insensitive or to co-opt language the LGBTQ community has adopted in a way that is superficial. That would be disrespectful. However, I have to wonder why some in the LGBTQ community are so offended by our use of this term…

We all know there are annoying know-it-alls in our community, people who talk way too much and listen way too little. There are also misogynists who use kink as a way to disguise their unpalatable beliefs. I understand, too, that it’s hard to listen to people from outside a group who claim to understand your experience. I hear that all the time with guys who think they know what it’s like to be a woman. They can’t know that from experience, but perceptive men who actually listen can understand a great deal about gender dynamics. Similarly, I have met plenty of people from outside the spanking or BDSM communities who have a pretty good understanding of our community. So, while I agree that we should all be respectful of others’ experience, that doesn’t mean we can’t understand something important from someone else’s journey.