There’s quite a lot of stigma and stereotype attached to the BDSM community.
As a kinkster myself, I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes through films like Fifty Shades Of Grey, especially for the way it depicted kink as going hand-in-hand with controlling and manipulative partners. Of course, it’s not like I haven’t been inadvertently kink-shamed before since folks around me often confuse BDSM with abuse. But the stereotype that bothers me the most is the one surrounding assault survivors and kink.
Since kink is commonly mistaken for something scary and unpleasant, assault and kink can be mashed into the same conversations pretty easily. Take, for example, a random woman in the theatre besides me, loudly commenting on one of the character’s sexual positions as “looking kind of rape-y.” To conservative and vanilla folks, I can understand how this distinction may be hard to understand, specifically regarding older generations who applaud the slow and gently passionate stuff they saw in black and white films. But as someone who engages in kink consensually and enjoys being flogged and choked very much by my dominant partner, these statements usually roll off my back as harmless and irrelevant.
The real issue, however, is when folks within our own community attempt to speak on behalf of an entire population, effectively erasing the narratives of many. That’s where #daddygate comes in, a Twitter hashtag that was trending last month thanks to Twitter user @shanley opening a discussion about the use (and alleged appropriation) of the word “daddy.”
In her thread, she set out specific stipulations regarding who could use the term “daddy” (including, but not limited to, being queer, being a kinkster and having “daddy” issues). Though I am a queer kinkster who grew up with an emotionally abusive and manipulative father, these assertions still vex me. Many folks, regardless of their sexuality, gender identity, or family history, may love the idea of completely handing off power to a male figure in the bedroom without necessarily identifying as a kinkster. But what frustrated me the most was @shanley’s assertion that BDSM was inextricably tied to sexual trauma, implying that being assaulted was yet another requirement in order for you to use the term “daddy,” as well as engage in kinky bedroom activities.
Though I understand that her intention was to rally visibility for fellow queer kink-loving survivors, her rant completely frustrated me regardless of how perfectly I fit the bill as someone who’s “allowed” to say daddy. As someone who has immensely enjoyed the art of being spanked and handled roughly before and after my trauma, I resent the implication that my trauma has anything to do with my current sexual identity.
The very idea of this stresses me out, as I’ve been trying to put my traumatic experiences behind me for years, extracting it from my sex life slowly but surely. Her statements, though designed to be affirming, made me resentful. Her words made me picture my attacker’s face once again in place of my partner as they pound me hard in the bedroom. I feel the very idea that BDSM is something which is reserved for survivors to reclaim creates some pretty problematic implications around the practice. Though I don’t believe it was intended, the clumsy way in which she attempted to speak on behalf of millions of survivors communicated that a person’s enjoyment of BDSM might somehow be correlated with their assault history. And so that has the potential to feed into a dangerous stereotype I’ve also heard elsewhere, which is this: survivors who love BDSM do so because they enjoyed their assault and enjoy being abused as a whole.
Obviously, there’s nothing about my assault that I enjoyed (and I’m sure most survivors would quickly agree with that). Though that should go unsaid, implying this feeds misogynistic rhetoric, taking the form of Twitter trolls with no lives making rape threats at random with the promise that you’d enjoy their violent behavior. But mostly, I take issue with this because my experience has not intersected at all with my sexual preferences.
Personally, I don’t identify with the idea of my traumatic experience being tied to my love of kink. Yes, I want to be respected as a kinkster (well, that’s already tricky territory) without folks feeling as though my assault somehow conflicts with my sexual preferences. But I do not want some random girl on the Internet speaking for me, and implying that I love BDSM because I am a survivor. I love BDSM because being roughly dominated and using toys excite me–and that’s not an experience that I feel has anything to do with my assault. I feel lucky I can have sex at all after my trauma, something I worked very hard on to achieve. But personally, I want to put my trauma in the past. I refuse to acknowledge any correlation between the scariest 10 minutes of my life and the best sex I’ve ever had. Though, psychologically speaking, there may be some correlations, acknowledging that fact is not empowering to me in the slightest. I feel empowered that I’m having sex and exploring my partner’s body without fear. I feel empowered when I’m spanked or choked or tied up or engaging in roleplay with a very unequal power dynamic (though some of these things trigger me from time to time due to my history). But the very thing that has disempowered me in the past, the thing that threatens to do so again when I get triggered by conversations like #daddygate, is the thing I want nowhere near my empowerment.
It’s important to acknowledge that there are survivors in the BDSM community. But based on folks’ varying fragility and discomfort with the topic of their assault, it’s best not to make broad, sweeping statements about those members. Sure, it’s cool that I was able to return to having rougher sex that used to be triggering from the traumatic experience I endured. But as far as I’m concerned, my assault has nothing to do with my membership in the BDSM community and vice versa.
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