Do you think its anti-feminist for women to engage in properly practiced BDSM? More specifically, is it anti-feminist for a woman to be a submissive in the BDSM community? I oppose 50 shades because it is a frankly wrong portrayal of BDSM. In fact, its not even that. And while I don’t believe in what 50 shades is selling (abuse) I do believe a woman has every right to engage in properly practiced BDSM. Even if that means being a submissive to a male dom/master.

I think that it’s absurd and offensive to put a label of ‘feminism’ on any attempt to curtail a woman’s right to make her own decisions for her own happiness.  Like, do we all recognize the intrinsic hypocrisy of that?

Telling a woman she’s not allowed to be submissive?  Fuck that, frankly.

The toxicity of 50 Shades has absolutely nothing to do with BDSM, and has everything to do with stalking, gaslighting and controlling behavior on the part of one person in a relationship towards another.  Fuck that also.

And while we’re at it, let’s talk about the parameters of ‘properly practiced BDSM.’  To wit: it is any kind of activity at all that you and one or more partners wish to engage in, with free consent of all parties and proceeding fully informed of potential risks involved.  Ta da.  Whether you like getting tied up and slapped around, running knives over somebody else’s body or engaging in dub-con James Bond movie marathons, them’s the parameters. 

There’s a thing called total power exchange, which is a specific practice where people essentially enter into a contract for consensual slavery.  Sometimes it involves an actual on-paper contract.  It’s a kind of BDSM game/relationship, which runs 24/7 and involves one person having a significant say at all times over pretty much any and all aspects of life for the other person.

That’s pretty clearly what 50 Shades is supposedly depicting.  Except

1: for it to be legit BDSM and not abuse, it STILL requires (even more than usual) the explicit and thorough discussion of desires and limits, negotiation of practices, and giving of consent.  And

2: even if there’s a contract, it’s not legally binding and either person can in fact walk away at any time, whether they like to admit to it or not (from what I’ve seen of discussions of this online, they often don’t like to admit to it because that would break the illusion).  We’ve got a Constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery in the US (except for convicted criminals in prison, but that’s a different problem), and to prevent someone from leaving a relationship, any relationship, is abuse and 99% of the time involves legally recognized crimes like assault or even kidnapping.

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