Liberating Ourselves in the Boudoir - Warren Wilson College

Ritual flagellation is also present in several forms of Islam,and ritual whipping (for women) and spanking (for men) ispresent in Taoist temples.More recently, in the Western world, there is an abundance ofliterature and artwork containing references to or fulldepictions of BDSM-related activities from the mid-1700sonward. Such prurient literature culminated, of course, inthe writings of the previously mentioned Marquis de Sadeand Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.Many years after the writings of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch,BDSM finds influences in the gay male leather subculture,particularly in the U.S.. The leather movement, nowsometimes called “Old Guard Leather,” is one of the mostpotent influences on the attitudes and actions of modernBDSM, and its origins are perhaps the most patriarchal.Leather culture came about in the period just following WorldWar II, as soldiers returned home from the European andPacific theaters. These soldiers became addicted to a lifesurrounded and defined by men, traditional “masculinity,”enforced structure and hierarchy, dominance andsubmission, discipline, extreme violence, servitude, and anatmosphere or command and obedience. Upon returninghome, this morphed into a gay (that is, queer male, and onlyqueer male) subculture involving all of the same traits. Thissubculture is arguably the most influential element in theformation of modern BDSM.world, that they own all the people in it, and that they canbuy whatever that want, even remonstration and punishmentfor their misdeeds.This brings up an entirely different aspect of BDSM thatdisgusts me; that is, the consumerism and capitalism drivingit and profiting from it. You name it, BDSM is all aboutbuying and selling it: toys, props, absurd costumes, sex acts,professional domination, overpriced conventions and fetishballs, porn, porn, porn. I'm sure there are folks out there whomake all their own BDSM gear, but even so, BDSM isundeniably money-driven, money-making, money-oriented.Probably because in our society money is the same as power,and that's really what it's all about, isn't it?The assorted miscellany available for BDSM “play” is prettytelling itself. Many of these “toys” are overt in theirrelationship to the multifarious onslaught of oppression. Hell,even calling these implements toys (when they are clearlymade for less-than-playful means) demonstrates the kind ofsophistry that must go on in the minds of folks who seeBDSM as a freeing force. Bits and whips, to take twoexamples, have been used to drive animal slavery (includinghumans) for as long as domestication has existed. Amongcertain practitioners of BDSM chains and shackles- serious,heavy, transport-to-the-New-World shackles- are used asrestraints. Does this even need discussing? And amongothers handcuffs, thumbcuffs, anklecuffs, and straitjacketspredominate bedroom activities. These are the same devicesused by those who “protect and serve” the dominant cultureand its insane policies and practices by arresting,imprisoning. and enslaving those on lower rungs of thehierarchy. Of course, some people toss out the props and getstraight to the point by donning the costumes of cops,businessmen, doctors, slave masters, and soldiers.In the face of all of these arguments to the contrary, peoplewho participate in BDSM still claim that it is liberating. If it'snot liberating them from patriarchy, capitalism, fucked upchildhoods, slavery, gender roles, groupthink, or the dark611