the Female Body GOVERNING

Feminism’s Sex Wars 265
The essentialism in this passage, representative of the volume, ties
the gender of the writers to the respective qualities of masochism and
sadism. Patriarchy and heterosexual life are defined as emotional
sadism and masochism and thus real violence. The pragmatically and
theoretically troubling essentialism of the division between heterosexual
s/m and lesbian s/m takes sexual orientation and gender of
those engaging in s/m as its only point of reference, which allows s/m
lesbians to discard an ethical or political imperative for an engagement
with the signifiers of their actual s/m scenarios. It freezes a discussion
of the s/m act in relation to the identity of the actors, also freezing the
actors’ identities as lesbian or straight. While identity is performative
in relation to the roles enacted in s/m to be the dominant or the
submissive—it is fixed in relation to the identity of those who perform
the game lesbian or straight, woman or man.
The reliance on a rhetoric of feminine identity goes hand in hand
with rhetoric of victimization that connects both positions and that
warrants a closer reading on the introduction to Coming to Power and
Against Sadomasochism. Even though the two collections are ideologically
juxtaposed to each other, they share an unacknowledged rhetoric of
victimization expressed in each their “Introduction.” Since the “Introduction”
frames the collected essays, it functions to align victimization
with a moral entitlement to speak. In each introduction the narrator
herself embodies victimization through a personal narrative to portray
the victimization of the position expressed in the book. The s/m lesbians
accord the public sphere of feminism an oppressive quality and the antis/m
feminists project an oppressive function onto the gay male public
sphere. Both authors construct a position of victimization by claiming
that their desire to participate in that public sphere was rejected and
oppressed. In the “Introduction” to the pro-s/m collection Coming to
Power Katherine (SAMOIS, 1981/1987) argues:
Few of us have been able to admit to anyone our interest in S/M or
have been able to talk about the content of our fantasies. Some of us
could not even admit those fantasies to ourselves. Social and political
costs run very high. In the public arena of the lesbian, feminist, and gay
press, positive feelings about S/M experiences have been met for the
most part with swift negative reaction and authoritative reprimands.
In this context, trashing has been renamed “feminist criticism,” honest
dialogue has been submerged by wave after wave of ideological censure
calling itself “debate,” and those of us who continue to resist this
treatment are accused of being contaminated by the patriarchy. (p. 7)