the Female Body GOVERNING

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barbara mennel
Davis claims internalized oppression as a result of the reprimand in
the feminist public sphere. The victimization of the s/m lesbians is
described through detailed accusations of the abuse committed by
feminist “authoritative reprimands,” “trashing,” “censure,” and “treatment.”
Thus, the paradigmatic tables of feminist analysis are turned and
feminists are cast as perpetrators of discursive violence against women
who practice s/m.
Robin Ruth Linden (Linden, Pagano, & Russell, 1982), the author
of “Introduction: Against Sadomasochism” of the collection Against
Sadomasochism, claims a victim position vis-à-vis the visible signs of s/m
in the gay area of San Francisco, the Castro:
I live in the Castro district of San Francisco, a gay quarter of the
city. Almost every day I walk the short distance to the heart of Castro
Street, down the foothills of Twin Peaks, to shop or do errands. . . . As
a woman alone, I feel like a visitor to a foreign country. It’s not that
gay men necessarily are hostile to women; actually, they are more or
less oblivious. This invisibility can be a blessing in disguise; it lends
a sense of safety when I’m walking after dark, freedom from the fear
of threat: nameless, amorphous. The passion is cold, at times almost
macabre.
It is commonplace to see men with black leather collars and leashes
around their necks to indicate they are sexual “slaves”—masochists;
men with padlocks clasped around their throats, another sign of sexual
“enslavement”; men in military uniforms sometimes bearing swastikas;
men with color-coded handkerchiefs neatly folded in their hip pockets,
indicating their preferred sexual role and practices. After several years
I have become accustomed to seeing men wearing the paraphernalia
of sadomasochism: studded black leather belts, handcuffs dangling
from pockets, black leather gloves, chains, devices I don’t recognize
fl anking the hips of passersby. But recently, there is an occasional
woman in similar dress. (pp. 1–2)
Linden sets the stage for her description of s/m by positioning herself
in a state of vulnerable womanhood: a woman alone at night among
men. Despite the qualifying reference to gay men’s obliviousness toward
women, the “nameless, amorphous” “threat” to femininity rhetorically
foreshadows the threat of sadomasochism.
The rhetorical positioning vis-à-vis the otherwise marginal public
sphere of feminism and male gay culture turns the position of the
narrator into one of victimization, which, in turn, entitles the narrator
to a moral position. In both cases, the rhetoric of victimhood relies on