>CB: The burden is on you to prove that. What an amazingly uniform group
>these sadists are. Uniform like no other human group I know. Amazingly
>self-disciplined too.
Well, when you are engaged in a taboo sexual practice, you tend to be that way. Just like people who are polyamorous do not treat polyamory the way your typical het couple treats an affair: secrecy, sneaking around, lying.
that is, you no longer rely on the roles you were raised with and taught are 'normal'. the rules of dating and sexual partnering, where it is seen as "not romantic" to discuss responsibility, likes and dislikes, place demands and burdens on one another,right out in the open. this is seen as horribly unromantic and the goal of romance is to find "the one" who just magically "knows". (and whatever people do know is the result of socialization and following fairly scripted patterns that are so entrenched we don't realize they are pre-given and hardly made up by us.)
When you are engaged in marginalized sexual practices like BDSM, you can't rely on that (and you can't rely on it otherwise, since such failure to communicate is often the source of pain, harm, violence, and rape). Since you are very aware of this, you take it a bit more seriously, particularly if you feel any obligation to a community -- and many people do. Because you have reputation in that community. Which is much different than in het relationships, eh? If you want to have the sex you want in a BDSM community, you better do what you say you're going to do or become known for your behavior and ostracized.
This is NOT to say -- and Doug didn't say it either -- that there are bad things that happen. I know of NO feminist BDSM practitioner who will tell others that there is nothing to worry about. There's lots of discussion. There's a thread at Feministe.us/blog right now (you'll have to surf the site to find it, i'm too lazy) which discusses such a case right now: a woman was raped.
But it's sort of like the 'airing dirty laundry' problem women of color were discussing on the blog a month or so ago. There's a big problem with sexism among men of color in their communities, but not one wants to talk about it for fear that MOC will be demonized, yet some more, as somehow more sexist than white men.
I'd also invite you to take a look at this paper from Janet Halley on a case in Texas involving BDSM and supposedly forced sex between husband and wife. When Halley takes off her feminist glasses and put on her Queer glasses, she sees a totally different problem, where the 'victim' isn't necessarily a woman.
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/djglp/articles/gen11p7.htm
It's case law, so you might find it interesting, her reading. (Also? The article says it's by Ian Halley. That's her pseud. a bit of performance art to make a point about her work.)
Queer Dewd is amused since many moons ago, Charles and Queer Dewd had an argument over the supposedly liberated character of the early sexual liberation movements, where some of us pointed out that it was being abused by men to guilt trip women into sex.
I have just read Dennis Claxton and realize this was a waste of my time.
Queer Dewd: Where feminists can suck my delicate, feminine cock http://blog.pulpculture.org