Privelege Was Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Maoist cleanup drive hits

[queer dewd formerly known as ( )]

At 08:32 PM 1/8/2007, ravi wrote:
>Isn't that the point? That SM causes a confusion of violence and sex?
>         --ravi


Among other things, one of the reasons BDSM flourished during the AIDS 
crises was because it was a way to get off without having genital sexual 
contact. e.g, a couple with whom my ex and I were engaged in a polyamorous 
relationship were also into 'the scene'. he got off with a collar and a dog 
dish, having her walk him in public and treat him like a dog.

*le sigh*

As Janet Halley explains what's going on, she draws on Leo Bersani's essay, 
"Is the Rectum A Grave?"  Bersani persuasively argues that sex involves -- 
and some of us like more than others -- instances in which our ego 
dissolves. I suspect a lot of people are familiar with this in the language 
of US romance: "Oh, the sex was so great, I completely forgot I existed and 
we become one."

Bersani uses the figure of the homo "legs high in the air, unable to refuse 
the suicidal ecstasy of being a gay man".

Sexuality, she says, involves putting into continual play (quoting Bersani) 
"the source and locus of every individual's original experience of power 
(and of powerlessness) in the world: the human body." (The acts of 
mastering one's own body --eating, sitting up, crawling, walking, shitting, 
peeing -- are the primoridal experiences associated with coming to have a 
sense of separate self that is increasingly aware of the seaparteness of 
the self from others.

As such, sexuality (not just physical sex) involves the play between power 
and powerlessness  -- the desire for both the mastery of the ego and the 
desire to experience a loss of that ego (its dissolution).

Bersani again: "that sexual pleasure occurs whenever a certain threshold of 
intensity is reached, when the organization of the self is momentarily 
disturbed by sensations or affective processes somehow beyond those 
connected with psychic organization'

(Note: many of my BDSM friends express what they desire as sensory play, 
often in the form of a repetition and increase in intensity, a ritual 
through which they explore their own body  and their own response, the 
sensory rhythms of whatever turns them on performing the functions of 
rhythmic vanilla sex.)

In short: bersani is arguing that the center of sexuality IS masochism 
where masochism refers not to pain but to submission -- relinquishment of 
the sense of mastery over one's body and the world.

Shorter: to be sex positive is to be shame affirmative, recognizing not 
just the variety of sexual practices in the world, but to recognize that 
there is a dark side to sexuality: a desire for a kind of death of the self.

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>On this listserve, it seems to me it's only Charles now who isn't sold
>>on BDSM.  :->  But you know some people feel cooler when there are
>>acting as if they were in a minority even where they are the majority.

yeah. it's all about cool for people. they aren't making up being treated 
as a minority -- by feminists or the left. and where they are tolerated 
they are, as Gayle Rubin pointed out over two decades ago, STILL the 
subject of condescension:

"Yet this defense of political rights is linked to an implicit system of 
ideological condescension" So, now that they are cool, they get treated to 
more condescension? Sweet.

Chuck wrote:
>There is an assumption in this discussion that BDSM/kink revolves around 
>pain and pleasure. That is true of some of it, but there are many other 
>factors involved. This discussion hasn't even touched on the issues of 
>power, control, domination, submission, play and other factors involved in 
>BDSM/kink roleplaying and sex. I think leftists do notice these factors 
>and read them too literally.

As some of my friends in the BDSM community point out, some of it simply 
involves repetition: the enjoyment of sensory play.



At 06:59 PM 1/8/2007, John Thornton wrote:

>He's not confusing sex and violence he is having a difficult time 
>differentiating between coercive violent acts perpetrated sexually and 
>consensual sexual acts that appear violent.
>The point still stands. Many people make this same mistake. If BDSM 
>practitioners want their practices accepted by those in the mainstream 
>they will have to deal with the fact that many people hold this same 
>erroneous belief. Telling everyone how ridiculous the idea is does nothing 
>to dissuade them of this opinion.

It isn't incumbent upon marginalized to explain jack to anyone. It's a 
standard principle of the left re: the obligations of the oppressed to 
those who occupy positions of privilege. It is their gift to you if they 
bother to education, not their obligation. it is your obligation as someone 
who uphold freedom and justice to do _your_ homework about any group that 
has been culturally and socially marginalized to ask yourself: since 
marginalization of a group is almost always about enforcing arbitrary norms 
on a group of people in the interest of entrenched, already existing power 
relations, then maybe I'm wrong and I ought to look into it, reading the 
material these folks have already produced.

Sort of like not making dumb comments about native americans, etc.


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