thepunishmentdontfitthecrime:

coldbitterness:

(TW for discussion of rape)

BDSM has long been a target of criticism from outsiders, but these two are devoted members of the scene. Stryker argued in her essay, “I Never Called It Rape,” that the community is so “focused on saying how BDSM isn’t a cover for abuse that we willingly blind ourselves to the times that it can be,” she wrote. “How on earth can we possibly say to society at large that BDSM is not abuse when we so carefully hide our abusers and shame our abused into silence?” … One critic, Janet Hardy, author of several popular BDSM books, including “The New Bottoming Book,” tells me, “My general thoughts are that it is tremendously important to build a safe word culture but that bottoms have to hold up their share of that responsibility,” she says. “A bottom who refuses to safeword when he or she has actually withdrawn consent has just turned me into a rapist or assailant without my consent, and that is not OK.”

Wow so that’s like the grossest thing I’ve read in awhile

Hardy, co-author of the bible on polyamory, “The Ethical Slut,” doesn’t deny that sexual assault is a problem in the community, but she takes issue with arguments about the social pressure to not safeword. It has “some of the flavor of the kind of victimhood that we see from some second wave feminists,” she says, “and I don’t want to get too deep into this because I’m going to get myself into trouble, but you know where I’m going with this.”

Whoops I take it back, THAT’S the new grossest thing And “straight to hell” is where you can ~go with this~ 

I am very much into some BDSM things. I’m not a hardcore BDSM fan, but I DO enjoy some of it. I am also very communicative with my partner about what I do and don’t enjoy, and we have a safe word that I have used when things go too far. My partner wishes only to please me and is very attentive to things that I do and do not like.I don’t think that it’s right for you to shame me for the things my partner and I equally consent to within the bedroom. That is my business and not yours. 

I don’t know who you are so how am I shaming you by posting this article and commenting on how gross some of Janet Hardy’s comments are in it? This has nothing to do with consensual BDSM practices and everything to do with rape, rape culture, and victim blaming, which are not exclusive to BDSM but which are enabled by far too many people in BDSM communities. If you want to read a stranger being disgusted by comments about “victimhood feminism” and the like as shaming your personal sexual preferences (which I could not possibly care less about) then, idk what to tell you.