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KindLadyGrey -> RE: Coming Out Scene Report (3/6/2008 2:34:42 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Parataxis
Liking kink is the same as liking anything else in bed; it's nothing to be ashamed of, but also not necessarilly what you should be telling all and sundry. IMNAAHO.
Not to pick on you parataxis, but this sentiment drives me batty. D/s is about a lot more than sex, and I think it's the perception that this is a primarily "sexual" lifestyle that helps drive a lot of people into the closet in the first place because anything involving sex isn't a socially acceptable topic of conversation (and don't even get me started on that issue).
My problem with this is that it doesn't allow for challenging the dominant assumptions of our culture. People often say things like "I don't care if people are gay, but why do they have to make such a big deal out of it? Do I really need to know who they are fucking?" Well, no, they don't need to know that, but keep in mind that everybody knows who they are fucking, and because of that everyone can share a baseline of communication for talking about sexual things without actually breaking the taboo and talking about sex directly. But the moment a gay man says "My boyfriend came over last night" everyone else's mind immediately jumps to "OMG, buttsex eeeewwww!" and they change the subject. They never think to ask "What did you guys do?" even if the answer is just "We watched the new James Bond movie." Likewise, whenever a kinky person mentions ANYTHING about their lifestyle, most people immediately think about "whips and chains" but they never think about any of the thousands of non-sexual manifestations of this lifestyle. Other people can talk about their spouses, their weekend travels, their hobbies, and even sometimes things that make them horny ("I love titties, woo!"). I don't see why kinky folks should be able to share the same information about their daily lives. You got into an argument with your boyfriend and he bought you some flowers/jewelry to apologize? That's great. I got in an argument with my boyfriend too; I spanked him and he cleaned my kitchen to apologize. The objective sexual content of these activities is pretty equal, IMHO.
Communicating our basic preferences once allows us to have a shared basis for communication later so that we don't HAVE to break that taboo, and it provides context in case someone sees us practicing our lifestyle later. Context free, if someone sees my boyfriend slap me, they are going to assume he's an abusive asshole. If they know I'm a kinky masochist, they'll just assume we're having a little fun.
Obviously not everyone is willing to accept that, and not everybody has any reason to HAVE that shared basis for communication. Your boss? Maybe not, unless you hang out with your boss socially. But your friends, your co-workers, your family, it might actually explain a lot to them if they know, just like Sea finally explained where he was running off to all the time and why he never introduced his vanilla friends to his other friends.
So the whole "nobody really needs to know what you do in the bedroom" argument falls flat. Most people do know what other people do in the bedroom, at least the basic facts, so they operate on those assumptions by default. If you don't fit the default, and people try to apply their assumptions to you, there is likely to be a bit of a communication problem, or at least a lapse of communication between yourself and the other people in your life. They don't need to know graphic details, but it certainly might help if they know the basic jist just like everybody else does.
Keep in mind that any time anyone tells someone that they shouldn't speak about something, it is almost always a way of shaming them into silence.
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