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hisannabelle -> RE: When does BDSM become unhealthy or destructive (6/30/2008 5:24:42 PM)
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quote:
10) Everyone is making a lot of assumptions about the mental health of the man in question, how many of you really support anyone who wants to kill or permanently disable themselves, any time, anywhere, without any kind of supervision or evaluation?
11) No one is saying that doing these things under extreemly aware/spiritual contexts is somehow wrong or insane. However, the desire to give or recieve permanant harm seems to be missing the point of most spiritual goals I am aware of, anyone else disagree?
12) Since when does knife play often lead to disfigurement or disablity? I'm pretty sure we undergo training to try and prevent that from happening.
first of all, i think i need to make clear what i am talking about when i talk about permanent harm here. i'm disabled because of things having nothing to do with my relationship with him. when i talk about permanent harm i'm talking about things that would, for example, cause permanent physical changes or exacerbations of any of my illnesses or possibly cause new illnesses (or injury or death), or things that would overwhelm my psychological limitations to an extent that it would possibly be damaging and make me crazier than i already am ;) so speaking more generally, when i discuss the fact that permanent harm and what constitutes permanent harm or whether or not it should be allowed for people to consent to it, this is the definition i am working with. in my opinion, wanting an extreme body mod isn't really all that vastly different a kind of permanent harm from wanting a pinky cut off.
i think what people do to their own bodies on their own time is their own business. if someone is legally considered mentally incompetent, then obviously that has some bearing, or if someone is being forced to do something - but if someone is competent enough to consent and does consent, then i don't see how you or anyone else has the right to stop them. that said, i do live in the state where one can be baker acted for up to 72 hours, and personally i think that law has been helpful to me and others i know, but at the same time, i do think someone should have the right to commit suicide. i have wanted to commit suicide because of the pain i go through every day due to my disability, and i have also had fantasies of death having to do with my submission (that said, while some of my kinks include permanent harm, i don't plan on intentionally dying because of s&m anytime soon, before anyone freaks out). i know people who have wanted to commit suicide or who have committed suicide for various reasons and i've never blamed them for wanting to do that - yes, it has interpersonal consequences, but like ialdabaoth said so succinctly, it's not any of my damn business. (for the record, i'm a fan of legalizing prostitution and drugs as well.) and before anyone says, well, that's just because you have a romanticized view of death, i lost both of my parents suddenly a couple of years ago (shortly after joining cm actually), so it's not that i don't understand how hard it is to lose someone, or even how hard it is to lose someone to suicide. but having wanted to commit suicide (and having used drugs and done sex work), i don't think i have the right to force people NOT to do something to their own body.
as for spirituality, i'm not arguing that suicide has some amazing spiritual component - it can, but even suicide or permanent harm in the case of some forms of s&m play, body modification, or what have you can just be meaningful to someone because of their submission, or whatever, without having to ascribe all sorts of wonderful spiritual labels to it. however, to answer the concern that it's missing the point of spiritual goals - well, i was buddhist for many years before converting to islam, and i'm still a core member of the buddhist community here as well as academically studying buddhism. the tradition that i practice primarily was/is dzogchen tibetan buddhism, and one of our core practices involves visualizing offering your body up to be eaten - cannibalism and the tantric feast has a long history in tibetan and other tantric practice, and the history is not all shiny happy visualizations. many other buddhist traditions (i'm thinking particularly of an article on japanese buddhism in 12th century if i remember correctly, which i can give you the author/title of if you're interested, and i'm sure i have a few others lying around on this subject) also have traditions of ritual and meditative suicide for the purpose of attaining paradise or nirvana, or for the passing of the body after nirvana has been reached - and to the untrained eye, a yogi's passing by his own force of will when he can also stop that passing really isn't all that different in definition from suicide. and that may sound shiny and happy and spiritually enlightening, but buddhist teachers have also historically tied themselves to rocks and drowned themselves on a regular basis. not to mention self-immolation. (personally i have my own beliefs about this, but these are people who are not just average everyday nutjobs - they're people with years of experience and meditative skill and often large followings as well.)
as far as knife play - sorry, last i checked it involves cutting, which (at least for some of us) involves scarification, which according to the whole "permanent changes to the body that are not for your health or happiness" fits the definitions of permanent harm people keep throwing around on this thread...again why i say it's not too big of a step from cutting off a finger to extreme body mods to scarification or asphyxiation and other things that some of us consider run of the mill edgeplay.
you've still failed to address the fluidity of mental health definitions, labels, diagnoses, and standards.
respectfully,
a'ishah.
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