With the recent release of the movie Fifty
Shades of Grey, heterosexual sadomasochism has once again entered the pop
culture stratosphere. With its release comes the visual representation of ‘what
women want’ that reifies the dominant discourse of male dominance over
women.
Nearly four decades ago, Dworkin (1974) critiqued
the mainstream appreciation for the erotic novel of dominance and submission, Histoire
d’O (Story of O; Réage, 1954), as she viewed the book as situating men and
women “at opposite poles of the universe – the survival of one dependent on the
absolute destruction of the other” (p. 63). In the following passage, Dworkin
(1976) argues that women need to confront their own masochism, so as not to
preserve the systemic male dominance over women (p. 111):
I believe that freedom for women must
begin in the repudiation of our own masochism. I believe that we must destroy
in ourselves the drive to masochism at its sexual roots. I believe that we must
establish our own authenticity, individually and among ourselves—to experience
it, to create from it, and also to deprive men of occasions for reifying the
lie of manhood over and against us. I believe that ridding ourselves of our own
deeply entrenched masochism, which takes so many tortured forms, is the first
priority; it is the first deadly blow that we can strike against systematized
male dominance. In effect, when we succeed in excising masochism from our own
personalities and constitutions, we will be cutting the male life line to power
over and against us, to male worth in contradistinction to female degradation,
to male identity posited on brutally enforced female negativity—we will be
cutting the male life line to manhood itself.
Although Dworkin was attempting to rally women to
abstain from sexual practices that maintain the power structures of male
dominance, she was also discounting other ontologies of same-sex desires and
behaviors, female domination over men, and the intersection of other oppressed
identities in sexual encounters; all of which could very well disrupt the
status quo of sexual dominance that assumes white heterosexual male domination
over white heterosexual women. Nevertheless, the foundation of sexual
oppression needs to be brought to the fore when examining the impact of Fifty
Shades of Grey and kink culture on women.
One might ask, “What if it is the white
heterosexual woman’s choice to enter into a BDSM relationship with a white
heterosexual man?”
In an online post, BDSM: Breakdown by the
Numbers (Lucas, 2013), 75% of the women in Dutch sample and 69% of the
women in the California sample were exclusively or mainly submissive; as
opposed to 61% of the men in the California sample and 48% of the men in the
Dutch sample who identified as exclusively or mainly dominant. As the numbers
suggest, more women than men are identifying themselves as submissives, which
challenges assumptions of ‘choice;’ instead, suggesting the subtle dominant
discourse of male domination over women. Winnubst (2006) writes,
“The unnerving influence of power
surfaces, however, as we realize that this free choice become the exclusive
power of the subject position valorized in cultures of phallicized whiteness,
the white propertied Christian (straight) male who determines when, how, and
which differences matter.” (p. 41).
Therefore, ‘choice’ is defined and dictated by
those who are most privileged in society. It is, for that reason, that kink
culture can be critiqued for its failure to recognize how the use of the words
‘slave’ and ‘master’ make light of colonized histories of persons of color and how
sexual practices can perpetuate the oppression of individuals in the margins of
dominant discourse. Through a neutral voice of kink, women and people of color
are disavowed of their historical and cultural oppression and thereby sustain
the power structures that determine how, when, and which differences actually
matter.
“Neutrality thus functions as the
conceptual glue of the modern political project of classical liberalism. It
allows the model of ownership to take hold as the dominant conception of
selfhood: one’s true self resides in a neutral space and from that space one
owns one’s power, one’s freedom, and one’s attributes” (p. 42).
The neutral voice in kink culture, therefore, is
one of the white male, with same- and/or other-sex desires. Women and others in
the margins of the dominant discourse of kink culture are then ignored in this
fundamental valuing of neutrality, where differences should not matter. From
this neutral stance, one may argue, “Women have a choice to engage in BDSM and
they are in complete control of their bodies.” However, in the same way as
people of color within the contemporary rhetorics of color-blindness that
control discourses about the “desired endpoint of a ‘just’ – and therefore
raceless – society” (Winnubst, 2006, p. 43), dominant discourses within kink
culture become a gender-blindness rhetoric that perpetuates aversive sexism
Therefore, cultural domination of women through the
arts (e.g., books and movies, such as Fifty Shades of Grey), popular
culture (e.g., advertisements, music videos, magazine articles), and
institutions continue to degrade and distort the image that women have of
themselves, as such an image is constantly being reflected in a patriarchal
culture, where ‘men’ are still the neutral ‘culture.’ This lack of women’s
cultural autonomy, is summarized by Bartky (2008) writing, “The subordination
of women, then, because it is so pervasive, a future of my culture, will (if
uncontested) appear to be natural – and because it is natural, unalterable” (p.54).
In such a culture, it is therefore, ‘natural’ for
women and people of color to be perceived by others in a sexual light. As such,
sexual objectification allows objects or parts of a person to represent the
whole being. Bartky (2008) argues, “sexual objectification occurs independently
of what women want; it is something done to us against our will” (p. 55). In
the same vein, Winnubst (2006) purports:
“Female, black, brown, non-Christian,
yellow, poor bodies are delimited on the basis of their bodily appearances.
They are trapped in and by their bodies; they do not exercise proper authority
of ownership over them… This entrapment by their bodily characteristics imposes
brutal limitations upon their freedom and their individuality; they are not
free to do as they please and, perhaps more damningly, are read as kinds of
bodies, not as individuals.” (p. 46)
Men, on the other hand, are seen as unaffected by
such delimitation, as explained in the following passage by Winnubst (2006):
“He is neither reduced to his bodily
characteristics, nor limited in his freedom or individuality. He owns his body,
properly controlling its power in the social world. The white male Christian
propertied (straight) body speaks, acts, and desires not on behalf of his sex,
race, class, or religion (or sexuality), but exclusively on behalf of himself –
the autonomous individual” (pp. 46-47).
So, kink and popular culture need to better
recognize that “the decisions about when, how, and which differences matter
will remain in the power of the neutral individual, the subject in power – and
the one who is free” (Winnubst, 2006, p. 43). Kink can easily perpetuate the
dominant discourse of women’s bodies as something to own, possess, and
dominate. As such, a call is being made to think critically about our sexual
desires, fantasies, and practices, and to understand how they are all situated
within a larger discourse of privilege and oppression.
This is not to suggest that women cannot willingly
enter BDSM relationships nor is this an argument against BDSM practices.
Rather, this contribution is merely urging the readers to think critically
about the insidious ways dominant discourse and the neutral gender-blindness
rhetoric influences the sexual practices we, as women, engage.
Though six decades have passed since the release of
Histoire d’O (Réage, 1954), very little has changed in a society that
continues to perpetuate the subtle and not-so-subtle domination of women
cloaked in a pretense of love and desire. It is for that reason I encourage all
who read this blog to have frequent and open conversations about our fantasies,
desires, and sexual practices in relation to others and us as women.
Although I appreciate kink and enjoy the varying
expressions of sexual desires that are open to me as a woman, I must also
continue to reflect on the meaning that such sexual practices have within
dominant discourse. It is for that reason that I encourage all who read this
blog to think about the following questions: (a) what is pleasurable for you
and what do you desire, (b) how can these desires be practiced, and (c) what
meaning do such practices have to you and to those who are in different social
locations?
- Written by Brittan L. Davis, M.Ed., PC-CR
References:
Bartky, S. L. (2008). On psychological oppression.
In A. Bailey & C. Cuomo (Eds) The feminist philosophy reader (pp. 51-61).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. (Reprinted from “On psychological oppression” from Feminity
and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression by S. L. Bartky,
1990, New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, Inc.
Dworkin, A. (1974). Woman hating. New York,
NY: Plume.
Dworkin, A. (1976). Our blood: Prophecies and
discourses on sexual politics. New York, NY: Perigee Books.
Lucas, J. (2013, July 12). BDSM: Breakdown by the
numbers. Retrieved from http://www.thedatereport.com/dating/pop-culture/bdsm-a-breakdown-by-the-numbers/
Réage, P. (1954). Histoire d’O. New York,
NY: Ballantine Books.
Winnubst, S. (2006). Queering freedom.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
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