cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug
When we can acknowledge honestly where BDSM is a reflection of the abusive dominator culture we live in, we can navigate it much more safely and ethically.
Much of the culture of BDSM is wrapped up in this core cognitive dissonance:
It’s not abuse because it’s consensual
but also
...BDSM would be abuse if it wasn’t consensual.
When we can acknowledge honestly where BDSM is a reflection of the abusive dominator culture we live in, we can navigate it much more safely and ethically.
More likely, though, questioning kinksters are told not to “yuck another’s yum,” or are chastised for “kink-shaming.”
But the kinkster world is not a separate fantasy land distinct from the vanillas. We all live in this reality, and all our choices are shaping and shaped by it.
We need to be able to name what we see in our communities. To deny reality is to perpetuate a collective blindness to violent norms.
The rugged individualism of dominator culture also underlies the cult of BDSM– it's what keeps abuse culture alive and well.
Individual consent is not the goal.
Collective liberation, sexual revolution, and transformative justice includes all of us, needs all of us. Liberation means we stop making excuses for the ways we have been trained to abandon ourselves. It means we have the courage to say what's true, and refuse to look the other way in the face of easy coercion.
We can step outside old patterns of domination and submission and enter an entirely new world.
