Queer BDSM Intimacies

Critical Consent and Pushing Boundaries

R. Bauer

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137435019
• eBook ISBN: 9781137435026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Social Sciences

Based on an extensive interview study with lesbian, transgender and queer BDSM practitioners, this book sheds new light on sexuality and current theoretical debates in gender and queer studies. It critically discusses practices of establishing consent, pushing boundaries, playing with gender and creating new kinds of intimacies and embodiments.

1

Introduction

At the end of the 19th century, a scientific culture dedicated to the study of sexualities emerged simultaneously with a new concept of sexual identities and minorities within Western European and US cultures. Over time, the meaning of certain acts changed, and they were reframed as sexuality. Moreover, sexual practices were no longer seen simply as singular events or as series of acts, but as constitutive of a coherent sexual identity, thus effectively producing a distinct minority in the population (Foucault 1978; D’Emilio 1983a; 1983b; Halperin 1990; Katz 1996). Within a Euro-American tradition of binary thinking, sexual subjectivities were not simply differentiated, but were constructed as exclusive either–or categories in a social hierarchy that was later analyzed as systems of heterosexism and heteronormativity by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans^*1 and queer activists and scholars (Rich 1980; Butler 1990; Warner 1993). One example of binary thinking is that sexual preference was reduced to whether one’s sexual partners were exclusively cismen² or ciswomen. The homosexual served as the constitutive other³ for the white⁴ heterosexual norm (Katz 1996), while other options, like bisexuality (Tucker 1995; Firestein 1996) or fluid identities, were dismissed.

These material-discursive processes were repressive, oppressive and productive at the same time. They singled out certain individuals such as homosexuals, trans^* people and sadomasochists to label them as deviants and subjected them to various disciplining and oppressive technologies, from electro-shock therapy through criminalization to hate crimes. Simultaneously, the production of sexual identities created new pleasures, desires, intimacies, types of relationships, whole subcultures and finally political movements, like gay liberation or lesbian feminism, and academic fields, like lesbian and gay studies, queer theory and transgender studies, resignifying these acts and identities. The subject of this study, dyke+queer BDSM, also emerged under these contradictory yet productive conditions. Here, I differentiate between the scientific construction of these practices as individual pathology (which I call sadomasochism) and the popular construction of those practices and the meanings they hold for consensual participants within their community contexts (which I call BDSM). The acronym BDSM has increasingly replaced the formerly common SM, S/M or S&M within the community, because it does not carry the baggage of the pathological associations and because it stands for a broader range of practices: bondage, discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism.

Heteronormativity and the ideal of harmonic sex

This research is situated within a queer and trans^* theoretical context. Crucial to my employment of queer theory is the specific yet broad notion of critiquing heteronormativity as a guiding analytical tool. Heteronormativity is a concept and a structure of power that permeates society. It naturalizes the notion of opposite-sex sexual object choice; celebrates and privileges specific forms of heterosexual relationships, identities and practices and posits the heterosexual couple as the primary social unit of society (Warner 1993; Bell & Binnie 2000; Phelan 2001; Monro & Warren 2004; Langdridge 2006). Heteronormativity has been used historically and continues to pathologize, criminalize, morally condemn and discriminate against non-heteronormative ways of being, such as homo- and bisexuality, BDSM, promiscuity and public and commercial sex (Rubin 1992a: 282), and it can be extended to include ‘interracial’ sexual interactions and relationships (Steinbugler 2005) and those that involve disabled bodies (Luczak 1993; Tremain 1996; Clare 1999; McRuer & Wilkerson 2003; Guter & Killacky 2004; McRuer 2006). Racialization intervenes when certain heterosexuals are not awarded the benefits of heteronormativity because their sexuality is constructed as deviant (in comparison to the unstated white heterosexual norm), such as single Black mothers in the US (Cohen 2005) or Thai women in European contexts (Haritaworn 2007). A queer perspective that does not take into account the interweaving and the simultaneities (Erel et al. 2007) of sexual object choice and gendered identities and bodies with other categories of social stratification fails to generate analyses that adequately address the complex social realities it tries to describe. Therefore, I am working with an expansive definition of anti-heteronormative critique in three regards: including all social hierarchies and norms that privilege one kind of sexual and intimate relating over others; including a simultaneity analysis; and paying attention to how heteronormativity is part of the weaving of the social fabric in general and is not restricted to the sexual, domestic or private sphere. This research is also part of the evolving field of transgender studies (Stryker 2006a) because it is concerned with the lives of trans^* people from a non-pathological perspective and emphasizes the material aspects of gender. For instance, trans^* theorists have critiqued queer theory’s erasure of trans^* materialities (Namaste 2000) and have made productive use of phenomenology as a way of focusing on the body in theorizing (Prosser 1998; Henry Rubin 2003).

Queer theory has worked successfully with the concept of heteronormativity as an analytical tool. Yet the term has also been utilized in reductionist ways, restricting analysis to the homo/hetero binary despite the fact that sexual hierarchies and norms often include other dimensions as well. One of the elements of heteronormativity, which has not yet been awarded much attention, is what I call the ideal of harmonic sex. The ideal sexual interaction has been increasingly constructed as occurring between egalitarian partners whose intimate bodily interactions are devoid of power dynamics and anything that may be thought of as unpleasant emotions or sensations, such as pain, humiliation, shame or discomfort. The ideal of harmonic sex is closely related to the liberal construction of the sexual as a subset of the construction of the private sphere (Hausen 1976; Leap 1999) as a space remote from socio-political life. Therefore, the ideal of harmonic sex serves to obscure the fact that the sexual, constructed as the most intimate and private sphere of interaction, is not distinct from socio-political contexts, but is infused with power dynamics just like every other area of life (Foucault 1976; 1982; Weiss 2011). The ideal of harmonic sex therefore aids in rendering invisible the pervasiveness of domestic violence and sexual abuse in the nuclear family and in romantic relationships, as well as ongoing economic dependencies, especially between heterosexual partners (Jamieson 1999; Klesse 2007). The ideal of harmonic sex also serves to perpetuate racist and classist ideologies of social progress and civilization, claiming that only ‘civilized’, white and middle-class heterosexuals practice egalitarian sex in a way that is considerate of each partner’s needs (Carter 2007). It fuses discourses of sexual moralities based on monotheistic ideals of purity and innocence with contemporary emancipatory discourses, which pay lip service to feminist visions of sexual equality, into a depoliticized, privatized and sanitized ideal of the pure relationship (see Giddens 1992; for a critical view see Jamieson 1999).

Klesse points out that power has been neglected in some queer discourses and in gay and lesbian studies, and research on same-sex partnerships tends to present them as, in principle, egalitarian (2007: 2; 6). Referring to Gidden’s equation of his concept of ‘the pure relationship’ with gay lives, Klesse sees that view as ‘utterly romanticising the reality’ and working with a one-dimensional (gendered) concept of power (Klesse 2007: 7). The narrative of harmonic and synchronized sex (as in the ideal of the ‘simultaneous orgasm’) feeds into the illusion that, in white middle-class Euro-American contexts of monogamous, mono-racial couplehood, this ideal of the egalitarian relationship or the companionate marriage is not only achievable, but has also already been established. Harmonic sex is taken as the moral and political gold standard against which other cultures, such as Islamic and Mormon polygamy, are constructed, measured and evaluated. The discursive construction of the ideal of harmonic sex can be traced back to the 19th century in the US, when the conflation of heterosexual marriage with citizenship helped to construct whiteness as synonymous with American concepts of just relationships (Carter 2007: 78) and marriage as sexual democracy was imagined as the foundation of state democracy (107). This was expressed in the ideal of simultaneous orgasm (96–7) and the mystical experience of unity across difference (106).

Dyke+queer BDSM practices and identities violate the ideal of harmonic sex and a variety of other, related social norms: heterosexual partner choice, fixed sexual preference, sex as natural, reproductively derived sex which centers on (vaginal) penetration and by extension genital stimulation, the sexual context as private and within a monogamous romantic dyad, and the moderateness of sex. Dyke+queer BDSM might, therefore, be understood as creating alternative intimacies and, more specifically, exuberant intimacies, intimacies that reject reason, moderation, mediocrity, harmony and equality as well as reproduction and usefulness. Instead, alternative intimacies celebrate difference, tension, intensity, risk, excess, ecstasy, wastefulness, perversity, campy extravagance, fluidity and insanity, as well as becoming something beyond the human. Yet, since all this occurs in a space that is partially contained through the negotiating of consent, exuberant intimacies present an alternative sexual ethics rather than transgressiveness per se.

The part played by the ideal of harmonic sex in heteronormative structures and processes, and how BDSM engages with these structures and processes, has not been adequately addressed in queer studies, which tends to focus on the issue of partner choice alone. This book seeks to address some of these and other gaps in queer studies, including the lack of empirical studies to confront and disrupt theorizing by analyzing in-depth interviews. I do not consider BDSM as pathology, perversion, paraphilia or deviance for the purpose of this study, mainly for two reasons. First, my data do not suggest that any of these is a suitable characterization of BDSM practices, identities or relationships. Second, from a queer theoretical perspective, I question the validity and usefulness of the social construction of a normal/deviant binary. Rather, I argue from a perspective of human difference, which views the idea of classifying certain consensual sexual behaviors as normal and others as deviant, sick or criminal as a modern form of social regulation, part of what Foucault calls biopolitics. Rather than taking the normal/perverse binary for granted, we should interrogate its function in establishing and maintaining social hierarchies and norms. In this study I am, therefore, taking a close and intimate look at how dyke, trans^* and queer BDSM practitioners experience and interpret their own BDSM practices in the context of various interwoven social contexts. Specifically, I reconstruct how they (re)negotiate their genders, sexualities and intimate relationships within dyke+queer subcultures that are embedded in structures of power and social hierarchy. I examine how dyke+queer BDSM practices and identities intervene in heteronormative realities and what dyke+queer BDSM perspectives as situated knowledges may contribute to the contested fields of queer theory, politics and practices.

From de Sade to F65 – The social construction of sadomasochism

Through the construction of BDSMers as ‘perverse’ and distinct from the sexually ‘normal’ population, the power dynamics and the elements of sensation play and immobilization in non-BDSM encounters have been obscured. This has led to the idea that BDSM and non-BDSM sexuality are two sharply distinct sets of behaviors, and that individuals are either ‘into BDSM’ or not. Many of the BDSM practitioners I interviewed share this assumption and position themselves as part of a sexual minority, which contradicts both the fact that they stress the fluidity of their actual practices and the fact that there are many elements of BDSM in ‘vanilla’ practices. Mandy, a US-based queer/dyke high femme bottom in her 60s, presented a slightly different view:

It’s not just what I think, but observed experience. That given access to BDSM in a safe, sane and consensual way almost everybody will want to [do it]. I don’t think we’re a minority at all. When I was with [a local sex education network] before BDSM opened up, we ran a community sex education switchboard. And we were very bi, we were doing group sex and very far out people. When SM came along, 80 per cent of us – given some kind of cultural community support for doing it – became SM people. Those few who didn’t felt very left out and kinda lost.

So Mandy’s argument is twofold in dismantling the idea of a distinct sexual minority of BDSMers. First, a majority, rather than a minority, of people have the potential to gain pleasure from BDSM practices. Second, the social context often determines whether people end up practicing BDSM. Studies not specifically designed to assess BDSM participation, but conducting broad surveys of a nation’s sexual behaviors, estimate that between 5 and 14 per cent of the general population have had SM experiences (Reinisch 1990; Janus & Janus 1993) and enjoy pain in a sexual context, a number which quickly climbs up to as much as 50 per cent if one includes items like ‘love bites’ (Kolmes et al. 2006: 302). These numbers seem to support Mandy’s observations that larger numbers of people have the basic capacity to include BDSM elements in their sex life and that there is no clear boundary between a BDSM minority and a ‘harmonic’ sexual majority. Yet, since the 19th century, sadomasochism has been constructed discursively as a distinct entity, for example, as part of a psychopathological personality or as a subcultural identity. I will briefly trace this social construction of sadomasochism based on the available research literature in this field.

The history of the social construction of sadomasochism as a social and sexual pathology started in the 19th century with the work of the German-Austrian physician and psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. In his influential work Psychopathia Sexualis (first published in 1886) he invented the terms ‘sadism’ (after the French author Marquis de Sade) and ‘masochism’ (after the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch) and introduced the concepts to the medical sciences. The use of pain or dominance/submission for sexual arousal thus did not attract any special interest until Krafft-Ebing named and classified these practices. Bullough and Bullough point out: ‘Sadomasochism is a good example of the way a pathological condition is established by the medical community, for until it became a diagnosis it received little attention and was not even classified as a sin’ (1977b: 210). Krafft-Ebing’s diagnoses were not based on broad empirical data, but were derived solely from clinical case studies from his own practice, from historical and anecdotal illustrations and from literary figures. Furthermore, as a forensic psychiatrist, his samples consisted of criminal offenders and were thus strongly biased, since they only referred to harmful non-consensual acts that attracted the attention of state institutions. Since then, sexological research has generally made a priori assumptions based on purely theoretical or fictional grounds or on broad generalizations based on forensic or clinical case studies without critically reflecting on these sample biases. Until recently, the discourses about BDSM constructed it in various ways as the ‘other’ to such cultural ideals as reason, sanity, enlightenment, the law, democracy, equality, reproductive heterosexuality and the ideal of harmonic sex.

The term ‘sadomasochism’, which links the (for Krafft-Ebing, two separate) phenomena of sadism and masochism, was first used in 1913 by the Austrian psychoanalyst Isidor Sadger (Passig & Deunan 2002: 36). Sigmund Freud placed the concept of sadism into the average male psychoanalytic subject. According to him, each individual went through a stage of sadism as part of his sexual development, and sadism in the adult became one of the arrested developments. Later, Freud expanded the term ‘sadism’ to include non-sexual aggression, unifying various previously disconnected phenomena under the concept of the death drive (Moore 2009: 498). Since then, there have been various psychoanalytical and psychological theories that have tried to explain BDSM as pathological or deviant behavior. Sadomasochism has been theorized as an intimacy issue; as anxiety around dependency, autonomy and control; as a compulsive re-enactment of trauma (Taylor 1997: 113) and as a result of brain pathologies (115). Sexual deviation was first introduced as an official psychiatric diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-6 in 1948 and differentiated into subcategories in the ICD-8 in 1965. The diagnostic system has barely changed since, despite the growth of research implying its inadequacy (Reiersøl & Skeid 2006: 244). The current version of the ICD-10 by the World Health Organization groups various BDSM and related practices under the header F65 ‘Disorders of sexual preference’ (World Health Organization 2010), which includes sadomasochism, fetishism, fetishistic transvestism, exhibitionism and voyeurism. Many sexual behaviors that do not have genital interaction between partners as their primary focus are thus pathologized. Moreover, acts for which consent is never possible, such as pedophilia and various kinds of sexual harassment, are grouped together with consensual ones like fetishism and BDSM.⁵ But, even beyond the therapeutic profession, the social construction of BDSM as pathology remains one of the dominant paradigms today. In the media, BDSM is constructed as a disorder that needs explaining (how one ‘became this way’); it is generally psychologized (Wilkinson 2009) and represented in stereotypes, such as the sadistic psychopath and the self-harming masochist (Barrett 2007).

Within colonialist⁶ discourse, BDSM practices are perceived as reflecting an earlier stage of the colonizing countries’ own history, the ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ past (Hoople 1996: 217; Moore 2009: 487). In the UK ‘Spanner case’, for instance, the gay BDSM activities that were subject to trial and conviction were characterized as breeding cruelty, as increasing barbarity, as lacking control, as a logic of violence, as unruly escalation (Moran 1995: 226), as disorder and irrational, as the law’s (and civilization’s) other, whereas the law was seen as providing order, predictability, reason, control and limit (227). In this cultural progress narr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Culture of Dyke+Queer BDSM
• 3. Renegotiating Dyke+Queer BDSM
• 4. Negotiating Critical Consent
• 5. Exploring Exuberant Intimacies
• 6. Exploring and Pushing Boundaries
• 7. Exploring Intimate Power Dynamics
• 8. Exploring Intimate Difference Through Gender
• 9. The Sexual Politics of Exuberant Intimacy
• Conclusion
• Annex: Alphabetical List of Interview Partners
• Notes
• References
• Index