[identity profile] denelian.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] lkh_lashouts
this started as a comment on the post made by [livejournal.com profile] kynekh_amagire , but i decided i had too much to say, and didn't want to thread-jack. she had a really good post, with really good points (and really funny points! also, she made me hungry). so, i decided to do my own (first actual post instead of comment!) post, trying to explain WHERE LKH goes wrong with her depiction of BDSM.




so... i spent a few years working as a Domme. i do not, personally, get into BDSM, and i was really only there to set people of fire (yes, really. and yes, it's illegal to set a house on fire but totally legal to set a person of fire IF THEY SIGN A CONSENT FORM. and it was free; ie no one was ever charged for being set on fire, or any other parts of the BDSM, it was a show, sorta, a demonstration with audience members, i guess is the best way to describe it). but, because i was NOT really a part, i was able to make a LOT of observations. to whit:


most of the people who were "bottoms" or "subs" didn't really like being HURT or being SUBMISSIVE. what they liked was generally the focus on THEM and THEM ALONE, plus a lot of them were very exhibitionist. the few who really WERE into pain or into being dominated (and those who liked both) were by and large willing to do so publicly but would prefer to do so privately. there was a VERY small cross-section that liked EVERYTHING - i mean, there were very few who like pain AND submission AND exhibition. but there were still SOME. but the point is that most people who are called or consider themselves to be so are NOT "subs" or "bottoms" what they are is very self-centered (this is not a judgement, they are not SELFISH more or less than other people. they just like having all the attention be on them during sex)


those who were "Tops" or "Dominates" generally were NOT into really being sadistic. in general, these people were teases. they liked making another person REACT, not making another person HURT. sometimes pain was used to get the reaction, but that always just seemed to be a by-product, not the goal. there were SOME people who were genuine sadists - they were invariably banned because they refused to follow rules and etiquette. Many of the "Tops" were ALSO into a kind of power trip - the power to MAKE someone react (as above). it's actually a kind of potent feeling, and i get it a lot in my essentially vanilla sex life.


safewords, and other rules of etiquette, are what make it all work. while i do not doubt (because i DO know some) that there are people who really want the BDSM, MOST of the people aren't there for the stated purpose, but for tangetial reasons, like exhibitionism. but most people either don't want to analyze (a sad statement about our collective social issues, i think) what they really want (because they are forever told that ANY sex is wrong, is it any wonder that when they discover sex - which is wrong! - is fun, they quickly draw the parrellel that the more "wrong", more "kinky" the sex is, the more fun it will be?), or they KNOW that what they really want is for 3 people to devote a lot of attention, but feel compeled to couch everything in the language of BDSM because that has become the normative


LKH takes it all further. because sex is such a huge, overwhelming issue with her, and because to her the defining traits of individuals are sexual traits, and because it squicks her out so she doesn't DO RESEARCH, she continually fucks up BDSM, both the normative and the actual. i mean, she fucks up both what people SAY is happening and what people are ACTUALLY doing. and then she takes the roles that SOME people SOME times enjoy during sex and thinks that how they act during sex is how they will FOREVER act. which - the actual TRUE sexual submissives that i know? the ones who aren't something else masquerading as submissive but who are actually sexually submissive? OUTSIDE of sex are almost NOT AT ALL submissive. the most sexually submissive guy i know is a high-power, high level, 400k-a-year-BASE-salary, considered to be on a constant power trip by all of his coworkers (and hated by those who he opposes in court because he is so fucking dominate in court) attorney. he sounds like a stereotype from a bad early-80's novel, but... if i hadn't been asked by his wife to come to their house for fire play, i would NEVER have known he was a sub. (discloser here. i have NEVER been paid for doing fire play or any other aspect of BDSM, and this is a personal choice - i'm not a real domme. i have been offered positions, but will not take them. i like fire, and i really don't care what other people do, but i do not want to be involved with anything more than fire)


LKH pisses me off more with every book, the way she mis-characterises everything. there is real BDSM, one of my best friends is a a VERY expensive Domme (i don't mean this in a "but i have gay friends!' sort of way. she is really one of my two best friends, and she tells me EVERYTHING, even stuff between her and her husband. who, by the way, is NOT a sub and they tend to have mostly vanilla sex. and she gets her kink on with clients, then goes and has the actual sex with her husband - she does NOT have sex with her clients).


then there is what i call "fun-BDSM", which is what most of the scene is. maybe 10% of those in the BDSM scene are actually Subs or Dom/Dommes, the rest are there just to have fun. fun-BDSM is what i describe above, and what is PROBABLY what the club that Narcissis (sp?), the alpha were-hyena, is about. while Narcissus himself (herself?) really does appear to be, to the extent that LKH is capable of portraying, one of those 10%, most of the people who populate the club are not going to be. it's like anything else - go to a Goth bar, and most of the people are ONLY goth when they go out; go to a (non-fundy) church, and most of the people only really pray or speak in tongues or whatever when they go to church. its a hobby, something done in one's spare time, not the totality of most people's lives. i mean, sure, i like drawing pretty pictures in flames one someone's back, but i'm not going out EVERY FREAKING DAY and doing it ALL THAT I CAN. it's not a JOB to most people. LKH doesn't get this - either one is totally into BDSM and their entire life will reflect that in every way at every moment, or else one is a complete sexual prude who is totally repressed and probably doesn't like sex at all and probably looks down on people who have sex for any reason outside of procreation.


what LKH doesn't get that BDSM, and sex IN GENERAL, is experienced on a continuum. one doesn't have to literally take all or nothing; everyone likes something at least a little bit different; liking one thing doesn't mean that one likes EVERYTHING. example? i like having my hands tied. by i will NOT be restrained in any other way, and if you hurt me (on purpose, i mean) i will break your arm. period. but in LKH world it's all-or-nothing. i would hate to see myself in an LKH world - i'm pretty damned vanilla (outside of my propensity for fire) and i am totally monogomous, so i would be written as that prude who disapproves of everything... DESPITE the fact that i think everyone should do whatever it takes to make them happy, so long as it doesn't harm someone else.


it's not just that she has sex issues and trys to work them out in her books. its not even that she's homophobic and strangley kink-phobic for a women who attempts to write BDSM. it's not even that she writes badly. it's that she never even tried to find out what BDSM - either real BDSM or "fun-BDSM" - is really about. she makes Nathaniel a total sub who can apparently only get off if he is submitting, makes him a total masochist. and originally, before i was disappointed by her lack of research, i thought this had potential, and could have been really interesting, because Nathaniel is BDSM taken to a deadly extreme, and having Anita work with him, find the middle ground, teaching him other ways to find pleasure and have fun could have been a great exploration of American sexuality, and America repression, and American socialization (in the how one is socialized sense, not the political sense). but she just can't be bothered to go and see what happens in real life, can't be bothered to talk to any Dommes or Subs, so what we actually get is what Hollywood keeps trying to tell us BDSM is, but watered down, and reformed to fit into what LKH wishes her life were like. she wants the "COOLNESS" of BDSM without all the things that MAKE BDSM cool or hip or edgy.



and so people who know BDSM, either through being a part of the scene or from knowing people who are, are insulted, and people who DON'T know BDSM think that what LKH shows is reality. i cringe whenever i think of a teen who knows nothing about BDSM, and very little about sex at all, picking up an LKH book and then thinking that this is what s/he must like, that this is what s/he must DO to have "good sex"


it's almost as criminal as abstienence-only education.
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