On abuse - the importance of 'sane' in SSC

[The I]

Just posted this in my blog. But I'll post it here as well, as I'm interested to hear your views on it (if I break any written or unwritten laws of etiquette I beg your pardon).

I recently read a good article on how to spot a ‘creepy dom’. A creepy dom is the the kind of dominant no-one could wish a submissive getting in the hands of. The kind who doesn’t play by SSC, doesn’t care if what he does truly hurts his sub… the abuser in the guise of a dominant. It’s the image which kept me from the lifestyle for years. I’ve long known that I got off – a lot! – on women submitting and in pain way before I accepted this was a part of me that was ok. I was afraid of the creepy dom, just like I guess anyone in the lifestyle should be My fear was that I was afraid that legitimizing my cravings in stating that ‘yes I’m into consensual bdsm’ was just a way of hiding abuse under the disguise of being part of a sexual minority. In short I was afraid that I might be a creepy dom, that the nice guy I usually am were looking for an ‘out’, an ‘excuse’ to shed the bonds of decency and conscience and abuse women.

I got into this whole thing through fantasies of non-consent, rape, and the wrong kind of porn where the objective is giving the girl ‘more than she can take’ (or looking like it at least – have you noticed how a lot of ‘nilla porn is much more abusive than the kinky stuff?) Gradually I discovered the ‘lifestyle’ and being a generally liberal guy I’ve never ever had trouble accepting that others could be into it, and that it could be consensual and beneficial for all parties and so on. But that I should be into it was another matter; were my motives as pure as they should be?

I’m over this now (you guys here are among those who helped me with that!). Falling in love with a sub, and being loved back, helped. Finding out that I didn’t want, or get off from, submissive girls ruined for my amusement helped. Finding out that I deeply cared about the women ready to trust me with their submission, and that I was able to help and support them in our mutual exploration of their submission, helped a lot.

In a matter of months this part of me went from my dirty secrets to one of the things about me I’m most happy about. I still get off on a whole lot of things I don’t approve off, I still have fantasies that should remain fantasies. But I’ve found that my way of practicing my sadism has a whole different effect than those fantasies; the fantasies are nice up to the point when I’ve jacked off. What I’ve been and done with my girls I can smile of whether horny or not.


By now this is mostly ancient history. What makes me bring this up is this relationship between our fantasies, our conscience and the lifestyle. As I see it BDSM is at its core about the marriage of emancipation and conscience. It most certainly was the central question for me at least.

On the one hand we insist that we should be free to get off on whatever we want without feeling ashamed of it. And we should be ready to respect others who get off on things we don’t. On the other hand we have our creeds of SSC or RACK; we may be raging perverts, but we will keep it within the limits of reason and consent, safe and sane and consensual.

Interestingly those principles weren’t what got me to accept my own lifestyle. They certainly made me less worried about others being into this, but again my own motivation was what did it for me. I guess my problem with SSC and RACK is that you can easily do things that come of as safe and consensual in a fundamentally abusive relationship. The kind of creepy dom that I was afraid off might well obtain the consent of his girl, he might well stay in line with all the obvious safety-precautions needed not to outright hurt the girl (on the physical, short term, level), and he might even argue the saneness of the relationship on the grounds of both parties ‘wanting it’.

One problem is that there are girls out there claiming to ‘want’ abuse. Browse most fetish dating sites and you’ll find the ads by ‘girls’ stating they want no SSC, no limits, no humanity… I put ‘girls’ in citation marks since I believe (and somewhat hope) that a good portion of such profiles are by someone very different from what they claim to be. Men, or women, who simply get off by writing out the fantasy of a girl wanting this kind of life of ‘pure slavery’. But I’m afraid there are some out there who are ready to believe that a life of being treated as nothing but an object of someone else’s pleasure is what they truly must seek.

I guess there are several reasons for that. One I experienced soon after accepting this lifestyle is the ‘now I want it ALL’-approach… accepting that one is kinky can get so obsessing that nothing else in life seems to really matter. One of my subby friends did that; became slave not long after turning 18 in a relationship escalating towards where she got cut off from her family… luckily she ran and ran well and is in a sensible D/s relationship now. But I could easily see a girl not having the courage or the sense, or a Dom not only being irresponsible enough to let things go that way but an abuser who wouldn’t let her. I can feel that way at times, when I’m turned on and ‘sexed up’… can be attracted to lives and relationships wholly centered on the lifestyle… The ‘cum-and-think-about-it-in-the-daily-grind’-test usually cures that, and is highly recommended.

But then there’s the subs who truly believe they have no more worth than that… that may understand that they’re cutting themselves of from other kinds of self-explorations, from family, from being loved. Or who can think of no other kind of relationship they could handle – or feel valuable in. That is the kind I really fear – or would fear, if I did not trust my own motives, I still fear for them – because they would give no indication that they are not getting exactly what they want and need even when they’re abused. It’s a known fact that abuse survivors do gravitate towards abusive relationships. I know a sub like that, a girl who’s pretty much been abused all her life, and who’s bright enough to know it, and know that even at that she still craves for someone to use her hard… it’s very hard giving her a sense that she’s worth something beyond her sexual attraction – even though I’m pretty sure she understands on a rational level that she is.

The problem is that you can so easily advertise abuse in this lifestyle – especially if you’re seeking to be at the receiving end. It is easy, and ‘acceptable’, and perhaps even considered submissive by some to state that you want to be used without limits and without consideration to your needs. I fear it’s a bit easier to want that fantasy, without stopping and thinking ‘is this really a good thing’ when you’re setting yourself up for the abuse.


But the frightening point, and what scared and still scares me about the lifestyle, is that we must admit that it can also be the guise of ‘abusees’ teaming up with ‘abusers’ in relationships that may well be consensual. That’s what I had to be very sure I wasn’t after. But what exactly is this then?

My whole point here, and I guess it’s a fairly short one, is that we need to emphasize the ‘sane’ part of safe sane and consensual. It’s not enough for things to be consensual, and nominally safe (you could argue that anything unsane is unsafe on the long term); we also need to ask ourselves the basic question if I could look myself in the mirror after I’ve lived my fantasy and still consider myself a decent person. AND we need to also ask ourselves the question if we’re putting our partners in a position to be decent persons as well.

If this is a lifestyle it’s also about living lives that we can be proud of, that we can feel good about, and that’s about so much more than BDSM. Being into BDSM is no excuse for not being a good person and it’s not any excuse, either, for not expecting others to treat you with decency.

I don’t have a ready-made solution on how we fight abuse, especially on the internet, but I think it’s important we keep telling each other what it is, and not to accept it. We should not let the acceptance of unsane, abusive, relationships go unchallenged out of mistaken tolerance; and we should never ask anything out of ourselves, and others, that we cannot feel good doing the day after.

[Snark]

An interesting blog. The concept described and titled being "sane" is actually the more subjective component of the three precepts. One person's sanity is another person's perverse insanity. Perhaps a better concept would be "responsible", both to each other as well as to ones' self. The DSM IV not withstanding, the designation of "sanity" is generally only attributed after the reverse of the condition is revealed. Abusers will always abuse until stopped; if they find a partner willing and consenting to be abused then there is no stopping them until such circumstances clearly demonstrate their insanity. Unfortunately responsibility rarely accompanies these individuals either.

[Ozme52]

In general, consent is not enough. Abuse is abuse whether the recipient consents or not. Afterall, the battered housewife who refuses to file charges and comes back to the abuser over and over again is indeed consenting to the abuse, and yes, that's abuse. Both physical and mental mistreatment can qualify as abuse.

I think, however, if the consenter is willing, it is never abuse. How do you define "truly hurts his sub" (or her sub) if that sub feels completed by it? Is compelled to it? Relishes it?

Now we can argue what it means to be "willing". But I think it is important in defining WIITWD.

PS. SSC, RACK and WIITWD (what is is that we do) are all terms created in the community to try to explain ourselves to those who don't, as an attempt to show consent and safety... so they'll stop bothering us. But it's no more or less safe and sane than contact football, racecar driving, skydiving, base jumping, stunting, "jackassing" or any number of hobbies the vanilla world participates in freely. It just happens to be sexual and that makes it a taboo and "somehow wrong" to them.

[damyanti]

The truth is we all know when something is rotten. Some claim that changing situations make for changing morality—in different situations different acts are called for that might not be right in other situations. But there are three things by which we must judge an act: the situation, the act, and the intention.

The main argument relativists appeal to is that of tolerance. They claim that telling someone their morality is wrong is intolerant, and relativism tolerates all views. But this is misleading. First of all, evil should never be tolerated. Should we tolerate a rapist's view that women are objects of gratification to be abused? Second, it is self-defeating because relativists do not tolerate intolerance or absolutism. Third, relativism cannot explain why anyone should be tolerant in the first place. The very fact that we should tolerate people (even when we disagree) is based on the absolute moral rule that we should always treat people fairly—but that is absolutism again. In fact, without universal moral principles there can be no goodness.

The fact is that all people are born with a conscience, and we all instinctively know when we have been wronged or when we have wronged others. We act as though we expect others to recognize this as well. Even as children we knew the difference between “fair” and “unfair.” It takes bad philosophy to convince us that we are wrong and that moral relativism is true.

Of course, the psychiatric community doesn't really have a construct called "sanity" to begin with. There are mental illnesses which shade into adjustment difficulties which shade into appropriate adjustment; it's a continuum. Illnesses and disorders are far better defined than healthy psyches are, but the lines between them are artificial and arbitrary.

All we can do is our best: to understand ourselves and our inner lives and how those ingrained perceptions affect our interactions with the outside world. Refusing to accept that any such impact exists however is, in my opinion, opening the door to "insanity."

[thir]

An interesting blog. The concept described and titled being "sane" is actually the more subjective component of the three precepts. One person's sanity is another person's perverse insanity. Perhaps a better concept would be "responsible", both to each other as well as to ones' self. The DSM IV not withstanding, the designation of "sanity" is generally only attributed after the reverse of the condition is revealed. Abusers will always abuse until stopped; if they find a partner willing and consenting to be abused then there is no stopping them until such circumstances clearly demonstrate their insanity. Unfortunately responsibility rarely accompanies these individuals either.

Well said - responsible is a better word. But it still doesn't really cover the issue, because 'being responsible' sort of assumes
that there are clear and defined bounderies between 'not responsible' and 'responsible'.

So what is abuse? "Hurting" people is a part of it, in that bruises and brandings and piercings and lots of stuff is done -
consensually. So what is abuse here?
Some use blood sports, or breath control or other dangerous games. Is that ok, if consensual? When is it abusive?
Then there are the mind games, humilation and lots of other stuff. Is it responsible if it is consensual?

How do we know that we are responsible? Is it enough that we want to be?

[thir]

In general, consent is not enough. Abuse is abuse whether the recipient consents or not.


Well, yes, and no. What is abuse? People who do not like our lifestyle says it is abusive what we do, and a sub cannot consent to be whipped, for instance.



Afterall, the battered housewife who refuses to file charges and comes back to the abuser over and over again is indeed consenting to the abuse, and yes, that's abuse.


Coming back is certainly not consenting to abuse. There can be many reasons - fear, for oneself, or children. Fear that he will find you. Or abuse for years ends up making you unable to act. Please do not say that people who are battered domestically consent.

This seems to me to bear on the question of subs (men or women) who seem to consent to abuse, however we may define that term.



Both physical and mental mistreatment can qualify as abuse.


Absolutely!



I think, however, if the consenter is willing, it is never abuse.


But you said above that the battered housewife consented by coming back, but that domestic violence is abuse.

These things are very complicated, I think, though they kind of look obvious at a first glance - or do they?



How do you define "truly hurts his sub" (or her sub) if that sub feels completed by it? Is compelled to it? Relishes it?


That, as Shakespear said, is the question.
How do you?

Say a sub relishes having his bones broken, or being starved, or being beaten senseless. Is it ok, as long as the damage can be repaired? Or do we conclude that there is something wrong with this sub? Many subs relish being treated like dirt - for long periods of time, or always. Is that ok?



Now we can argue what it means to be "willing". But I think it is important in defining WIITWD.


That is the point, isn't it? An abused person may, as said above, seek abusive relationships, because that is all they know, quite simply, or because they think they are not worth anything, as was also said.
I remember programs about how young (often abused) girls get into prostitution - the pimp seems to like and care for them.
What if you have an abused person who hungers for attention, and the dom says 'if you love me, do this?'
The thing is, that situation is not unusual in training, is it? Only it is not usually abusive.



PS. SSC, RACK and WIITWD (what is is that we do) are all terms created in the community to try to explain ourselves to those who don't, as an attempt to show consent and safety... so they'll stop bothering us. But it's no more or less safe and sane than contact football, racecar driving, skydiving, base jumping, stunting, "jackassing" or any number of hobbies the vanilla world participates in freely. It just happens to be sexual and that makes it a taboo and "somehow wrong" to them.

True.
But it may also serve as a guideline or comfort for people who are not sure if their fantasies and wants are abusive.

[thir]

[B][COLOR="magenta"]The truth is we all know when something is rotten.

I do not agree. This thread started because we are not always sure. And doubt can be a good thing.



The main argument relativists appeal to is that of tolerance. They claim that telling someone their morality is wrong is intolerant, and relativism tolerates all views. But this is misleading. First of all, evil should never be tolerated. Should we tolerate a rapist's view that women are objects of gratification to be abused?

Intention is a key concept here. The idea is if the striving is for a good relationship for both or all parties, then what they do is their business.
"Evil" is a hard word to define, but surely intention comes into it?



we should always treat people fairly—but that is absolutism again. In fact, without universal moral principles there can be no goodness.


Then there can be no goodness, because we have no universal moral principles, not in general, and not in BDSM.

But we do have each other, common sense, and our compassion.



The fact is that all people are born with a conscience,


Sidestep: I have started a thread on conscience, would you like to participate?


and we all instinctively know when we have been wronged or when we have wronged others.


If that were true, we probably would have much less need of this site ;-)

[thir]

Just posted this in my blog. But I'll post it here as well, as I'm interested to hear your views on it (if I break any written or unwritten laws of etiquette I beg your pardon).

I recently read a good article on how to spot a ‘creepy dom’. <snip>
The kind who doesn’t play by SSC, doesn’t care if what he does truly hurts his sub… the abuser in the guise of a dominant.


Would you be interested in a discussion on what constitutes abuse? It can be hard to pinpoint.



It’s the image which kept me from the lifestyle for years. I’ve long known that I got off – a lot! – on women submitting and in pain way before I accepted this was a part of me that was ok. I was afraid of the creepy dom,

just like I guess anyone in the lifestyle should be My fear was that I was afraid that legitimizing my cravings in stating that ‘yes I’m into consensual bdsm’ was just a way of hiding abuse under the disguise of being part of a sexual minority. In short I was afraid that I might be a creepy dom, that the nice guy I usually am were looking for an ‘out’, an ‘excuse’ to shed the bonds of decency and conscience and abuse women.

I got into this whole thing through fantasies of non-consent, rape, and the wrong kind of porn where the objective is giving the girl ‘more than she can take’ (or looking like it at least – have you noticed how a lot of ‘nilla porn is much more abusive than the kinky stuff?) Gradually I discovered the ‘lifestyle’ and being a generally liberal guy I’ve never ever had trouble accepting that others could be into it, and that it could be consensual and beneficial for all parties and so on. But that I should be into it was another matter; were my motives as pure as they should be?


Can you define what pure motives are?
I know you said these issues are in the past, but seeing that you are not at all the only one having or havng had these thoughts and doubts, it might be worth talking about.



I’m over this now (you guys here are among those who helped me with that!). Falling in love with a sub, and being loved back, helped. Finding out that I didn’t want, or get off from, submissive girls ruined for my amusement helped. Finding out that I deeply cared about the women ready to trust me with their submission, and that I was able to help and support them in our mutual exploration of their submission, helped a lot.


Helped - but did not entirely dispel these doubts??



In a matter of months this part of me went from my dirty secrets to one of the things about me I’m most happy about.


Great!!



I still get off on a whole lot of things I don’t approve off, I still have fantasies that should remain fantasies.


Would it be wrong for me to ask more specifically what they are? I know that a lot of people - myself included - get off on fantasies that would be impossible/unthinkable in real life. Sometimes a talk about where the bounderies are is worth while.



But I’ve found that my way of practicing my sadism has a whole different effect than those fantasies; the fantasies are nice up to the point when I’ve jacked off. What I’ve been and done with my girls I can smile of whether horny or not.


Is that good? It is good, isn't it? But would you like to do more?



By now this is mostly ancient history. What makes me bring this up is this relationship between our fantasies, our conscience and the lifestyle. As I see it BDSM is at its core about the marriage of emancipation and conscience. It most certainly was the central question for me at least.


BDSM is the marriage of emancipation and conscience. Well put! :-)
Have you found that balance?



On the one hand we insist that we should be free to get off on whatever we want without feeling ashamed of it. And we should be ready to respect others who get off on things we don’t. On the other hand we have our creeds of SSC or RACK; we may be raging perverts, but we will keep it within the limits of reason and consent, safe and sane and consensual.


Do you see a conflict here?



Interestingly those principles weren’t what got me to accept my own lifestyle. They certainly made me less worried about others being into this, but again my own motivation was what did it for me.


Excuse me if I am slow or go too close - but may I ask what motivations?



I guess my problem with SSC and RACK is that you can easily do things that come of as safe and consensual in a fundamentally abusive relationship. The kind of creepy dom that I was afraid off might well obtain the consent of his girl, he might well stay in line with all the obvious safety-precautions needed not to outright hurt the girl (on the physical, short term, level), and he might even argue the saneness of the relationship on the grounds of both parties ‘wanting it’.


What you say here important I think. So it seems to me that the question that keeps floating about is: given that we have no manual here, how do we know if we are doing the right things, if our motives are pure, that we are sensible doms and sensible subs, where are the limits?



One problem is that there are girls out there claiming to ‘want’ abuse. Browse most fetish dating sites and you’ll find the ads by ‘girls’ stating they want no SSC, no limits, no humanity…


Oh yes! And even more men!
What if they do actually want it? Is it possible that someone can want that, and not be a damaged person?



I put ‘girls’ in citation marks since I believe (and somewhat hope) that a good portion of such profiles are by someone very different from what they claim to be. Men, or women, who simply get off by writing out the fantasy of a girl wanting this kind of life of ‘pure slavery’.


Fantasies are truly different from realities for a lot of us. But it would certainly be better if people put their fantasies in the stories section instead of giving out false signals - if they know they are only fantasies, I mean.



But I’m afraid there are some out there who are ready to believe that a life of being treated as nothing but an object of someone else’s pleasure is what they truly must seek.


Must seek? Do you mean as in a compulsory behaviour?



I guess there are several reasons for that. One I experienced soon after accepting this lifestyle is the ‘now I want it ALL’-approach…


Yes, this starvation can be a problem for both sides, surely. Patience and common sense can be difficult.



accepting that one is kinky can get so obsessing that nothing else in life seems to really matter.


Yep, been talked about a lot here.



One of my subby friends did that; became slave not long after turning 18 in a relationship escalating towards where she got cut off from her family…


And that is a clear marker of abuse! One of the few.



luckily she ran and ran well and is in a sensible D/s relationship now. But I could easily see a girl not having the courage or the sense, or a Dom not only being irresponsible enough to let things go that way but an abuser who wouldn’t let her.


Ok you hear about terrible cases where people are kept chained against their will, and it makes my skin crawl. But most subs are people with their heads screwed on right - and most doms too. I do not think you need be so worried.



I can feel that way at times, when I’m turned on and ‘sexed up’… can be attracted to lives and relationships wholly centered on the lifestyle… The ‘cum-and-think-about-it-in-the-daily-grind’-test usually cures that, and is highly recommended.


But there is not reason why your life should not be centered around the life-style - many people do that as much as is practically possible. As long as your partner(s) want the same thing.



But then there’s the subs who truly believe they have no more worth than that… that may understand that they’re cutting themselves of from other kinds of self-explorations, from family, from being loved.
[/quote}

Hey - you are not saying that a life based on the life style is without self-explorations or without love, are you?

[quote]
Or who can think of no other kind of relationship they could handle – or feel valuable in.


In fact many subs would not handle any other kind of relationship - not because they think they are not worth something else, but because they want to live like subs and that makes them feel valuable.



That is the kind I really fear – or would fear, if I did not trust my own motives,


Which are?



I still fear for them – because they would give no indication that they are not getting exactly what they want and need even when they’re abused.


I think they would. There is a difference between happy people, and people in an unhappy relationship. If a person is a responsible dom, something would alert this person that the partner is not happy.



It’s a known fact that abuse survivors do gravitate towards abusive relationships.


Some do, so I have heard too. But I do not think it is an unescapeable destiny. In fact, not a few subs who are former abuse victims have found a dom that helped heal them.



I know a sub like that, a girl who’s pretty much been abused all her life, and who’s bright enough to know it, and know that even at that she still craves for someone to use her hard… it’s very hard giving her a sense that she’s worth something beyond her sexual attraction – even though I’m pretty sure she understands on a rational level that she is.


Emotions trump intelligence rather often.. 'use her hard' does not sound unusual, but 'use til irreparable damage' would be a different thing.
However, in our culture a woman does not have to an abuse victim to think that her sexual worth is all there is - sadly enough. But surely it would make it worse.



The problem is that you can so easily advertise abuse in this lifestyle – especially if you’re seeking to be at the receiving end. It is easy, and ‘acceptable’, and perhaps even considered submissive by some to state that you want to be used without limits and without consideration to your needs. I fear it’s a bit easier to want that fantasy, without stopping and thinking ‘is this really a good thing’ when you’re setting yourself up for the abuse.


There are a number of 'everything for Master' sites that would argue for this way. I do not see a problem with that, as long as they do not try to tell people that everybody should do it like that, if they are real D's.



But the frightening point, and what scared and still scares me about the lifestyle, is that we must admit that it can also be the guise of ‘abusees’ teaming up with ‘abusers’ in relationships that may well be consensual.

First: What is abuse?
How do you spot a damaged sub, or a damaged M?
How do you get to know yourself well enough to know what you are really after?

Secondly: It is good to discuss, even if by far the most relationships are not like that. The reason I say that is that there are a number of research projecs into BDSM, and they all show the same result: BDSM people are no different than anybody else, except slightly better educated. So, the number of abusive relationships is about the same for BDSM people and other people. The risk is not as big as you seem to think, and IMO a person in danger of abuse or further abuse would still be in this danger outside of BDSM. Quite possibly in a lot more danger, as BDSM people tend to be very aware and ask themselves and their partners a lot of questions!



That’s what I had to be very sure I wasn’t after. But what exactly is this then?


Do you mean what is it you are after? Truly, that is not always easy to figure out.

Might it be a 24-7 Ds relationship?

Do you want to go further, but are not sure that that isn't abusive?

If you have non-consensually fantasies I can tell you that you are not alone. Many people like the fantasy, and to get as close to it as they can. But of course that is one thing you cannot live out.



My whole point here, and I guess it’s a fairly short one, is that we need to emphasize the ‘sane’ part of safe sane and consensual. It’s not enough for things to be consensual, and nominally safe (you could argue that anything unsane is unsafe on the long term); we also need to ask ourselves the basic question if I could look myself in the mirror after I’ve lived my fantasy and still consider myself a decent person. AND we need to also ask ourselves the question if we’re putting our partners in a position to be decent persons as well.

If this is a lifestyle it’s also about living lives that we can be proud of, that we can feel good about, and that’s about so much more than BDSM. Being into BDSM is no excuse for not being a good person and it’s not any excuse, either, for not expecting others to treat you with decency.


Again, most relationships in BDSM are in fact ones you can be proud of, and the risk of abuse is not, IMO, by any means as big as you think. We are not as different from other people as all that, we still live and love and have children and trouble at work and put our trousers on one leg at a time. It is even scientificallly proven :-)

[sweetlynaughty]

Afterall, the battered housewife who refuses to file charges and comes back to the abuser over and over again is indeed consenting to the abuse, and yes, that's abuse.
Oz, with all due respect, Sir I have to disagree with this statement. Most battered housewives to not return to their husbands out of consent, they return out of fear and/or a lack of a support system. As thir pointed out, many reasons are behind their decision to return to the abuser but I honestly don't believe they are returning because they consent.

Respectfully,
mpellegrino

[thir]

[QUOTE=mpellegrino {Red Dragon};904512]Oz, with all due respect, Sir I have to disagree with this statement. Most battered housewives to not return to their husbands out of consent, they return out of fear and/or a lack of a support system. As thir pointed out, many reasons are behind their decision to return to the abuser but I honestly don't believe they are returning because they consent.
[/quote}

If they did, there would be no reason to run in the first place.

[leo9]

I’ve long known that I got off – a lot! – on women submitting and in pain way before I accepted this was a part of me that was ok. I was afraid of the creepy dom, just like I guess anyone in the lifestyle should be My fear was that I was afraid that legitimizing my cravings in stating that ‘yes I’m into consensual bdsm’ was just a way of hiding abuse under the disguise of being part of a sexual minority. In short I was afraid that I might be a creepy dom, that the nice guy I usually am were looking for an ‘out’, an ‘excuse’ to shed the bonds of decency and conscience and abuse women.
I don't think I ever worried about the "creepy dom" thing because I don't honestly believe I have that much mental influence! It helps that I've always been attracted to strong confident women (or as my late wife used to say, "submissive bossy bitches,") so I've felt safe that if I really were to lose my moral compass, they would stand up for themselves and put me right.

If I were attracted to the sort of weak self-hating subs I sometimes encounter online, I would be very conscious that I could go way too far, and enjoy it while it lasted, if I didn't watch myself. I have once, to my knowledge, gone over the edge into abuse, and my excuse is that the sub had a safeword and didn't use it. (Turned out she was so caught up in her role-play that she forgot she could safeword.) But it's a thin excuse, because I wasn't thinking about that: I was just having a wonderful time and not worrying about whether she was enjoying it too. I didn't harm her physically, just made her do some things she'd told me she wasn't into, but it was still wrong and I take it as a warning.

When I was much younger and didn't know anything about such subtleties, I was occasionally worried that I was going to grow up to be an axe murderer for having such urges! But not much worried, because I was pretty sure I knew the difference between fantasy and reality, same as I liked to play with toy soldiers but called myself a pacifist in politics. And since I read a lot, I knew that there were people out there who did this kind of thing as a shared pleasure, and all I had to worry about was how to find them.


I got into this whole thing through fantasies of non-consent, rape, and the wrong kind of porn where the objective is giving the girl ‘more than she can take’ Didn't we all? For a while when I was younger I tried to stick to politically correct consensual stuff, but most of it's as much fun as alcohol free beer. Even Antoniou, who I consider the greatest author of consensual slavery stories, is forever pushing the envelope, with characters getting into more than they expected, and being taken past their limits, and occasionally getting into downright abuse which is either OK because they "asked for it" or we're expected to deplore it at the same time as we enjoy it.

Stories are usually more extreme than what we'd want in real life, that's why we read stories instead of going out and doing it. Most people who read spy thrillers wouldn't take 007's job if they were offered it, not for twice the girls and Martinis.


Gradually I discovered the ‘lifestyle’ and being a generally liberal guy I’ve never ever had trouble accepting that others could be into it, and that it could be consensual and beneficial for all parties and so on. But that I should be into it was another matter; were my motives as pure as they should be?
So why do you distrust yourself more than other people? Seems to me that's the key question.

When I was involved in co-counselling, one of the tests of people's personalities was the mantra "Everyone, at all times, has done the best they could in the situation they found themselves in." The world is divided into those who have trouble adding "And that includes Hitler," and those who have trouble adding "And that includes me." I'm in the second category, it sounds as if you are too.


In a matter of months this part of me went from my dirty secrets to one of the things about me I’m most happy about. I still get off on a whole lot of things I don’t approve off, I still have fantasies that should remain fantasies. So has Joe Public, even if it's only fantasies about telling the boss where to shove his job.

For many years I used to while away boring journeys or waits by finding the hottest girl in sight and building a fantasy round her. Suddenly the room or train was gone and we were all alone... she saw me coming and knew the worst... I ran her down and ripped her clothes off, beat her into submission and raped her into sobbing surrender... The most I ever did for real was to force a girl to kiss me, and my sub-spotting instinct must have been working even back then, because after a minute's struggles she responded and spent the rest of the party snogging me enthusiastically. The lesson I took from it was to not assume I could get away with it again; I'd been lucky.

But I’ve found that my way of practicing my sadism has a whole different effect than those fantasies; the fantasies are nice up to the point when I’ve jacked off. What I’ve been and done with my girls I can smile of whether horny or not.Try repeating in the mirror: "Having bad ideas does not make me a bad person."


I guess my problem with SSC and RACK is that you can easily do things that come of as safe and consensual in a fundamentally abusive relationship. The kind of creepy dom that I was afraid off might well obtain the consent of his girl, he might well stay in line with all the obvious safety-precautions needed not to outright hurt the girl (on the physical, short term, level), and he might even argue the saneness of the relationship on the grounds of both parties ‘wanting it’.
This is a weakeness of human nature. It happens in vanilla relationships too.

One problem is that there are girls out there claiming to ‘want’ abuse. Browse most fetish dating sites and you’ll find the ads by ‘girls’ stating they want no SSC, no limits, no humanity… I put ‘girls’ in citation marks since I believe (and somewhat hope) that a good portion of such profiles are by someone very different from what they claim to be.I'm sure you are right that most of them are just fantasists. A year or two back my eye was caught by one who claimed she'd always been into heavy breast pain, but now for medical reasons she had to have a double mastectomy, so she was looking for someone to take this once in a lifetime chance to torture her breasts with absolutely no limits. Just for fun, I wrote her a proposal (as I recall it started by burning the skin off them with a decorator's heat gun,) but I heard no more and assumed I'd been right.

But the interesting question, as thir rightly asked, was what if she'd turned out to be real? And so taken with my ideas that she wanted me to be the one to do her the kindness of turning her breasts into bloody rags? (And could convince me that it was all true and not a self-destructive insanity, including the weakest bit of the story, that her surgeon wouldn't call the cops when she showed up with the amputations already half done by a messy amateur.) Would I have done it? Or perhaps what thir really wanted to know was, would I have enjoyed it? I think so. Does that mean I would enjoy so grossly hurting a woman without all the get-out-of-guilt-free cards involved in that fantasy situation? Absolutely not.


I’m afraid there are some out there who are ready to believe that a life of being treated as nothing but an object of someone else’s pleasure is what they truly must seek.
It's worse than that, Jim. There are some who have sought it and found it, and are tearing themselves to bits trying to force themselves to be happy in that situation, or rather, trying to shut down their feelings so that they're not happy or sad, just mindlessly there for their Master. I've corresponded with some of them, and it would break your heart.

The problem is that you can so easily advertise abuse in this lifestyle – especially if you’re seeking to be at the receiving end. It is easy, and ‘acceptable’, and perhaps even considered submissive by some to state that you want to be used without limits and without consideration to your needs. I fear it’s a bit easier to want that fantasy, without stopping and thinking ‘is this really a good thing’ when you’re setting yourself up for the abuse.There are self-destructive people in every community, and you can't save them all from themselves. But I can't think of a place better than this for giving people wise advice, and spotting the ones setting themselves up to be hurt and talking them down off the roof. We do protect our newbies and fools, so far as anyone can.

But the frightening point, and what scared and still scares me about the lifestyle, is that we must admit that it can also be the guise of ‘abusees’ teaming up with ‘abusers’ in relationships that may well be consensual. Well, yes, but so can the vanilla world. Ask any women's refuge. And I think that victims have a much better chance of being spotted and helped here than in vanilla-land.


My whole point here, and I guess it’s a fairly short one, is that we need to emphasize the ‘sane’ part of safe sane and consensual. It’s not enough for things to be consensual, and nominally safe (you could argue that anything unsane is unsafe on the long term); we also need to ask ourselves the basic question if I could look myself in the mirror after I’ve lived my fantasy and still consider myself a decent person. AND we need to also ask ourselves the question if we’re putting our partners in a position to be decent persons as well.
I'd hope that everyone does that, and if they don't, they're probably already a sufficiently nasty or self-deluded person that your advice is not going to help. To me, that's not sanity, it's simple decency. Or, perhaps, to invoke another thread on this forum, honour.

. We should not let the acceptance of unsane, abusive, relationships go unchallenged out of mistaken tolerance; and we should never ask anything out of ourselves, and others, that we cannot feel good doing the day after.
I think everyone here would put their hand up to that.

[leo9]

Oz, with all due respect, Sir I have to disagree with this statement. Most battered housewives to not return to their husbands out of consent, they return out of fear and/or a lack of a support system. As thir pointed out, many reasons are behind their decision to return to the abuser but I honestly don't believe they are returning because they consent.

Erin Pizzey (Prone to Violence) concluded from years of work running a women's refuge that many of them returned because they were hooked on the excitement of a dangerous partner: they were conditioned to process abuse as love. She was hated by feminists because they said she was blaming the victims, or saying they were happy where they were, which she wasn't; she was saying that, in her experience, the problem was more complicated than just providing a safe space. Someone who is emotionally damaged to the point where they can't break free is both abused and, in the strict legal sense, consenting (in the sense that an alcoholic consents to taking another drink); which just shows that consent isn't an infalible test of right and wrong.

[thir]

Erin Pizzey (Prone to Violence) concluded from years of work running a women's refuge that many of them returned because they were hooked on the excitement of a dangerous partner: they were conditioned to process abuse as love. She was hated by feminists because they said she was blaming the victims, or saying they were happy where they were, which she wasn't; she was saying that, in her experience, the problem was more complicated than just providing a safe space.

I think it is important to remember two things about Erin Pizzey: That she grew up in a violent family where especially her mother hated her, and that she is no proffessional. Among other things she thinks that people who enjoy pain are brain damaged:

"If a child experiences consistent pain and sexual abusive in the very early years the neural pathways in the brain fail to develop normally and thereafter the child will seek pleasure through pain."

None of this has ever been proven. Her theories are based on her talks with people through many years in refuge shelters, and surely that should be listened to, but not taken as gospel truth, especially in the light of her own childhood.

I believe what she says is that both women and men can be violent, which is a fact but one which radical feminists objected to for what seems to be political reasons.
She also says that there is often a dysfuntional relationship between the parties when there is domestic violence, and I am sure this can also be true, because we are surely programmed to some extent in our families as to what 'normal' is. But some saw it as blaming the women, after years of fight to get the topic of domestic violence out in the open but that was, by all accounts, not what she meant; she was part of the hard end of this fight for many years.


Someone who is emotionally damaged to the point where they can't break free is both abused and, in the strict legal sense, consenting (in the sense that an alcoholic consents to taking another drink); which just shows that consent isn't an infalible test of right and wrong.

There is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Consent can only be given by relatively normal and informed people. And who are they? Well - most of us! But not all.
But who is to say who aren't?

[leo9]

There is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Consent can only be given by relatively normal and informed people. And who are they? Well - most of us! But not all.
But who is to say who aren't?"Friends don't let friends do bad things." You can't stop a legally competent adult making what looks to you like a really bad mistake, but you can warn them in any way that works, try to make them look at the situation with clearer eyes, maybe show them facts they didn't know. It may not work at the time, but help them later when they start having secod thoughts for themselves.

[thir]

But the frightening point, and what scared and still scares me about the lifestyle, is that we must admit that it can also be the guise of ‘abusees’ teaming up with ‘abusers’ in relationships that may well be consensual. That’s what I had to be very sure I wasn’t after. But what exactly is this then?

My whole point here, and I guess it’s a fairly short one, is that we need to emphasize the ‘sane’ part of safe sane and consensual. It’s not enough for things to be consensual, and nominally safe (you could argue that anything unsane is unsafe on the long term); we also need to ask ourselves the basic question if I could look myself in the mirror after I’ve lived my fantasy and still consider myself a decent person. AND we need to also ask ourselves the question if we’re putting our partners in a position to be decent persons as well.

If this is a lifestyle it’s also about living lives that we can be proud of, that we can feel good about, and that’s about so much more than BDSM. Being into BDSM is no excuse for not being a good person and it’s not any excuse, either, for not expecting others to treat you with decency.

I don’t have a ready-made solution on how we fight abuse, especially on the internet, but I think it’s important we keep telling each other what it is, and not to accept it. We should not let the acceptance of unsane, abusive, relationships go unchallenged out of mistaken tolerance; and we should never ask anything out of ourselves, and others, that we cannot feel good doing the day after.


I just wondered if this might help:

http://www.revisef65.org/psychopathology.html

It is a short overview over various research which all show that BDSM people are not different from other people.

[damyanti]

I just wondered if this might help:

http://www.revisef65.org/psychopathology.html

It is a short overview over various research which all show that BDSM people are not different from other people.


I read most of those studies, and of course we arent any different from other people (well apart from arguably being more fulfilled sexually) . But that is not what The I's post was about anyway(!), it was about the fact that sometimes some people hide abuse in the guise of BDSM.

Percentage wise abuse and violence are no more common in BDSM community than they are in vanilla one, but we tend to forget about the % that is abuse and have a tendency to deny abuse exists at all due to (un)rational fear someone else will label what we personally are doing as abuse or unsane as well.

I think the closest definition for sane here would be someone who is able to anticipate and appraise the effect of their own's actions in order to discern which fantasies are best left fantasies.

[The I]

I read most of those studies, and of course we arent any different from other people (well apart from arguably being more fulfilled sexually) . But that is not what The I's post was about anyway(!), it was about the fact that sometimes some people hide abuse in the guise of BDSM.

Percentage wise abuse and violence are no more common in BDSM community than they are in vanilla one, but we tend to forget about the % that is abuse and have a tendency to deny abuse exists at all due to (un)rational fear someone else will label what we personally are doing as abuse or unsane as well.

I think the closest definition for sane here would be someone who is able to anticipate and appraise the effect of their own's actions in order to discern which fantasies are best left fantasies.


Agreed. But I realize that my point is perhaps in part about something beyond sanity: conscience. It is about not just knowing the difference between sane and un-sane, but having the decency to ask the question in the first place!

I've never doubted my ability to know sane from un-sane, and I think that's why I've never had issues with other people being sadists when I had doubted my own intentions. When it came t others I've always been fairly confident I could know the difference between sane and insane.

What I see as the risk is stopping to ask ourselves the question if what we're doing is actually a good thing or having the honesty to answer ourselves truthfully. It doesn't have to do with whether this or that level of extremity is abuse. For me abuse doesn't have to do with whether it's sunday spankings or total power exchange. For me abuse is whether you stop having your partners welfare as the motivation for what you're doing.

[leo9]

What I see as the risk is stopping to ask ourselves the question if what we're doing is actually a good thing or having the honesty to answer ourselves truthfully. It doesn't have to do with whether this or that level of extremity is abuse. For me abuse doesn't have to do with whether it's sunday spankings or total power exchange. For me abuse is whether you stop having your partners welfare as the motivation for what you're doing.
True, and worth reminding ourselves of. When something is as mind-blowingly enjoyable as sexual dominance, it can be dangerously easy to get swept away and forget the responsibilities that come with it.

This is one of the places where succesful BDSM requires a certain amount of doublethink. On one level, it can be part of the fun for both of you to treat the sub as a thing to be used for your pleasure without a thought for hir feelings. But there must always be another part of your mind that keeps aware that this is a person with feelings that matter, and watches out for them.

[damyanti]

This is one of the places where succesful BDSM requires a certain amount of doublethink. On one level, it can be part of the fun for both of you to treat the sub as a thing to be used for your pleasure without a thought for hir feelings. But there must always be another part of your mind that keeps aware that this is a person with feelings that matter, and watches out for them.

True. I would just like to add that it goes both ways and that subs should be mindful too, both about what they are asking for and if in a relationship, what they are asking from their dom too (doms get hurt too).
Submission too is mind-blowingly enjoyable (i like that expression :d) and it can be easy to get lost in a fantasy. We all have a responsibility towards our partners, but ultimately our own welfare is our own responsibility, no matter the role we play.