How people understand the BDSM philosophy abroad?

[Iapetos]

I have learned the main BDSM principles while I was living in the Netherlands. there have been some years since I came back to my homeland (Greece) and I have tried to become attached to the Greek BDSM society. After all these years of interaction with other Greeks I realised that the way that they understand the whole BDSM philosophy seems to my mind like a complete different approach from the one that I have learned abroad.
I would like to ask the fellow members of this site to share their own point of view about what is BDSM for them and how they understand the interaction between submissives and Dominants.
I would like to thank all members in advance!

[The I]

I think you have a good point that the understanding, and 'philosophical background' of BDSM in particular varies, perhaps not only with culture but from individual to individual. As I see it since kinky people are as different as 'nilla people with different world-views and opinions the way we integrate our kink in our world-view logically will differ as well - the fact that some of us come from fairly different cultures will undoubtedly reinforce that variance.

Therefore I believe it is a good idea to make a disclaimer early on in a tread like this. I strongly believes there can not be and there should not be any common 'culture' or 'philosophy' of us as a community. Since we are, and should be, a varied bunch with as different world-views and opinions as anyone else, building our community on one philosophy or another will only alienate some groups. There are enough things to make one’s kink hard to come to terms with in our culture today, feeling that BDSM associates you with a world-view and a philosophy that you can’t subscribe to shouldn’t be one of them.

So, if there should be any common belief or principle a community such as this should build on it should be the principle of tolerance, the principle of plurality, ‘let each believe what makes them happy’. Other than that there are of course a lot of procedural wisdoms, practices and practices that I believe valuable to everyone, like the principle of RACK, risk-aware consensual kink, using safewords, being responsible and never hurting anyone beyond the good kind of hurt. Of course toleration should not extend to predators or the like.


I’m Danish, but my knowledge of BDSM stems from sites like this so I do not speak out of a distinct ‘Danish way of being kinky’.

When I strive to understand what goes on in the D/S relationship I’ve found Sartre one of the more useful philosophers. I am not a student philosophy (except perhaps from a little bit of the political branch of it), nor have I read that much so I would like to make clear that my account may be somewhat simplified. Sartre has this distinction (which I believe he borrows from Heidegger) between ‘being-for-oneself’ (‘être pour-soi’) and ‘being-in-oneself’ (être en-soi). Being-for-oneself means basically ‘living in the future’, or perhaps more precisely: 'living for the future'. This I believe is a very normal mode of human, and in fact a big part of what makes us ‘human’, that much of the time we spend not in the present but planning and worrying about our future, putting needs aside in order to secure the future for ourselves, and generally acting not from the needs and impulses of the moment but from the needs we foresee in the near or not so near future.

Being-in-oneself means you are being into the present ‘you’. You are not living constantly ahead of yourself as you do when you live for yourself. This of course makes you able to feel the ‘now’ much more keenly than if you have your thoughts, your being, constantly poised towards the next now. You are, so to speak, in a mode of existence much closer to that of a child or even an animal (in the sense that animals are, I believe, not very able to ‘think ahead’ very far). You are also very vulnerable to the ones who are more ‘for’ themselves than you because you logically do not take the future as much into account as they do. Therefore Sartre often sees the one ‘being more in oneself’ as objectified by the one being more for himself because, a bit like an object, that person is deemed likely to just ‘sense’ what is happening in the moment, made passive because ‘taking control’ is an act inherently poised at controlling the future.

Interestingly, as far as I remember, the above makes Sartre believe that these persons who are ‘in themeselves’ are likely to be dominated by those for themselves. In his view this easily ends up as an abusive relationship but this is where I find the D/S relationship has relevance to Sartre’s philosophies, or the opposite, if you would: That exactly in the D/S relationship one part, the sub, is able to pursue a state of ‘being in her-/himself’ without ending up in abuse because she can consensually give away control of the immediate future to the dominant person. Submission, in my opinion, is very clearly close to Sartre’s conception of être en-soi in that exactly when you give up control the future becomes irrelevant, considering the next couple of hours, being in that future instead of the presence is irrelevant because you do not have any control of what is going to happen in those hours anyway, you might as well let go of the future and just ‘be’, just ‘sense’ what is in the present and go with it. Perhaps the almost legendary state of ‘subspace’ is something especially close to that.

On a site note: because of this I do not find it strange that some people consider ‘objectification’, or the various kinds of play where one is reduced to an ‘animal like’ existence for a time, kinky, since these states are exactly an approximation to a state of existence where one just ‘is’ and has no regard for the future. The state of a slave or a kajira, I believe, is close to ‘being-in-oneself, as well and I believe some goreans actually word the ‘giving up control’ of the kajira relatively closely to what I have been describing.

Of course: the perquisite for this relationship not being abusive as Sartre would describe it is that it is negotiated beforehand – that the submissive reconcile those perhaps conflicting modes of excistance of being-in-oneself and being-for-oneself by splitting them up, so to speak. In the situation of negotiation the sub, of course, should be anything but ‘in-her-/himself’, she/he should not follow her immediate impulses, for example to please the dominant, but consider the future very close, both in regard to those hours, days or even more, she will surrender her ‘being-for-herself’ to the will of the dominant but definitely also with due consideration of the time afterwards and the effects her submission will have on that. In my view of kink such a contract, even if it is pertaining to full ‘slavery’ with a total exchange of power, should, in principle, always be up for renegotiation or dispantion – even if such a relationship is never renegotiated I believe it becomes the real, despicable, kind of slavery that was abolished centuries ago if the sub is not, in principle able to walk out on the relationship.

Of course another point that is needed, in order to avoid the potential of abuse that Sartre sees in being-in-oneself is that the dominant needs to be anything but in him or herself. The perquisite for the sub being able to ‘let go of the moment’ is exactly that the dom retains the control of the situation, and the consideration of the future, that he or she gives up. Being in-one-self while domming, I believe, is the same as entering ‘dom-space’, letting oneself be carried away by the sometimes intoxicating feeling of being in control and being able to take his or her submissive the places she/he goes when dominated, and that is definitely not a thing to strive for.

To me at least Sartre’s thinking is a very good tool for understanding the existentialism of submission in particular and hence understanding what goes on in the mind of the submissive.

[Iapetos]

I would like to thank you for the knowledge that you have shared with me. I found the things you've written really interesting and they will sure give me a new motive to search deeper in thsi matter

[denuseri]

I would like to thank Iapetos for starting this thread and The I for his very insightful response.

Despite my being pretty much raised abroad, I have only ever participated in bdsm as it is practiced here in the united states in person, (my owner and husband however has done so in other countires, japan in paticular).

Yet after a year of being on line i have seen the views of many different people from many different cultural backgrounds discuss bdsm and:

I have found despite the many defferences in how we all view things like "levels of disipline ie strictness" or "positions and ettiqutes" etc etc, we are all more the same rather than different when it comes to certian basic concepts involved with the "mutually consensual" practice of bdsm.

By mutally and consensual i mean bdsm that involves the consent of all parties involved prior to any activities taking place.

Less a difference of cultural so much as a difference in style based on the practical aplications for types of activities engadged in. For instance "Shibari" Japanese rope bondage, has a certian style for the use of the rope with differences in the positions and way the rope is used between modern and traditional methods, where as european styles of rope use are different in many ways they both take into consideration the saftey of the submissive and the overall enjoyment of all parties involved.

The hierarchy of dominion, that being between dominants and submissives does seem like the concepts of pain and pleasure to be universal in conseptual understanding if not in practical aplications catagorically accross the globe.

As different as our culrural backgrounds may be we often come to consensus in many ways.

I am curious as to exactly what is so different about the "Greeks" in paticular??

[rsjankowski]

welcome to the great american melting pot where we are a culture within many cultures, from the asian shibari masters, to the revered story of "O" from pauline reage. i believe i spelled that right, hope i did, would hate to sound foolish.

in anycase. bdsm for me other than the combined 3 sides within the circle of unity, bondage & disipline, dominance & submission, and sadism & masochism. is an incredible exercise in balance and control of oneself as well. since to take on the responsibilty of others we first must balance that control within ourselves.

bondage & disipline- restraint of our thoughts and actions
dominance & submission - proper control and submission to our beliefs
sadism & masochism - the pain we share and the pain we feel within ourselves

i agree with "I" that the disclaimer be inserted within our differences. for it is a culture that unifies us. binds us together. and brings us to an enlightenment of ourselves,

i serve others in hopes of being served. to give and then partake of life. i try to live by example by the teachings of God within the Bible and am constantly at odds as i stuggle against the ropes of my own beliefs and desires. most christians may consider just being within this website a sin. and i talk with God about that nightly. tell me this ins't a form of bdsm as it is a constant exercise in the 3 sided form within the circle of unity of this community of which i feel at home.

within this constant exercise i've come to realize how much i know and how much i do not know of myself. and how much more there is to learn in both. i live in the past that made me, the present of which i am, and the future of which i could be.

i am not as learned in the books or words of alot of lifestyle novelist. but it is to that level which i aspire to. for i believe that they have seen upon a partial truth that when the stories are woven together bring about a form that takes a life of it's own. the bible i haven't read all the way through. but in my readings i've learned the basic tenant of serving others, and in such i've gained much control. in the beliefs that nothing is impossible for me within the strength of my God. i'm am but just a puppet who has managed to pull the strings of others bringing them toward their possible potential.

i know this is wordy and long, and i humbly apologize in it's length but this is what bdsm is to me. thank you for this opportunity to explain how i feel.

[Iapetos]

I would like to thank Iapetos for starting this thread and The I for his very insightful response.

Despite my being pretty much raised abroad, I have only ever participated in bdsm as it is practiced here in the united states in person, (my owner and husband however has done so in other countires, japan in paticular).

Yet after a year of being on line i have seen the views of many different people from many different cultural backgrounds discuss bdsm and:

I have found despite the many defferences in how we all view things like "levels of disipline ie strictness" or "positions and ettiqutes" etc etc, we are all more the same rather than different when it comes to certian basic concepts involved with the "mutually consensual" practice of bdsm.

By mutally and consensual i mean bdsm that involves the consent of all parties involved prior to any activities taking place.

Less a difference of cultural so much as a difference in style based on the practical aplications for types of activities engadged in. For instance "Shibari" Japanese rope bondage, has a certian style for the use of the rope with differences in the positions and way the rope is used between modern and traditional methods, where as european styles of rope use are different in many ways they both take into consideration the saftey of the submissive and the overall enjoyment of all parties involved.

The hierarchy of dominion, that being between dominants and submissives does seem like the concepts of pain and pleasure to be universal in conseptual understanding if not in practical aplications catagorically accross the globe.

As different as our culrural backgrounds may be we often come to consensus in many ways.

I am curious as to exactly what is so different about the "Greeks" in
paticular??

Unfortunately many people in Greece "use" BDSM in order not to express a different sexual identity and desire but in order to utilise it as the fullfilment of their sickest thoughts. There are some cases in which people were in danger by behaviours like these. There are sick minds (and unfortuately lots of them) that think that BDSM is the way to rule your partner's life and the use their Dominant status only to cause fear to the people that may get involved with them.
I know that I cannot express myself ina proper way but I would like to believe that I made my point clear

[DIXIE LASS]

Law, ya'll are way too smart and way too deep for me this early in the morning.

Dixie

[denuseri]

Iapetos that doesnt sound like a cultural difference so much as an all around bad crowd you have run into.

Such types know no cultural boundaries in so far as i have been able to discern from my own experiences.

[Iapetos]

Iapetos that doesnt sound like a cultural difference so much as an all around bad crowd you have run into.

Such types know no cultural boundaries in so far as i have been able to discern from my own experiences.

I think that you got my point. What I meant from the beginning was that lots of people here in Greece do not try to understand the real philosophy and meaning of BDSM and they use it as a form of perversion