BDSM vs Abuse

My friend and fellow writer Tara Rose as a great blog post today, in the wake of the trailer for 50 Shades of Grey hitting the wires, about BDSM vs abuse and how to tell the two apart. Definitely one you want to check out.

http://www.tararoseromanceauthor.com/2014/07/bdsm-versus-abuse-do-you-understand.html

Yet another one where I take on radical feminists' views about BDSM.

Oh, look. Someone on the Interwebz is having a butthurt cow about consensual BDSM practices. It's an older article, but one I was only pointed toward just today.

*sigh* http://liberationcollective.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/bdsm-is-violence-against-women

Here's my response to them, because I seriously doubt they'll let my comment stand, because, idunno, LOGIC HURTZ.

*Grrrr.*

Equating the 50 Shades books and porn films to real-life consensual, healthy BDSM practices is the equivalent to saying that pedophillic priests means all Catholics, including parishioners, should be put in jail for child abuse.

Seriously, that's the kind of faulty logic you all are engaging in here.

There are still parts of the world where people are MURDERED for being gay. THAT is a serious cause to go after, not pillorying people who are in healthy BDSM dynamics. And yet you take a tiny, unrealistic subset of a very large population and say THIS IS THE TRUTH ABOUT BDSM, when, in fact, it's not.

Have any of you ever had sex in any way other than the missionary position? Have any of you ever willingly been blindfolded or *gasp* tied up during sex?

If yes, then you have no room to point fingers at those of us who do CONSENSUALLY practice healthy BDSM.

If you gasped in horror that I suggested such a thing, perhaps you all really need to take a harder look at your own stunted sexual practices.

You don't get to determine how consenting adults practice their sexuality. Period. Full stop. Just because it's not YOUR cuppa doesn't mean you get the right to take that cup from someone else. I couldn't care less about how you practice your sexuality, so why should you concern yourself about how I practice mine? Do you really have that much free time on your hands?

Are there abusers and assholes in BDSM? Yes, there are. But there are also assholes and abusers in the vanilla world, too.

The fact that the latest version of the DSM has depathologized BDSM should tell you that your heads are stuck in the past and deep in the sand.

You don't have a right to say how I, or how ANYONE ELSE, practices our sexuality. You don't. If people are consenting adults, let them do what they want to do in the bedroom. Yes, you are being hypocritical. We are at a time now where women get to decide how to express their sexuality. If it's not the way YOU want them to express it, well, I guess it sucks to be you then, doesn't it?

Just the fact that you're couching your post in terms like "patriarchal rape culture" shows your bias and lack of empathy for people who are different than you.

And FYI, I am a woman who, while I identify as a Dominant in nearly all areas of my life, is also a collared slave who switches with the man I'm collared to. Oh, and he's not my husband--we're poly. (Suck on that fact, too, while you're at it.) I am not being "abused." I am not being "harmed." I dare say that I have done more personal recovery, and healed more from my PTSD from a previous relationship, since finding BDSM than I did before. I have empowered myself in ways you apparently aren't even capable of conceiving, based on your biased report.

Instead of making wide-sweeping, ignorant statements based on some extremely UNrealistic examples at best, and horrific and non-representative examples at worse, how about getting to actually, oh, I don't know, MEET and TALK to people who engage in healthy BDSM dynamics, instead of treating us like we have cooties.

(Tymber Dalton is a real-life practitioner of BDSM, and the author of over sixty books. www.tymberdalton.com)