The meanings of BDSM.

One of the tough parts about discussing BDSM in a feminist context is that everyone seems to have a different idea of what BDSM means.  (The literal answer, of course, is Bondage, Disciplominance, Sadimission, and Masochism.)  What does it mean, what dynamic is really playing out, when you do BDSM?

Does topping a person mean that you're pleasuring them, or testing their limits?  Does choosing to bottom mean that you're choosing to endure harm, or that you're merely asking someone to do things you enjoy?  Does dominating someone mean that you're using them, or that you're taking care of them?  Does submitting mean that you're naturally fit to follow rather than lead, or that you have either potential but choose to follow?

The answer to all those questions is "yes."

A lot of debates about BDSM get stuck because people assume they know the meaning of a physical action.  The simplest, and most frustrating, problem is when someone interprets "hitting" to always mean "attacking with anger and intent to harm," therefore BDSM is about anger and is harmful, QED.  But there are subtler assumptions that crop up in better-informed discussions, sometimes even inside the community.  If you're talking about forced feminization, and one person thinks that means "making someone feminine to make them lesser," and the other thinks it means "helping someone explore femininity in a kinky way," they can talk right past each other for hours.

When I say people have different ideas about what BDSM means, this isn't just about intention or emotion or philosophy.  Sometimes it's quite visible when you watch BDSM actually happen. The same activities, that we describe with the same words, can be done in very different ways that completely change the meanings.

Take rope bondage.  People can use bondage to restrain someone while they do other play, or simply tie them up and let them experience it for a while and then untie them.  It can be drippingly sexual and involve fucking in bondage, or it can be done fully clothed and nonsexually.  (Not that "naked" and "sexual" necessarily go together.  Sometimes nudity in bondage is about freedom of motion, or keeping clothing from tangling up with the rope, or feeling the rope on your skin.  Or just having an excuse to be naked.)  It can be so painful it's a form of sadism, or so comforting the bottom nearly falls asleep.  It can keep a person from moving at all, or be purely decorative ropework that they can walk around in.  It can be rough, brutal, and hastily improvised, or it can be a painstakingly crafted art form.

So when we talk about bondage, we're not talking about a unified mood, intention, or effect. We're talking about an umbrella with a gigantic amount of human variation underneath it.  And we need to acknowledge that.  I'm not saying you can't generalize anything about BDSM, but... it's a lot less than you think.  So when people ask questions like "is BDSM oppressive?", the answer isn't "no" and it isn't "yes."  The answer is "it shouldn't be and it doesn't have to be."



This has a fun side.  It's not all about sexism and abuse.  It's also a tremendously powerful tool to use in play.  Understanding how to control the mood and meaning of a scene opens up a world of glorious possibilities. You can bring your negotiation from "I want to tie you up" to "I want to tie you up sexy" or "I want to tie you up mean" or "I want to tie you up artsy." (actual phrasing not recommended)  You can agree to tie someone up sexy and tease and them with not-quite-sexual bondage before turning it sexy.  You can develop the meaning of a scene in sync with your partner, something you experience together, and the cool part is, you get to decide what that meaning is.

What I Mean When I Say I'm Sex-Positive.

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"How can you be a feminist and do BDSM?"

[I'm back!  I know, another really long unannounced hiatus.  I have a good excuse this time.  I had to move sort of unexpectedly and under less than ideal conditions.  I still don't know what I want to say about it, except that this wasn't about Rowdy; Rowdy continues to be awesome.  Anyway.  I'm in a good place now and I have time/energy to write again.]

Journal Of Secrets

I don't think I've ever really answered the title question, even though it's the most obvious thing that comes up when you identify yourself as a feminist who's also into BDSM.  How does this work for me?  Isn't it a big ol' conflict to be for equality and respect for all genders and then give a thumbs-up to men leading women around on leashes and hitting them with whips?

My usual flippant answer--which also happens to be my most  emotionally honest--is that it's like asking how I can be a feminist and keep guinea pigs.  What do my hobbies have to do with anything?  Kink is just a fun activity that involves a different part of my personality.

A deeper answer is that it's pleasurable for everyone involved.  The things I think of as feministically troubling are things that harm someone.  Job and school discrimination harm women economically.  Sexism harms women emotionally.  Violence harms women physically and emotionally.  Receiving pain in BDSM makes me feel strong, makes me feel desired, makes me feel present in the moment, makes me feel alive.  (Also, makes me feel extraordinarily horny and kinda high.)  I know that's not proof that it's good for me or for women, but... it's a significant piece of evidence.  I put up with misogynist environments sometimes because they're the path of least resistance for my personal goals; BDSM requires absolutely no "putting up with."  Good kink experiences are personal goals in themselves.

I also find a lot of the arguments against kink, like the ones in this much-mocked article and many of the ones that pop up in feminist contexts like this random post, to be deeply... god, I'm sick of the word "problematic."  Fuckin' weasel word that can mean anything from "got some facts wrong" to "basically a Nazi."  I find these arguments to be misguided and annoying and sometimes demeaning in exactly the ways feminists are supposed to oppose.



For one thing, a whole lot of those arguments could apply to plain ol' sex.  It can be used as a weapon of, and an excuse for, horrific abuse?  People are sometimes unintentionally harmed doing it?  It's horrible when done nonconsensually?  There are some really awful people who are into it?  A lot of the narratives around it are sexist, hetero/cisnormative, body-policing, and glamorize unsafe and questionably consensual activities?  The industries that sell media and services related to it are often nightmarishly exploitative?  I don't want to deny or minimize the fact that all these things happen in BDSM.  I just don't think it's any worse in kink than in sex.

Actually, I'll go a little further than that.  While "kink is always consensual!" is facile white-washing, on average kinksters are more aware than the general population of what consent is and why it matters.  We talk about it a lot more, and we (at least try to) socially normalize the idea of negotiating it.  We acknowledge that different relationships have different rules and roles, and that gender does not determine them.  We freely admit that lots of people simply aren't wired for what we do, or for specific ways of doing it.  We have concepts like "Risk Aware Consensual Kink" and "Your Kink Is Not My Kink, But Your Kink Is OK."  Again, I won't pretend we all apply these concepts all the time, but... the fact that we even hold these as ideals puts us a little bit ahead of society at large.

I also think a lot of "BDSM is sexist" arguments wouldn't long survive an encounter with a female dominant or a male submissive.  Female dominance is not about women dressing up in leather for men to admire.  It is an actual kink that women can have.  If you see a woman getting her rocks off by having a man service her, and you think "clearly she's only doing that to please him," you're desexualizing her and disregarding her desires.  Although you're still a step ahead of the people who don't even acknowledge that female dominance is a thing at all.

Of course, if we got into the fact that same-sex, nonbinary, and nonsexual kink exist, we'd be here all day.  (I've heard arguments that queer kink is still sexist because people are enacting male and female roles, but... if you see someone who isn't a man being dominant and you think "clearly she's being the man here," I think the problem is on your end.)  And I don't even know what would happen if we let some of these critics know about switching.

Finally, there's the question of whether feminism has any business saving women from themselves.  Because there's a really bad track record here.  At various times, various branches of feminism have swooped in to "save" femme women, married women, women who stay home with their kids, women who do sex work, cis women who welcome trans women into women's spaces--and it has always been a disaster.  It's forced women to defend their dignity and even their safety from the people who are supposed to be advocating for them.  I'm not saying any of these groups are the same as submissive women, obviously, only that "you say you want this... you poor thing" hasn't historically worked out well for feminism.



How can I be a feminist and do BDSM?  Because I trust women to know their own desires.  Because BDSM does not stand apart from the world at large, and if we have to live in this world anyway, we might as well do what we love.  Because I love and respect my body, my mind, and my potential as a human being--and all three are going "hell yeah, I totally want this."

We are the 95%.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE on all that follows, including all links.

[I wasn't going to write this post today. Believe it or not, I really don't like writing about rape so much. I want to write more about good happy kinky sex. But then all that stuff with the Good Men Project kinda blew up in my face, and this is the post you got.]



There's one big lie that rapists tell.  Most of the other lies are just part of it.  "Consent is complicated and confusing and there are a lot of gray areas."  "She dressed/acted/talked like she wanted it."  "She never said no; how was I supposed to know?"  "She just regrets having sex."  "We were both drunk and the alcohol muddied things."  "He sure seemed like he was enjoying it."  "I guess I just got caught up in the heat of the moment."  "People do this all the time and only paranoid feminists call it rape."

The one big lie at the center of all these little lies is: "If you were in my place, you could have done the same."

I mean, who among us has not been confused in the process of sexual communication?  Who has not thought someone was interested in them and then found out they read the signals wrong?  Who has not had a partner enjoy sex less than they'd hoped?  Who has not felt "swept away" at some point during sex?  Who has not done something stupid while drunk?  Who has not felt that the things their ex said after the breakup were awfully unfair? The rape-apologist narrative taps into some nearly universal experiences.

And then, in that one big lie, pretends that these everyday insecurities and disappointments could lead anyone to rape.  "It could have happened to anyone," say the rapists.  Especially to men.  And to themselves.

Here's the truth, though, from some pretty major studies:
Between 6% and 13% of men have attempted or completed rape.  4-8% of men are serial offenders, and responsible for the vast majority (90-95%) of all rapes.

I realize these numbers are still uncomfortably high, especially if you have twenty male friends.  But they also mean that 94-87% of men are not rapists.  Add in women (who do rape, but at a lower rate), put in some fuzzy math and broad guesses to get a good-enough ballpark, and roughly 95% of people never attempt or commit rape.

So when you hear all the totally plausible ways it could have been you, realize: nope, probably couldn't have been.  Most people don't struggle not to commit rape.  Most people don't have trouble understanding sexual refusal.  The vast majority of people go through drunken blunders and miscommunication and bad breakups without committing or being accused of rape, just as the vast majority of people don't have trouble restraining themselves from torture or murder.

And forget the numbers for a second.  If you, personally, make a commitment to never have sex without unambiguous consent, your odds of being a not-rapist are 100%.  It can't "happen to you" if you decide not to do it.



This is part of why I talk about consent so much.  It's not just to keep well-intentioned guys from accidentally raping.  Most well-intentioned guys don't really have that problem.  It's to help well-intentioned guys (and girls, and everyone else) see how vast the gulf is between them and rapists.

If affirmative, negotiated, freely given consent is the norm, then rapists lose the ability to say "I just didn't know."  They can no longer make anyone think "but regular sex looks practically the same."  If romance doesn't work a damn thing like rape, rapists can't hide behind "I was trying to be romantic."

Clear consent does make sex better, and it does prevent legitimate-yet-horrific misunderstandings. But that's not all of what it's for.  It's also so that rapists can't say--to us or to themselves--"I thought we were just having sex."



Only 5% of people commit it, but everyone lives with the effects of rape.  Because of this small minority of predators, everyone has to live in a world where they will have a sibling, spouse, child, parent, friend who's a survivor of sexual assault.  Everyone has to live in a world where women are told to live in fear of rape.  Everyone has to know a family, social group, school, political party that's been torn apart by bitter hostility between survivors and their supporters and predators and their defenders.

Because a lot more than 5% of people have been suckered in by the rapists' big lie.  A lot more than 5% of people talking about any case of rape in the media or their social circle start saying "sounds like a grey area to me," and "she really did send some mixed signals" and "do we have to be so hard on the guy?"  A lot more than 5% of people treat rapists with sympathy and survivors with skepticism, because they're thinking "shit, in a situation that confusing, it could have been any guy; it could have been me."

But 95% of the time, it couldn't have been.

We are the non-rapists, the people who will never commit rape and who suffer from the actions of those who do.  Imagine what we could get done if we presented a united front, and the rapists had no one but other rapists to defend and enable them.  We are the 95%.  Let's fuckin' act like it.

Everyone else is doing it... right?

Now someone, somewhere, thinks it's
normal to slut-shame a steak.

Rowdy and I watched porn together last night.  Because Rowdy is a gentle soul in ways I am not, I tend to watch hardcore kinky porn and he tends to watch porn of real couples having sweet lovey sex.  We were watching his porn.

The woman in the video had sex the way I do.  When she was on top, she didn't pump her whole body up and down, she just moved her hips rhythmically.  And she didn't stay on top forever going poundpoundpound like a champ; she did it for a few minutes and then switched positions.  I think that's the first time I've seen a woman in porn do that.

The part that blew my mind: the guy in the video was way into that.  And Rowdy was way into that. And it was in porn, which gave it the official stamp of People Think This Is A Sexy Thing.  I was astonished, because I always thought wiggling my hips on top meant I was incompetent at sex.  I thought you were supposed to bounce full-length on a guy until he came, and since my thigh muscles can't do that, I thought I was too weak to do me-on-top sex correctly.  It was amazing to see people accepting a less athletic method as a totally valid, hot way to have sex.  Hell, it was amazing just to find out that I wasn't the only person on Earth who has sex that way.

It was also amazing, although it probably shouldn't have been, to voice these thoughts to Rowdy and have him reply basically "you think there's a wrong way to ride my dick? and you've been doing it less because of this?" *facepalm* (He was more polite than that.)  A few minutes later, we were having delightful sex with considerably better understanding of each other.



The point of this story is not "if you see something in porn then it's good sex."  Oh god no.  The point is that it's easy-- especially in areas as private and emotionally loaded as sex--to have a totally skewed idea of what everyone else is doing, and to try to conform to that skewed idea.  (Not that conformity is a great thing.  But being able to make realistic comparisons to others, then decide whether you want to emulate them or not, is still useful.)




And I'm probably going to make a whole post about this so I won't belabor the point right now, but this is why feminists care about media and memes that normalize rape.  (Or that stigmatize the words "rape" and "rapist," but enthusiastically normalize the act of forcing sex on people, as long as you don't call it that.)  Because it tells people that rape  is normal, that it's a popular and accepted way to express romance and/or dominance, and we can't assume that everyone absorbing this culture knows "of course that's not how it really works."



It's easy to look around your little corner of the world, and the bits of patchy evidence you get from other places, and think that you know how the world is.  It's easy to conclude on the most threadbare evidence that you're hideously abnormal or that the suffering you're enduring or causing is normal.  The ultimate solution to this is to transcend "normal" and replace it with "good."  But the proximate solution is to be conscious and careful of what we normalize.

Being imperfect is normal.  Being miserable is not.  Being a predator is not.  As long as "normal" is a thing that people care about, we need to get this news out.

The missing stair.

Flickr user BadSwan

Have you ever been in a house that had something just egregiously wrong with it?  Something massively unsafe and uncomfortable and against code, but everyone in the house had been there a long time and was used to it?  "Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there's a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings.  But it's okay because we all just remember to jump over it."

Some people are like that missing stair.

When I posted about a rapist in a community I belonged to, although I gave almost no details about the guy except "he's a rapist," I immediately got several emails from other members of that community saying "oh, you must mean X."  Everyone knew who he was!  Tons of people, including several in the leadership, instantly knew who I meant.  The reaction wasn't "there's a rapist among us!?!" but "oh hey, I bet you're talking about our local rapist."  Several of them expressed regret that I hadn't been warned about him beforehand, because they tried to discreetly tell new people about this guy.  Others talked about how they tried to make sure there was someone keeping an eye on him at parties, because he was fine so long as someone remembered to assign him a Rape Babysitter.

People had gotten so used to working around this guy, to accommodating his "special requirements," that they didn't feel like there was an urgent problem in their community.  They did eventually expel him, but it was after months of it being widely shared knowledge that he was a rapist and had done other unethical sexual things as well.

I think there were some people in the community who were intentionally protecting him, but there were more who were de facto protecting him by treating him like a missing stair.  Like something you're so used to working around, you never stop to ask "what if we actually fixed this?"  Eventually you take it for granted that working around this guy is just a fact of life, and if he hurts someone, that's the fault of whoever didn't apply the workarounds correctly.

"Fixing" doesn't always mean throwing someone out. (Although in the case of sex groups I think people are way too timid about that.  Being invited to sex parties should be a positive show of confidence in your character, not some sort of default human right.)  Sometimes a person can be "fixed" by talking with them bluntly about their behavior, giving them specific rules to follow, or putting them on notice that they have one strike left.  You don't always have to get rid of "missing stair" people, but you do have to work with the person, not around them.



This isn't just about sex.  Just about every workplace has that one person who doesn't do their job, but everyone's grown accustomed to picking up their slack.  A lot of social groups and families have that one person.  The person whose tip you quietly add a couple bucks to.  (Maybe more than a couple, after how they talked to the server.)  The person you don't bother arguing with when they get off on one of their rants.  The person you try really, really hard not to make angry, because they're perfectly nice so long as no one makes them angry.

I know not all these people can be fixed, and sometimes they can't be escaped either.  But the least you can do is recognize them, and that they are the problem.  Stop thinking that your inability to accomodate them is the problem.



This isn't just about individuals, either.  Everyone who says "I don't want to be a victim-blamer, but girls should know frat parties aren't safe places" is treating rape culture like a missing stair.  Everyone who says "it's an ugly fact, but only women who don't make trouble make it in this business" is treating sexual harassment like a missing stair.  Everyone who says "I don't like it either, but that's the way things are," and makes no move to question the way things are, is jumping over a missing stair somewhere.

Fixing staircases is a long and difficult and uncertain process.  But let's at least stop blaming each other for not jumping well enough.

Real consent.

tumblr user laceandcombatboots

EDIT: Okay, some people are linking to this with the wrong intentions. I need to clarify.  This is NOT NOT NOT saying that any time the word "yes" comes out of a person's mouth under any conditions, that counts as consent.  Consent that's ambivalent or reluctant or resigned isn't "not enthusiastic," it's not consent.  All I wanted to say with this post is that there are multiple ways consent can be valid--not that everything remotely consent-ish is valid.

 There are also multiple ways a "yes" can be not-consent, and until you know someone really well and have communicated with them really openly about their motivations and convinced them really thoroughly that everything will be 100% fine if they say "no"--you need to hold out for the "YES FUCK ME NOW" consent.

So if you're linking this post to prove a point about "but they said yes, so is it really rape?" ...Fuck off.



I'm starting to have a problem with the phrase "enthusiastic consent."  It's well-meant, certainly: it's supposed to connote consent where the person consenting really means it, as opposed to situations where someone says "yes" out of fear or obligation or confusion or some other crappy reason that isn't "actually wanting to have sex."  I'm all for that, obviously, but the phrase sucks.  The phrase implies that you have to be horny to consent to sex, that the only real consent is consent given when not just agreeing to sex but craving it.

The problem is that this doesn't respect the agency of the person consenting.  It ignores the ability of a sober adult to say "I don't want this with my crotch, but I'm agreeing to it with my brain."  It tells people "You say you're consenting, but I know better, you poor dear."  And that's pretty shitty.  As someone who consents to things most people would consider gross or unpleasant (I've heard way too many times a woman can't really want to be punched black and blue) I'm in no position to tell someone else their consent isn't real. If you're unsure if your partner wants it or is just going along with it, lack of enthusiasm definitely means you need to stop and clarify--but it doesn't mean they can't clarify "yes, actually I do want this."

Which is not to say "yes" is a magic word that always makes everything okay.  But what matters isn't "enthusiastic consent" but simply "real consent"--consent that's given freely and sincerely.  Consent that someone gives because they're afraid they'll be physically or emotionally attacked if they don't isn't real consent.  Consent that's given when someone is incapable of understanding what they're agreeing to (because they're drugged, or they're a child, or they're saying "yes" to a different thing than will actually be done to them) isn't real consent.  And obviously consent that's withdrawn or never given at all isn't real consent.



But here are some examples of consent that can be very real, yet not enthusiastic:

• Consent to sex in order to conceive a child.

• Consent to sex or play to make a partner happy.  This is a tricky one, because the line between "I wanted to make them happy" and "I was afraid to make them unhappy" can get messy.  But consent to "I don't think I'll get pleasure from this, but I still want to give pleasure" definitely can be real.

• Consent to sex work. Sex work can be coercive, but it's not inherently, and drawing that line at "sex work is coercive if the sex worker isn't horny" is absurd.

• Consent to sex or play for curiosity's sake, despite a lack of physical desire.

• Consent to sex in a D/s relationship where the submissive agrees to sex they don't want as sex, but do want as an act of submission.



Grown-ups can decide why they want to have sex, and judging those reasons and whether they're "enthusiastic" enough is, frankly, none of my damn business.  All that matters is that they get to decide.

The scene is not safe.

[Trigger warning for rape and BDSM abuse.]

I went to a sex party not long ago.  I talked to a bunch of the members and organizers of the group, and heard all around that they really value consent and they're super aware of feminist issues and the danger of abuse in sex-positive spaces.  I had a pretty good time, met a lot of people, hooked up with a dude, fit a humorous number of naked people people in a bathtub at the same time.

Days later I found out, almost incidentally, that one of the guys at the party had been ostracized from another scene for "some problems."  Some problems with boundaries.  I was a little ticked that no one had identified this guy to me.

Later still, I found out that the guy had raped a woman.

Oh, but, like, she only said he raped her and no one was there to see it and it was really confusing and stuff and anyway what do you want us to do, like, treat the guy like a leper?  He got kicked out of one scene already and that was like a couple years ago and we're trying to help him change and now he's okay as long as someone keeps an eye on him at parties.



Originally I had written a rant here.  I'm angry about this, is the short version.  I'm quite angry.  I'm angry because this isn't the first time I've been around a known abuser and nobody told me; I'm angry because I've been abused under the aegis of BDSM; I'm angry because so damn many of my friends have been abused in the scene; and I'm angry because if I used the guy's name in that story above, I'd be kicked out of the scene.

If you want the long version, Yes Means Yes spells it out here, in a post I think everyone in the BDSM/swinger/sex-positive communities should be reading.

The first step is admitting we have a problem.  And we do have a problem.  I’ll skip to the end: there’s no shortage of stories that start “I was abused” and end “when I tried to say something the community closed ranks around the abuser and I was frozen out.”  It’s happened to friends of mine.  It’s happened in communities where people insist that the community isn’t like that.  And almost always, you have to actually know the participants to know what happened because nobody talks about it.  It’s all secret, there’s no sunlight and no transparency.  You, you out there on the internet, can search blogs until you’re blue in the face for a record of some of these stories, or some indication that you shouldn’t play with some of these people, and you’ll never find it.  Even when “everybody knows,” the “everybody” is very narrow.

And much more.  Go read it.



In the meantime, I like the BDSM scene.  I like the sex-positive scene.  I love that spaces exist where I can be myself and spend time with people like me.  I don't want to leave.  I especially don't want to leave and let the abusers have it.

I also don't know how to fix it. I find the efforts to do so alternately inspiring and utterly frustrating.  I understand the problems that "expose and expel anyone with any accusation against them" would create and yet I hate the default solution of "therefore, keep all abuse secret and consequence-free."  And I also understand that anything framed in terms of accusations is only cleanup after abuse has already happened--a real "fix" would cut down how much it happens in the first place.



I have a few small suggestions that don't require involvement in the question of accusations*:

1. Let new people know the scene is dangerous.  Newcomers shouldn't be hearing "BDSM is all about consent."  Newcomers should be hearing "BDSM should be all about consent, but there are a few people here who won't respect that, and we don't know who they are."  We shouldn't be teaching new people to relax and take it all in stride; we should be teaching them to be wary as hell.  I'd rather feel like I'm scaring people off than feel like I'm luring them in.

2. But don't assume all newcomers are only potential victims; newbie education should also include teaching people how not to become perpetrators.  (I'm going to hopefully write my own thoughts on this soon.)  For three reasons:
a) It may, in fact, prevent some of them from becoming abusers.
b) Seeing things from the other side may make them better at recognizing abuse.
c) It takes away the "I didn't know that was a problem" excuse in a hurry.

3. Make audience-visible consent a part of BDSM classes and demonstrations.  I've seen this done right a few times and wrong a lot more.  Right is when the presenter negotiates with their demo-partner right there in public, or makes it explicit to the audience that they've negotiated privately.  Wrong is when the presenter just jumps right into throwing rope (or whatnot) on their demo-partner, and as far as the audience can perceive, the "consent" is that the demo-partner doesn't safeword or run away.  Wronger than wrong, and not at all rare: the presenter gets "playful" with their demo-partners (or audience members!) in ways that clearly weren't pre-negotiated even in secret.

Taking thirty seconds to make it clear that you always ask, you don't skip it because "it's just a demo" any more than you skip it because "I know they'll like it," would make a big difference in BDSM education.

4. Most parties have special rules that you have to talk to the host about before doing fireplay and bloodplay--the host will direct you to a location where you won't set the house on fire or ruin the carpet, or simply say "no, we don't have facilities for that, this is a no-fireplay party."  We need to have these same rules about resistance and "consensual nonconsent" scenes.  If you're going to do something that looks just the same as abuse, you should be required to run it by the host first.

That way, if a host sees something that looks just the same as abuse, even if they're afraid/unable to shut it down with a "hey, is that consensual?", they have an excuse to shut it down with "hey, you didn't get clearance to do that!"

5. Get survivors to real resources.  I don't think we should be creating internal, informal resources in our community for this.  The "we'll handle everything internally and informally" mindset is how we got in this mess in the first place.  What I do think we should be doing, however, is making a concentrated effort to connect abuse survivors with resources like the following:
The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center
The Network/La Red (GLBTQ- and kink-friendly organization against partner abuse)
The National Leather Association Domestic Violence Project
The National Domestic Violence Hotline
 The National Sexual Assault Online Hotline

And, frankly (although I know damn well the barriers there can be):
The Fucking Police

When people report abuse, we should be referring them to outside, professionally run organizations with trained specialists who can help them through the painfully complex process of decision-making and escape and recovery.  We should not be encouraging them to keep it in the community.  We see everywhere from churches to colleges to the military what happens when abuse survivors are told "we'll handle that internally," and it's always crap.  Let's handle this shit externally for once.



The first step is to admit we have a problem.  So in a way I'm glad to see my community doing that.  Even though it's upsetting and causes a lot of strife in the short term, I'm really happy to see all these conversations about the dark side of the BDSM community coming out in the open.  I just hope we can go from conversations to actual change.



*I really fucking hate saying "accusations," by the way, when I think it's "reports," and I fucking hate acting like it's a big tough question.  As far as I'm concerned I know the vast majority of these accusations are true and that not inviting someone to sex parties is such a mild goddamn punishment we should just fucking do it when we know damn well someone is a fucking rapist.  But I'm never going to sell that opinion to the community.

Consent culture.

Today I'm going to fulfill a promise I made quite a while ago, and talk about what a consent culture would look like.

A consent culture is one in which the prevailing narrative of sex--in fact, of human interaction--is centered around mutual consent.  It is a culture with an abhorrence of forcing anyone into anything, a respect for the absolute necessity of bodily autonomy, a culture that believes that a person is always the best judge of their own wants and needs.

I don't want to limit it to sex.  A consent culture is one in which mutual consent is part of social life as well.  Don't want to talk to someone? You don't have to.  Don't want a hug? That's okay, no hug then.  Don't want to try the fish? That's fine.  (As someone with weird food aversions, I have a special hatred for "just taste a little!")  Don't want to be tickled or noogied? Then it's not funny to chase you down and do it anyway.

The good news is, there are things you can do to bring this about.  Things beyond just "don't rape people" (although that's an excellent start).



Ways You Can Work Toward The Creation Of a Consent Culture
1. Don't rape people. It does bear saying.  And I don't just mean "don't put on a ski mask and jump on strangers in dark alleys" rape, either.  Don't have sex with someone who is not unambiguously, enthusiastically, and continually consenting.  Don't have sex with someone who says "I guess so" or "okay, fine" (unless they are grinning lasciviously as they say this).  Don't convince someone to have sex.  If they don't want you, really want you from the bottom of their heart and/or groin, respect that.

2. When someone doesn't want to have sex with you and so you don't, talk about it.  Share that you're bummed but also that you take pride in your ability to take it gracefully.

When you didn't want to have sex with someone and so they stopped, talk about it.  Share that despite the awkwardness you're glad they took it gracefully.

These are tough things to discuss (in part because they sound kind of Captain Obvious, like, no shit it was nice of you not to rape someone), but they're important narratives to put out there. Others' stories shape our ideas about sex, and hearing stories that fall outside the "have sex or you're a failure" mindset are important in changing those ideas.

3. When someone tells you about pressuring or tricking someone into sex (and you're in a situation where it's safe to do so), call them the hell out on it.  "That's not cool.  It doesn't sound like he/she wanted it."  You don't have to use the R word, you don't have to tell them they should be arrested, you don't have to call them a rapist piece of shit--you just have to make it clear they're not getting any goddamn high fives.  When you hear someone bragging about sex like it was a prank they pulled on their partner, bring the mood in the room the hell down.

You can do this with fictional stories, too.  You don't even have to be no-fun then.  "Wow, you guys, 'Baby It's Cold Outside' is totally a date rape song."  Without requiring a rant or a buzzkill, it just quietly plants the idea that no, that is not a "totally legit way to get sex" song.

4. When you see something that looks abusive or nonconsensual going on, don't turn your back.  At least be a witness--just the presence of another person can be someone's biggest guarantee of safety.  Stepping in and checking if everything's okay is even better.

5. Ask before touching people.  Say "do you want a hug?" and if they say no then don't hug them--and also don't give them any shit about not being friendly or affectionate.  Don't make a big deal out of it, just make it part of your touching-people procedure.  If they say "you don't need to ask!" nod and smile and keep on asking.

6. Negotiate sex!  Explicitly negotiate sex play, and BDSM play if you do that.  Be eminently clear about the fact that play is not a package deal for you, and your partner is free to change their mind about any part of it at any time--as are you.  Err on the side of blunt, and say corny shit like "can I kiss you now?" and "I'd like to touch your chest."

Once in a blue moon (really not as often as some people would have you think), you may run into a partner who refuses to negotiate, or who says "I would have done it before you killed the mood by asking."  Do not have sex or play with this person.  Their loss.  This is you putting the principle of "consent matters" above the principle of "have sex at all costs!", and you can brag about it when you're busy changing narratives.

7. Re-negotiate sex!  While I don't think every step of "can I kiss you now?" is necessary in a long-term relationship (although Rowdy and I really do ask every time about intercourse), it's important to keep talking about what you want and don't want.  You're not strangers anymore, no, but you're also not merged into the same person.  Keep active consent alive in your relationships.

8. Learn to love consent.  I worry that I've made getting consent sound like a chore.  It's anything but. Asking for consent is a moment of delicious tension, of emotional connection.

A "yes" brings the joy of knowing someone is really hot for you, really wants you.  It means that they're going to not just go along with but be into the stuff that comes next.  That's not "prerequisite checked off," that's "awesome, this is going to be so much better now."

A "yes, conditionally" helps you be a better lover to them, someone who can give them just what they want and nothing they don't want.

9. Learn to appreciate "no." A "no, not at all" is bittersweet--or okay, sometimes it's fucking crushing--but it brings some finality and certainty with it.  If you're not going to have sex anyway (and you're not, unless you were going to rape this person), at least you get to banish the "maybe I could have, why didn't I try" thoughts.

Remember that ultimately asking for consent is not asking someone to make a decision whether they want sex with you or not.  That decision's going to get made, one way or another.  Asking for consent is simply asking to know about that decision.

10. Talk about consent.  Make consent part of the stories you tell about sex.  Just a natural part of the process, something that ought to be taken for granted will be part of a sex story.

"So last night I asked Sandra if she wanted to hook up and she totally said yes."
"Ohmygod, Jane asked me to have sex with her, and it was awwwwesome."
"I heard that Rob and Josie--I'll totally kill you if you tell anyone--totally agreed to have sex at Jesse's party!"
"Kirk laid Spock tenderly across the science console and whispered hoarsely in the Vulcan's pointed ear, 'Do you want this? Do you want me inside you?'"

11. Bring consent out of the bedroom. I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line "it's not okay to force someone into sexual activity" is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general.  Cut that shit out of your life.  If someone doesn't want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunchtable--that's their right.  Stop the "aww c'mon" and "just this once" and the games where you playfully force someone to play along.  Accept that no means no--all the time.

Beyond what's necessary for their health and education (and even that touches iffy territory), I don't believe in doing this to kids, either.  The size and social-authority advantages an adult has over kids shouldn't be used to force them to play games or accept hugs or go down the big slide.  That sets a bad, scary precedent about the sort of thing it's okay to use your advantages over someone for.

It's good to practice drawing your own boundaries outside of the bedroom, too.  It can be shockingly empowering to say something as small as "no, I don't want to sit with you."  "No, you can't have my phone number."  "I love hugs, but please ask me first."  It's good practice for the big stuff.  Simply learning to put your mind in the frame of "this person does not want me to say no to them, and they will resist me doing it, but I'm doing it anyway" is a big, important deal.



Consent culture is a tough thing to build. I think it's got a foothold in BDSM--we at least talk big about consent--but it's far from established here.  It's barely starting to get tiny little footholds in the mainstream culture.  But it grows in little microcultures, tiny bubbles of sex-positivity and circles of friends where consent is the norm, and it has potential to grow so much more.  Give it a hand.  Make it part of your own life, and it becomes just a little bit bigger part of the world.  Start living consent culture.

Strong woman.

It's a school night.  Quick one.  (Several people asked for a post on "self-de-escalation," so I'll try to put one together in the next couple days.)

I want to address a misconception that I had when I first started getting into feminism, and a misconception that's gotten thrown in my face a few times.  Most recently, it came up in Katie Roiphe's terrible New York Times editorial about how sexual harassment is no big deal and chicks should just suck it up and learn to run with the big dogs etcetera.  The misconception is: "Feminism is the idea that women are strong."

No.  Feminism is the idea that women are as strong as men, but no stronger.  Some men can cut off their own arm to survive; some women can lift a car to save their child.  But lots of men are delicate little crybabies and lots of women are delicate little crybabies.  Women, being people, run about the same range of personal strength as people. And this ought to be okay.  Feminism is the idea that a woman shouldn't have to be exceptionally strong to get by.  Feminism makes no predictions on whether a particular woman can survive slings and arrows, bullying and belittling, mistrust and self-doubt.  Feminism asks "hey, who the fuck said women had to run this bullshit gauntlet, anyway?"

Am I a Strong Woman?  I think I'm kinda strongish, both in the "arm-wrestling" sense and the "doing emotionally difficult things for a greater good" sense.  But that's not feminism; that's good luck.  Feminism is thinking "gosh, maybe going to work while female shouldn't be an emotionally difficult thing."



"I thought feminism meant women were strong" is rarely the full argument.  The full argument is: "I thought feminism meant women were strong, so why are you complaining if you're so strong?"  The implication here isn't just that women should have to be strong to survive, but that strength consists of shutting up and taking it.  That the strongest thing to do is to keep your head down and grind away at whatever task is set before you, silently stronging your way though every obstacle, for your entire life.

Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is complain.

Living every day with being the "girl" of the office and having your ass grabbed and everyone laughing about how funny it is that your ass gets grabbed--no, that's not easy.  But speaking up about it is even harder.  It's taking initiative.  It's taking a risk.  It's facing pushback, retaliation, skepticism, red-tape brush-offs, ostracism, the shit you get for being female compounded with the shit you get for being a troublemaker.  Complaining about how you're treated as a woman is anything but the coward's way out.  There have been times I should have done it but wasn't strong enough.

(Oh, and you also have to face people saying "guess you're not such a strong woman after all, huh?"  Forgot to put that one on the list.)

Doing what people want you to do can be hard.  Doing what they don't want you to do, and standing up for yourself instead--that's strong.

Sex-Pozzie.

Recently I've been criticized by other feminists for being a "sex-pozzie"--a sex-positive feminist, someone who believes that unraveling our culture's sexual repression is a key part of fighting women's oppression.  On this MetaFilter thread, for instance, there's quite a few accusations that I'm "pointing out that she loves trotting merrily back into the kitchen and that being in the kitchen is what feminism is all about."  Or in this article I was linked yesterday, which is positively dripping with disdain for women who appeal sexually to men, and full of conflation between women whose "sexy" pictures are being used without their consent and women who are intentionally presenting themselves as sexy.

This hearkens back to those "Twisty Faster Is Fucking Insane" posts I did, and I admit, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't have called them that. "Fucking insane" is ableist language; Twisty Faster and similar-minded feminists who look down upon "sex-pozzies" are merely obnoxious, elitist, sexist, and counterproductive.

Here are some of my dogs in this fight:

Most critics of sex-positive feminism have not bothered to figure out what sex-positivity is.
It's not the giggling, hair-twirling exclamation of "it's feminist to be sexayyy!"  It's really not.  I'm not going to defend that strawman.  (I also think it's funny how often I get accused of being a Hooters-girl-bot, when I'm about the least Hooters-looking-person ever.)

This is what a sex-pozzie
funfeminist looks like!

Nor is it the demand that everyone be sexy or have sex.  Nor is it the claim that everything that involves sex is beyond criticism.  Nor is it the suggestion that sex will fix all the problems of feminism.

Instead, sex-positivity is the belief that sex and sexiness are... okay.  It's the belief that people shouldn't be judged by the sex they have.  It's the belief that consent matters and social norms do not.  It's the belief that porn and erotica are valid media of expression (not that the current porn industry is hunky-dory, cause it's not) and that sex work ought to be just work (not that it currently is).  It's the belief that neither "slut" nor "prude" should be an insult.  It's the belief that every sexual and gender identity is valid.

Sex-positivity is, in a nutshell, the belief in sexual freedom as a key component of women's freedom and of having a better world in general.

If you want to argue with that belief, we can talk.  But if you want to argue with "everyone should be a Hooters girl because showing men your boobies is like totally the most feministical choice!" you're not really arguing with me.  I just think that I'm in no position to judge Hooters girls or assume that they're dimwits, sexists, or helpless victims because of what they do for a living.

Criticism of sex-positive feminism is often sexist.
A lot of criticism of sex-positive feminism is really criticism of sexy women.  It's hard to find a piece that isn't dripping with disgusted descriptions of women who wear high heels and shave their legs and then they giggle and they act all flirty and give blowjobs, oh my God.  And it's hard for me to see the difference between this and plain old slut-shaming.  It always seems undercut with the implication that sexy women aren't just unfeminist, they're icky.

If you treat sexy women with disgust and pity, you're not protecting their rights; you're just gleefully participating in their public humiliation.  (You're also often attacking them on a subject that's highly intertwined with culture, class, age, and even body shape. Not everyone who looks "sexy" to you is doing it on purpose, much less doing it to serve the patriarchy.)

And you're falling into the old sexist trap of judging women by their sexuality.  A woman being sexy doesn't make women part of "the sex class"; refusing to see a woman as a powerful individual because she's sexy absolutely does.  It says that her sexiness speaks louder than her actual voice, that who she is sexually tells you everything you need to know about who she is as a person.  It's hard to get more sexist than that.  At least Playboy publishes little interview blurbs with their sex objects.

This criticism goes beyond mere criticism, and into denying sex-positive feminists' agency.
If you tell me that I'm wrong, I can talk to you. I'll probably use bad words and too many italics, but I'll talk to you. We disagree.  But if you tell me that I don't really think what I'm saying, that the words coming out of my mouth aren't mine, how the fuck do I answer that?

Here's a bit from the XOJane article:

So you should go ahead and do things that are patriarchy-approved, if you want to. Buy new nail polish! Care about celebrities! Have a giant wedding! Wear a thong in your hair! Put your picture on the Internet! Look good according to particular patriarchal ideas of what looks good! Be flattered when men wolf whistle at you, literally or metaphorically! Whatever aspects of being a “Hot Chick” work for you, enjoy them. Maybe except the hair thong. But don’t fool yourself that you’re doing so of your own unconstrained free will.

That's right; women who are sexy are victims of mind control. You can tell by looking at them.  There's no way a woman can choose to wear nail polish or care about celebrities.  I know I've been harsh on femininity myself at times (mostly I'm just harsh at the idea of me being feminine), but this goes beyond criticism of femininity.  This is a claim that femininity is a symptom of Borg assimilation.

(Even worse than the Borg claim is the claim that feminine women are deliberately sucking up to men to get cookies from their oppressors.  Ugh.)

It's also, implicitly, a claim that women who reject femininity aren't influenced by patriarchy, which is even more unfortunate.  You don't break free from our entire social system and all the behaviors and preconceptions that come with it just by growing out your armpit hair.  If we are all blinded by the culture we live in and the privileges we have, then it's the height of arrogance to claim that you're so enlightened you've risen above all that.  If women don't have full agency in the patriarchy, where the fuck do you get off claiming that you do?

Sex still matters.
So these are all reasons that people who think it's okay to call me a stupid cock-sucking bimbo under the guise of "feminism" are poopyheads.  But what's my reason for remaining a cock-sucking bimbo?  Why do I think sexual freedom is important to feminism?

Well, for the long answer, see this entire blog.  But for the short answer: because it's impossible for women to be accepted as human beings if we aren't accepted as sexual beings.  If women's dignity is contingent on our not being too sexy, we're never going to have dignity.  We have to accustom ourselves to the idea that someone can be highly sexual, publicly sexual, sexual in a way that we would totally never do ourselves because whoa... and still have dignity.

If there's a secret motive to my making my sexuality public, it's that I want to show someone can be sexual and also other things.  I want to show that I can be sexual and also funny and interesting; I want to show that I can be sexual and also ornery and argumentative; I want to show that I can be sexual and also save lives and get colds and play with guinea pigs.

Finally, part of making life better is about making sex better.  I don't just talk about sex to say "HEY EVERYBODY I'M INTO SEX"; I talk about it in terms of promoting enthusiastic consent, promoting body acceptance, promoting the idea of finding out and coming to terms with your own sexual desires.  I think having the sex life that's right for you is an important part of being a self-actualized person.  And I'm not going to avoid these discussions just because someone might think they're titillating.



And beyond finally, I do like sex.  I do think about sex a lot.  That's not a political position; it's hormones or something.  It's who I am and I'm not going to hide it.



...Wow, that got long and preachy.  Next post is about buttsex.

Survivor.

temporarily locked post, sorry

"No means no."

[Possible trigger warning for sexual assault]


When I had my first sexual encounter, he didn't ask. We were just friends and we were hanging out in his basement watching movies, and then he put his arm around me and I didn't object, and then he put his hand on my breast and I didn't object, and then he started rubbing my vulva and I didn't object.

I'm making that sound worse than it was. I didn't object because I had a total crush on him and it felt great and I was happy and excited this was happening. But I didn't say any of that--I was 15 and extremely socially awkward and had absolutely no idea of how to respond to sexuality, so I was completely silent and frozen. Silent, frozen, and happy, as it turned out. But he had no way of knowing that. All he knew was that I didn't stop him.

Would he have stopped if I said "no"? Almost certainly. But... almost certainly. Some other factors to bear in mind: I was at his house, which was not close to any bus route and was about ten miles from my home. We were alone in the house. He was much bigger, stronger, and older than me. He owned weapons. He was more or less my only friend at that time in my life. And he was not someone who could maturely talk through conflict--I never saw him get violent or threaten violence, but he tended to go to direct to TantrumVille without stopping in CommunicationTowne.

I want to stress again that I just liked having my pussy stroked; none of this was running through my head at the time. But I wish it had been running through his. Because if I had been doing the rape math in my head, if I had been going along with it out of fear or obligation, he wouldn't have known. He didn't rape me--but it would have looked exactly the same to him if he had.

That's the problem with "no means no." There's a lot of reasons someone might not say "no," and being into the sex is only one of them.



Is it "really" rape if you don't know the person isn't consenting? Probably not legally, but in terms of the effect on the person who's being used sexually while they're paralyzed with fear, might as well be. Accidentally shooting someone isn't murder but it leaves them just as dead.

Anyway, this question ought to be irrelevant. Whether fucking someone who doesn't want it but doesn't object is rape or not, it's crappy and it's avoidable. It's not like good sex ever comes out of a situation where one partner is silent and immobile.

There's a little more finesse than just asking--you need to ask in a way that makes it clear "no" is an acceptable answer, and be sensitive to the difference between "...okay" and "OH YES"--but even without finesse, just asking makes 90% of the difference.



I know why he didn't ask. He didn't ask because he thought I might say "no." But this doesn't mean that he wanted to rape me. What it means is that he was afraid I was in some sort of strange, precarious mental state in which I would have to say "no" if I was asked, even though I really did want it, but once I had said "no" he couldn't do it.

Unfortunately, this mental state does exist--although far less often than people think, really--and I lay the blame for that squarely on slut-shaming culture and the myth of "spontaneous" romance. I lay it on every romantic drama where one character forces a kiss on another but it's okay because it was the kiss of true love and they understand as soon as they get into the kiss. I lay it on every teen sex comedy where the girl who says "let's fuck, baby" is gross-out comic relief and the girl who says "ooh, I shouldn't" is the real sexy one. I lay it on every girl who thought it was coy to say "no" when she meant "yes" and every guy who told the whole school that his date said "yes" too quickly. I even lay some of the blame on Cosmo and all the times it describes sex as something that spontaneously breaks out when the mood is right, like laughter or a bad case of the contagious yawns.

Until "yes" means "yes, sex would be lovely right now" and not "yes, I am an icky slut with no sense of romance," it's going to be hard to live in a world where only yes means yes.

But it's not all down to society. In my personal world, yes means yes fully and right now--Rowdy and I still ask before we fuck and we still take nos gracefully and unenthusiastic yeses with "we can just cuddle and that would be fine," and enjoy the enthusiastic yeses that much for it. I haven't fixed Western culture yet, but I've fixed my bedroom, and that's a start. If enough people can just say that, maybe the culture can change a little after all.

This ass is (not) money.

On my list of Things That Seriously Need To Stop, somewhere below "violence" and "hatred" but well above "having the Ducktales theme in my head, whooo-ooo," are conversations in which attractiveness is described as the female equivalent of wealth. It's a concept formally described as "erotic capital", the "economy of sex", and various other euphemisms for "whoreswhoreswhores."

For starters, the entire concept of a "female equivalent" gets my hackles up to begin with. I prefer to think that the female equivalent of a suit and tie is a suit and tie, the female equivalent of working on your car is working on your car, and the female equivalent of money is money. To say--about almost anything--"it's not the same, but it's the lady version!" is a cop-out, a way to assign fixed gender roles while pretending it's "fair." Equivalence is the enemy of actual equality.

This is a particularly evil equivalence, though. In fact, it's so evil that it contains almost all of sexism folded up inside it. Let's see, we've got:
-"Women are only useful for their bodies."
-"Women are only important as they relate to men."
-"Women don't need/deserve their own money."
-"Women's bodies are a product with monetary value."
-"Women are never really attracted to or aroused by men."
-"Women's beauty can be objectively judged."
-"Women are worthless if they're ugly."

and a bonus dish of:
-"Men's bodies can't be sexy, and men's personalities can't be lovable."
-"Men are all johns."
-"Men can't think straight when they're turned on."
-"Men are worthless if they're poor."

and an extra bonus dish of:
-"Everyone's heterosexual, right?"

and an extra extra extra bonus dish of:
-"Love? Attraction? Companionship? Do not confuse me with your strange Earth emotions!"



But the biggest problem is liquidity. Financial wealth almost always includes some very liquid assets--ones that you can turn into dollars, and then into groceries or rent or toy dinosaurs, today and at market value.

A woman's purported "assets," on the other hand, are extremely illiquid. (And, in many people's opinions, rapidly depreciating.) There may be a ready "market," but making the sale is... well, it's so unlike making a sale that the metaphor falls to complete pieces around here. The options are:

1) Prostitution. Illegal, stigmatized, sometimes dangerous, and not really that well-paying. To develop a prostitution business that brings in an amount comparable to a "successful" ordinary job, you have to be a pretty good businessperson, schmoozer, and self-promoter--at which point you're profiting from those skills more than you are from your raw attractiveness.

2) Dating or marrying a rich guy. This can get you money--but unless you divorce him and you do very well in court, it's not really your money. The nice house you live in isn't your house and ultimately you're only there at his pleasure. You have luxury, but not power.

3) Modeling or acting. These are both heavily skill-dependent and crapshoots, and there's only room for like a hundred women to be really successful in each field. Lots of extremely beautiful models and actresses are living on ramen.

If any of these sound as easy, straightforward, and reliable as going to the ATM, then I guess a woman's beauty really is her wealth.

Otherwise... sorry, sexists, but we do need money when we look like that, honey.

The puzzle of persuasion.

What makes someone change their mind?

It's a fundamental problem in almost any kind of activism, and a major one in feminism. How do you persuade someone that what they're thinking is wrong, and they should think like you instead? Sometimes it feels almost impossible--people will come up with all kinds of justifications and defense mechanisms to defend their beliefs. (I sure do!) And the situation is unquestionably worse on the Internet, where politics often takes the form of a direct battle, and changing your mind would be tantamount to "losing."

But people do change their minds. Check out this graph of the growing acceptance of gay marriage:

That represents millions of people going from "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" to "they're here, they're queer, and I'm getting used to it."

I might be the worst person to write about persuasion, because I was a high school and college debater and had a major in Rhetoric. The techniques of formal debate and classical rhetoric are terrible for changing minds. They assume that the most logically sound arguments will win, that emotion is a mere flourish and facts are the most important thing for winning, and--worst of all--that "winning" is the same thing as persuasion. If I wanted to learn how to really get inside people's heads, I should have studied advertising.

I also, frankly, don't really try to change minds with this blog. Sometimes I find out that I did, and that's a wonderful thing; but I'm under no illusions that this is an outreach project. I'm mostly trying to educate and entertain people who already agree with most of my basic beliefs.

But feminism, if not this blog, has to go beyond preaching to the choir. If we want to sell the most fundamental beliefs of feminism--"men and women have equal potential and deserve equal treatment," "women deserve control of their bodies and lives," "differences in gender expression and sexuality should be respected"--we have to learn how to persuade people who aren't our buddies. Here's what little I know about that.

What Doesn't Work
•Calling people assholes. It's useful (and cathartic) when rallying the anti-assholes, but you're never going to convert someone with the pitch "agree with me and be my friend, asshole." (This is a problem that's particularly bad with religious--or atheist/skeptic--arguments, where it's traditional to call nonbelievers deluded morally-bankrupt sheep, then ask them if they'd like to join your club.)

•Direct debate. Especially the kind with point-by-point deconstruction of opposing arguments. Again, fun for the choir, but too intellectual and too combative. This is the fundamental flaw of formal debate--no one ever changed their mind because their points were systematically refuted. Worse, debate has the tendency to create "sides," and once someone's established loyalty to a side it takes a lot to get them to cross over.

•Facts as a primary argument. Facts can back up an emotional argument, but I don't think people come to favor gay marriage because they learn that children of gay parents have similar outcomes to those of straight parents, but because they feel better about gay marriage. (Also, in most of the major gender and sexuality debates, each side has its own statistics, so everyone's choosing their facts anyway.)

What Works
•Education. Here's who we are, here's what we believe, and briefly, here's why. We're not trying to persuade you; we just want to teach you. Never mind what our opponents say, or what we aren't--this is our honestly presented story on what we are. We're matter-of-fact, upbeat, and not defensive; we speak as if it's taken for granted that our cause is legitimate and straightforward, and hope you'll share that assumption.

•Polish. Take a look at the website for Fathers & Families. Now at the website for Fathers 4 Justice. They're both fathers' rights organizations, but F&F has a professional-looking website and speaks in what I can only characterize as "grown-up language." F4J has a website straight outta 1994, nominates an "Asshole of the Month" (and it's the President), and uses all caps and exclamation points like they're going out of style. Which they are. Both groups are advocating similar positions, but the one that looks like a "legit" organization is the one that made me go "hm, these guys sound pretty reasonable actually."

•Social pressure. I suspect that one of the biggest factors helping the increased acceptance of gay marriage is... the increased acceptance of gay marriage. When everyone else at your work or in your family believes a thing, it's easier to go along than not, and easy to think it's the "normal" belief. Obviously this one is pretty hard to get started, but you can create the impression of social pressure even when you're in the minority by presenting your view as socially normal and accepted by lots of nice-looking folks-next-door types, and by painting your most vocal opponents not as major threats but as fringe lunatics.

This, by the way, is where "asshole" rhetoric can be useful. Not in calling people assholes directly, but in picking out a particularly egregious and not very popular opponent, and telling them "you're too smart to listen to that asshole."

•Friendship. Man, when did my sex blog turn into Mr. Roger's Neighborhood? Next post is on buttfucking. But it's true; this is the most powerful form of social pressure. I can argue with strangers on the Internet all day long, I can ignore education, I can snark on ads. But when my friends tell me that they sincerely disagree with something I believe, that's when I give it real consideration. If I care about someone, and care what they think of me, then I'm going to take their opinions really, really seriously.

An organization, even a social movement can be a "friend" in some ways--it can have a particularly charming person who serves as a human face, and it can build a welcoming community of friends among its followers. If you can convince someone that you (or your group) are just nice people who are nice to be around, then convincing them of your actual positions is often secondary. Whatever arguments you make, the real argument is "You'll fit in and be liked if you agree with us."



Does any of this sound evil or manipulative? It's only evil if you use it to advance evil positions. And as for manipulation--you know, none of us came to our beliefs by cold logical analysis of all possible options. All argument is psychology, so I don't think it's unethical to happen to do psychology right.



Being professional and friendly and shrugging off insults isn't cathartic. It doesn't make for a ripping blog post or good entertainment for the converted. (And that's why I don't do it very much.) But if your goal is to truly change minds, I think that's where you have to start.