So, how does the first sentence of this quotation:
Not describe marital rape? It seems to me that any argument that this isn’t marital rape could be used to justify a position that marital rape as a concept does not exist at all.
Perhaps I’m being shortsighted?
Look, while I also have some concern over what is modeled for children in ANY relationship, did anyone miss the point about having open and frank communication with them? I’ll reiterate it: children do learn by modeled behavior to a certain extent. But do you know how many parent/child relationships would benefit immensely from open and honest communication? I’m a fairly well-adjusted person with “normal” friendships and relationships, but the closest I came to having a sex talk with my parents was shortly before college with just me and my dad in the car, and after I joked about being able to have sex (having just completed my hep vac), he told me not to rape anybody. Yeah, thanks dad.
I know my parents love each other, but they certainly don’t have the best relationship. My mom was eternally wishing my dad would help more around the house (they both worked), and the communication has never been great between them. Despite my turning out ok, I know that in my formative years of dating I would have been grateful for a trusted source of wisdom.
Let’s look at a (possibly) not so unreasonable case. The oldest boy turns 13 and discovers that girls have boobs (or that he likes penis. same difference in this case). He goes out on a date and isn’t polite to the girl, or demands something, or thinks it’s ok to smack her ass or something. Hey, guess what, she’s probably going to ditch that date and tell all her friends what a loser he is. Now, before we jump 35 years in the future and the same boy is running the Bates Motel with the dessicated corpses of his parents set in dom/sub sexual positions (whatever that means) in the attic, guess what? His parents talk to him!!
“Now, Jimmy, even though you might see your father telling me that she needs to get him a beer, it’s not the same in every relationship. (thinks about the kid’s age, thinks about what was mentioned in talks when he was younger, decides he’s old enough for more subtlety of information) Even though it’s hard to see on the surface of him telling me to do something, a long time ago we talked about how best to love and respect each other in this relationship, and this is what makes us happy. Now your friend Bobbysue probably doesn’t think that those same kinds of things are respectful, and even if she might later, it’s not something you can just do without discussing it first, like your father and I did. You need to treat everyone with respect, and for most people that means being polite.”
Yay for good communication with your children. And that’s just dating. What about all the things they have to learn about friendship before they even get to the horny teenager stage?
When kids are young they model behavior, but as they get older they are still developing their personalities, and they can process information that comes from discussions, rather than just being slaves (heh, sorry) to their environment. Sorry, but teaching kids to question things around them and to communicate openly about what they encounter in their lives will go much further toward making them better-adjusted people than the behavior they see modeled at an early age. I could see that if the modeled behavior early on were extreme enough to be very psychologically damaging then it would be one thing, but I’m not seeing that in this case. It seems like the parents have many ways in which they communicate their love for each other in ways that are clear even (or especially) to young children.
My parents didn’t communicate very much, and communication is central to a good relationship. I had to learn that somewhere, and it certainly didn’t come from having parents who didn’t talk to me about it. The nurturing you get at a young age is very important, but as evidenced by well-adjusted people from abusive households, and fucked up people from normal households, it’s certainly not everything.
In short, I suppose that any relationship has the ability to be damaging to kids, but I don’t think we should just dismiss one where there is clearly a lot of thought being put in to ALL aspects of it, including how the kids fit in. How many countless “normal” relationships are there where a conversation like this never happened? In my mind, the constant vigilance about how their children will perceive their relationship, coupled with the communication they have with their children will be much more important in the long run than the modeled behavior.
I have to say, none of this comes as any surprise to me. This kind of behavior is nothing new on the Dope. Same old song, different refrain, from the same old people.
You should probably get out more.
Wow, I hit a nerve…goodness ALL kinds of outrage and some at me and the OP.
Again, I think people can do what they want in a relationship, as adults, including making all kinds of rules, roleplaying, whatever. I can see the appeal, no responsibility, the sex could be fantastic for awhile. For me it would eventually pall…
BUT
children don’t have a choice and knowingly, purposefully raising them in a home where one is a slave to the other IS unhealthy. As others have said do this when you don’t have kids OR AT LEAST not in front of them. 24/7 is 24/7
Being openminded to alternate lifestyles is a good thing, and I have never judged like this in the 3 years I have been almost daily reading this message board BUT SOME THINGS ARE WRONG.
24/7 sexual/ D/S with 3 kids is not fair.
That’s because I write a lot of reviews about movies where female characxters get tied up, and I share what I know. In any event, I have been officially forbidden to post about bondage or anything sexual on the Dope, most especially in Cafe Society, lest I disturb the prudes, who apparently report my posts in great numbers to the mods when I do so. So ya don’t have to worry about THAT happening any more.
Depends on what you mean by “discussed” it. I’ve discussed all kinds of weird shit in my life, hell, a lot of weird discussions pop up on these message boards.
No, lest you post about it when it’s completely off-topic and of no interest to anyone.
Hey - let’s bash one group of sick sex perverts at a time, here. Otherwise with all the flogging and foaming, and the crazy sexin’, and next thing you know it’ll be an orgy.
I think that’s covered in the discussions the two had in setting the parameters of the relationship - she basically gave up the right to say no to sex, of her own free will.
The thing that keeps coming to my mind in discussing this topic is that I am a helluva lot more disturbed by religious fundamentalists raising kids than I am by two consenting D/s people raising kids. I’m fairly sure that the religious fundamentalists never communicate with their kids that this isn’t necessarily the way the rest of the world does things, and that different can be okay - as far as I know, religious fundamentalists raise their kids to accept ONLY religious fundamentalist behaviour as correct, and that worries me a whole lot more than daddy not saying “please” when asking mommy for a cup of coffee. My point here is that there is a lot of crap child raising going on that isn’t raising any eyebrows because it is mainstream and accepted.
I would say that a major difference is that the parents actually tell the kids that this is what they want, and in calm, rational conversations. That’s a lot different from mommy telling the kids that she fell down the stairs, or not telling them anything at all and having them draw their own conclusions.
Well, I don’t get off on pain, but some people do. It’s like A Priori Tea (I think) mentioned, if you break your partner, you can’t play with each other anymore. If there’s truly love and respect in a relationship, any kind of relationship, you’re going to want to meet your partner’s needs. I don’t doubt that there is actually someone out there who gets off on broken bones, but that’s pretty extreme. But yeah, if you tell your husband that whipping, spanking, whatever gets you off or makes you happy, wouldn’t you expect him to try to address it as well as he could, just as he would with anything you say makes you happy?
Well, look at it on a meta-level. While this is hard to understand (for me too, believe me), her pleasure (sexual, happywise, etc) is actually linked to making her husband happy. So just like cunnilingus for Varlos, while she doesn’t enjoy the tickling, it makes her happy to receive punishments. At least that’s my take on it-- I don’t presume to speak for her, it’s just how I understood the situation. The kids involved in the tickling I’m less certain about. Seems a bit odd if they’re involved in it when it’s a punishment, or if they know it’s a punishment. But while I’m sure my dad didn’t enjoy being woken by my jumping on him while he was sleeping, it didn’t mean my mom didn’t mischievously encourage the kids to do it from time to time. And it certainly seemed like fun and games at the time.
and Varlos man, you’re totally wrong 
What I mean by discussed is that we learned after we got together that we were both into that sort of thing. So we’ve talked about turning it into a 24/7 D/s relationship. At this time I don’t wish to do so because it is a large commitment to make and quite frankly, I’m not sure I’m up to it.
The dom in a 24/7 relationship is taking on a tremendous responsibility, I don’t yet feel I’m ready for it.
Please see my above sentence. The dom is taking on a lot of responsibility in that sort of relationship.
She said she deals with depression and anxiety. Being sub probably helps that at all - it allows her to pass all responsibility onto him, regularly punishes her and allows her to “feel.” I doubt you’d find a psychologist willing to say that this is a HEALTHY way to deal with depression and anxiety, but its a way. The question is, as her mental state changes - either the depression and anxiety lifts or it gets worse (because depression and anxiety are not stable states), how will the dom/sub relationship help/hinder her and how will that change her marriage. Whether that’s ‘reasonably acceptable’ depends on how much it affects her health (both physical and mental) and her life and the lives of those around her. The other question is how maintainable this will be long term for both of them - and how as the relationship changes, how content they will both be with that change. Its sort of similar to the poly thing - some people can be poly for a long time and retain strong marriages. For others, a poly relationship is the first step to divorce. For still others, poly is a phase their marriage goes through and then becomes “traditional.”
Yes, and thank you for that post, in it’s entirety not so far above on the page. Well said. I read the thread in question, and went through a barrage of emotions there. First: eeeyaa, Yikes, WTF, I wouldn’t ever do that… then, after reading her responses, well, they seem well reasoned, and who am I to say what other folks do. Concern for the children was at the fore, but she is addressing that. I think from that thread, she has yet to elaborate on the specifics of what she sees as working well.
I hope after this BBQ thread that she still will speak up. Again, I am really wondering about why anyone would do this, don’t get it at all from a personal standpoint: main point that women have worked hard to get beyond this culturally for eons, and , finally, we are breaking our chains. Yet, she is speaking from her heart with her life, and I would like to understand that.
That is the best function of this board, to push the limits with reasoned exploration of what might seem as cut-n-dried points of obvious outrage.
One observation: from a really open-minded gal. The “Vanilla” thing realy doesn’t work to any advantage. I understand the meaning, but, slung around willy-vanilly as slur, it doesn’t open up any dialogue.
Maybe it’s not about gender roles, but just roles. In this particular case, the woman is the sub. In a relationship between two different people, the man may be the sub and the woman the dom (see A Priori Tea and Robin Goodfellow, in this very thread). And of course, in gay and lesbian D/s relationships, gender isn’t even a “thing”. In other words, she’s not a female sub taking orders from a male dom because she’s a woman and he’s a man. She’s a sub who happens to be female taking orders from a dom who happens to be male. The roles are not gender roles, except coincidentally.
Not sorry - when “Dad” forcibly holds down “Mom” and has the kids tickle-torture her, especially when “Mom” says:
…it really gives me the creeps. What message does that send, really, to the kids? Think about it. “Mom really hates this but we’re going to force ourselves on her body anyhow and violate her personal space.” I can easily see a hypothetical boy raised that way, growing up to later on in life thinking “my girl doesn’t like it when I feel her up, but you know, women need to be told what to do and just accept it.” :rolleyes:
And, yeah. I apologize for that. I myself am quite vanilla, within the “gay” milieu (which is a little more advanced than “quite vanilla” right off the rack). I don’t have almost any kinks at all, or at least what I’d call kinks. So using “vanilla” as an insult was kind of dumb. I posted in anger…close-mindedness about other people’s sexuality makes me pretty upset, because, as I’ve already posted, it’s not that far from saying “I don’t think you should tie your lover up” to saying “I don’t think you should have a same-sex lover”. I’m almost as vigilant about that as I am about actual constitutional rights…
I feel I have to add this: in answer to the question “where is the outrage re fundamentalist parents or polyandrous parents?” etc–it’s there. Those topics are not the focus of this discussion.
I am most appalled at the inclusion of the children in the tickling of Mom. This perverts the parent/child role and not in a good way. Some inversion is healthy and can even be fun (ganging up on Dad with water balloons while he washing the car or whatever). This tickling is a punishment for her, one that the kids not only witness, but are actively involved in. She can say all she wants that they don’t know the true motive or aren’t told the true purpose (which is a lot like telling them she ran into a door or fell down the stairs, no?), but the kids can sense something else is going on. Not only do they (most likely) not see this behavior at friends’ houses, but there is bound to be an undercurrent of tension to the tickle scene. Even if the sexual subtext is not picked up by the kids, they are learning that Mom can (and is, regularly) be forced into a submissive posture by Dad and that this is ok–it’s an appropriate way to relate to the opposite sex. No, it is not.
I’ve had enough of being sneered with vanilla remarks. So easy to categorize entire swathes of population based on very little knowledge, isn’t it? Seems to me that those who profess “kinks” need to learn a bit of tolerance for those who don’t share their predilections. Not one person has said that D/s should be banned or gotten rid of or persecuted. Most, if not all, of the posters here are concerned about the impact on the kids. You claim to be so tolerant and “anything goes, man”, but when genuine concerns are voiced; when opinions are expressed that perhaps this woman is not emotionally healthy, given the evidence within her own posts–we are the intolerant bigots? Too defensive by half.
The question really being bandied about here is where is the line drawn between personal pleasure and parental responsibility? That line is not the same for everyone or every situation, but in reference to this scenario, I’d say that line has been crossed to the kid’s detriment. As a parent, I know daily that you can say what you want, but kids do what you do. Kids raised in households where the parents smoke are much more likely to smoke for one example. This is changing as smoking dies off (and smokers die off), but it is still valid. The future ramifications of the OP’s choice are unknown, but the concerns are not the product of intolerance or hatred of an unconventional lifestyle.
Una–and the girl, who has learned that she has no boundaries–that men can just dominate her and she should put up with it.
Nah, Captor just got it because he… posted constantly about his kinks, to the point where it kind of felt like he was perving by posting, and getting off to the idea that we were reading them. Made reading anything by him kind of feel like picking up a soiled condom.
I’m a little disappointed in something Martin Hyde posted, but I would expect some strong opinions here. Personally, I’m glad Freakette’s doing okay, and that she’s found someone to be with, and that the dom in the relationship has found a sub to be with. It’s surprisingly hard, I’m told, to find a good sub.
Mostly, I’m glad that both of these people were raised in ways that they discovered they had a kink. Imagine a sadist dom who just had urges, but no identification of it as a kink, rather, that he just felt that way. And imagine the poor woman with him. Or the sub who falls prey to an abusive man, who doesn’t know why she responds that way to him, but she can’t leave him, she keeps getting drawn back… until something really bad happens.
I understand the concern for the children. It’s a reasonable concern, people, but… self-awareness is the best you’re going to get out of life. They realize it might be a problem and do their best. I think that’s all you can really ask for. It’s a lot better than a lot of other possibilities.
Personally, not my thing, but… Well, I’m from S/F fandom, and trust me, some of the stuff I’ve seen there… and I’m not even going to people who really like to be klingons… gets interesting. Hell, the Heinlein fanciers alone can be a pretty kinky bunch. Or asexual.
You know what interests everyone who reads the Dope, including the lurkers? Man, you gots powers!