Good point. I’m still mulling this over. Of course, the surgeon has ZERO power if the patient doesn’t give it to her. It absolutely IS contextual power. And I’m only suggesting that such context can arise in a BDSM relationship as well. I mean, when the patient comes out of anesthesia they are back in control again. In the same sense, a master/slave relationship may be a 50/50 endeavor 90% of the time. And it may lean heavily toward the slave having power part of the time. But if you’ve ever been anesthetized you have no doubt about who is in charge during that activity. The same is true for some BDSM activities in which you literally put your life in someone else’s hands.
I suppose I emphasize this aspect of the relationship here because of its danger. And because I think about 99% of BDSM activities are “contextual.” For example, the couple who engages in bondage and spankings on Saturday evening for fun, isn’t seen walking down the street with the man on the leash. I mean, it happens, but it’s pretty rare. Most of these couples go to movies, ice skate together…perhaps work together. They only engage in the power exchange aspects of their relation ship some of the time.
I guess I’m focusing too closely on the purely phsyical aspects of a specific “act.” Or maybe it’s just that my original answer still stands: The power structure varies throughout the life of the relationship and over different activities.
On the contrary, arl, I don’t think you’re nitpicking at all. All the power that the surgeon has, s/he has by sufferance of the patient. The situation is even clearer in a D/s relationship, because both partners have agreed to conditions initially established by the submissive. That’s the whole spirit of SSC (I think).
But I take your point, sexy. The submissive sets up a framework that s/he has complete control over (and rightfully so, IMO), and within the confines of that framework puts himself/herself at the mercy of the dom. On the other hand, it seems to me the dom only has virtual power over the situation – at the end of the day, its just a game. His/her power is predicated on his/her willingness to submit himself/herself to the framework originally established by the submissive. And in addition, the sub can only give up control if s/he has faith in the framework that both participants agreed upon at the outset. So, continuing here to play devil’s advocate, it seems to me that the submission of the submissive is only apparent. Underneath that, at another level, s/he has complete control, which is what makes it possible for him/her to play out his/her role.
Try this scenario: Your lover is a man you’ve never met, wearing a mask and a pair of gloves. You’re bound and gagged (am I really writing this stuff? God, sometimes I love the way my mind works :D), with no safeword or any other agreed-upon way of signalling for him to stop. In fact, you have no previous agreements with this stranger at all. Since he has a mask and gloves, he can do just about anything he wants without fear of punishment after the fact. That’s a real situation of submission, in as much as the sub has really doesn’t have any control over it at all.
Do YOU know him? Is he a nice guy? Handsome? Got his phone number?
Just joking. The firm answer is absolutely not. And point taken. Though, I’m not quite ready to let the devil’s advocate win the argument.
Actually, I tend to think in terms of vanilla relationships. That is, the couple meets, decides what to do on their first date, their second, in bed, and so on. This doesn’t put ONE of them supremely in control the way you’re suggesting it does the submissive in a BDSM relationship. For example, if Suzy says, “I’m NEVER going ice skating with you” she’s not really dominating her date by telling him what she will and will not do. Would you suggest that a woman who refuses to have anal sex with her mate was maintaining some sort of power over him? Why is it different if I refuse to engage in certain behaviors with a dominant partner?
So just because I negotiate “wills” and “will nots” and decide who I “date” does that mean that the power balance is permanently tipped in my direction? I think not. You’re underestimating the dominant partner’s ability to choose his/her mates according to his/her taste. And also to convince them to do things they might previously have listed as “limits.” You’re forgetting that this is a more or less completely AVERAGE relationship until the whips come off. And THAT is when the power exchange truly takes place. Otherwise, it’s mostly give and take.
Just because we’re debating the original question (who’s in control) rather than what you’d rather discuss (your objections to BDSM) doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of being called a “debate.”
Yes, it is necessarily a bad thing. The abuse is continuing, and now it is self-inflicted. Abusing oneself is bad. Can it potentially be the lesser of two evils? Sure. Why not? But so can beating one horse to death instead of ten. You wouldn’t define the first action as acceptable, merely more acceptable than the alternative. Another option for a person seriously damaged by abuse is therapy. I assert that’s a better option than BDSM.
They do as soon as they engage.
Did I suggest that all traumatized would engage in BDSM? I certainly didn’t mean to, nor do I support that.
I asserted that in BDSM the controlling party is the person who failed to provide adequate nurture and/or safety to the child. I’m going to stand right there, though I’ll give you that there are no absolutes.
Now, on this calling me baby (“Correlation and causation, baby”)… I’m not going to address that your remark was condescending in general, I am going to specifically request that you don’t call me baby; I find it objectionable. If you need assistance in finding a name of affection for me, I’ll be happy to suggest a few. Thanks.
More of that pop psychology… (quoted).
The concept of enactment, or reenactment, is also very central to Interpersonalists’ approach to the traumatized patient. If dissociation arises to protect the self from the perception of a terrifying reality, reenactment arises to return some of that reality to awareness in some relational form. This can mean that the patient and analyst together recreate some previously unrecognized aspect of the original traumatic relationship, as a way of communicating and learning about that experience. Many analysts have come to feel that dissociated trauma can only be recovered and worked through in the context of a relationship. This is especially true if the trauma took the form of a betrayal, or took place in a close relationship.
Trauma, Dissociation and Trauma
by Elizabeth Hegeman, Ph.D.
Working with male and female patients who have been heterosexually or homosexually abused during childhood, especially by a parent, I have observed that these experiences have very specific effects on the individual’s subsequent patterns of relation to desire, not just of a sexual nature, but in a much more pervasive sense. This, in turn, has specific impact on patterns of and capacity for relationship.
When the relationships in question endured a long time, perhaps years, and when it was clear that unless the child had been a cooperative participant and derived some gratification from the involvement the relationship could not have been possible, and the arousal of the victim’s own desire is experienced as the basis for the continuance of the involvement, the relation to desire becomes especially troublesome. This is also the case where the victim may have been an unwilling participant, yet may have been sexually aroused by the sensual and physical contact, sometimes to his or her own surprise and/or horror. In such instances the child may have experienced a sense of betrayal not only by the parent but also by his or her own body. And, where the sexual involvement with the parent was experienced as a fulfillment of the child’s own fantasies, longings, and desires, the child may feel the full responsibility lies with himself or herself. In such instances the victim may also be left with terrifying feelings of guilt and omnipotence.
The cumulative impact of sexual abuse, particularly where it involves betrayal by one’s parent, is often so overwhelming that the initial presenting complaints of such patients often focus on terrifying experiences of derealization and depersonalization. They often also complain of somatic symptoms and anxiety attacks, and varying kinds of “out of body” experiences. Typical also are varying kinds of sadomasochistic relationships, and/or addictions to alcohol or drugs. In addition, many aspects of internal and external reality may be dissociated or denied, and there may be generalized cognitive and perceptual impairments including fears of “knowing” and of being “known,” and difficulties with regard to taking “action” in varying ways.
The devastating states of extreme confusion, or even madness, which these forms of psychic violence then create, affect the victim’s continuing development, serving to intensify feelings of helplessness, humiliation, shame, and self-contempt. This constitutes yet another trauma, a kind of betrayal by one’s own psyche.
…
A patient, who would cringe in terror at moments of feeling close in the analytic interaction, noted a link to her eroticized fantasy about a relationship in which she gave herself completely, to the point of allowing herself to be violated, humiliated, degraded, dehumanized. "I feel so repulsed I almost feel nauseated. . . .Why should I feel excitement about being abused and humiliated? It’s one thing to admit you have been abused. It’s another thing to say there is a part of you that finds it sexually exciting. I guess this feels like a huge dark secretive part of myself."
…
The dilemma is how to establish a relationship where this can be achieved with someone who, after having been betrayed by a parent, understandably is not likely to be open to taking a risk on any kind of meaningful relationship. This is even more problematic in those cases where the patient may not even be aware of having been abused. Furthermore, because the mental state of such patients is generally quite fragile, any effort on the part of the analyst to engage the patient may be experienced as a form of violation or intrusion threatening the tenuous integration that has been established.
The challenge is how to create a context of adequate safety so that very painful and threatening material can be worked through in a constructive way. If these patients can be helped to deal with the feared material without being overwhelmed to the point of decompensating, this can be the most healing and strengthening experienceof all. Slowing the process down so that the patient does not become overwhelmed becomes one aspect of maintaining a necessary context of safety so this can occur. Recognizing the significance of everything that occurs interactively is also paramount with these patients, for whom relationships are so readily structured and/or experienced in terms of intrusion, co-option, violation, or seduction; where the roles of victim and abuser often shift back and forth; and where there may be a real risk of decompensation and breakdown. What we must establish is a new experience in which the patient has the opportunity to realize that it is possible to be in a relationship without having to be pressured by another or required to submit to the other to sustain the relationship, and in which there is a possibility of addressing the subtleties of the interactive hazards that they inevitably may be vulnerable to and those they may inadvertently structure themselves. An important issue here is not just the need to address the defensive denial or dissociation; it is also the need to address the vulnerability that is the basis for these defenses.
…
Finally, despite understandable concerns about dangers of "blaming the victim," we must be able to help patients who have been victims of abuse to become sensitive not only to the real tragedy they have suffered at the hands of others, but also to the continuing one that they have become agents of themselves. Helping these patients to grasp how they murder psychic possibilities and foreclose the possibility of meaningful relationship, and how violent this process is to internal as well as external life, is essential. This becomes the key to the patient’s becoming able to engage in a necessary process of mourning.
Abuse and Desire
by Darlene Bregman Ehrenberg, Ph.D.
A friend of ours, who was in a BDSM relationship, with a very controlling, abusive person. Our friend has a rather fucked up home life? Said friend’s father refuses to acknowledge that her boyfriend (her master) is abusive, or says she has it coming, and is kicking our friend, his own daughter, out of the house…
dwala, please, take it to another thread. I don’t think the people who want to participate in a discussion of the OP want to hear it. (God knows I don’t.)
Well, the situation was hypothetical, but if you insist, I suppose I could be convinced to stand in as “Mask Man.” Purely for the sake of furthering scientfic knowledge, fighting ignorance, and all that, you understand…ahem.
Yummy. I love vanilla – it’s my second favorite flavor.
A “completely average relationship UNTIL the whips come off?” You mean an average relationship until the couple takes off their whips? Either that was a Freudian slip, or you have a pretty strange definition of “average relationship.” Anyway, I think one of us is misunderstanding the other. My last post above, about the framework surrounding the sub/dom relationship, referred specifically to what happens in the bedroom. I’m arguing that the “power exchange” is virtual, not real, and that at another level, the sub has complete control over the situation in the bedroom. I was not referring to any aspect of the relationship outside of that.
On the other hand, your point about the dom choosing mates that “meet with his own tastes” does complicate matters a bit. In a strange way, though, it only reinforces what I’m getting at with SSC; the sub has much more control in a “vanilla” relationship (where did that description come from?). I suppose in a more coercive, less consensual “chocolate” (?) relationship, wherein the dom picks out someone vulnerable and really abuses them, one could argue that the sub has considerably less control. The situation would be much closer to my hypothetical example, above. Such a relationship might also be a lot closer to dwa’s take on the D/s thing.
Come on, Sexy. Give yourself over to the dark side.
Oddly, I had assumed that you were female. I have no idea why.
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[QUOTE]
A “completely average relationship UNTIL the whips come off?”**
[QUOTE]
Actually, what I meant to say is that the couple is the same as any other until the whips come OUT. I really do need to preview my posts.
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[QUOTE]
I’m arguing that the “power exchange” is virtual, not real, and that at another level, the sub has complete control over the situation in the bedroom. **
Like SexyWriter, I’ve been following this with great interest and am finally taking a deep breath before diving back in.
In regards to the issues brought up by Svinlesha and aynrandlover…my thoughts on the matter are that the power/control situation changes based on perspective. That is, before I enter into a scenario, I think that I, the sub, do have a lot of power (in terms of partner, safeword usage, what can and cannot be done). And having had that power makes entering into the scenario feel safer. But, once restrained and gagged, I have submitted not only to my partner, but also to the good decisions I made before entering the scenario. Things could still go horribly wrong or maybe just push my limits too much. I have entered into an agreement based on trust, but have no means, while restrained, to extert control.
Also, in my current relationship, domination scenarios aren’t something we schedule…“And, Monday night, honey, I’m going to hogtie you to the bed…Wednesday, it’ll be bowling…” More often then not, my partner initiates a situation out of the blue, and I’m expected to just fall into line. I find that in these situations there’s a lot more trust that’s called for and even a greater deal of submission…domination isn’t something we dust off when it’s good and convenient. (Out of curiousity, SexyWriter, would you mind sharing how your scenarios are intiated?)
I don’t think I’ve given you any hard and fast answers, to the OP or anyone else…but maybe disclosed another layer to dom/sub.
Finally, dwala, I think you might be taking your specific experiences and extending them to the total BDSM community. I would, however, be interested if you’d like to start a separate thread to discuss your concerns further, without hijacking this kinda narrow discussion.
