The need to consent: the truth of BDSM
“Fifty Shades of Grey” is popularizing terrible bondage practices, and the S&M community is grossly misrepresented. An awful tale, which was once just “Twilight” fan fiction read only by teenage girls, paints kinksters as a cruel group of people who do not love or respect their partners’ wishes.
However, there is an important system of communicating desires within this subculture. Safe words are a central part of BDSM culture and facilitate open communication of consent. “Fifty Shades of Grey” paints a sinister portrait of a culture which encourages the freedom of expressing desires.
Our culture here in the United States is sexually strange. We have a curious dichotomy of incredibly explicit television programming, and repressive roles written by responsibilities to one’s family, or culture. Magazines and pop culture portray traditional gender roles and stereotypes: often one does not begin to discover who they really are until college and the journey never really ends. One of the ways we learn about how relationships should look is by the media that we consume: books and movies, to name two. “Fifty Shades” has sold 100 million copies. The film was a success at the box office, earning $81.7 million over the three-day weekend according to Box Office Mojo. It was the widest opening ever for an R-rated erotic thriller, opening in 3,646 theaters. Consider the demographics of this audience. So many women have been taught to subconsciously accept abuse, and that the relationship portrayed within “Fifty Shades” is desirable; A quick google search and you can find T-shirts on sale which tout the slogan, “Looking for my own Christian Grey.”
What frightens the BDSM community is that readers may perpetuate the acceptance of violence prevalent in this book into a generation of quasi-kinksters who are sadistic and cruel to their partners. Or worse yet, they may be willing to accept cruelty towards themselves.
Here at Santa Monica College many of our students are just coming into the age where women and men are trying out new relationships and forming their ideas of love and sexuality. In the Center for Disease Control’s annual violence report, studies consistently show that between one in three and one in four women will experience intimate partner violence and/or sexual violence within their lifetimes.
Consensual violence is something that should be approached with care.
Globally, as many as 38 percent of all murders of women are committed by intimate partners. Many of these women could have tried to leave, resist violence, or fight back – but were unable to due to the constraints placed upon them by communities, partners, families, and this story portrays a manipulative sexual relationship that is a negative model for those who know little about the kink world.
In a healthy BDSM relationship, partners negotiate their limits; both parties must be informed about what they are going to do and express enthusiastic consent to be hit, flogged, electrified, bitten, or ball-gagged. It is about understanding boundaries as much as it is about exploring fantasies.
BDSM stands for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism. Bondage includes restraining one›s partner, which can be anything from intricate Japanese rope work (known as ‘shibari’) to something as simple as handcuffs.
Discipline is often administered through spankings, slapping, whipping or lashing- but is never malevolent.
Domination and Submission are the two roles on which this type of practice is contingent. BDSM context is often characterized by the participants’ taking on complementary, but unequal roles. They are also known as top and bottom. As the dominant, one has a responsibility to understand and follow their submissives wishes, often while giving them orders and remaining in control of their actions. A submissive always has the ability to halt a scene by use of a safe word, the most common one of all being ‘yellow’ which withdraws consent in discomfort (but they still wish to continue the scene, just differently), and red ends a scene entirely so that they at any point they can withdraw consent when they are not comfortable.
Finally, Masochism is receiving gratification from pain while sadists delight in inflicting pain. There is a huge spectrum of sensations that people may delight in.
The student government is involved with a new group called the “Title Nine Task Force.” Title Nine is a mandate sent down by President Barack Obama which seeks to eliminate sexual violence on college campuses. The task force is planning a Consent Week this Spring which will include: panels about what consent is, how to help someone who has been victimized, and how to report an attack. The goal is to create a safe environment for people who have been hurt, and to help people feel a sense of community, because the college experience can feel isolating.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” makes me at least eleven shades of nervous about its international psychological impact. Studies have shown that women who had read “Fifty Shades” were more likely to have signs of eating disorders and verbally abusive partners. USA-based Stop Porn Culture and the London Abused Women Centre of London, Ontario have come together to create an anti-abuse campaign.
#50DollarsNot50Shades, encourages patrons to donate $50 to a battered women’s shelter instead of seeing the movie because “that’s where people like Ana end up.” Many people say they do not see the abuse in “Fifty Shades.” I have often heard it cited as a love story. Violence against women is the most sinister particularly when it is re-packaged and sold as “empowering,” as “Fifty Shades” has been. It does not represent a relationship that is safe, sane, and consensual.
It is a travesty that this will be the concept of BDSM, which is projected into the media, and that young minds affected may grow into adulthood thinking that this is an okay way to be treated. The key difference between a healthy BDSM relationship and what we see in “Fifty Shades” is enthusiastic and informed consent.