On Not Being A Disease

Because some folks are kicking around the question of whether BDSM is intrinsically pathological or a response to damage or other things, I reflect ...


So a while back I got involved, on a message board, in a discussion about multiple relationships. I do this on occasion; there are times that I consider it evidence of insanity, because it's always the same arguments, often the same people making the same arguments as if they'd never seen any response in the past, and it seems no progress is ever made. It's one of those things that is a sort of performance art -- maybe someone will read it and come away slightly enlightened, because the people who actually post are too entrenched for anything to make a difference.

A few folks were throwing the ball around that goes something like, "Women never want multiple relationships, therefore polygamous/open systems are intrinsically exploitative of women." I pointed out that this was not the case.

And then it got personal.

The first tack was, "What horrible thing could have happened to you that you don't think you deserve monogamy?" Because clearly, as a member of the Intrinsically Monogamous Class, the only reason I could be nonmonogamous was if my self-esteem were so crippled that I felt unworthy of asking even this basic thing of someone. Pointing out that I think I deserve to be treated respectfully, including having my preference for relationships respected, did not go over well. This had a side order of vicious attack on my partners, referring to me as a brainwashed member of "some pig's harem"; when I pointed out that where I come from, saying that sort of thing about someone's spouse is fighting words, the person who emitted that phrase was utterly shocked that I thought he might have been calling my husband a "pig".

When those attacks failed to find traction, the next one was, "So broken that she has to be sleeping with all these people all the time." I pointed out that I have been sexually active for ... almost thirteen years, I think it is at this point, that I have never had a monogamous relationship since becoming sexually active, and that in that time I have fucked a grand total of six people.

Somehow that line of argument got dropped without acknowledging my points. Mysteriously.

Then it was back to the "What horrible thing could have happened to you?" This time with the line of attack being 'something in childhood', and the slanders directed at the amorphous mass of parents, siblings, close relatives, possibly schoolteachers, who could have done something horrible to me. When I declined to respond to these veiled accusations, I was taken as tacitly agreeing that I had been horribly and probably sexually abused; when I pointed out that I was simply declining to respond to armchair Freuds who wanted to ask me about my mother, I got a response of, "Surely, her father is more relevant. Does she even have a father?" Note the talking about the object as if she's not present. (I had the wit to respond to this with, "My conception was not, in fact, miraculous.") And, again, people were shocked and stunned that I considered this stuff to be an insult to my family, that I took "You were horribly abused by someone close to you in childhood" as accusing my parents, my teachers, or my neighbors of being abusers. (Who the fuck else would be these anonymous victimizers? Little green sodomizers from Alpha Centauri? The invisible pink unicorn, there's a phallocratic ride for you.)

I continued to patiently and resolutely refuse to be a victim. And they continued to spin pathologies for me and, when I did not choose to open up a vein and bleed out my childhood to refute those pathologies for them, when I did not choose to become responsible for their fevered masturbation fantasies of abuse, they declared me a victim anyway, and went off to enjoy their afterglow. Leaving me as nothing but a fetish object -- The Woman So Broken She Doesn't Know How Wounded She Is.


I've seen this too many times. What horrible thing happened to you that you don't want to accept the lurve of Jesus Christ? What horrible thing happened to you that you enjoy being tied up for sex? What horrible thing happened to you that you're a submissive? What horrible thing went wrong in your life that you're not interested in casual sex? What horrible thing happened to you that you enjoy and appreciate the devotion of two wonderful men? What horrible thing happened to you that .... What is wrong with you? Where are you broken, and how can I save you from my white horse (neither phallic nor pink)?

Mostly, the horrible thing that happened to me is that some people treat me as a disease for being true to myself. The horrible thing is the people who are so desperate to find victims to save that they will try to break people so they can be healed.