Altering the perception of BDSM (97)

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Fri 5 Oct 07, 12:23 PM
IndelibleMarker
UK(N), 3 yrs
If I may pose a couple of questions for you to answer in your head (please don't answer them in the thread, they're irrelevant and just to get people thinking)
Do you have any moral objections to homosexuals?
Do you have any moral objections to incest?

The majority of people will say no to the first and yes to the second. A brother and sister have the potential for inbreeding, which has serious consequences, fair enough. How about 2 brothers having sex if they are both over 18 and both consent to it? You probably still have a moral objection to it. But why? There's no hard logical reason why it should be illegal or morally wrong if people choose to do it.
Our moral choices are very rarely actually chosen by us through logical thought processes; they are dictated to us by other people. We are programmed to think that beastiality is sick, paedophiles are evil, incest is disgusting, and until 1967, that homosexuality was just as bad. Maybe some of those things are true, maybe some aren't.
People used to go to prison for being homosexual. So what's changed? Homosexuals existed then and they exist now. Something is different now, though... public perception and a fear of being labelled homophobic prevent the general public from dismissing them. And so, gradually, it has become more widely accepted, and is now generally perceived as just a way of life, rather than the evil and disgusting taboo it once was.
As upstanding people, humans are programmed to fear being called anything-phobic. We fear being called racist, sexist, or homophobic, even though the more intelligent among us will admit that we harbour some of these feelings naturally. There are groups of people that fear these words more than any other. Celebrities and Politicians for example, whose careers are perched on maintaining public favour.
Remember that homophobia didn't exist before the late 60's. It couldn't - it wasn't even a word. Once it was coined it gave the gay community a standing point from which to fight back and rally favour.
If, as a scene we develop a word used to call celebrities and politicians "kinkphobics" (but something with a better ring to it, like hedophobic or fetiphobic), then they will be far more likely to respond in our favour upon hearing the use of the phrase "phobic", and begin to fight alongside us rather than against us to help change public perception.
They use words like 'extreme' and 'violent' to provoke a negative response, so why not fight fire with fire? Positive social manipulation is a powerful thing.
Fetiphobia (open to debate), noun,
i) the fear of people who engage in consensual sexual activities which deviate from the norm.
ii) unreasoning fear of or antipathy towards those involved in consensual BDSM related activities.
Tuam matrem feci,
Patrick
IndelibleMarker
Edited Fri 5 Oct 07, 12:47 PM by IndelibleMarker

5 Oct 07, 12:30 PM
skyfox
UK(EH), 22 mths

IndelibleMarker wrote:
If, as a scene we develop a word used to call celebrities and politicians "kinkphobics" (but something with a better ring to it, like hedophobic or fetiphobic), then they will be far more likely to respond in our favour upon hearing the use of the phrase "phobic", and begin to fight alongside us rather than against us to help change public perception.
They use words like 'extreme' and 'violent' to provoke a negative response, so why not fight fire with fire? Positive social manipulation is a powerful thing.
Fetiphobia (open to debate), noun,
i) the fear of people who engage in consensual sexual activities which deviate from the norm.
ii) unreasoning fear of or antipathy towards those involved in consensual BDSM related activities.
Brilliant. Language can alter perception in very subtle ways. The fact that there really isn't a fetiphobia word should tell us that we need one to name-call those who discriminate against us. I vote for fetiphobia. Or perhaps some sort of Latin derivation.
But this raises another point... fighting fire with fire is one thing, but we also need words that show that we are not egocentric, pretentious outcast fools. Mainly, I direct your attention to "vanilla". Homosexual/heterosexual are opposites and equally fair descriptions. What about us/vanilla?

5 Oct 07, 12:46 PM
IndelibleMarker
UK(N), 3 yrs

skyfox wrote:
Brilliant. Language can alter perception in very subtle ways. The fact that there really isn't a fetiphobia word should tell us that we need one to name-call those who discriminate against us. I vote for fetiphobia. Or perhaps some sort of Latin derivation.
But this raises another point... fighting fire with fire is one thing, but we also need words that show that we are not egocentric, pretentious outcast fools. Mainly, I direct your attention to "vanilla". Homosexual/heterosexual are opposites and equally fair descriptions. What about us/vanilla?
I really feel it is something we need, as you have mentioned, to name call those who discriminate against us.
I'm putting my vote as either fetaphobia or fetiphobia as it covers the whole spectrum of the fetish scene.
Patrick
IM
Tuam matrem feci,
Patrick
IndelibleMarker

5 Oct 07, 1:19 PM
Stallen
UK, 2 yrs

IndelibleMarker wrote:
I'm putting my vote as either fetaphobia or fetiphobia as it covers the whole spectrum of the fetish scene.
Patrick
IM
I'd have to lean towards Fetiphobia, Feta is just a little to linked to cheese abuse.
My Life Is Beautiful..my spellings atrochous
Edited 5 Oct 07, 1:20 PM by Stallen

5 Oct 07, 1:39 PM
Crystal_Eyes
UK(SA), 2 yrs

skyfox wrote:

IndelibleMarker wrote:
If, as a scene we develop a word used to call celebrities and politicians "kinkphobics" (but something with a better ring to it, like hedophobic or fetiphobic), then they will be far more likely to respond in our favour upon hearing the use of the phrase "phobic", and begin to fight alongside us rather than against us to help change public perception.
They use words like 'extreme' and 'violent' to provoke a negative response, so why not fight fire with fire? Positive social manipulation is a powerful thing.
But this raises another point... fighting fire with fire is one thing, but we also need words that show that we are not egocentric, pretentious outcast fools. Mainly, I direct your attention to "vanilla". Homosexual/heterosexual are opposites and equally fair descriptions. What about us/vanilla?
Interesting point, especially about the us/vanilla word... not every 'nilla is dismissive or misunderstanding of BDSM practices in the same way that not every straight person is prejudiced against homosexuality.
However, i'm left wondering, can the creation of words *really* have that profound an impact on the way that society in general view BDSM? In 'inventing a phobia' against something, aren't we setting ourselves up to be further excluded?
~ = ~ = ~ = * c * = ~ = ~ = ~
"Oh bother," said the borg. "We've assimilated Pooh..."
Um, i'm fresh out of advice... can i interest you in a sarcastic comment??
Edited 5 Oct 07, 2:17 PM by Crystal_Eyes

5 Oct 07, 1:56 PM
Backdooruk
UK(BA), 9 yrs

IndelibleMarker wrote:
Fetiphobia (open to debate), noun,
i) the fear of people who engage in consensual sexual activities which deviate from the norm.
ii) unreasoning fear of or antipathy towards those involved in consensual BDSM related activities.
It's a great idea, but it needs the right word, one that will catch on both inside and outside of the scene. To do that it has to contain some essence of an argument as to why it's wrong to feel like that and not by making a joke of it. For these reasons I think we need to be looking at words with some weight behind them.
The Word 'homophobia' worked because it derived from a psychological theory that people who where antipathetic to homosexuals may be afraid of any homosexuality they see in themselves. Similarly 'racism' originally referred to academic theory's of racial superiority. 'Sexism' was coined in the 1960's on the back of the word racism's meaning then so a word ending in either �phobia or �ism would work in the same way, but I think it would be more powerful to coin a word that reflected why we think people dislike sadomasochism, but it doesn't *have* to end in �phobia or �ism.
People dislike BDSM because they mistakenly equate it with harmful activity or abuse and/or they are generally anti sex except for reproduction. They might conceivably also recognize such desires in themselves which frightens them. A word that ridiculed these ideas would be ideal.
To fulfill these criteria, off the top of my head I suggest:
Missionary / Missionism (from 'missionary sex'): ironically Missionism was originally a semi-pejorative term for evangelical Christians. Contains the idea of fundamentalism, obsession and religious anti-sex beliefs
They are both clean sounding existing words, don't sound like a term associated with Political Correctness, and don't sound trivial or jokey.
(Also I'm sure I've heard Smphobia / smphobe used before for this, which obviously didn't catch on)
- Chris
"...man will cease to be a slave and gain a dignity that is more than an exercise in cautious conformism, only when he becomes capable of stepping outside the most fundamental convictions, including those convictions, which allegedly make him human"
- Paul Feyerabend on epistemological anarchism
Edited 5 Oct 07, 2:01 PM by Backdooruk

5 Oct 07, 2:02 PM
Grissom
UK(PR), 20 mths

I think it's down to more than a fear of being homophobic that homosexuality has become more widely accepted - to a certain extent it is down to people being more publicly out (safety in numbers and more integration into society) and a generalisation/modernisation/erosion of traditional religious values (couldn't decide which so stuck down all 3 )
As for a word, ideally it would have to be something someone could guess the meaning of (as someone else mentioned 'fetiphobia' could be guessed at being cheese related lol)
tricky to find one that would apply to the whole spectrum really... I'll get my thinking cap on and the wine out...
Better to be a diamond with a flaw then a pebble with none

5 Oct 07, 2:06 PM
IndelibleMarker
UK(N), 3 yrs

Crystal_Eyes wrote:
However, i'm left wondering, can the creation of words *really* have that profound an impact on the way that society in general view BDSM? In 'inventing a phobia' against something, aren't we setting ourselves up to be further extradited?
As I noted originally, the development of the word homophobia allowed the homosexual community a stage from which to fight back.
What would happen if you said to one of your friends "You're such a fetiphobe".
How many people do you know who would say "yeah I am a fetiphobe and I'm proud"
They wouldn't even need you to explain what the word meant - they would assume it was a widely known phrase and wouldn't want to look stupid by saying "that's not a word" and potentially making a mistake.
People naturally respond to certain stiulai in generally, very predictable ways. That can be used to our advantage.
The most predictable thing about people is our inability to accept our own predictability.
homophobic isn't just use to describe people who hate gay people, it's now used to describe those who don't 100% accept gay people. Anyone who isn't willing to acknowledge BDSM activites, who discriminate against them or who aren't quite happy about these things happening could be refered to as being fetiphobic.
Tuam matrem feci,
Patrick
IndelibleMarker

5 Oct 07, 2:10 PM
Jahc99
UK, 2 yrs

Backdooruk wrote:
....They might conceivably also recognize such desires in themselves which frightens them. A word that ridiculed these ideas would be ideal.
- Chris

Or rather, they refuse to recognize them! Hence the irrationality of the fear - or something like that.
Fetphobia sounds better to me.

why poison your liver when I could eat it for you?

5 Oct 07, 2:15 PM
IndelibleMarker
UK(N), 3 yrs

Backdooruk wrote:
It's a great idea, but it needs the right word, one that will catch on both inside and outside of the scene. To do that it has to contain some essence of an argument as to why it's wrong to feel like that and not by making a joke of it. For these reasons I think we need to be looking at words with some weight behind them.
Personally, I think the power is in the "phobia" part, as I mentioned, people naturally fear being called phobic of anything. Everyone, especially politicians want to be seen as accepting and understanding of all. Being phobic of ANYTHING is not their interest.
I think the word is important, but only in so much as it has a nice ring to it.
Homo is a negative phrase, it's used as an insult, but by sticking phobia after it they totally changed the perception of the word.
Kinkphobic doesn't flow well, neither does Smphobic and only covers a tiny area of the scene. The trick is in making people think it is a word that already exists, something which sounds right. The meaning comes with the word later.
Fetiphobe and Fetiphobia flow well and if you use it when talking to politicians or figureheads in conversation relating to BDSM they will quickly relate the meaning correctly and it will become an accepted word.
It's short, sweet, easy to say and it doesn't draw on the negative areas which people have specific problems with in the way "SMphobia" does.
Patrick
IM
Tuam matrem feci,
Patrick
IndelibleMarker

5 Oct 07, 5:00 PM
prettyname
UK(NW), 8 yrs

IndelibleMarker wrote:
Fetiphobia (open to debate), noun,
i) the fear of people who engage in consensual sexual activities which deviate from the norm.
ii) unreasoning fear of or antipathy towards those involved in consensual BDSM related activities.
Fantastic post. I like it! Easy to associate, easy to understand, easy to remember and stick in someone's mind, gives a stronger position, reverse psychology, and is pretty much exactly what it says. Going by the experience of only one 'nilla person I've ever known on a personal level who ever had a negative reaction to it that's exactly what it is, and even they came round after getting over that 'fear' and finding out about it properly. Will never be their thing of course, but they now understand why it's others and think nothing of it now.
Good stuff
~�Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognise.� Diane Arbus~
~"it's what you see other times that's interesting"~ foxxx~
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