Posted by juliettex on Sat 21 Mar 09, 5:56 PM to juliettex's blog.
(Another excerpt from my proper blog - this one extremely controversial. Usual disclaimers apply, please don't read if easily offended, and anything that doesn't make sense will probably do so if you wander along to thenewadventuresofjuliette.blogspot.com....)
Many years ago, and in a vague link back to my last post (what is this, National Nazi Week?), I was deep in late-night conversation with my then boyfriend Alistair - the erstwhile lecturer at my uni. Christ only knows how much I'd drunk before this conversation took place - the probable answer is somewhere between 'a lot' and 'a fuck of a lot.'
But anyway, I'd recently shared with him a specific fantasy of mine. Inspired by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List, if you're interested. (What can I say? I was young. I was foolish. For more information, please check out this link, and scroll down till you find the relevant bit. And yes, I know I keep linking to this same post. The more of this blog I write, the more I come to believe that the post in question holds the motherlode to my entire sexual psyche.)
While all my other memories of that night with Alistair are hazy at best, I can very clearly remember his earnest, uneasy and alarmed expression. Not to mention his cautious reply.
'You do know that, in real life, if you'd been in Nazi Germany, they'd just have raped you and shot you. It wouldn't have been exciting.'
This is what you get when you go out with an earnest academic vanilla type - and are dumb enough to tell him things.
My reply was a gentle, reassuring, don't-let's-frighten-the-horses 'yes, I do.'
What I actually wanted to say was a mite more brutal.
'Well, bugger me backwards with a bandsaw. You mean that being at the absolute mercy of violent armed psychopaths who think you're vermin might not actually be that much fun in real life?
'Holy Christ, Alistair, that never occurred to me. I thought it would fucking rock in real life.
'Here's a dictionary. Look up 'fantasy'. You'll find it somewhere before 'fiction', 'fool' and 'fuckwit.'
I was unexpectedly reminded of his genuine well-intentioned shock and horror by a recent Bitchy Jones post - particularly the comments section. Following the reading of which, I find myself veering off on a wild tangent from the orginal subject under discussion - and thinking again where the taboos lie, in the uncharted minefield of BDSM kinky fantasy.
How come some traumatic, painful, real-life-ordeal topics are handled with infinite care, like bomb disposal - and recoiled from in palpable communal horror if any reckless fool picks them up and starts running about with them?
While other, no less horrifying concepts - rape, torture, slavery, oh my - are chucked about with gay abandon, like child-friendly rubber balls in the safe friendly little BDSM playground?
For example, check out the reference to gay women being killed for their sexuality on Bitchy Jones' site. This real-life horror is referred to in tones of near-tangible outrage and horror. As if this sort of subject matter is so wildly and blatantly offensive to the flesh-and-blood women in such situations, it should clearly be handled with the utmost care, reverence and asexual solemnity.
To quote the post directly - 'because jesus fuck, this shit is real.'
Well surely, in that case, certain femdom bloggers' explicit, lovingly-described dreams of e.g. torturing helpless captive men with small sharp objects are also a bit offensive. As these may equally be seen as trivialising the ordeal of e.g. Mr Binyam Mohammed, Esquire - whose own experience of having his bits introduced to Mr Razor Blade, by all accounts, wasn't exactly the stuff that masochists' wet dreams are made of.
And jesus fuck, that shit is real, too.
Take this argument to its logical conclusion, and practically all kinky wank material's off-limits - up to and including that pinkest, frilliest, fluffiest and ickiest of fem-sub fantasies. Yes, I refer to daddy-daughter age play - which itself looks pretty sick in the bleak, cobweb-shrouded cellar light of Europe's Dad Of The Year, Josef Fritzl.
Jesus fuck. Real again.
I can't help but be struck by how totally and randomly arbitrary the distinction between BDSM Okay and BDSM Not Okay seems to be. A vague cursory line scrawled in the sand wherever it suits the speaker to draw it - usually about five centimetres away from wherever their own particular predilections end.
This is Good. That is Bad. This is Acceptable. That is Sick.
For example, fantasising about twenty-stone women is fine.
Fantasising about five-stone women is not fine.
Fantasising about rape is fine.
So long as it doesn't involve anything like blood or broken noses or permanent physical damage or that sort of thingy. In which case, it's not fine.
And fantasising about child abuse is disgusting, end of. Even in borderline fourteen and fifteen year old cases. Even in dreamville, all parties concerned should have authentic ID proving they're over 16 at all times.
But surely there's no one, single, accepted ruling body on these things - so it's all wide open to subjective interpretation?
And - when it comes to all dark, non-consensual BDSM fantasy material - either all of it's fine, or none of it is?
Personally, the lines I draw are as follows.
Nothing contemporary. This is instinctive gut-level superstition, more than political correctness. Because contemporary stuff, by its very nature, is still happening - and therefore, however improbably, could happen to me. So a visceral part of me seems to realise that if, for example, I've been thrilling to dreams of being kidnapped, beaten and sold into slavery by the Albanian mafia, I'm going to feel like a right cunt if I get kidnapped by the gentlemen in question for real.
Picture the scene. Bound hand and foot in the sweltering boot of a car, I pray to a God I've never previously believed in for rescue and release. Miraculously, through a tiny crack in the metal, I see the mass of grey-white clouds part in the sky, a giant finger pokes out - and the Almighty's reply comes booming down from heaven.
'Hey, don't come whingeing to me, smartarse. You thought this was hot - remember?'
In other words, being tortured by the Inquisition - fine. Being tortured by the good folks of Guantanemo Bay - not fine.
Being flogged by corrupt mediveal judges - fine. Being flogged by the Saudi Police Of Vice and Virtue on a trumped up charge of smuggling hash- not fine.
Horror, revulsion and sickness all have a blurred but undeniable sell-by date. This is why it's perfectly okay to have a Jack the Ripper themed tourist attraction - but it may be considered a little tasteless to have one based on Fred West.
My other personal rule - nothing too full-on heavy-horrors. This is partly, as before, because I'm rather superstitious - at a level that's a matter of inherent orientation rather than conscious choice. And, in the undesirable event of e.g. having my fingernails pulled out by the CIA in search of information I don't have, I really don't want to be double-whammied by a little voice in the back of my mind, moaning 'the irony. Oh, the irony.'
Anyway, this happens quite effortlessly. Because this sort of extreme material just doesn't do anything for me - rather the opposite. Anything too physically violent, gross or gruesome reaches deep inside me and flicks all the sexual-excitement switches off, one by one by one.
This clearly isn't just me - as I've seen the fingerprints of this particular dilemma all over mainstream adult fiction. It's particularly notable in the neutrally-decorated realms of Black Lace - which is considerably vanill-er than me at my vanill-est, but which generally wants to jazz its relentlessly bland white-bread books up with a bit of kink appeal. In other words, they want to play with concepts like power and fear and helplessness - but without any actual violence, menace, pain or threat to back these concepts up.
Consequently, their BDSM-lite scenarios have to threaten and terrify captives with the lamest torments this side of the Monty Python team bursting into the room in scarlet robes, darkly threatening bemused heretics with the Comfy Chair.
'Oh no, not the feather. Please, master, I beg of you. Anything but the feather.'
Nobody Expects The Spanish Kinkquisition.
However. Travel too far in the other direction and the problem's even worse. I've occasionally seen this when reading the stories on the very NSFW BDSM library - the ultimate credit crunch porn, and living proof you get what you pay for. It's like the sexual fantasy equivalent of some nightmare soup kitchen. On the positive side, it's 100% free. On the negative side, there may well be a rusty razor blade hiding behind one of the spuds. (Think of it as a lucky dip. Happy hunting.)
On the off-chance that I manage to find something vaguely alluring in the disturbing serial killer's garage-sale that is BDSM Library, I can sometimes get a fair few paragraphs into the story - helpless maiden, dark dungeon, evil male captor, reassuringly far-fetched historical setting, all good. Then suddenly, quite without warning, it's all completely ruined for me. At this point, I really want to turn to the author. More in sorrow than in anger.
'Oh, CockMaster. You were doing so, so well up till then. But you just had to spoil it all by referring to torn ligaments and your heroine spitting up blood, didn't you? Now put your Kleenex away, and write out a hundred times.
'There Is Nothing Hot About A Woman Having Her Arms Pulled Out By The Sockets.'
(An admirable and T-shirt-worthy sentiment. Even if it does sound like the title of a Morrissey song.)
But that's just me. And I have to acknowledge - guided by the tiresomely objective, constant and reasonable inner voice that will never permit me to become a Nazi dictator or a New Labour MP - that a lot of my own personal likes may be considered equally repellent to the 100%-vanilla-and-proud-of-it-man folks in the audience.
And IMHO, it's extremely dangerous to start letting random punters veto various forms of porn on the grounds that they personally find it offensive and/or disturbing. Start wandering down this deceptively-pleasant-looking road, and you're going to end up cracking down on everything but tasteful descriptions of missionary position sex once a week with the lights out.
Between a happily married heterosexual couple.
And strictly for the purposes of procreation. Natch.
And quite possibly not even that. The nuns in the audience aren't going to like it one bit.
And there's a gentleman from Tunbridge Wells who objects to the wanton use of the term 'manhood.'
In short, IMHO, as long as you're not actually hurting anyone else for real, surely whatever gets your motor running - however weird, sick, distasteful or potentially offensive - is the business of nobody but you, yourself and you.
For my final word on the subject, I must paraphrase Voltaire.
'Sir, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to jack off over pictures of Robert Mugabe.
'Just stay the hell away from me. You sick, scary fuck.'
J x
| 21 Mar 09, 6:01 PM northernwench 7 yrs |
I think you can safely consider your spoiler alerts surplus to requirements - I have yet to be offended by any of your blogs yet!  |
| 21 Mar 09, 6:03 PM LittleMissEvil 4 yrs |
Nice well thought out blog and did make me think as i was reading it Some people say i am evil, i have no idea why they think that. |
| 21 Mar 09, 6:05 PM Crystal_Eyes UK, 5 yrs    |
Fantastic blog. ------------------------------------------ |
| 21 Mar 09, 6:06 PM juliettex UK, 3 yrs |
Well thanks very much, you're very nice people!! Sadly, there are some out there who aren't as open-minded (hence the disclaimer - oh, and it definitely generates maximum traffic!) J x |
| 21 Mar 09, 6:30 PM Sunhillow 7 yrs  |
Another fantastic blog! Thank you for posting. ~ If you must pick the lesser of two evils; choose the one you've never tried before. ~ |
| 21 Mar 09, 6:54 PM magpieuk UK(LA), 5 yrs      |
As always love your blogs - IMHO!  O bugger me it's hard being interesting all the time. I envy people who can be interesting in 300 characters or less |
