Tao of Kink
Chapter 3
Can and/or must
Freedom to dream about loosing freedom. Choosing not to choose, be told what to do, obey and serve. Giving control and giving worries - taking ownership and taking responsibility. Being owned by the one we (lovingly) own. Visual meditation on paradoxes of wishing to fulfill wishes.
* introduction to the visual blog
Kinky relationships treat ownership in a plaful way
unlike many vanilla ones.
(Credits): Wikipedia - Flickr - Gay Wash
Freedom and Ownership
Average (predominantly straight) society lives by concept of essentialist complements: Man/woman, rational/emotional, initiative/submissive, in-charge/obeying, active/passive, competition/cooperation, cruel/mild, war/love, adventure/home, innovative/conservative. In some cultures, couple of these dichotomies are thought inappropriate, others seen as curious coffee-conversation matters. Elsewhere they are taken (too) seriously. In any case, at first glance these splits may look even as a sort of harmony. Traditional forms of unions (marriage) were built upon it. Less know feature (though with huge impact) is the topic of subject-object relationships*.
* First named by Harry Hay from the family of Radical Faeries (non-conformist non-mainstream non-movement in queer community, a pariah minority within pariah minority, that explores inter-dependency of sexuality, spirituality and environmentalism). He offered an alternative of new type of (queer) relationship not based on complementing each other (having to live together to balance each other’s strong and weak points), not employing mutual control and abuse, but being a voluntary (temporary) genuine unions of equals. A relationship between subject and SUBJECT.
Subject-object describes an interaction, where we have our partners in order to… to have two salaries, to get mortgage, to afford suburban house, to be economically well off, to fix the plumbing, to rely on, to make us happy, to take care of us when we are sick or old, to raise our social status, to be approved by family and neighbors, to understand us, to listen to us, to fulfill our wishes, to protect us, to satisfy us, to make us proud. It does not matter if this is between husbands and wives, children and parents, or employers and employees. We lay expectations on each other and we engage in relationships because we benefit from them. Materially, socially, emotionally – selfishly. We use the other person to achieve a goal. While this may feel quite natural at first glance – note that we have been educated in this scheme all our lives, alternative concepts and thinking are barely known, often it is justified through evolution – this perspective definitely scratches off the gilding from some romantic fairy-tales.
How does that tickle the objectification and control fantasies of kinky minds? The verb we used - "have husband, have lover, have partner" - suggests possessive relationship, an act of owning, that is betrayed especially in situations of jealousy and break-ups – in feelings of loss and deceit and robbery - the terms associated with losing a property. Ownership is something that we know from BDSM pretty well! But in the suggested perspective we own each other quite a lot even in vanilla life. We negotiate decisions and comply, take charge and follow, take active or passive stance in various matters – even if we do not admit it.
It’s very contemporary topic to discuss how much Freedom we are willing to give up for a feeling of Security. Though less we talk about the relationship between Freedom and Responsibility. Citizens of totalitarian or feudal state are not free, but have the comfort of not having to (even if not being able to) bear the heaviness of any decisions. Whatever they do, they cannot choose to do it (or not), so they are not guilty of the results. That is twisted convenience and attraction of this kind of establishment. The same is valid for parents and kids or some rural household arrangements between patriarchs and their kitchen/laundry servant wives. Likewise the slave seemingly suppressing his will enjoys the comfort of no responsibility for a moment. And the master has not only reigns of control, but is bearing that responsibility as well. How amazing opportunity to witness this dynamic in sexy and voluntary way!
While some post-modernists view "recreational" drug (ab)use as an individual choice and as such a matter of personal freedom, doctors see it as a dubious escape shortcut or painkiller for boredom or other form of unhappiness. I’d add a mythopoetic image: Society of individualist obsessed with their wished/required idol of Independence – with sickly symptoms of Dependence=Addiction surfacing from subconscious: be it cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, sugar, porn, shopping, or even work. An irony worth of Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy. BDSM, without necessarily labeling it as ill, might provide some hints here as well. So many beings raised in liberal cultures dream secretly of discipline. So many free-thinkers and free-lovers enjoy being bound. Contradiction upon contradiction.
Is the whole BDSM just a mirror or shadow of our suppressed fantasies? I might not get an answer to that question anytime soon. Though even if I abstain from direct psychoanalytical interpretation - I see kink as a wonderful playground for adults – to observe their "real-life" actions and roles from unusual (and quite informative) perspective. The sexual fantasies are bountiful source of observations. Students and teachers, bosses and employees, politicians and their modern fiefs, infallible Führers of the nations and admiring Volk, dads and sons – so many dominant/submissive relationships that we get involved in without ever considering ourselves kinky.
