BDSM and Marriage

[Stella_Omega]

I get what you mean but I don't believe in finding an umbrella to stand under where I can agree fully with everyone else and where everyone fully agrees with me.
The size of the smaller umbrella would still approach zero as we factor in more things we can disagree about.

No, you don't get what I mean. It's a bit annoying when people demonstrate that they haven't read the words I wrote, in the order I wrote them.

And now I've got that Rihanna song stuck in my brain. Ugh!

I always think of the Sting song, very pretty and more accurate for the topic.

 

[njlauren]

I don't think the couple posting did so because they wanted to exclude anyone or make a point about finding 'normal' people, I think it was simply wanting to see if there were others in the same boat as themselves. BD/SM is full of tribes, there are groups dedicated to gay male sm'ers, there are groups dedicated to lesbian leather folks, there are women only groups (all orientations), there are poly groups, there are women's groups that allow transwomen, there are lesbian groups that allow transmen but not transwormen, there groups that whatever you are, come and jump in the pool.

Married straight couples might represent the dominant 'norm' in the outside world, which does make life easier in many ways to be straight (when was the last time a straight couple had to explain their sexuality, why they wear a wedding ring or who the picture of the woman/man on their desk at work is, something for example a same sex couple cannot as easily do), but that doesn't necessarily extend into bd/sm.

It is different being in a committed relationship doing bd/sm versus being single and doing it, it is different doing it if you are in a collared relationship versus a play one, and being a married couple (straight or gay) brings different dynamics to it, too.......speaking only from my own perspective and what I have seen, ther e are issues in a marriage that might not be there in one based around two single people, for example, though single people obviously can be monogamous and are (and in that case, I personally don't differentiate between married couples and unmarried couples, if they are committed to a monogamous relationship, to me the piece of paper doesn't matter, but that is me), there is still this strong feeling that when you marry, it is a monogamous union, period, across anything that is sexual..and some married couples can struggle with whether playing outside of each other violates that rule, for example, or as others in another thread talked about, what if one partner has needs the other one cannot do, can going outside work?

There is another issue I have seen and dealt with personally, and that is there is still a lot of baggage around straight marriages that may not exist elsewhere (and again, before anyone jumps on me and says that same sex couples face the same things, it is why I say may, because I am talking only from personal experience here, it is all I can do). Maybe because I have had my foot in many worlds, I can see differences living my life often bifurcated as I have, but there are differences. For example, because gays and lesbians have in many ways been forced to live in their own 'ghetto' to use other's terms, the rules tend to be different there, being 'outlaws' so to speak for so many years, a lot of the baggage of being straight has been tossed aside (and not entirely a bad thing IMO, a lot of what is one straight couples is idiotic), people who are outsiders tend to take pride in throwing around stuff of the dominant people in my experience.

Okay, so why does that make being married different in BD/SM? Well, for one thing, the infamous 'middle class morality' as Shaw put it still lives and breathes, Alfred Doolittle would recognize it 100 years later in the US. There are still these incredible ideas that 'you don't do things like that', there is still this idea that married people and sex is once a week with the lights off, and so forth. When my spouse and I got involved in this, my spouse especially felt awkward, having a young child and at night tying me down and doing a number on my with play piercing or a flogger seemed such a glaring contrast (and obviously, the same could apply to a same sex couple with a kid.....). It just violates the way many people are raised, and it can cause unique conflicts and those strictures just aren't as present in people who are 'outsiders'......I am talking generally more people who were married and got into BD/SM versus people who already were kinksters and then got married, because if they were open kinksters they already had pushed aside a lot.

So I could understand why a straight married couple would want to seek others, it is because their experience is going to be different, the same way that two lesbian women, a poly triad, two gay men or whatever might experience it very differently (as one leather dyke couple told me, they faced more acceptance from their straight neighbors and relatives then they often did from other lesbians, that when they got together 30 years ago the lesbian community was not very leather friendly, often saw it as abuse and so forth, there is a group called LSM in NYC that when it was founded caught all kinds of flack, to give you an idea the name stands for lesbian sex mafia, because they didn't want to be too open with the name; for the past many years that hasn't been true, but it does show every group has its own issues).

In any event, that is my take, and I think while the original post might have been awkwardly written, the request was sincere IMO.

 

[njlauren]

I get to decide when I feel patronized and when I think someone is patronizing to others.

I don't get the concept of troll roasting (or even the concept of troll as used by most people) and I have no intent of roasting anything.



I get what you mean but I don't believe in finding an umbrella to stand under where I can agree fully with everyone else and where everyone fully agrees with me.
The size of the smaller umbrella would still approach zero as we factor in more things we can disagree about.

And now I've got that Rihanna song stuck in my brain. Ugh!

I don't think it is about going under an umbrella where everyone agrees with everyone else, I think the way to think of it in my minds eye is like a city with a lot of neighborhoods, where the neighborhoods have their own particular flavors but the city as a whole is a combination of neighborhoods...sometimes it is a lot of fun to get out of the rain under a big tent with a mixture of people, sometimes it is better and more fun to hang out with a small group of people you know.

For years I was involved with a group that each year puts on a leather/fetish auction event to raise money for charity, and the groups sponsoring it/people involved ranged from members of gay s/m groups to lesbian s/m groups to mixed groups to individuals, and people often belonged to multiple groups. When we did the auction, didn't matter who were bears, who were leather dykes, who were married s/m people, trans, didn't matter, we were putting something together as a group that was important to us. The bears might be at the meeting on Weds night for this and be at a bar hosting bear night the next night. There is context to community, and sometimes it is nice to be around people like yourself, or seek out others like yourself, to share things unique to that group. It isn't ghettoization, the OP could be part of another thread where people from all stripes are commenting on the best home made toys *shrug*

 

[IrisAlthea]

I don't, actually.

I don't like being squashed up against people that I have nothing in common with, simply by the pressure outside of the umbrella. I don't like the way hetero D/s mimics your standard everyday misogyny/misandry and I am profoundly uncomfortable witnessing it. I like to avoid those spaces. I don't want men-- trans OR cis-- in my lesbian spaces, and my gay friends should not have to have women in their all male spaces.

There are flavors that simply don't go well together.

But there you go. All of us who are non-norm get shoved under that one umbrella. And this forum is that umbrella.

I kinda think that we should all have the right to hold up the smaller umbrellas UNDER the great big one that separates all of the non-normative from the privileged norm. But that would be on a different website.

No, you don't get what I mean. It's a bit annoying when people demonstrate that they haven't read the words I wrote, in the order I wrote them.

I always think of the Sting song, very pretty and more accurate for the topic.

I'm sorry. Reading it again in a different mood, you're right. I did miss your point and as for the Sting song - yes, very accurate.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'm sorry. Reading it again in a different mood, you're right. I did miss your point and as for the Sting song - yes, very accurate.

I appreciate that.