17. Sex For Sale (BDSM Guest Lecture) Flashcards
Fetish
an unusually strong liking or need for a particular object or activity, as a way of getting sexual pleasure
Differs from kink
Kink
use of non-conventional sexual practices, concepts, or fantasies
- NOT required for sexual gratification (ie: BDSM)
Perversion
deviates from considered “orthodox” or “normal”
- Similar to a taboo
- Culturally defined → normal often changes as culture changes
Core of BDSM
movement of energy from power; eroticism of power dynamics
Dominance
- Holding someone in narrow scope of your attention → allowing rest of world to fall away
- Empathy: ability to look ****outward, to see and move someone
Submission
- Intimacy: allowing self to be seen, vulnerable state, ability to look inward
eroticism
Interplay of seeing and being seen
Intrinsic
deeply rooted inside the personal history of the individual
- ie: trait, personality, etc.
- “I’ve always been this way”
Extrinsic
influenced by factors outside of the individual
- Learned behaviour through reward
Who decides normal? 3 misconceptions:
- Pathology / mental illness
a. Repressed trauma, “daddy issues”
b. Only broken or sick individuals come across this lifestyle - BDSM is the same for everyone
a. Master-slave contract can be 50 pages
b. Based on individual desires - Rage, violence, and violation
a. Not psychologically or physically harmful
how many deviations from normal intelligence
10
First safe word of all time
mercy -> ancient sumerian goddess Inanna
acceptable
female dom
- typically male
reputable source of empowerment
acceptable with side-eye
male dom
- healthy display of masculinity
questionable
female sub
- contibuting to female passivity
- survival response to cultural shame
- assumption is that she doesn’t know the difference between consent and abuse
Most questionable
Male Submissive
- feminine, weak
- Lowering himself to feminine qualities
- “only doing it because they are usually in a position of power”
3 Reasons Why of engaging in this behaviour:
- Use of interpersonal power
- Experience physical pain as pleasure
- Altering one’s state of mind
state of minds doms and subs enter
- Doms enter a **flow state**
- Usually comes from intense mental focus
- Synonymous with a runner’s high
- Subs enter a ******transient hypo-frontality******
- Reduction in activity in prefrontal cortex → distortion of time, not feeling as much pain, like you were floating
True potential of power
exchange of power
BDSM as Trauma Play
- Predictability in negotiation
- Rewiring trauma
- Aftercare and repair
relational cultural theory
BDSM provides opportunity for mutuality of human growth and fosters connection. trance and flow is found through our interactions with others
Three Feminist perspectives to sex work:
- Expression of patriarchal culture
(radical)
a. women are commodified and exploited and pornography is inherently violent
b. women are debased - Respect for free speech, and women’s
rights to choose what they will do with
their bodies (liberal)
a. soliciting for sex - Porn and sex work has benefits for women;
sexual freedom (pro-sex, sex-positive)
etymology of pornography
comes from the Greek word porneia (prostitution) and graphos (writing)
Obscenity
any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex
- Illegal
Community standards of tolerance test (defines obscene)
Not what Canadians themselves accept, but what they would accept for others to see
Involves exploitation and harm of somebody else
Erotica
sex that is not violent and neither degrading nor dehumanizing
- Generally accepted UNLESS it involves children
R v. Butler
ruled in 1992 that sexually explicit material depicting adults engaging in consensual sexual activity that does not depict violence and is not degrading or dehumanizing is not obscene
3 categories of sex
- explicit with violence
- explicit without violence but people are treated in a degrading or dehumanizing way
- explicit that is neither violent nor dehumanizing
Top 4 countries by traffic for pornhub
USA, Japan, UK, Canada
exposure to porn By age 17:
93% of boys
62% of girls
between 13-17
66% of boys and 39% of girls have seen at least one form of pornography in the past year
UNCOMMON BEFORE 13
Adults Report using pornography:
87% of men 31% of women
11% FREQUENT (ONCE A WEEK OR MORE)
% of users that develop an addiction
1
Socio-Cultural criticism
belief that sex is a private matter, shared between two people in a committed, loving relationship
- pornography is not an expression of healthy sexuality
- profound misogyny; reflects and promotes male dominance