Lil asks: “How do you define the differences between abuse and BDSM, and do you think that, on some level, women who end up in abusive relationships were really seeking D/s, but were not aware of it and the massive differences between the two?”
What a great question, lil! Thanks for asking my opinion ~ i hope it inspires you to finish your post on it.
i’ve been pondering the differences between BDSM and abuse as long as i’ve known about the lifestyle. There are so many ways to frame it. Jade took one way in her comment yesterday. She said:
“i think the line between abuse and TTWD can be summed up not in any activity but in two ways. 1. Intent and 2. How you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror afterwards.”
That makes sense, and i agree. It the Top’s intentions aren’t honorable, if the Bottom feels diminished in the morning… those things matter.
Of course, another huge difference is consent. BDSM is consensual, abuse is coerced, pressured, or forced. That doesn’t mean “it’s only abuse if you fight back”. It’s abuse if you’re not consenting. That’s a whole other topic, right? And an important piece to remember.
But i’m going to come at the question from a different angle.
WARNINGS:
1. This post may be a trigger for abuse survivors.
2. i do not know the particulars of your dynamic and am not making any judgements on you, your partner, or your situation. If you’re happy, that’s all that matters.
3. i will try to vary the gender assignments ~ not all offenders are male, not all victims are female. If i slip into the pattern of He/she, i apologize. That is not the reality. Mostly, i’ll use “they” for the offender, even though that’s bad grammar, and “you” or “we” for victims, which makes it more gender neutral.
Ok, here we go.
When i talk with survivors of abuse, particularly sexual abuse, i have little mini-lectures i do. i talk softly and slowly, pausing often to just breathe and let them react. Often, i will tell them something like this:
There are two things about abuse that {i think} make it damaging, that do the most harm. The first one is that the perpetrator always blames the victim for what he’s done. Somehow ~
it might be wearing the wrong pajamas, being in the wrong place, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time ~
~ it might be because they’re too pretty, too sexy, too bad, or even too special.
Somehow, the victim brought it on.
It doesn’t make any difference what the abuser finds to blame it on, they always mange to make it the victim’s fault. The abuser is not in control of their own actions, the victim “made them” do it, it was the victims fault.
And on some level, we tend to believe that. We want to believe that we could have prevented it ~ that if we “had only…” then it wouldn’t have happened.
The reality is we can’t prevent abuse. It can happen no matter how careful we are, no matter what we do, no matter what we look like, no matter where we are…
Abuse happens because we cross paths with an abuser, at a time when we’re vulnerable, for whatever reason.
Ok, so that’s one of the things that does the most harm. That the victim ends up blaming herself or himself. And abusers are really good at convincing us of that, often without us even realizing it.
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As you’re reading this, stop and absorb a minute. If you’re feeling upset or triggered, walk away. Do something that makes you feel good. You can finish later.
But if you’re ready, we’ll go on.
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The other thing that happens when you’re being abused, the second thing that causes a lot of the harm, is that when you’re being abused, it’s not safe to feel your feelings. When we’re being hurt, we tend to “shut down.” “Go away in your head.” Different people call it different things.
Some people talk about actually feeling like they’re outside their body, watching what’s happening like it’s happening to somebody else.
But most of us, when we’re being abused, being hurt, do some kind of shutting down on feelings. Of course – that makes perfect sense. It’s part of what protects us, helps us survive the experience. We do the same thing in childbirth, right? If you have natural childbirth, at some point you just sort of “go away.” It’s too much, and we shut down. That’s why we often don’t remember every minute of what happened.
And that’s a good thing. That’s a way of protecting ourselves.
The problem with that is that after the trauma is over, after we’ve survived, when it would actually be safe to feel those feelings ~ then we don’t want to.
Well, of course we don’t want to. Why would we want to? They’re not exactly pleasant, feel-good feelings, right?
But they’re ours. They belong to us.
And when they’re connected to abuse, they don’t actually go away.
They just get tucked away in a corner of our minds.
And then, at some point, they begin to pop out. When we least expect it, least want them to, they pop back out. Flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts. There they are.
Kind of like pushing leftovers to the back of the refrigerator. They don’t just go away.
{Ok, at this point, i have a long lecture on how avoiding those feelings is what leads to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and why it’s not really a disorder, but a normal reaction to a difficult, painful experience… and then on to the rules we learn about how the world works when we’ve been abused, and lots more, but clearly i am not going to do all that here}
Skipping back to the BDSM and abuse question ~ do you see where i’m going? The two things that cause tremendous harm with abuse are reversed in BDSM.
In TTWD, the Dominant or Master takes full responsibility for His or Her own actions. My Sir spanks me because He wants to, not because i made Him mad, or made Him lose control. Big contrast.
Now, there is that tricky element of us wanting what they’re doing, at some level also. But that’s why we consent, right? So it’s mutual. Another big difference.
AND, there is no doubt that we feel our feelings. For many of us, it’s important to feel them at the time, to stay connected with what’s going on.
For some people, they’re ok with not feeling them at the time, but then quickly claim the feelings afterwards. We talk about them, blog about them, analyze them, tattoo them on our bodies… We are all about sharing the feelings.
There are other differences ~ some of which may be immediately obvious. For example, just being able to talk about what we’re doing and feeling is a tremendous difference. Abuse is secret. TTWD are private, but at least here in the blogosphere, they are not secret!
Enough, and maybe more than enough, for today. i’ll tackle Part II of the question tomorrow.
Tags: BDSM, Dominance, Submission
