Spokewench

Well, well, well.  I feeling all pleased with What has feminism done for kink? But in the fetlife group where I posted it, after a bunch of nice compliments I got schooled by Playful Pet.  I am going to take some time to think about this and then I will study this further.  Unfortunately I am pretty embroiled in school and completely broke so nothing involving books is happening for the next few months.  😉  She gave me permission to repost what she said here.  It’s really interesting and you should read it.

With all due respect, please read up on The Feminist Sex Wars, also known as the Lesbian Sex Wars.

Those original Consent Arguements were written and argued by LESBIANS, more often then not Feminists. Lesbians, actually Leatherdykes, were the first women to open women owned and operated sex stores specifically designed for women, they were the first women ever to create lesbian porn by women, for women, known as On Our Backs. It was the Leatherdykes who came out of the Closet and sounded the Alarm regarding Women and AIDS during the first Wave of the AIDS crises in the eighties early 1990s, it was Leatherdykes that went around creating a Feminism known as Sex Positive Feminism, along with Leatherbykes, a few out straight Leatherwomen, as well as some more mainstream Vanilla women, especially women in the Sex Industry.

It was Leatherdykes that created the very first Safe Sex Campaigns that talked about Women and HIV, this was back in the day when the Feminist Movement was quite Homophobic, and really couldn’t care less about “bad” women, such as lesbians, women in the sex trade, poor women, etc. were starting to die from AIDS and how there was no research, hell, no acknowledgement regarding Women and AIDS at all, being that it was a “homosexual disease,” a “gay mens disease.”

It was Leatherdykes that had the first ever public Women Only SM Play Parties, It was Leatherdykes who went to the feminist coffee houses and readings and bravely stood up in front of thirty to fifty Feminist women and read out stories depicting BDSM, many times facing a whole room of women screaming at them, “betrayer, abuser, criminal, sexual deviant,” and so forth.

There is also something known as Feminist BDSM and Feminist BDSM principals that has been around for almost thirty years. Read the New Bottoming Book by Janet Harding and Dossie Eastman, to get a concise depiction of Feminist BDSM, and it’s counterpart, The New Topping Book. There is the concept of Full Powered Bottom, and Full Powered Submissive, main building blocks of Feminist BDSM, an alternative version of BDSM. Like I said…been around for, Oh, ALMOST THIRTY YEARS.

With respect, it was also, in Canada, Gay Leathermen and Leatherdykes, who fought almost every single legal fight up through the Supreme Court of our Country, which lead to the reality where it is now safe to have public BDSM clubs in our communities, and safe for all the pansexual folks to come out and play. We did this back in the seventies, eighties and nineties, before the Internet, when straight BDSMers simply, as a whole community refused to Come Out and fight the legal Fights.

Leatherdykes and Leatherbykes have been Leaders in creating and discussing alternative versions of BDSM, FeminisM & BDSM AND Sex Positive Feminism for almost FORTY years now.

So with all due respect, when you’re talking about “What Feminists have Done for BDSM,” you might want to stop trying to make Mainstream anti porn Feminism look like it is somehow currently and has been in the past, friends of Leatherwomen, and go over the Lesbian History Group, or the Old Guard Group, or hell, even the Leatherdyke threads and say a much, much too late “thank you,” to all of us, who literally got our asses kicked, got shunned from our communities, got thrown out of Feminist communties and groups, face hatred by mainstream feminism, real serious hatred and predjudice, so that all women into BDSM ALL women, of ALL sexual orienations, and ALL women in general, would have an Alternative version of female sexuality, represented to them, one that was rooted in Woman as Sexual Agent instead of Woman as Sexual Victim.

Oh, and by the way, all those silly dildoes you see in your stores shaped liked dolphins, and rabbits, and goddessess and the such? It was Leatherdykes, who taught themselves how to make silicone dildoes, and then went, in their basements many a time, exploring how to create dildoes and other sex toys that didn’t look like male genitalia, in order to help ALL women explore their sexuality more fully, and not feel threatened or frightened by such things as “dildoes.” Or have to face the shaming arguement that you we’re “aping the patriarchy,” and ‘supporting men,” if you dared to stick something up your cunt for masturbation purposes, or desired to fuck your guy or girl in the ass.

Without out the very real blood sweat and tears of the first Leatherdykes who dared to take on Andrea Dworking and her like of Anti Porn Feminists, communities such as Fetlife, both online and offline, would not exist today. Nor would women owned sex stores for women, nor would masturbation workshops, and women created porn, etc. Please, whether your friends with homosexual women or not, acknowledge and show respect to the lesbian and bisexual Leatherwomen who sacrificed and fought so deep, so hard and at times, so angrily, so demandingly, so danm OFFENSIVELY, for the right of all women to define their sexuality and sexual experiences for themselves, by themselves, instead of having a bunch of Pro Censorship and Anti Porn Mainstream Feminists define their sexuality and sexual experiences FOR them.

Thank You and In Sisterhood, Playful Pet

Proud Baby Sister of 1980s/early 1990s Leatherdykes, The original Sex Positive Feminists, and writers of the Original BDSM Consent Arguements.

Then someone challenged her further and she said,

The writer of the thread seems to want to equate all Feminism as being Pro BDSM, Pro Porn, and helpful to BDSM, when the truth is, much Feminist Theory and Sexual Analyses, historically and even today, has been anything BUT friendly to BDSM. Sex Positive Feminism, which Leatherdykes and a few other women, created in response to Anti POrn and Mainstream Feminism HAS been extremely instruemental, and I’ve listed all sorts of examples of that, and simply pointing out that it was not simply Lesbians, that Leatherdykes who were at the forefront of all of this.

Considering that we’ve just gotten the most extreme anti porn laws ever, brought into Britain, which are extremely detrimental to the BDSM community there, as they basically make even taking pictures of your OWN bruises and showing them online a criminal offense, with jail time, and that many a mainstream Feminist Organization helped get these laws in place, I think it’s simply unwise, sending a message that Feminism, in general has been Pro BDSM, when in fact, it has not.

It is also wise, to give credit where credit is due, to make sure that the women whose lives and relationships were deeply affected by the impact of coming out as Leatherdykes and fighting the Anti Porn Feminists, be acknowledged. And that all they gave to us, including a New Brand of Feminism, be acknowledge. Saying they are “all feminists,” erases and makes invisible not just that they were Lesbian Feminists but that they were also Leatherdykes, and some Leatherdykes who weren’t particularly Feminist as well. Our history and our visibility within the larger Feminist History and Womens History is important to us.

And so I was just making sure that it WAS visible. Generally when one says, “Feminist,” it’s heterosexual feminst histories or perspectives that are acknowledged, white, middle class, able bodied, heterosexual feminist histories. Thus it’s not okay to erase the “Lesbian” or the “Leatherdyke” from this history, as it pretty much then returns us to Invisbility status. smile There is such a thing as “revising history,” to erase those deeds or activities that make your own group look bad in the eyes of those reading the history books. Mainstream Feminism and Anti Porn, sometimes known as Anti Sex Feminism, has caused all sorts of women, especially Leatherwomen and lesbians all sorts of harm. It’s not okay to erase that or even imply that this kind of harm has never happened.

And furthermore

Sadly, there has been alot of revising and full out erasing of the 80s and 90s years of Feminist History, especially where the Sex Wars are concerned, it seems, at least in Canada. That also takes out all the politics of the Pride Movement, which is a cultural movement, separate but connected to the Human Rights Legal Movement. For a really good description of Pride MOvements in General, I recommend http://www.disabledandproud.com which discusses both Black Pride and LGBT Pride Movements in its discussion of the fledgling Disability Pride Movement which is in its Baby Steps of Creation.

Regarding Feminsm and BDSM, again, for some strange reason, there’s been almost a complete erasure of it from the Internet, but there’s a Great Leathercrip by the name of Trinity (I personally coined the term “Leathercrip,” in order to bring issues of sex, disability and lgbt pride issues together, and those of us trying to be a “second wave,” so to speak of Freedom of Sexual Choice Warriors who happened to be people with disabilities, mostly women with disabilities actually.) Anyways, Trinity like me, is feeling pretty burned out these days, but she has a great Web Site, Let Them Eat Pro SM Feminist Space which is GREAT for intellectual and academic arguements. I’m not an Academic Feminist myself, more of a Street Feminist. I also have a blog, which has other writers on it as well, on Sex and Disability called SexAbility It’s waaaay less academic, and when I share, it’s much more emotional, raw, and well, “street level,” I wouldn’t have a chance of holding my own academically the way Trinity does. I discuss alot of BDSM, Feminism, Sex Wars, etc. related topics on that at times as well. I’ve been taking some time off writing on it, as of late, because I’ve just felt so burned out, trying to keep the memory alive, and doing my part to fight this second wave that is rising, with the focus being on Internet Porn, but, as always, they use alot of the BDSM websites, and gay porn especially, to make their points that it’s dangerous to women and children.

Lesbian Sex Wars by Emma Heally

Lesbian Sex Scandals Quite “heady” this one is, very academic, but interesting if you can wade through it.

Coming to Power THIS is a classic, and every Leatherwoman entering into BDSM, regardless of sexual orientation should read it, simply because it’s part of Leatherwomen History. I haven’t read it myself, because it was out of print for a long time, and I’m thrilled to see that I might be able to buy it online! SQUEAL of excitement LOL

I am by NO WAY an ‘expert,” at all on this period, being that I was coming out gay and growing up during it. You could say my memories and perspective is that of a “Civilian,” during the war, and because I have been poor and struggled with disabilities most of my adult life, therefor living on the margins of society both lesbian and straight, until recently, I guess in my experience, those “wars” never really ended. Certainly, as I say, not with whats happening over in Britain, which, should be of special concern to Canadian Leather Folks as we’re currently negotiating to get into the European Union, not simply free trade, but equalizing some of our laws, etc. as well, so we can all work over there and them over here.

Here’s some info on that:

Englands Extreme Porn Laws and BDSM

Feminists Against Censorship

Surviving the Extreme Porn Law

SCOTLAND: Jail for Downloading extreme sex images