The King of a Hundred Hearts: fourloves: charthebutcher: the Palace of Hate: Phrases that...

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The King of a Hundred Hearts: fourloves: charthebutcher: the Palace of Hate: Phrases that...

Hi Char, I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you before but you just became my hero of the Internet. Having to see the “lololol vanilla privilege isn’t real” stuff on my dash (posted by friends I don’t want to unfollow) is one of the reasons I stopped using tumblr.

If I respond to it, it turns into something where I’m portrayed as thinking that oppression for being gay = oppression for being power exchange oriented, hello, I’m gay, I know it’s not the same thing because I have both experiences. Whenever tumblr people complain about the idea of vanilla privilege, they always create this imaginary ~oppressive man (that he’s dominant goes without saying) who is “mad that he can’t call his girlfriend a cunt in public,” and ignore the really obvious ACTUAL stigma and marginalization that exists whether or not you want to call it oppression. I haven’t experienced the level of direct attacks that you have, but I and everyone I’ve been involved with have been strongly affected by the idea that our sexuality makes us a bad or weak person and that we basically have to cut it off ourselves to be happy. This is a problem which can have awful consequences! But I see tumblrites sounding fucking GLEEFUL about making fun of anyone who says they are oppressed or disadvantaged because they’re not vanilla. Why would you want to shit on other people like that?

I hope I didn’t say the opposite of what you think and totally alienate you, because I’ve been waiting for someone to argue with this meme for like…ever…and here you are not even apologizing for it and it’s pretty exciting

And then it goes over to this thebluedream person but I can’t seem to get the quote thing to work on this site today.

I hate to be the one with a dissenting opinion, but speaking as someone who IS kinky this reminds me of the whole concept of sexual privilege, although less heinous. In order for there to be vanilla privilege all vanilla people need to hold privilege, as a group, over kinky people.

This just isn’t the case. Sure, the experiences of a queer kinky woman are going to be more marginalized than that hypothetical man who wants to abuse his girlfriend in public (although let me tell you, he’s not hypothetical, you can find him on any kink site). But she’s a queer woman. The reality is that different kink identities are marginalized based on pre-existing intersections such as homophobia and misogyny, exacerbated by the person sexually expressing themself in a non-normative way.

Where are the consequences for a straight male Dom who expresses his kink? Someone might marginalize him, okay, but his expression is completely in line with patriarchy and even rape culture. Even a straight female sub is performing patriarchy to a large extent (just by the nature of being sexual at all is not as normative as a man). These experiences aren’t comparable to the stigma faced by a queer person who engages in BDSM or even a straight person behaving in a non-normative fashion.

There is stigma for queer people who engage in kink—believe me, I am certainly aware—but this stigma is largely explained as a manifestation of heterosexism and regular sexism. To call it vanilla privilege and then extend this umbrella over ANYONE who engages in kink, including straight men, is just way off the mark of reality.

So. Thank you, fourloves. Asher tells me you are super awesome. I look forward to enjoying your blog.

My response to thebluedream’s whole argument can be summed up, pretty much, with: intersectionality fail.

Yeah, if you deviate from the kyriarchy only along one axis of oppression, you will not catch as much shit as someone who suffers multiple oppressions. Is this really news to you?

(Source: therapsida)