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A seriously steamed dominant female (and manifestly not “femdom”) Bitchy Jones of Bitchy Jones’s Diary explains why she shouldn’t have to explain why the BDSM practice of “forced fem,” the practice of giving men jollies by making them adopt “humiliatingly” feminine clothing or behavior is not like (as a commenter of hers evidently keeps insisting) like a Jewish person getting off on role-playing Nazi victimization.

Who has the power outside the bedroom is relevant. Taking something that oppresses you in daily life and making it your sexual power source is a valid and often useful thing to do. And hot. Taking something you use to oppress other people and then making some parody of it to stroke off some ideas you have that wouldn’t it be dirty to be a slutty women, ain’t the same thing. That’s why I can say it isn’t okay and not be oppressing the way some oppressed groups make sexual fantasies of their oppression.

It is a different thing.

Look, you know that bit in the America version [of] the office where Steve Carrell’s character takes off a Chris Rock routine and it’s horrifying? That’s the same thing. Rock takes some language and ideas that oppress the group he comes from in real life, and makes them funny. Carrell takes some ideas that oppress a group that he has power over in real life and that makes it horrifying. That’s the difference.

And that’s not even getting started on forced fem’s prevalence in femdom enforcing shitty little ideas about femininity and submission being, like, what, fucking interchangeable, or something. Just stop. Really. If everything we do in femdom equates the ideas that femininity is what submission really is and dominance requires a cock and no emotional engagement, femdom will never stop being a joke, a sickness, a wrong, wrong thing.

Read the quote in context here.

Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with getting your own jollies by indulging or even sharing your partner’s fantasies. Just don’t confuse that with either dominance or sadism. And for crying out loud don’t assume that’s what dominant women are “supposed” to want to do.

As I’ve mentioned in the past I think dominant women like BJ, and submissive men like Maymay, are even closer to the cutting edge of gender-awareness on this particular gender issue than mainstream or even radical feminism because they face erasure from all directions.

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Update: Two other points:

- One common assumption (that also drives BJ nuts) is that heterosexual “femdoms” hate men. But what assumptions should we make about men who think being forced to act feminine is to be (erotically!) humiliated?

- It’s unusual (not to mention redundant) to say “she’s a woman doctor” or, going further back, “she’s doctoress” because “she’s a doctor” is sufficient. So what does it say about gender entrenchment that we say things like “He’s a male submissive” or “she’s a female dominant?”

Photo by Flickr user sicoactiva. Used under a Creative Commons license.

JR of SilkenVoice echos Bitchy Jones and other independently sexual women who look at the world in one more Onion-style ‘Cosmopolitan’ Institute Completes Decades-Long Study On How To Please Your Man** way to please one’s male partner. (See, especially, the exchange in the last few seconds of that video.)

Recently I overheard a conversation between two women with whom I am acquainted, a conversation that ended with: “....and he forgot to take out the garbage two weeks in a row! So that’s it. No sex for a week.” I shook my head. I said. “Oh, I’d handle that very differently.” She said “Oh?” I said “Yes,” and then waited. She took the bait. She said, “What would Kay do?” I grinned and said, “I’d tell him we were going to have sex morning and night every day for two weeks.” “That’s not a punishment!” she exclaimed. “Really?” I said and arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t say he could cum.” That shocked her speechless. Hee hee. She said it here.

Yup. Even if it was a good idea to sexualize punishment why on earth pick the method that most thoroughly cements every conventional gender stereotype in the book? And definitely if one was going to use sex for punishment why punish one’s self as well as one’s partner?

[** Onion link va Dr. Petra Boynton. —fl]