Photo by Flickr user perplemaggie. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Appropos the previous post, if it’s not irrelevant that we’re drawn to or distanced by partners of a certain gender, or roles higher or lower on a power gradient, or height, or age, or ethnicity, or social standing, it should be irrelevant when they’re not our partners.
In other words you can look at (using some of DevastatingYet’s examples) whether the sub who breaks down is male or female, or whether the 24/7 dom who cuts a sub with a kitchen knife (!) is male or female; or whether, as Calico notes in comments to that post, whether a sub who’s forbidden to speak is male or female or, by extention, much older or younger than the dom; or whether, as Sex Geek puts it, “forced feminization” of a male partner is just hot or highly gender-problematic; or when, as Eurosabra put it in a comment, it’s a coincidence or a problem that on an “SM-“lair” in his area “which advertises itself as ‘invite only’ on one of the public boards, the guys only want to do SM pick-up with wingmen who are already somewhat relaxed, stylish, and socially adept.” And looking at those you can draw conclusions about whether or not they’re relevant if it’s not your relationship. And if it does seem relevant then what?
The point being that a way to measure how close we are to DY’s ideal, or to measure what needs to be moved to get there, is by how much or how often any of that is relevant.
Submitted by 2097 (not verified) on Sun, 2008-04-20 13:14.
My brain is wrung out from rock climbing but I do not understand this entry. Could you elaborate, please? It may just be that I'm not putting things together right.
[I might have gotten a little too enthusiastic. (Ok, I did get too enthusiastic.) What I'm saying is that in her post DevastatingYet suggested that in an ideal world one's gender preference, or top/bottom preference, or orientation, or race, or whatever wouldn't matter. But in her experience it *does* matter. She gives an example in her post of a female dominant who at some point cut her male partner. DY noted that it would have made a big difference for her had it instead been a male dominant cutting a female submissive. Then in the middle paragraph I point out other events from a set of posts and comments I've been boggling over and point out how *if* gender, race, orientation, etc. wouldn't matter in a really egalitarian society but, since we're *not* in such a society yet *do* matter. And then finally I said that we can use our reactions to the sorts of things in paragraph two to first gauge how close we are to such an ideal society and second to determine to what degree each category needs to be worked on. (And no, I have no idea why I didn't say that the first time.) Thanks, Diatryma. --fl]