MTSR 4.5: Dealing With Disclosure (RE: BDSM and Abuse)

I had the pleasure of checking out a new blog for the first time the other day and was gratified to see that the first post I came across was an advice piece, discussing what you could do if someone you know is being abused in a BDSM context. The author described what he would do, and has done, as a response to a disclosure. The gist of it seemed to me to be that he would get a written record of the events, verify that it can legally be classified as abuse, check to see if any other people have claimed that this person has assaulted or abused them, and if so, whether or not they have pressed charges against him or her. If he could find corroboration for the victim’s claims that they have been abused, then publicly (within his local scene) he would state his concerns about this person’s potentially abusive behaviour.

 The goal, as far as I can tell, is to keep people in your kinky community safe from potentially abusive behaviour, and to ensure that no one is unwittingly exposed to someone that you know has been abusive in the past. I am, of course, all in favour of not tolerating abusive behaviour, and of not hiding or protecting people who behave in this completely unacceptable fashion. You can find the original post here: 

It has me mightily conflicted. In fact, it had me thinking pretty hard about whether or not I want to reply at all. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am far too fond of the sound of my own voice, and the look of my own written words, so clearly the impulse to stay mum on the subject has been overruled! Here’s why the choice was a tricky one, though:

             

   I am glad that someone is discussing “breaking the silence” when it comes to abusive situations in BDSM relationships.  (I won’t get into what constitutes abuse in a BDSM context here, but if you’d like to see my opinion, feel free to take a gander at my post on the matter) The absolute WORST thing that we as a kinky community can do is to pretend that abuse just doesn’t ever happen here. I am glad that this post is up, and hope that it gets people thinking about what we can do to make sure that we have zero tolerance for abuse in our midst.

That being said, if someone in my local area disclosed to me that they felt that they were being abused in their current BDSM relationship, I would do none of the things listed in the post above. Not. A. One.  Now, I’m not saying that what I would do is the “right” thing, and I’m certainly not saying that the approach detailed in this post is wrong.  Not by a long shot. What I think I can do, though, is to offer my perspective as a woman, a feminist, a switch, and someone with a background in sexual assault and domestic violence activism and crisis intervention.

        

        Author’s note: During the course of this article, I will be using the feminine pronoun to refer to the person disclosing during the rest of this post. This is not because I think that men cannot be victims of abuse. It is mostly for ease of communication, and partly because statistically speaking, women are five times more likely to be a victim of dating violence or sexual assault than men are. I will be using the masculine pronoun for the abuser. Again, while statistics are on my side, (98% in this case!) I don’t discount that women can also be abusers. Consider this a single example, not a generalization,  if you would be so kind.

           

                     My personal  philosophy, when hearing a disclosure of assault or abuse, is not to question whether or not they are lying, or whether or not it is legally classifiable as abuse.  If someone is choosing to tell me about their experience, I choose to take her account at face value. Chances are good that I am the first person that she has told, and undoubtedly my reaction will affect how or if she chooses to disclose to other people. I have the luxury of not being in any way shape or form involved in the criminal justice system. I don’t need any corroborating evidence, I don’t need to decide whether her treatment is harassment (a civil rights violation) or assault (a criminal offense). Because I am free of all that, I can simply be someone who will listen—really listen— to her. If I do nothing else but I’m able to convey to her the messages “I believe you,” and “it’s not your fault,” then I will have done enough.  If you think those things are self-evident, then consider how many times you’ve heard statements like “she’s just mad because he dumped her, so she’s lying about him to get even.” Or “If things were so bad, why didn’t she just leave?” or “if she hadn’t gotten drunk, or worn those clothes, then she wouldn’t have gotten raped.” We live in a culture of victim blaming, and slut shaming, and that isn’t even ACCOUNTING for the stigma that people who practice BDSM face from society at large and law enforcement in particular.

          

      I have mentioned that I’m a switch. As a switch, I have my “toppy” moments, and especially in those moments I’m not immune to what I like to call “White Knight-itis.” I’ve had impulses that have ranged from wanting to show up on his doorstep with a baseball bat, through whisking her away right then and there to somewhere he can never find her or hurt her, to shouting his name from every kinky rooftop I can find so that no one falls for his shit ever again. In other words, I’ve wanted to sweep in, take control, and save the day. It’s very, very tempting, but I never do.

           

     You see, abuse is all about power. Not the delightful game of power exchange, freely offered and respectfully taken, but about forcibly and non-consensually changing the situation until the abuser has all the power and the abused has none. And for her to begin to really, truly heal, she needs to wrest that power back. That doesn’t come from my swooping in and saving the day.  That comes from her swooping in and saving her own day.

 With this in mind I deliberately push all white-knightly impulses away and instead I create an empowering environment for her to work in. I will help her determine what her options are, but I deliberately do not offer an opinion about which option she should take. The ONLY time that I will break that rule I set for myself is if she or someone else is in imminent, serious danger, if I think that she will seriously hurt herself, or if this situation is actively endangering a child. Those are deal breakers and I will intervene if she won’t take definitive action. Period. Fortunately I haven’t yet encountered any of those situations. I’m up-front about the fact that those are my exceptions, though— my “hard limits,” so to speak.

If she is considering reporting the abuse to the police, I will try and help her understand what the process will be like, and what she will have to do. If she think that it is important for members of the local community to be warned about his behaviour (especially likely if she knows that he has hurt others), then I will help her come up with a plan of action. The key, for me, is to show her that she has options, and choices, and to help empower her to take the actions that she feels are the right ones for her at that particular point in time. As much as good tops can seem psychic at times, no one will ever know what is right for her better than she does. And as much as I can feel concerned about others who might fall prey to the same thing, this is not my story to share, and at this particular moment, the person who is most important is the person I’m talking to. I choose not to take any steps to protect others at the expense of taking away what precious little power she feels she has left.

That being said, I’m not a robot, and I can’t promise not to actively cheer (with virtual pom-poms) if she decides to take steps to make sure the bastard is locked up or banned from of ClubKinkyHawtSexiness for life! The key word, though, is choose. She has to choose it. This is her story, and her battle, and I will not fight it for her. That is *my* choice, and it’s a personal one. If someone discloses to you, then you will have to make your own choices about how to handle it, but hopefully I’ve helped you see that there are more ways than one for you to do so.

Mad the Safety Ranger Out.

MTSR #4: Know The Difference -- BDSM vs. Abuse

 I was given an opportunity a few months ago to attend a week-long set of online seminars on domestic violence and abuse in the Leather/BDSM/Kinky/Fetish (I'm just going to use BDSM from now on, for short) community. What I heard there persuaded me to change somewhat the focus of this article. Most people attending were able to describe different types of abuse, and how they might manifest in a relationship. But a surprising number seemed to think that there was a very fine line between consensual power exchange and abuse, and many were unsure and/or unwilling to say even generally where that line was. I heard things like “something that would be seen as heavy abuse in a vanilla relationship could be just mild abuse in a BDSM one” and “but if someone has already agreed to submit to a dom, then it's not really abuse at all, is it?” Seriously? Mild abuse? Is that like “mostly dead” or “a little bit pregnant?”

Abuse can be present in any relationship, and the BDSM community is not magically immune to it. Men can be abused by their girlfriends and wives, tops can be abused by their bottoms, and vanilla folks can abuse their partners, too. Originally, that was going to be my focus, a slightly-tongue-in-cheek look at whether it might be better after all to pull a “Mysteriously Vanishing Mad” (named after me and my tendency to fall off the edge of the cyber-Earth from time to time.)

Instead, I want to take a bit of a look at some specific types of abuse and how consensual power exchange can resemble it, and then a look at how they're really not the same thing at all! I will call this section “Good Top / Bad Top” and will do my very best not to go too Dr. Seuss on you while doing it.

Abuse can take many forms, including physically striking, threats, namecalling, isolating and controlling. Oh, but wait a minute, I've done all of those things, and had them done to me, and wow- that was just a damn good kinky time! And lemme tell you something else, those damn good kinky times that I was talking about? Not abuse. So does that mean that as long as the people involved have already consented to power exchange in their relationship, nothing that they do to each other can actually be considered abuse? Don't be silly, if that were the case, I wouldn't need my “Bad Top” section, now would I?

Good Top/ Bad Top

Let's take a look at the different types of abuse,(Physical, Verbal/Emotional, Sexual, Neglect/Isolation, Financial and Spiritual) and then I'll try and give an example of how a healthy BDSM relationship can sometimes look like this on the outside but still be abuse free, and what a truly abusive similar situation might look like.

Physical Abuse:

Good Top, or GT, as I like to call him, is aware of his bottom's reactions and tolerances to pain, or is working slowly to discover them. He might push toward those limits but if so, is mindful of his bottom's reactions to that pushing, and is willing to stop if those start to become negative. He trusts his bottom to let him know, via safeword or some other means of communication, if she needs to stop play. He provides after care in a mutually decided upon manner, from water and cuddles and talk time, to a more formal chat later on, whichever style suits both people involved.

Bad Top, forevermore known as BT, might hurt to harm or to punish. He might hurt because he thrives off seeing his bottom in pain, or it might be just that he doesn't give any care or credence to his bottom's limits or feelings. BT has been known to dismiss his bottom as being a whiny baby or a just plain bad slave if she tells him that she is not enjoying or doesn't consent to his style of pain “play.” It's not uncommon for him to convince her that if she decided to complain to anyone in the BDSM community, she would never be able to get another top because she'd be labelled a “bad submissive.”

Verbal/Emotional Abuse:

GT is keyed in to how a bit of embarrassment can turn into huge amounts of hawtness for both her and her lucky bottom. (No kidding! Do you remember that night with the doggie collar and “bad dog” written on his side in grease pencil, dayum sexy! But I digress). She also knows that name-calling and humiliation play are tricky business, and she treats them with care. Because she and her bottom have open lines of communication, she is careful to try and pick scenarios that cause both embarrassment and arousal to her bottom, not ones that belittle his sense of self. The goal of the play (besides getting them both all sweaty and horny) is to build, not tear down, the bottom's self-esteem. Now, GT isn't psychic, and occasionally she might go too far, or get it wrong, but she trusts her bottom enough to ask him often for feedback when in a neutral and non-judgemental position, and to continue to keep his best interests in mind.

BT wants her bottom to feel emotionally dependent on her. To do this, she attacks the things he feels are most important to him, belittling and dismissing him. He is most definitely not turned on by this, but she might be too keyed in to her own arousal to notice. She doesn't care to get his feedback on the scene, or if she does, she doesn't think that it should affect the way she “plays.” Her bottom's sense of self and self-esteem continue to free-fall throughout the relationship, and she might even like that, since it gives her even more control over him.

Sexual Abuse

This one's a tough one. A lot of TPE (Total Power Exchange) relationships include some type of idea that the top can initiate sex with the bottom even if the bottom “isn't in the mood.” A lot of times, both partners find this thought very sexy (very VERY sexy!), but does that mean that sexual assault can't happen in a TPE relationship? This is another case where we can't just look at the act itself, but we have to look at the reasons behind it. In this case, what is the reason for the bottom to submit to the sexual advances if she's not in the mood? GT's bottom freely submits, and chooses to, knowing that she has the power to end the play at any time but chooses not to. BT can't get that type of submission because it's never freely given. He might impose himself on her through physical force, or simply through fear that if she doesn't comply something horrible (and nonconsensual) will happen to her, ranging from him leaving her forever, to killing her or someone she cares about. Kind of lacks the finesse of power exchange, doesn't it? More like power I'll take what you won't give me by force thankyouverymuch.

Neglect/Isolation

There's a huge difference between telling your bottom that he can't go to the movies with his buddies tonight because he still hadn't finished his list of chores you gave him, and telling him he can't answer his sister's panicked phone message that she thinks she's having a miscarriage. Top and bottom can negotiate how much control the top has in the bottom's life, but GT's bottom trusts that his top will keep his best interests and priorities in mind.

GT wants a relationship with a happy, healthy, sane and well-adjusted bottom, and knows how important a support structure of family and friends are to maintain that. She would never demand that he abandon them completely, (though she might curb his tendency to be at Cousin Bertie's beck and call, who makes her bottom so mad he pukes for hours after talking to him.)

BT knows that the more isolated and alone her bottom is, the more he will be completely dependent on her. She will be continually trying to find ways to keep family and friends away from him.

Financial Abuse

BT has complete control over the finances in the relationship. He makes her hand over all her paycheques and not a cent gets spent without his approval. If his bottom can't even get bus fare without his approval, how can she ever leave him, right?

GT might have a (consented-to) agreement that says the exact same thing: the Top controls all the finances in the relationship. In reality, though, the money remains accessible by both members of the relationship, and it is up to the bottom to choose to only do with it what her top decides. It then becomes up to GT to make sure that the money gets used in a responsible manner, that bills get paid and the bottom's well-being is being looked after, and any remaining funds (originating from the bottom) are put into a savings for the bottom or some other agreed-upon fund, not the top's pocket to spend on a shiny new leather jacket.

Spiritual Abuse

BT might attack or belittle her bottom's spiritual beliefs, or insist that he follow her own church or even a cult. This is way not cool.

GT doesn't even go near that shit. A person's spirituality is part of their core system of beliefs and is not open to negotiation. Nope, never. (Did I remember to say that is way not cool?)

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I hope this helps clear a little of the mystery away between what is abuse and what is just us kinky folk being kinky. To me, there really isn't any type of fine line, the difference is there, and it's huge. Like, pink elephant in the room huge. You might have noticed a common theme present in all the “Good Top” examples that was markedly lacking in the Bad Top's. It's all about three things: respect, trust, and communication, and if those babies aren't there, then your BDSM relationship is in the toilet anyway. Sorry to have had to be the one to break it to ya.

If you feel that you are in an abusive relationship, (and keep in mind that you are the only one who can tell this, no one else can tell you for you) then there are people who are there for you and who can help. In Canada, shelternet.ca is a great place to start, and if you're in the states, the National Leather Association's Domestic Violence Program has a fantastic amount of resources available to help you. Remember, abuse is against the law.