Author Archives: slide

Blurred Lines

3 Replies

I’ve been meaning to address this for ages, but it deserves more time and energy than I’ve had recently. The media has focused on porn’s relationship with rape for several months now, and grandstanding politicians have taken turns to spurt unresearched rhetoric about how access to any porn turns ordinary boys into sexual predators and girls into wanton sluts. Anti-porn feminists have long claimed that all porn is rape, and the current debate about “rape porn” has escalated into David Cameron proposing a block on all internet porn.

There are a whole load of reasons why an opt-out filter is potentially disastrous, not just for open discussion about sexuality and consent, but also for freedom of speech and access to information on the internet in a wider context. For instance, in 2011 the City of London police classified Occupy and UK Uncut activists as “terrorists”, just as the FBI have. Potentially, by this logic, websites that authorities consider to be politically dissenting voices could simply be blocked by default. Filters are far from discerning either. Many have highlighted the dangers of non-porn LGBTQ and sex education sites being blocked en-masse, further limiting young people’s access to sensible, responsible information about the issues that they often (wrongly) look to porn to provide answers to in the first place.

As for what is termed “rape porn”, we aren’t talking about actual filmed rape, or anything that purports to be so. This is already illegal, just as it should be. What the proposed ban refers to is simulated “rape” – consensual non-consent play, something previously discussed by the excellent Emily Rose. By law, pornographers already have to jump through hoops to prove that participants are fully consenting adults. When people speak of “rape porn”, they are not talking about actual rape. They are talking about filmed BDSM scenes that, despite depicting seemingly forceful sex, are explicitly consensual.

Of course, the porn industry still has a long way to go. Practices should be as ethical as possible, but ironically it’s BDSM pornographers that are at the forefront of promoting enthusiastic consent, despite their work also being most demonised by anti-porn campaigners. I will post more on this subject soon, as it’s an ongoing story which is due to progress significantly in the near future with respect to proposed laws and possible challenges to them (also it’s currently 2:35am and I should probably go to bed now).

In the meantime, donate to Backlash if you can. Their work on the above is more important right now than you might imagine.

bl_slogo

History of the Dominatrix

2 Replies

An intriguing book, “The History and Arts of the Dominatrix” by Anne O Nomis, is due for release in December:

“…Nomis traces artifacts depicting a Dominatrix Goddess, and clay tablets in cuneiform writing which record gender transformation ceremonies, punishment, pain and ecstasy. The Dominatrix rituals were conducted in honour of the powerful Goddess Inanna in Mesopotamia, who had a mysterious ‘keppu’ implement used in her game of domination. In the later Mediterranean, young men would be whipped before the Goddess Artemis Orthia in Sparta, and initiation rites of the ‘Mysteries’ at Pompeii include a Dominatrix priestess figure with a whip.

In the 17th – 19th Centuries, ‘forbidden books’ reveal information on the women who ran flagellation establishments in England. From early flagellation brothel ‘Whipstresses’, to famous courtesan ‘Birch Disciplinarians’ and to the ‘Governesses’ of the golden age, the occupational craft was to develop with elaborate tools and equipment, paired with refined skills and knowledge. The female flagellants were savvy erotic entrepreneurs of their era, whose clientele included the elite of British aristocracy, politicians, and yes – even royalty!

The bizarre fetish style and ‘Dominatrix’ title came about in the 20th Century, an era of discreet whispers and advertising consisting of little cards in tobacconist windows in Soho. With pseudonymous names and disappearing acts common, this book traces some of the Dominatrices whose stiletto footprints would otherwise have been lost to the sands of time. From black-and-white and sepia images, dog-eared early colour photographs, polaroids, and fetish magazine scans of long-lost images, the story recovers some of the Dominatrices who worked in the ‘bizarre underground’ of New York, London, The Hague and the Herbertstrasse. Lastly, the book addresses what kind of a woman becomes a Dominatrix, how she practices her craft, and discusses her ‘Seven Realm Arts’…”

More about the book and its author here.

Flagellation_print_from_Library_of_Congress_Washington_DC_medium