Um. At the risk of being smacked down bigtime here, I'd like to add something into the mix.
Has anybody checked out the site that the brand (Locher's) has? Check it out: http://www.lochers.com/popup/womensgallery1.html
It's a pseudo bdsm t shirt site. My first impression upon seeing the original post was that I bet this was created for the bdsm scene. Sure enough, though whether the shirt is in good taste or not can be debated, y'all should know that there is a 'companion' t shirt showing a man drinking out of a dog food bowl with a full-face latex mask on that reads "Men Should Be Put In Thier Place". Methinks the shirts have less to do about gender and more to do about bdsm.
Now, that doesn't mean that any of the images are necessarily good ones, for the general public. But for bdsm people, they certainly do have a different connotation, so that ought to take us into the realm of actual discourse about this, instead of just being angry that it exists.
Members of the BDSM community should be more, not less, mindful of the pain that genuine sexual torture brings on people. Whoever designed both shirts should be mindful that it will read as rape to most people. Is that reputation really one that they want to cultivate?
Amanda, I agree that folks in the BDSM community should be sensitive to how their conduct impacts people in the wider culture, and to how they are viewed. In that context, I think this shirt is a case not of misogyny but of bad judgment. The shirt's creators may have assumed that it would really only be worn and seen by folks in the scene, but this is not a safe assumption.
But aside from how non-BDSM folks see it, I have another issue wih the shirt. The gender essentialism even among SMers rubs me the wrong way -- just because one is a man/woman and aways wants to top/bottom to a member of the opposite sex, there is no reason to generalize that choice to everyone else.
Jeffrey, I followed the link to the t-shirt store. These folks are not part of the BDSM community, as far as I can tell, and only a few of the shirts are explicitly BDSM-themed. They're just selling T-shirts, most of which are tacky or in poor taste in various ways, and no less patriarchal than is the normal level of discussion of sex in this culture.
I don't think they are entitled to the "only meant for people who would understand" excuse.
Thomas--It seems to me that most of the t-shirts cater to the basic bdsm 'trend' in fasion--that's why I said "pseudo bdsm t shirt site". It's the sort of thing that a straight (in the largest sense) friend of a bdsm'er might give to them as a Chrismas present.
I object to the notion that I was offering up an excuse for the shirts in the form of 'if you're int he club, you'll get it'. I think that some people who are into bdsm see it as part of their identity, and therefore as part of their identity politics. And the t-shirt is a time-honored way of sloganizing one's own politics and identity. I don't think that a bdsm'er who wears any of that stuff needs an excuse.
Amanda--I think that a good deal of the bdsm people I know would agree that they are more in tune with what real torture might be like, if only because they have to draw their own lines more often than most of us. And I think that they should be mindful of what other people will think. But that alone shouldn't stop a person from expressing what I claim (for some in the bdsm scene see as) is something like an identity statment. So yes, they should weigh their desire/need to claim that identity (even if by just a t-shirt in this case) against what other people will think, how others will be affected.
Take the sort of controversial "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts that Planned Parenthood recently began selling. To a good deal of the population in the us, those t-shirts are offensive. Yet the possible positive message (ok, I think it's more than possible, I think it's actual) that they convey outweighs, in a lot of people's minds, the negative feelings they create for other people.
Which is not to say that the feelings that right-wingers feel when seeing such t-shirts are the same, in whatever way, as what women (and men) who have been physically abused might feel when seeing the t-shirts in question--or even simply what women and men who find them offensive feel. Still, I don't think that we can so easily downplay that for some people, this expression is important to their identities, and that their identities are positive and valuable. (I'm of course talking about the bdsm'ers here, not the rednecks misogynists.)
Thomas--I'm not understanding your view that the bdsm'ers have a gender essentialism going on. From the various t-shirts? In general? I mean, I've seen all different genders top and bottom to all different genders...
I didn't mean to come off as anti-BDSM _at_all_. Jeffrey, if you're just saying that the BDSM community shouldn't be required to hide, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I also agree with you that the shirts are pseudo-BDSM -- a view from people looking in from the outside. I certainly don't suggest that folks shouldn't fly the flag as SMers, or that it's bad to express this identity. I was taking issue with the particular shirts, because it's not the image I want out there of BDSM. I also criticize the shirtmakers, because in trying to make a buck off the BDSM community, they're actually creating a problem, and I have no faith that the folks that make these shirts are at all sensitive to that.
My gender-essentialism point may be a little bit inside baseball. Certainly, there are lots of places, especially in the more political areas of the BDSM community, which are pansexual. Hetero and queer folks mix more or less comfortably, as do male dominant/female submissive couples and the reverse. Lots of folks will do SM with people they wouldn't have vanilla sex with, etc. You seem to suggest that you're familiar with that, and I am too.
The BDSM community, nebulous and undefined as it is, is a broad community. Lots of the less-political sectors, websites, discussion boards, etc., at least among the hetero folks, are balkanized into little islands of male dom/female sub or female dom/male sub. That's what irks me, because it can degenerate to something that appears to be disdain. "Men are worthless scum" is not a great slogan for the BDSM community, and the opposite is even worse. I think that's the sentiment that comes through in the shirt that started this thread.
(There are points to be made that bottoming does not equal submission, which really is inside baseball, and that submission does not equal inferiority, which just isn't as obvious to everyone as I wish it was. I don't know if anyone wants to read that, as this blog is not a dedicated BDSM forum.)
I mean to say that the messages on the shirts (Women/Men should be "put in their place") are mutually exclusive -- the shirts are not a matched set meant to be seen together. Either viewed in isolation gives a view of BDSM that one sex tops and the other bottoms. You say, and I agree, that the BDSM community is a lot more diverse.
I'm less troubled by the female dominant strain than the reverse, for reasons that should be obvious. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with a straight guy who is an exclusive top engaging only in scenes where he tops consenting female partners. But there's a big difference between telling the world that one in an SMer, and telling the world that women should be submissive to men. The former is an expression of identity. The latter looks an awful lot like patriarchy. Because SMers are acutely aware of power and consent, the BDSM community ought not to look like patriarchy.
Here it is in a nutshell: Jessica links to Secretary on her page, a movie about a male dominant/female submissive relationship. She saw the shirt and declared its creator an asshole. Something that makes the BDSM community look bad to feminists that have no problem with BDSM is something I'm going to have a problem with.
I appreciate your responses. At the risk of hijacking the discussion (have we already done that? Let me know, y'all, if I should shut it), I'll just say that I think we agree on most of this--that's clear now that you've explained your opinions so well.
I guess where I disagree with you (and others)is because of your take when you say: "But there's a big difference between telling the world that one in an SMer, and telling the world that women should be submissive to men. The former is an expression of identity. The latter looks an awful lot like patriarchy. Because SMers are acutely aware of power and consent, the BDSM community ought not to look like patriarchy."
I agree that there are multiple messages that one can get/give from the t-shirt. I just think that it's wrong to condemn the designer and anybody who wears the thing without context. What looks like patriarchy can cut a very large swath, I think. (Ok, yes, what IS patriarchy also cuts a large swath.) Think of it this way: Hetero BDSM'ers who happen to fall into the male-dom/female-sub category couldn't do ANYTHING that they like to do without somebody thinking that they were simply going through the patriarchal motions. Does that mean they shouldn't persue what they want? Seems like you would agree that it doesn't, given your previous comments. And I think whether or not they are embracing patriarchy (whether wearing a t-shirt or wearing a dog collar) is mostly up to them (with the caveats that they do have to consider the damage they may be doing, etc., that I've already discussed).
I know I'm being long-winded here. Sorry. But that all said, what I was trying to get across originally is that it's possible that the t-shirts aren't OBVIOUSLY AND WITHOUT CONTEXT evil. And to some people they aren't evil at all. I think that not pointing that out, not acknowledging it, is to embrace a sort of sex-negative feminism that I tend to resist. So I'm resistin. :)
(ps--I've been called on my misuse of BDSM terms before--I apologize for the whole top/bottom misuse I'm probably making; I'm not a bdsm'er, I just have friends who are.)
But the thing is that the "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts are pretty straightforward and function, whether you like it or not, to normalize just abortion. These shirts will be read as "rape" and geniune torture to the community at large and therefore mostly will function not to advertise identity for BDSM folks, but to normalize rape.
There are plenty of things you can wear to signal that you are BDSM that don't send ambigious, rape-normalizing messages. Leather cuffs and the like.
I disagree with your take on the Abortion shirts vs. the Put in Place shirts, Amanda. I think that the Put in Place shirts can also be construed as an attempt at normalization--somebody who wears one could be shouting out the message that BDSM attitutdes should be more mainstream, and accepted as normal, in that sense.
Also, I don't agree that the Abortion shirts are that straightforward--lots of people think that women who wear them are trying to normalize murder. Those people are offended (I'm claiming) in the same way that other people here are offended at the BDSMish shirts--they're missing the intended message.
good lord!
xoxo, jared
Another example of "traditional values?"
Um. At the risk of being smacked down bigtime here, I'd like to add something into the mix.
Has anybody checked out the site that the brand (Locher's) has? Check it out:
http://www.lochers.com/popup/womensgallery1.html
It's a pseudo bdsm t shirt site. My first impression upon seeing the original post was that I bet this was created for the bdsm scene. Sure enough, though whether the shirt is in good taste or not can be debated, y'all should know that there is a 'companion' t shirt showing a man drinking out of a dog food bowl with a full-face latex mask on that reads "Men Should Be Put In Thier Place". Methinks the shirts have less to do about gender and more to do about bdsm.
Now, that doesn't mean that any of the images are necessarily good ones, for the general public. But for bdsm people, they certainly do have a different connotation, so that ought to take us into the realm of actual discourse about this, instead of just being angry that it exists.
Thoughts?
Members of the BDSM community should be more, not less, mindful of the pain that genuine sexual torture brings on people. Whoever designed both shirts should be mindful that it will read as rape to most people. Is that reputation really one that they want to cultivate?
Amanda, I agree that folks in the BDSM community should be sensitive to how their conduct impacts people in the wider culture, and to how they are viewed. In that context, I think this shirt is a case not of misogyny but of bad judgment. The shirt's creators may have assumed that it would really only be worn and seen by folks in the scene, but this is not a safe assumption.
But aside from how non-BDSM folks see it, I have another issue wih the shirt. The gender essentialism even among SMers rubs me the wrong way -- just because one is a man/woman and aways wants to top/bottom to a member of the opposite sex, there is no reason to generalize that choice to everyone else.
Jeffrey, I followed the link to the t-shirt store. These folks are not part of the BDSM community, as far as I can tell, and only a few of the shirts are explicitly BDSM-themed. They're just selling T-shirts, most of which are tacky or in poor taste in various ways, and no less patriarchal than is the normal level of discussion of sex in this culture.
I don't think they are entitled to the "only meant for people who would understand" excuse.
Thomas--It seems to me that most of the t-shirts cater to the basic bdsm 'trend' in fasion--that's why I said "pseudo bdsm t shirt site". It's the sort of thing that a straight (in the largest sense) friend of a bdsm'er might give to them as a Chrismas present.
I object to the notion that I was offering up an excuse for the shirts in the form of 'if you're int he club, you'll get it'. I think that some people who are into bdsm see it as part of their identity, and therefore as part of their identity politics. And the t-shirt is a time-honored way of sloganizing one's own politics and identity. I don't think that a bdsm'er who wears any of that stuff needs an excuse.
Amanda--I think that a good deal of the bdsm people I know would agree that they are more in tune with what real torture might be like, if only because they have to draw their own lines more often than most of us. And I think that they should be mindful of what other people will think. But that alone shouldn't stop a person from expressing what I claim (for some in the bdsm scene see as) is something like an identity statment. So yes, they should weigh their desire/need to claim that identity (even if by just a t-shirt in this case) against what other people will think, how others will be affected.
Take the sort of controversial "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts that Planned Parenthood recently began selling. To a good deal of the population in the us, those t-shirts are offensive. Yet the possible positive message (ok, I think it's more than possible, I think it's actual) that they convey outweighs, in a lot of people's minds, the negative feelings they create for other people.
Which is not to say that the feelings that right-wingers feel when seeing such t-shirts are the same, in whatever way, as what women (and men) who have been physically abused might feel when seeing the t-shirts in question--or even simply what women and men who find them offensive feel. Still, I don't think that we can so easily downplay that for some people, this expression is important to their identities, and that their identities are positive and valuable. (I'm of course talking about the bdsm'ers here, not the rednecks misogynists.)
Thomas--I'm not understanding your view that the bdsm'ers have a gender essentialism going on. From the various t-shirts? In general? I mean, I've seen all different genders top and bottom to all different genders...
I didn't mean to come off as anti-BDSM _at_all_. Jeffrey, if you're just saying that the BDSM community shouldn't be required to hide, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I also agree with you that the shirts are pseudo-BDSM -- a view from people looking in from the outside. I certainly don't suggest that folks shouldn't fly the flag as SMers, or that it's bad to express this identity. I was taking issue with the particular shirts, because it's not the image I want out there of BDSM. I also criticize the shirtmakers, because in trying to make a buck off the BDSM community, they're actually creating a problem, and I have no faith that the folks that make these shirts are at all sensitive to that.
My gender-essentialism point may be a little bit inside baseball. Certainly, there are lots of places, especially in the more political areas of the BDSM community, which are pansexual. Hetero and queer folks mix more or less comfortably, as do male dominant/female submissive couples and the reverse. Lots of folks will do SM with people they wouldn't have vanilla sex with, etc. You seem to suggest that you're familiar with that, and I am too.
The BDSM community, nebulous and undefined as it is, is a broad community. Lots of the less-political sectors, websites, discussion boards, etc., at least among the hetero folks, are balkanized into little islands of male dom/female sub or female dom/male sub. That's what irks me, because it can degenerate to something that appears to be disdain. "Men are worthless scum" is not a great slogan for the BDSM community, and the opposite is even worse. I think that's the sentiment that comes through in the shirt that started this thread.
(There are points to be made that bottoming does not equal submission, which really is inside baseball, and that submission does not equal inferiority, which just isn't as obvious to everyone as I wish it was. I don't know if anyone wants to read that, as this blog is not a dedicated BDSM forum.)
I mean to say that the messages on the shirts (Women/Men should be "put in their place") are mutually exclusive -- the shirts are not a matched set meant to be seen together. Either viewed in isolation gives a view of BDSM that one sex tops and the other bottoms. You say, and I agree, that the BDSM community is a lot more diverse.
I'm less troubled by the female dominant strain than the reverse, for reasons that should be obvious. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with a straight guy who is an exclusive top engaging only in scenes where he tops consenting female partners. But there's a big difference between telling the world that one in an SMer, and telling the world that women should be submissive to men. The former is an expression of identity. The latter looks an awful lot like patriarchy. Because SMers are acutely aware of power and consent, the BDSM community ought not to look like patriarchy.
Here it is in a nutshell: Jessica links to Secretary on her page, a movie about a male dominant/female submissive relationship. She saw the shirt and declared its creator an asshole. Something that makes the BDSM community look bad to feminists that have no problem with BDSM is something I'm going to have a problem with.
Thomas--
I appreciate your responses. At the risk of hijacking the discussion (have we already done that? Let me know, y'all, if I should shut it), I'll just say that I think we agree on most of this--that's clear now that you've explained your opinions so well.
I guess where I disagree with you (and others)is because of your take when you say: "But there's a big difference between telling the world that one in an SMer, and telling the world that women should be submissive to men. The former is an expression of identity. The latter looks an awful lot like patriarchy. Because SMers are acutely aware of power and consent, the BDSM community ought not to look like patriarchy."
I agree that there are multiple messages that one can get/give from the t-shirt. I just think that it's wrong to condemn the designer and anybody who wears the thing without context. What looks like patriarchy can cut a very large swath, I think. (Ok, yes, what IS patriarchy also cuts a large swath.) Think of it this way: Hetero BDSM'ers who happen to fall into the male-dom/female-sub category couldn't do ANYTHING that they like to do without somebody thinking that they were simply going through the patriarchal motions. Does that mean they shouldn't persue what they want? Seems like you would agree that it doesn't, given your previous comments. And I think whether or not they are embracing patriarchy (whether wearing a t-shirt or wearing a dog collar) is mostly up to them (with the caveats that they do have to consider the damage they may be doing, etc., that I've already discussed).
I know I'm being long-winded here. Sorry. But that all said, what I was trying to get across originally is that it's possible that the t-shirts aren't OBVIOUSLY AND WITHOUT CONTEXT evil. And to some people they aren't evil at all. I think that not pointing that out, not acknowledging it, is to embrace a sort of sex-negative feminism that I tend to resist. So I'm resistin. :)
(ps--I've been called on my misuse of BDSM terms before--I apologize for the whole top/bottom misuse I'm probably making; I'm not a bdsm'er, I just have friends who are.)
But the thing is that the "I Had An Abortion" t-shirts are pretty straightforward and function, whether you like it or not, to normalize just abortion. These shirts will be read as "rape" and geniune torture to the community at large and therefore mostly will function not to advertise identity for BDSM folks, but to normalize rape.
There are plenty of things you can wear to signal that you are BDSM that don't send ambigious, rape-normalizing messages. Leather cuffs and the like.
I disagree with your take on the Abortion shirts vs. the Put in Place shirts, Amanda. I think that the Put in Place shirts can also be construed as an attempt at normalization--somebody who wears one could be shouting out the message that BDSM attitutdes should be more mainstream, and accepted as normal, in that sense.
Also, I don't agree that the Abortion shirts are that straightforward--lots of people think that women who wear them are trying to normalize murder. Those people are offended (I'm claiming) in the same way that other people here are offended at the BDSMish shirts--they're missing the intended message.