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stella41b -> RE: Sex, Money & Horney Patty (9/2/2009 1:01:54 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: cloudboy
What role do you think money plays in your own BDSM relationship? Should it play any role at all, and if so, what?
The way I see it there's people, money, sex, and BDSM and I don't feel you can really discuss any one component here without taking into consideration the other three.
BDSM doesn't really offer us any escape here, we are all people who are part of society and conditioned by varying degrees by gender roles, social ones and also societal stereotypes. Being aware of our kinks and fetishes doesn't necessarily mean that we don't also bring our social prejudices with us to these boards and like it or not there's just as much class warfare and social prejudice on these boards as there is anywhere off them.
Case in point elsewhere on this very board there's also that excessive acronym thread just like that humungous tribute thread in Ask A Mistress. This is not even mentioning what you find in the Politics and Religion section.
I don't believe money is the primary motivating factor in most people's behaviour and I believe that sex is just as powerful as money when it comes to motivating most people. We are made aware of this not just by the way many advertisers create their commercials but also there's an army of tradesmen out there who are busy unblocking drains, mending fences, tidying gardens, rewiring houses, painting walls not for money but simply for nookie.
Nothing changes the behaviour of most people more than when they feel they are not getting enough money or enough sex, or they feel they aren't. Our social stereotyping and reinforcement of gender roles creates conditions for the power struggle between men and women so that it would seem from a certain perspective that men and women in society are playing each other at chess and white queen is money and black queen is sex. Though many of us seek to release ourselves from such conditioning and despite the fact many succeed attitudes from such conditioning still remain in varying degrees and still influence our attitudes and behaviour.
Life isn't fair, and neither is society. Women still struggle for equality when it comes to earning power and money and while this may not be the case in middle America, middle England or anywhere else evidence still exists that it does and that evidence grows the further down through society you go. Men are also affected, and some would even argue that a man in advanced years who doesn't have any money, no possessions, and who isn't especially attractive might as well chop his dick off as many would consider him a failure.
BDSM by its own esoteric situation in society has come to show that it can replace or stand alongside sex in this power struggle between the genders, irrespective of whether it actually contains sex or not.
While I don't fully agree with NihilusZero's statement that all relationships are a business transaction - there are some people out there trading in love and some of these relationships are one-sided - I feel that generally given the fact that most are still subject to their conditioning it's still a very valid statement. This is backed up by AlexadraLynch's statement regarding tributes - for many people a relationship is a business transaction and when they are required to pay for something they tend to appreciate and value it more.
In my own personal BDSM relationships money doesn't play much of a role but then a large part of my experience has been spent in service to pro-dommes as their personal submissive in service type relationships. I have never paid a pro-domme, in fact on a couple of occasions I have been paid by a pro-domme for my service, but almost entirely our relationships were formed as lifestyle relationships and no money was involved. In fact, had it not been for the existence of pro-dommes, I cannot say for sure whether I would be here.
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