njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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This one runs into the crossing of many things, and yes, there are genuinely people out there who claim switches aren't 'authentic', I have a friend of mine, whom I haven't seen in a number of years, who is well known in the BD/SM community, is about as genuine as they come IMO, strives to help others (including myself), who teaches at leather events and otherwise is one heck of a person, who is a switch and has taken shit from the "real" crowd, that she would be more 'respected' if she "chose"....*arrrgh*.
Part of this is the incredible human need to label and define things and for some, to be the ones who label it. It is like bisexuality, where some people (both straight and gay, interestingly) deny it exists and says the person is striving to hide their being gay, or 'they are really straight, but know that a same sex partner can give them more pleasure" *gag*. For others, it is because switches are gray in their world of black and white, and they can't stand that, like religious fundamentalists, they need it all black and white.
The other confusion is the axes of the D/s and S/M side of things, switch gets confusing the way top/bottom and D/s get conflated. Someone visualizes a domme, and it is some woman wearing leather and taking a whip to a sub (not to mention stereotypes of dominants with subs who are doormats, 'lowly worms', etc), so they couldn't see how, for example, a dominant could like being whipped by their sub, as just one example of confusion. We love labels, and we love them to be simple, but people aren't, and here two dimensions, for example, kind of turn away from stereotypes and it confuses people (kind of like in some ways people would expect a lesbian woman to be butch, looking masculine, and get shocked when they meet a lesbian woman who is very femme, girly girly, whatever..or they meet a transwoman who doesn't wear makeup, dresses and heels and so forth, but rather wears jeans and sneakers and t shirts:).
If we limit it to the D/s side, and leave out the play aspect, the problem is that people have trouble grasping contexts and roles. If they are into 24/7 D/s, and they are dominant or submissive, they can't see those roles changing, but that is because that is their experience (and for them, that is quite real, obviously, and it doesn't make them bigoted). The problem is that there are people to whom switching is a natural thing. For example, couple could have a 24/7 D/s, but as part of that, the D wants the s to take control, be the dominant, for stretches of time. That to me would be a switch couple, since they switch roles, but they could argue that they always have the D/s since they 'switch' as part of their broader life......and in their view, that makes sense (and hopefully it does..). And then you get into poly relationships, where let's say a wife is the D, husband is s, but the D is also the s to another woman (or man)....that would make the D a switch, but does that make her D/s with her husband any less powerful? No, they are 24/7 TPE, and her relationship with the other D is pretty strong D/s, too (yes, they had to negotiate boundaries, as with any poly, and the other D has no desire to hurt the married relationship of the D to her husband). The D in this case in a sense doesn't identify as switch, because she doesn't switch in her primary relationship, and in her other one she is totally S.
One of the reasons I have heard switches derided is because switching is common with people who aren't 24/7, who do most of the D/s in the bedroom, and there already are those who look down on anything but a 24/7 D/s.......
I also want to comment there is a difference between switch hatred and those who a)can't understand it, because they are very much wired into one or the other or B) don't want to get involved with switches. The haters are those who proclaim real people know what they are and that is D or s, or those who want everything clean, get uncomfortable when it is gray, and denigrate that which makes them uncomfortable.
The latter group aren't haters (necessarily, more on that in a bit), for the a) people, it simply is they can't grasp it, the way, for example, a lot of men can't understand why someone who was born male would have the need to take hormones and transition and live as a woman, they get a visceral reaction to it because they totally can't understand it (this is an analogy, not saying it is necessarily the same thing)......the b's are people who want someone who is 100% their opposite and have either experienced switches that couldn't meet their needs or simply can't get their head around that a switch can be a dominant for them......there are some in both groups who turn to haters, there are gay men who to this day think M to F T women are gay men who 'run away from being gay' and who should "embrace" their maleness rather than 'mutilate' themselves, and there are those D's and s's who see a switch and not only don't want to get involved with them, but have a mean reaction, either because it questions their own idea of themselves, or because they have had bad experiences or heard from the grapevine, and assume switches will cheat on them to get their 'other side' met, or are somehow going to use them....it is much like bisexuality, lot of gay men and women don't like people who are bi because they automatically assume the person is a dabbler out for kicks and as soon as the right guy or woman comes along, they will be gone, or will be cheating because they are bi, and they react with hate.....
While I think the label has meaning, I think the reality is everyone is different and the label has many meanings, and the key to knowing someone is to ignore the label and have them talk about themselves, and then see if there is compatibility.
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RE: Switch Hatred - 
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