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Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions of Gender-Based Kinks


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Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions of Ge... - 8/7/2017 1:25:23 PM   
gnathic


Posts: 85
Joined: 12/2/2016
Status: offline
When speaking of biological sex, NOT individuals within it:

Male power = Physical strength, obtaining females, money, big penises, status. And not being feminine.
Female power = Seductive ability, aesthetics, the mate selectors. The ability to give life, nurturers.

Throughout history, numerous mechanisms have operated in order to reduce women’s propensity to indulge in their power. Women have long been shamed for expressing sexual desire and for seeking it out, and are slut-shamed for using it and recognising it. If she dresses too nice and shows off her aesthetics and assets, she is also criticised for that too. Also throughout history, women have been taken as property and forced into marriage - all of which remove her own sexual autonomy. These issues obviously still occur. In this way, male power can be gleaned from eradicating female power.

Male strengths have historically never faced such an attack. Even now, one commends males for being strong, for being sexually successful with women, or for any of these other strengths. We are far more used to seeing male strength as good, positive, and unchallenged by society. Women’s strengths however, are still admonished. I hypothesise that this remains so even within the kink world, and is the basis for the acceptance of kinks that form from gender-based power.

In my opinion, kink is all about fetishising power; either it's loss or its gain over another. Gender is one (big) way of experiencing this, and combinations include:
1. Male gain, female loss.
2. Male loss, female loss.
3. Female gain, male loss.
There are kinks for all of these ‘losses’ of power, ranging from CNC (physical strength, i.e. power of men over women), calling female subs “sluts” (diminishing women’s sexual power), sissification of male subs for humiliation (diminishing male power due to femininity), small penis humiliation, and so on. To refer again to the first paragraph, a gender can impair the power of the opposite sex to access more power themselves.
…Yet the only kink that seems to be criticised in kink world is financial domination.
It seems curious to me that the only kink which is combined with both a (Male power loss, Female power gain)– please refer back to the top paragraph) is the one which is heavily criticised.

To illustrate:
You don’t see this for CNC (male strength, female loss), sissification (male loss, female loss), small penis humiliation (male loss, female loss), verbal humiliation (“slut/whore”: male gain, female loss), etc.
It seems the only acceptable combinations are: (a) male strength, female loss, and (b) male loss, female loss.
The only other kink that is criticised based on these gender-specific powers is that of cuckolding; which is also (male loss, female gain). Even on FL you can regularly read commenters criticising men who defend women as being “cucks”.

(Please note that I am by no means suggesting that these gender-based powers are the only, nor the most important, powers each one of us possess. We are all obviously more than our gender. I am discussing merely gender-based power and our reactions to it in vanilla world and kink world, and how it may impact our prejudices against certain kinks.)
Profile   Post #: 1
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 4:31:35 PM   
kiwisub22


Posts: 450
Joined: 7/16/2016
Status: offline
This is an interesting thread, if you can weave your way through the wordage.

My feeling is that males paying females is related to money= self worth to men, and divorcing the act from emotion, as in, if you pay for the service, the server (domme) is in reality a paid employee, delivering a service and as everyone knows - the customer is always right. She may be bossing the sub around - but since he is paying and describing what he wants - he is really in control at an atomic level. Overtly she is the boss, but if she doesn't deliver the goods, she losses a avenue of revenue ie. her income.


(in reply to gnathic)
Profile   Post #: 2
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 6:50:15 PM   
heavyblinker


Posts: 3623
Status: offline
I don't think the majority of male subs would object to findom in the context of a committed TPE relationship.
The problem with findom is that it attracts a lot of horrible princess types with no interest in kink who just want to buy useless shit for themselves.

There's a difference between giving up power to someone you love/worship/respect because you know they won't waste it, and giving it up to some entitled b who thinks she's too good for a real job (or a Nigerian scammer for that matter). You might as well be giving it to people who are truly struggling and would use it to buy something they need.

Money also isn't like dignity-- it has practical applications and is necessary for basic survival. If a dominant is bad with money, then letting them have control of it probably isn't a good idea, simply because there's nothing sexy or enjoyable about poverty.

It is also very common for women to be able to support themselves financially... so if money is integral to male power, that power has been removed by allowing women to work in high-paying jobs, or at least its 'male-ness' has been tempered. So has status, because it is tied to money.

Just because the new roles are still seen as novel and there is resistance, it doesn't mean they aren't real or that most people haven't already adapted.

(in reply to kiwisub22)
Profile   Post #: 3
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 7:15:32 PM   
tamaka


Posts: 5079
Status: offline
I think you need to look at it more like this:

Female feminine power
Female masculine power

Male masculine power
Male feminine power

(in reply to heavyblinker)
Profile   Post #: 4
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 7:38:29 PM   
ThatDizzyChick


Posts: 5490
Status: offline
Yeah, that's a load of ill-informed psychobabble bullshit.

_____________________________

Not your average bimbo.

(in reply to gnathic)
Profile   Post #: 5
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 7:50:45 PM   
heavyblinker


Posts: 3623
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: tamaka

I think you need to look at it more like this:

Female feminine power
Female masculine power

Male masculine power
Male feminine power


Haha why?

The point of this thread is to ignore the 'aberrations' which are biologically male but more feminine and vice versa, ignore all of the social progress made since the 60s, and think of everything in abstraction and in strict black and white terms.

While yes, that can be interesting and give way to mental masturbation galore, in my experience it can never reflect the reality.

I think the OP is trying to argue that hating findom is inherently sexist or something-- it's really not.
In fact, I would even argue that findom itself is more sexist than findom-hate, simply because it more often than not plays with obsolete gender roles.

I really hope the OP isn't a findom trying to rationalize to herself her method of paying off her student loans.
I also really hope it isn't a Woman's Studies major or something.

< Message edited by heavyblinker -- 8/7/2017 7:51:53 PM >

(in reply to tamaka)
Profile   Post #: 6
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 10:12:11 PM   
gnathic


Posts: 85
Joined: 12/2/2016
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ThatDizzyChick

Yeah, that's a load of ill-informed psychobabble bullshit.


Hi ThatDizzyChick,

Would you mind elaborating on that?

(in reply to ThatDizzyChick)
Profile   Post #: 7
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 10:15:31 PM   
gnathic


Posts: 85
Joined: 12/2/2016
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: heavyblinker

quote:

ORIGINAL: tamaka

I think you need to look at it more like this:

Female feminine power
Female masculine power

Male masculine power
Male feminine power


Haha why?

The point of this thread is to ignore the 'aberrations' which are biologically male but more feminine and vice versa, ignore all of the social progress made since the 60s, and think of everything in abstraction and in strict black and white terms.

While yes, that can be interesting and give way to mental masturbation galore, in my experience it can never reflect the reality.

I think the OP is trying to argue that hating findom is inherently sexist or something-- it's really not.
In fact, I would even argue that findom itself is more sexist than findom-hate, simply because it more often than not plays with obsolete gender roles.

I really hope the OP isn't a findom trying to rationalize to herself her method of paying off her student loans.
I also really hope it isn't a Woman's Studies major or something.


To the bolded parts - exactly. What I am proposing is very black and white, I will concede that.

I will respond to all the posts once I have finished work, but for quick clarification, no I am neither a Findom nor a Woman Studies major (or similar student). This is all just conjecture based on what I understand and perceive of kink so far, as I find it interesting that some kinks are accepted whereas others are not - and seems to be in line with what we also accept and do not within vanilla society.

(in reply to heavyblinker)
Profile   Post #: 8
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/7/2017 11:50:28 PM   
ThatDizzyChick


Posts: 5490
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: gnathic


quote:

ORIGINAL: ThatDizzyChick

Yeah, that's a load of ill-informed psychobabble bullshit.


Hi ThatDizzyChick,

Would you mind elaborating on that?

No elaboration needed, my comment was perfectly clear.

_____________________________

Not your average bimbo.

(in reply to gnathic)
Profile   Post #: 9
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/8/2017 11:45:35 AM   
tamaka


Posts: 5079
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: gnathic

When speaking of biological sex, NOT individuals within it:

Male power = Physical strength, obtaining females, money, big penises, status. And not being feminine.
Female power = Seductive ability, aesthetics, the mate selectors. The ability to give life, nurturers.

Throughout history, numerous mechanisms have operated in order to reduce women’s propensity to indulge in their power. Women have long been shamed for expressing sexual desire and for seeking it out, and are slut-shamed for using it and recognising it. If she dresses too nice and shows off her aesthetics and assets, she is also criticised for that too. Also throughout history, women have been taken as property and forced into marriage - all of which remove her own sexual autonomy. These issues obviously still occur. In this way, male power can be gleaned from eradicating female power.

Male strengths have historically never faced such an attack. Even now, one commends males for being strong, for being sexually successful with women, or for any of these other strengths. We are far more used to seeing male strength as good, positive, and unchallenged by society. Women’s strengths however, are still admonished. I hypothesise that this remains so even within the kink world, and is the basis for the acceptance of kinks that form from gender-based power.

In my opinion, kink is all about fetishising power; either it's loss or its gain over another. Gender is one (big) way of experiencing this, and combinations include:
1. Male gain, female loss.
2. Male loss, female loss.
3. Female gain, male loss.
There are kinks for all of these ‘losses’ of power, ranging from CNC (physical strength, i.e. power of men over women), calling female subs “sluts” (diminishing women’s sexual power), sissification of male subs for humiliation (diminishing male power due to femininity), small penis humiliation, and so on. To refer again to the first paragraph, a gender can impair the power of the opposite sex to access more power themselves.
…Yet the only kink that seems to be criticised in kink world is financial domination.
It seems curious to me that the only kink which is combined with both a (Male power loss, Female power gain)– please refer back to the top paragraph) is the one which is heavily criticised.

To illustrate:
You don’t see this for CNC (male strength, female loss), sissification (male loss, female loss), small penis humiliation (male loss, female loss), verbal humiliation (“slut/whore”: male gain, female loss), etc.
It seems the only acceptable combinations are: (a) male strength, female loss, and (b) male loss, female loss.
The only other kink that is criticised based on these gender-specific powers is that of cuckolding; which is also (male loss, female gain). Even on FL you can regularly read commenters criticising men who defend women as being “cucks”.

(Please note that I am by no means suggesting that these gender-based powers are the only, nor the most important, powers each one of us possess. We are all obviously more than our gender. I am discussing merely gender-based power and our reactions to it in vanilla world and kink world, and how it may impact our prejudices against certain kinks.)



You missed the most important one:

Male masculine gain, female feminine gain.

(in reply to gnathic)
Profile   Post #: 10
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/8/2017 11:58:39 AM   
DesFIP


Posts: 25191
Joined: 11/25/2007
From: Apple County NY
Status: offline
Where is the loss of female power in a woman who enjoys bondage because it's like being swaddled? If the intent is not to remove power, then that's not happening.

It's a sensory thing for me. I feel calmer and more relaxed when I'm tightly bound. And because I'm in an emotional and physical happy place, I'm much more likely to have multiple orgasms. I don't see any loss of power from that.

Nor any loss of power to him because I can have 40 and he can't.

I think that you're overthinking this. Just because you have a hammer, it doesn't mean screws and bolts and hinges have magically become nails.

_____________________________

Slave to laundry

Cynical and proud of it!


(in reply to tamaka)
Profile   Post #: 11
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/8/2017 3:56:06 PM   
WickedsDesire


Posts: 9362
Joined: 11/4/2015
Status: offline
I thought i was the power on here?

_____________________________

wE arE tHe voiCes,
We SAtuRaTe yOur aLPHA brain WAveS, ThIs is nOt A DrEAm The wiZaRd of Oz, shoES, CaLcuLUs, DECorAtiNG, FrIDGE SProcKeTs, be VeRy sCareDed – SLoBbers,We DeEManDErs Sloowee DAnCiNG, SmOOches – whisper whisper & CaAkEE

(in reply to DesFIP)
Profile   Post #: 12
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/8/2017 7:27:06 PM   
WickedsDesire


Posts: 9362
Joined: 11/4/2015
Status: offline
Not this one either - hmmm thinks

_____________________________

wE arE tHe voiCes,
We SAtuRaTe yOur aLPHA brain WAveS, ThIs is nOt A DrEAm The wiZaRd of Oz, shoES, CaLcuLUs, DECorAtiNG, FrIDGE SProcKeTs, be VeRy sCareDed – SLoBbers,We DeEManDErs Sloowee DAnCiNG, SmOOches – whisper whisper & CaAkEE

(in reply to WickedsDesire)
Profile   Post #: 13
RE: Gender and Power - How It Affects Our Perceptions o... - 8/8/2017 11:52:18 PM   
respectmen


Posts: 2042
Joined: 8/28/2015
Status: offline
When it comes to dating and sex, women pretty much hold all the privileges, therefore, women have all the power.

When it comes to dating, there is only one double standard that is in favour of men which is the slut shaming double standard. All other double standards are in favour of women.

(in reply to WickedsDesire)
Profile   Post #: 14
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