Friday 21 August 2009

Sex And Violence

Can't have one without the other? As Leopold once noted, "in any relationship one must be the hammer, the other the anvil".

I can't decide if the sex act itself is violent. So much poetry would have you think it's not. However, the cold hard truth of the act is: the man penetrates the lady. I knew a girl that had rape fantasies. (Perfectly valid submissive fantasies.) Sadly, I didn't know the lady long enough to find out some details - much to my regret. (I'm obviously submissive, myself, but I prefer my horizons broad.)

Just to remind you all - you remember my feelings on "Safe, sane AND Consensual"? New readers - all for it. Old readers - just checking.

Taking away someone's choice is a form of violence. Yet, it's one I (for one) crave. And paradoxically, submissive people have some of the strongest characters I've seen. I think where I'm going with this is: take another look at violence. In the right environment it can be such a positive thing. Games for lovers, etc. But never forget the violent aspect. Fire is very useful, but you wouldn't want that out of a controlled environment, would you?

7 comments:

Tom Allen said...

the man penetrates the lady

Really? Dang, and all this time I thought that the woman welcomes and engulfs, envelopes the man.

How wrong I've been, eh?

Giles English said...

Yeah, I'm with Tom on this. I don't see the violence in sex.

pantsdropr said...

I like discipline references in the pics here. Not as much into the heavy s & M scene but domestic discipline really works for me an dI love to see it connected with the chastity references.

kent

ptathuk said...

Tom / Giles,

Maybe I've been listening to the politically correct crowd for too long. Sadly, a sign of the times.

There's a scene in Story Of O where they have a bet. Can you tell if a lady is having sex or being spanked, just by her facial expresasion? Remembering that the ladies concerned are submissive, and enjoy their spankings, and holding in your mind an image of asian hard-core porn, the answer is no.

Kent moved onto what I was aiming at. Maybe those with masochistic or sadistic tendencies see sex in violence, or the two are the same. It's all a matter of degree, of course.

Is pounding, passionate, lustfull lovemaking violent? It would certainly appear so, to an outsider. All a matter of taste, POV, desire?

Again, where am I going with this? Well, I think (speaking for myself) that violence is an essential ingredient in D/s play. I'm perhaps using a word normally associated with negative feelings in a positive way. Maybe this is wrong, as this way makes words loose their meaning. (I remember saying just such a thing on your Blog, Tom.)

As we are all painfully aware, the English language is a very poor way to communicate complex emotions. Or is it that a bad workman always blames his tools? Yep, probably me.


Kent, thank you for adding to this set of comments.

BTW: How's your introducing your gf to chastity play going. Well, I hope.

ptathuk

Giles English said...

It is violence. What we do is play at evil.

Tom Allen said...

The "Sex is violent" meme has been in the public awareness since the old-school 70s feminists (Andrea Dworkin, etc.), and IMO has done more harm than good in bringing mutual understanding to both sexes.

The idea that sexual pleasure mimics violence has been around for centuries, but the point missed by most is that the *expressions* mimic violence - or rather, the expressions mimic those caused by pain. Pain is not *inherently* violent. For example, I work out on a home gym 4 days a week. Every once in a while, Mrs. Edge will joke that it sounds like I"m having sex down in the basement. Other times, she wonders if I've hurt myself terribly because of the grunting and groaning.

Pain, but no violence. And I do it to myself.

I'm all for treating everybody fairly wrt sex, race, religion, etc., but can we please get our collective heads out of our arses and keep things in perspective?

ptathuk said...

Tom,

Thank you. An education, as always. I seem to have hit a nerve with some.

(Going through some things at the moment, that sometimes makes my logic a little fuzzy. I get quite annoyed at myself. Rather than delete this post & comments, I'll leave it up.)



Thank you everbody, but I think I'll call a close to this one, now.

ptathuk