Bias, Misconceptions, and Plain Ignorance

We were involved in an online conversation, earlier this week, with some poly chat room types.  It is always an interesting experience -- talking with people who identify primarily as "poly."  While it is not unusual to find BDSM'ers who are also poly, it is rare to find vanilla poly people who "get" BDSM.  One might assume that a willingness to "break the rules" and "go against the social norms" in one arena would predispose practitioners of polyamory to view other alternative lifestyle choices with open mindedness and tolerance.  It doesn't always -- or even often -- turn out that way.  Mention that you are involved with BDSM, and there will be a good number of poly types who will respond negatively -- some will simply go silent, others will become adversarial, questioning every word you say about your life and relationship, a few will go straight to open judgment and disdain.  We've been very lucky to have vanilla several good poly friends who work hard to see our life for what it is -- valuing and affirming us as we are, but we find that they are not the norm in the poly universe. 

BDSM practitioners, like us, rub vanilla poly types the wrong way on several levels:

• There is an ethic within the poly community that partners are "equal."  Most poly folks hold this tenet as nearly sacred.  Everybody communicates with everyone else.  Everyone is in the know about the actions and relationships of their partners.  Everyone has the freedom to form multiple relationships.  Everyone is entitled to their feelings and their reactions.  Everyone is valued, and it is all good.  Of course, most of them never think twice about identifying their various partners as primary, secondary, and tertiary.  Their passioate espousal of "equality" doesn't preclude the creation of rigidly hierarchical relationship constructs -- but that is a paradox about which they remain blissfully inconsistent.  When confronted with our relationship dynamic, with its deliberately unequal power exchange, most poly people cringe and respond with skepticism, doubt, and sometimes outright pity.  The minute it is clear that Master has the ultimate authority, that He "calls the shots," that I am His, owned, property, slave -- the conversation takes a turn for the worse.  It isn't equal, so it must be bad.  By their lights, He must be egotistical, arrogant, insecure, chauvinistic, etc.  Bias is a funny thing.
• There is, too, a distinctly revisionist feminist bent to the poly community.  It is rare to find a woman who identifies as poly who does not also see herself as bisexual or bi-curious -- something that T and I confront pretty regularly as heterosexual poly women.  The general assumption is that poly "frees" women to be fully sexual on their own terms and liberates them from the mores and norms of a patriarchal and male-dominated society.  Given that as the bias, it is easy to understand how the notion of our male Dominant / female submissive dynamic bothers and offends them.  All those mostly young, next generation, poly feminist women take one look at me in service to Him, and assume that I am somehow being held captive in a patriarchal, chauvinistic relational model -- a throwback to another era.  They dismiss, out of hand, that this is something I choose and to which I consent.  They assume that I am deluded, caught by social imprinting, unable to decide wisely or freely for myself.  It is that most pernicious form of feminism (and I continue to declare proudly that I am a feminist) that insists that women should be free to choose, but only within the "approved" range of options.
• The other thing about our dynamic that just drives vanilla poly people crazy is that we relate sexually and erotically through sadomasochistic play.  He hurts me and takes sexual pleasure from doing so -- and I am sexually gratified by that as well.  The typical poly guy, outside of the BDSM world, is sensitive and considerate and touchy-feely.  I can't even tell you how many times, some poly guy will tell me, "Oh!  I don't like pain, and I don't want to inflict pain on anyone else," or "I'm not interested in dominating my partners -- we're equals."  To which, I say, "good for you, but that doesn't work for me."  Most often, if the conversation proceeds very far, someone will proclaim, as if they are delivering some great and awesome relational wisdom, that violence and abuse have nothing to do with love.  WOW!  Really?  You think?  What sort of ignorance leads someone to equate consensual sadomasochistic eroticism with abuse which is, by definition, nonconsensual?  That is not just ignorant, it is offensive.  If I have to explain to you that BDSM does not equal abuse, then I am going to assume that you are simply a bigoted idiot.

In the end, I frequently finish conversations with the vanilla polys feeling baffled, bemused, and sometimes battered emotionally.  I am consistently surprised at how difficult it is to find some sort of common lexicon that we share.  We are poly and BDSM, and for us those two elements of our relationship are inseparably woven together, and they feel pretty seamless.  How is it that it is so very difficult for others to comprehend and accept those realities?

swan