BDSM sex is sex whose defining element is the erotic fetishization of authority. The opposite of BDSM sex is rolequeer sex, which is sex that focuses on resisting and divesting from power hierarchies and on healing trauma induced by those hierarchies.
Boring old defenses of BDSM that have proven untrue¶
This section documents the major defenses of BDSM proffered by its practitioners and outlines the rebuttals of rolequeer theorists, many of whom are BDSM survivors, themselves.
“BDSM is not abuse”¶
When describing their communities, BDSM’ers will talk about how theirs is a “safe, sane” space, “based on consent and respect and sex-positivity” as if reciting some invisible script. But there are many communities whose rhetoric or practice (or both) are based on these ideas, so it seems incomplete at best or a deliberate misdirection at worst to describe this particular subculture in that way. All of those things may be present or lacking to varying degrees and the thing that BDSM is will still be mostly unchanged.
It’s especially strange to hear them talk as if those aspects are unique characteristics when there is one very obvious thing that sets BDSM apart from other communities: a fixated sexualization of authority. Oddly, that’s also the one thing about BDSM they seem loathe to admit. I think that’s meaningful.
—maymay, 8 colorful Venn diagrams showing why BDSM is abuse
“BDSM is a parody”¶
Because a parody is subversive, it is a form of protest, it is message against something and it is part of a larger narrative against that thing. Meaning that if BDSM was a parody, we’d see a lot more BDSM’ers talking about and caring about the existence if oppression in the world. The opposite is true.
—notfuckingcishet, "The theory of BDSM as parody"
