Author: Lizzie Fewster, 24, is an Anthropology Honours graduate of the University of Melbourne. Her work explores the intersections between culture, the body, knowledge, and power. She is currently undertaking a Masters of Culture, Health, and Medicine at the ANU. She tweets from @Efewster2.
‘Peg the Patriarchy’
Cara Delevingne’s ‘Peg the Patriarchy’ moment from the 2021 Met Gala undoubtedly missed the mark. Delevingne and Dior both failed to credit the original creator of the slogan, a black, queer sex educator Luna Matatas. Beyond this transgression, Delevingne’s message and its delivery were blatant examples of the contradictory messages often encoded in mainstream depictions of non-normative sexualities. Delevingne insisted the message was about ‘women empowerment and gender equality’, an attempt to ‘stick it to the man’. Unsurprisingly, however, many have criticised how this message portrays the act of pegging as act of power over another, as well as the portrayal of receiving anal sex as inherently demeaning.
Delevingne clearly thought her stunt was groundbreaking, or at the very least, intelligent and thought-provoking. This begs the question of why, exactly, mainstream representations of non-normative sexualities so often miss the mark, and often do more harm than good.
Using the SBS Viceland series ‘Slutever’ as a case study, I argue that representations of BDSM often work to perpetuate the schism between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ sexualities, and moreover, continually construct BDSM as something whose mere existence requires investigation, evaluation, and thus control by the mainstream. Hosted by Karley Sciortino, ‘Slutever’ is a documentary-style Youtube series. Karley interviews members of BDSM and other kink communities in the US, and even takes part in various BDSM activities for the entertainment of her viewers.
At a surface level, the purpose of ‘Slutever’ appears to be the progression of sexual and gender freedom, and the disruption of the stigma and assumptions BDSM communities experience from wider society. Upon deeper reflection, however, it becomes clear that this kind of representation merely promotes the acceptance of BDSM only when it is reconfigured out of authenticity, or when it is presented as a psychological abnormality.
Is increased representation always a good thing?
Scholars of sex and identity are skeptical of the benefits of increased representations of BDSM. Weiss has noted how these representations often rely on two contradictory mechanisms: ‘acceptance via normalisation and understanding via pathologising’. This is achieved, Weiss argues, through presenting BDSM as acceptable only if it appears to adhere, in some respects, to standards of ‘normative’ sexuality.
The mechanism of pathologising, on the other hand, works to present BDSM as understandable if it is a symptom of a person’s psychological problems or deviancy. ‘Slutever’s’ depiction of BDSM – including the chosen host, her line of questioning, and the choice of ‘experts’ she consults – rely on these mechanisms of normalisation and pathologisation.
Pathologising abduction fetishes
The ‘Slutever’ episode on abduction fetishes demonstrates several clear examples of attempting to understand BDSM through pathologisation. Karley opens this episode with the assertion that ‘a lot of the time we’re led to believe that when someone has an extreme fantasy… it’s the result of some kind of childhood trauma, or the product of them being a sex freak’ and states how such thinking can lead to ‘negative connotations’ of BDSM.
Karley’s denouncement of the connection between psychological trauma and extreme sexual fantasies is immediately undermined, however, by her suggestion from the outset of the episode that abduction fetishes need special attention from an expert medical professional to understand.
Most of the episode, therefore, is spent with Dr. Zhana Vrangalova, a professor of human sexuality and qualified psychologist. Although she does not draw on specific theories of childhood trauma, Dr. Vrangalova offers several theories of psychological abnormality within abduction fetishes, such as the theory that ‘in a culture that represses sexuality, being forced to do something sexual kind of absolves you of the guilt’.
Karley also presents lifestyle slaves as being psychologically abnormal, asking the audience ‘who on this flat earth would want that job?’. After assisting another dominatrix in an abduction scene, Karley describes her enjoyment as ‘counter-intuitive’ – implying that the intuitive reaction should be to dislike or even be repulsed by the activity.
Normalising lifestyle slaves
In contradiction to the mechanism of pathologising, ‘Slutever’ also relies heavily on normalisation to portray BDSM as acceptable to the mainstream. Firstly, BDSM is represented as something that anyone, including the host, can become involved in. Karley’s identity as a conventionally attractive white woman is crucial to the mechanism of normalisation.
In the opening scene of the episode titled ‘Lifestyle Slaves’ Karley comments that ‘life is busy, meeting deadlines for my blog and performing my gender, I wish I had someone to clean for me, change my tampons, clean my apartment, and drop to their knees and be my human bench whenever I am tired… I need a lifestyle slave’. Although seemingly sarcastic in these opening lines to the audience, she is constructing from the outset the practice of being a lifestyle slave as an everyday solution to the trials and tribulations of being a busy modern woman, in an attempt to make it appear ‘normal’.
Karley’s attempts to relate the various BDSM practices she encounters to other ‘normal’ practices in the everyday world are the clearest examples of the mechanism of normalisation. In the episode on lifestyle slaves, she describes them as being like ‘unpaid sex interns’ or ‘man servants’. She also suggests that slave training is like a ‘makeover’ for the submissive. In one far-reaching simile she asks a submissive named Pup if being a lifestyle slave was ‘like a job’ and if the relationship to his partner was ‘like she’s your employer?’ – despite there being no mention of financial reward anywhere in the episode. In these comments, it is clear how this episode represents BDSM through a re-categorisation of the lifestyle as being vaguely connected to ‘normal’ activities, such as being an intern, or having a job.
The finale of this episode involves Karley having a picnic with a dominatrix and her two slaves. She describes how ‘sharing strawberries with these leather clad perverts’ got her thinking ‘maybe lifestyle slaves are just like us’. In this representation, BDSM – particularly lifestyle slaves – are portrayed as acceptable because they are reconfigured and re-represented by a ‘normal’ person as being much closer to mainstream sexuality than the audience might have expected. Karley concludes the episode by suggesting that ‘dom/sub partnerships can be just as versatile and transformative as vanilla relationships’, thus inviting the audience to accept BDSM based on its conformity to mainstream normative sexuality.
Power relations and expertise
In each episode, several different ‘experts’ are consulted to discuss BDSM, ranging from real estate managers, professional dominatrices, to psychologists, and even members of the general public. However, the most obvious expert is Karley herself, who in one episode on kinky travel, repeatedly refers to herself as a ‘fellow pervert’.
Katherine Sender’s argument that ‘a primary method of naturalising sexual decorum is to appeal to aesthetics…aesthetic hierarchies that stand in for sexual ones’ is particularly relevant when we consider Karley’s role as an ‘expert’. If ‘sexual appropriateness is hitched to legitimised cultural capital’ as Sender argues, ‘Slutever’ could be argued to be an attempt to legitimate BDSM as a sexual community through placing it in proximity to the cultural capital of the host – a white, slender, beautiful, well spoken, cis-gendered woman.
Karley not only is seen to be tolerating the practice of BDSM, but also actively approving of it and participating in it. Karley’s identity and social standing thus become the vectors through which BDSM is represented to the mainstream. Karley’s role as an expert not only reinforces such a hierarchy, in which she gives herself the authority and expertise to present the lives of others, but her inescapable positionality and cultural capital also serves to reinforce the illegitimacy of BDSM and construct it as something which needs to be presented by someone ‘normal’.
Representing ‘Otherness’
‘Slutever’ also attempts to represent BDSM by interviewing another kind of expert – practicing members of the BDSM community. Anthropologists have historically been critical of the relationship of power involved in representing a subject. Abu-Lughod has argued that any commentary on the experiences and stories of others creates an inevitable power dynamic between the words of the informant and an ‘expert’s’ explanation.
Moreover, queer scholars have also discussed the limitations of making the experience of ‘others’ visible. They have argued that an over-emphasis on someone’s experiences of being ostracized or ‘othered’ leaves unexamined the assumptions and practices that resulted in the lack of visibility originally, thus solidifying and naturalising that identity of difference. Guided by these critiques from anthropologists and queer scholars, we can begin to see how ‘Slutver’ falls short as a documentary series. Choosing to represent members of the BDSM community by interviewing them about their experiences of exclusion may be interesting for viewers. It does not, however, provide the audience with any information on how this community has been historically and culturally constructed in a way that contributes to this exclusion. In turn, this style of representation ignores the relationship between the categories of ‘normal’ sexuality and BDSM.
Through revealing the dominatrix or the lifestyle slave’s experience to the audience because of a perceived necessity that it be explained and discussed, BDSM’s cultural identity of difference and otherness is reified. Thus, representations like ‘Slutever’ end up reproducing the very structures and dynamics it appears to want to undo.
At first glance, increased representation of non-normative sexualities and BDSM such as ‘Peg the Patriarchy’ and ‘Slutever’ appear to be a step in the right direction for reducing stigma. With critical reflection on these representations, however, we can see that perhaps they are not particularly beneficial for the communities they aim to represent and uplift. Mainstream representations of BDSM such as ‘Slutever’ encode a power relation, in which the mere existence of BDSM practices requires explanation, evaluation, and representation, but only by certain members of society. ‘Slutever’s’ insistence that BDSM be brought into the mainstream via documentary style videos, and the contradictory personalities this representation encodes, do not feature any element of genuine acceptance or authentic representation. Instead, they present BDSM as acceptable only when it is presented within the dominant ideological categories of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. Representations of BDSM offered in ‘Slutever’ grant the audience distanced access to the ‘other’, while ensuring the host Karley, and the audience, remain in their position of viewing privilege.
Simultaneously, representations of this nature end up reinforcing the normative boundaries that place BDSM as outside the realm of ‘normal’ and reinforces their exclusion from mainstream sexuality.
‘Slutever’ does not, unfortunately, introduce BDSM into the mainstream in a way that challenges existing beliefs and stigmas. Instead, it serves to reinforce these existing beliefs and negative assumptions, while categorising and representing BDSM out of authentic existence, so it can be more easily consumed by the mainstream.
Further reading
Weiss, M D, 2006, “Mainstreaming kink: the politics of BDSM”, Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 50 no. 2, pp.103-32.
Sender, K 2003, ‘Sex sells: sex, class, and taste in commercial gay and lesbian media, GLQ, vol. 9 no. 3, pp.331-365.
Clifford, J, Marcus, G E 1986, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography: A School of American Research Advanced Seminar, University Press California, USA.
Abu-Lughod, L 1992, Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories, University Press California, USA.
Scott, J W 1993, ‘The Evidence of experience’ in Abelove, H (eds) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, pp. 395-415.
Champagne, J 1995, The Ethics of Marginality: A New Approach to Gay Studies, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
[Image of the BDSM toys is by Dainis Graveris sourced from Unsplash.]
