Ask Giles: Why do you keep saying "BDSM emulates evil"? (I always get consent/give consent, plan scenes, give receive aftercare)

"...what would a Martian think when it saw
one of you hurt the other?"

This question keeps coming up and usually goes something like this:

Why do you keep saying "BDSM mimics evil"? I always get/give consent, plan scenes, give/receive aftercare. The sub has the real power anyway, since they can safeword and I/we attended all these classes and raise money for Amnesty International and...

And yet - I say - what would a Martian think when it saw one of you hurt the other?

"Thinking Like a Martian" is the brainchild of Eric Berne, founder of Transactional Analysis and author of Games People Play.

The Martian, being an alien, doesn't understand English an this is immune to the bullshit explanations people give. It can, however, read body language and behaviour.

It's not a very nice way of thinking because it assigns practical responsibility to everybody in a situation - take a look at Eric Berne's reading of the Little Red Riding Hood.

So what does a Martian see when you do your BDSM?

The relationship is definitely unequal

Here's a 1900s photo that might help us (left).

The relationship is definitely unequal. He's working away at the laundry, she's about to go off bicycling and her body language is commanding and his is subservient - this isn't an early peer marriage where they share the chores.

More inequality.

Since this comes from an era when people had servants, we might guess that he's a servant.

Here's another one showing Roman life (right).

More inequality. We guess that the woman is a rich domina and these are her slaves.

In both cases, without the context, the Martian only knows that the woman is in charge.

Oral sex

More images show us what happens later in private.

The 1900s woman enjoys receiving oral sex from the man we saw earlier (I know, different models. Go with me on this.) and gives nothing back.

We might guess she's having an affair with her servant. We might also guess it has a kinky undertow. We don't know it's fully consensual because she's the employer. However, we do know that in theory at least he can walk away.

More oral sex

The Roman woman similarly makes use of her male slave. (Right) She doesn't even bother to get dressed! We know that there's nothing kinky for her about this and that though he might be turned on, he hasn't consented because he is a real slave.

The 1900s woman beats her man.

However, the Martian doesn't see any difference between the two sequences:

The woman's in charge and getting what she wants. The man is obeying orders and getting nothing back.

Now the whips come out.

The 1900s woman beats her man. Now we're suddenly aware that the whole sequence is in fact kinky and almost certainly consensual. Though some of his behaviour is indistinguishable from that of a real servant, the man is not a servant, he's a sexual submissive. She seems to enjoy being a sexual dominant.

They could be a loving couple. She might be a professional dominatrix. Either way, we're witnessing consensual power exchange.

It could be discipline, it
could be her getting her kicks at his expense.

The Roman woman does likewise and beats her slave. It could be discipline, it could be her getting her kicks at his expense. It's also quote possible that he has an erection - one of the humiliating and intrusive aspects of a real beating is that it can trigger physiological reactions like that.

However we do know that the power relationship is not consensual and thus evil.

At this point, we can see a clear moral difference between the two sequences: happy kinksters versus evil slavery.

However, to the Martian both sequences are identical and show an enslaved man serving and suffering at the hands of his mistress.

The Martian only sees a real difference if the 1900s man uses a safe word, or if it sticks around long enough to see the before and after, at which point BDSM starts to look pretty much like vanilla sex; You both anticipate and plan the session as you would a date or romantic evening, there's intense physical action where at least one partner responds authentically to sensations and at the end, everybody is happy and cuddles.

Now what does the Martian think? Clearly the 1900s BDSM relationship is a consensual emulation of the Roman mistress-slave one.

The Martian gets further confirmation when it looks at evidence for BDSM fantasies and finds that people love non-consensual fantasies.

I'm with the Martian on this. When I wait on Xena, massage her, pleasure her without getting anything back, our relationship looks pretty much as it would if she really owned me. So I think BDSM emulates old fashioned slavery, and thus though BDSM is not evil, emulates it.

This is neither shocking nor surprising. Humans love playing at evil - just think how many people enjoy dressing up as Star Wars Stormtroopers!

However, I do think it's an important insight for many reasons, ranging from how we do BDSM to make it mutually enjoyable, through to how we present and defend it to the vanilla world.

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Don't resign yourself to just getting off on other people's adventures! When we started out, my wife was vanilla. Use my manuals to help you walk the same Femdom path! There's one for him, and one for her.