wanderingstray
Posts: 26
Joined: 6/11/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
Is it just me or does the complexity of what is right and what is wrong seem magnified in the bdsm world? My impression is that BDSM appeals to people who get something out of rules, and who tend to be serious about things. Maybe the common traits are humorlessness and rigidity. Like, who else would even CARE about power in relationships, or want/need a rigid structure of roles and relationships, unless for some reason it mattered to do things right not wrong? Maybe religion is the primary culture, and this is a counter-culture. The sexual repression versus sexual freedom thing explains some of it, but morality is most of it. When you grow up hearing sex is bad, then when you becomes sexual, guilt applies, and so here is a way to answer all that. There is power struggling built into sexual relationships because it involves an instinctual drive that cares little for our ideas about it. We are easily in conflict with ourselves and our partners. Cultures usually exist to allow people a way to socialize. If the ostensible culture doesn't meet people's needs, they will develop a counter-culture to take care of things. There would be some transition from above ground to underground, including redefinition, adopting the new ideas, exploring the new emotions, that is, stepping into the world where you have to find your way and define yourself in the new terms. People tend to carry along parental habits when they play at morality. The dominant one is the parent, the submissive is the child. As with parent/child relationships, there are rules and consequences for one applied by the other. Parent/child God/man Teacher/student Dominant/submissive Right/wrong Maybe the structure of religion is kept but some of its repressive tenets are replaced with permissive ones. And then to make it all seem, ahem, serious, people puff up their chests and try to sound authoritative, to keep from feeling silly wearing the outfits. It probably brings about a state of mind that hearkens back to the childhood sense of awe from being surrounded by robed men chanting in Latin, at mass, or something.
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