Personal reflections on BDSM, abuse, and the Power & Control Wheel

Oh yes, rape culture can happen in BDSM just the same way it happens in the "vanilla" mainstream. And there are certainly people in my local community who I would never get involved with, because I do not trust them. Being defensive about BDSM and abuse won't help; yes, BDSM is stigmatized and stereotyped, but the abuse is still a problem. So after I started blogging, I tried to move past my defensiveness and write more concretely -- to write about what exactly the BDSM community does to work against abuse. One of my first posts on BDSM and abuse was called "Evidence That The BDSM Community Does Not Enable Abuse.” It highlighted anti-abuse initiatives within the BDSM community. As I learned more about BDSM and abuse, and my perspective got more nuanced, I wrote a more expansive post called "The Alt Sex Anti-Abuse Dream Team.” It covered all the information I'd given in the earlier post, and also talked about how I personally would structure an anti-abuse initiative with alt-sex people in mind. Looking back now, those posts still strike me as defensive. I was making good points, but I also think that I didn't fully understand where some feminists are coming from when they react negatively to BDSM. This past year, I've learned a lot more about abusive gender-based violence, power, and control. And I've concluded that while BDSM is obviously not equivalent to abuse, we need better theory to describe the difference between BDSM and abuse, and we should try to avoid defensiveness while articulating that theory. I've written before that one thing I think people can do is try to "start from a position of strength, and seek strength afterwards." The overall point of that maxim is that any given BDSM activity can eventually make all parties feel more supported, more capable, more powerful in the world. That's my ideal end goal; that is what I personally would aim for with my BDSM practice. Perhaps I might do an intense BDSM scene that makes me feel terrible in the moment -- or for a lot of moments... but I want to be sure it will make me more supported, more capable, more powerful later. That's an awfully vague maxim, though, and one that can be different for every person. I may have found a more concrete focus in a 1984 anti-abuse concept -- the Power & Control Wheel: In 1984, staff at the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) began developing curricula for groups for men who batter and victims of domestic violence. We wanted a way to describe battering for victims, offenders, practitioners in the criminal justice system and the general public. Over several months, we convened focus groups of women who had been battered. We listened to heart-wrenching stories of violence, terror and survival. After listening to these stories and asking questions, we documented the most common abusive behaviors or tactics that were used against these women. The tactics chosen for the wheel were those that were most universally experienced by battered women. Ina BDSM context, a lot of the behaviors listed on the Power & Control Wheel could be part of a consensual encounter -- violence, headgames, name-calling, all kinds of things can be BDSM. But this part, this is important: HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018648