Karenina's Curse

Finally saw the new Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley. Been waiting to see it since I first saw the trailers half a year ago -- it's Keira Knightley! And the script is by Tom Stoppard, my favorite living playwright... And it was coming out for my birthday! Too many reasons to love it, though I have hated Tolstoy and this novel with a passion, ever since I've realized how much they have fucked me over, as a child, indoctrinating me into the world where love always leads to pain and loss, while a happy marriage -- the only means to a happy life -- can only be the product of a god-blessed, desexualized friendship.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the film. It was beautiful. It was witty (thank you, Stoppard!), compassionate (thanks again!), and very stylish. It stayed true to its own rules the entire time. But this same beautiful and highly-stylized picture often kept me from feeling anything for the characters, because, for one, I didn't quite believe they were feeling anything themselves. They were characters in their own play, and the theatrical setting of the film lent itself to this distancing -- which I didn't necessarily enjoy. The whole film, I kept vacillating between being fascinated by the style and repelled by it, especially when it felt like a caricature of Russian culture....

But what did it have to do with love, sex, and BDSM? Everything... This is what happens when no one is in control -- Anna loses herself when she falls in love, breaking the rules of society (which, according to Kitty, is even more unforgivable than breaking the law) and once Karenin gives up his control over her, there is no one left in charge. Vronsky is too young, too inexperienced to know how to handle Anna -- he can't even handle his horse, which leads to his accident at the races earlier in the film. And Anna, unfortunately, suffers from the curse of the 19th century aristocratic woman -- she has nothing to call her own, no route to actualize herself, no other interest but love to keep her going. Once she leaves Karenin and loses her son, she is left completely dependent on the affection of her lover, and when she feels it slip, all her stability, all her sense of self goes with it. She needs constant reassurance, becomes needy, addicted to morphine, insane.... she starts hating herself and her own weakness, but doesn't have the strength to control it. Even her suicide (both in the novel and the film) is shown to be not a result of conscious decision-making, but an impulse, a sudden step into the abyss.

Needless to say, the movie struck a chord. Watching Anna Karenina after the week I had made me see more clearly than ever that her curse didn't stay in the 19th century, but followed us on. Without something to drive a woman forward, an interest in life that is not connected to the unsteady emotions of another person, we cannot have control, even over our own lives. And without that sense of security -- not the material kind, but the self-reliance that comes from belief in oneself, one's ability to survive and pursue happiness no matter what -- we cannot truly be dommes, subs, or even babygirls. Because how can we engage in power dynamics if we don't really have any power? How can we give up control, if we never truly posses it? And on the contrary, once we do have it, we keep it for life, no matter how often we give it up or try to throw it away.....

Cause you can never lose a thing if it belongs to you.....

N(ot) M(y) K(ink)

Having my hair pulled has never been my kink. Ever. In fact, it was always on the list of my hard limits: along with being yelled at and humiliated. And then, at a recent kink event, I saw a very attractive, playful, and confident girl, a little exhibitionist slut (just like me) being pulled by the hair, by her boyfriend, in a very loving and sexy manner – and suddenly, I was turned on, my juices flowing, my cheeks flushing…. Before I knew it, I was asking my Daddy to try the same – and when he did, it led to one of the steamiest sex scenes (on the bench, middle of the meadow – remember darling?) that I have ever had.

So I have been wondering since, how do other people’s kinks become my own? And not just the ones I have never been exposed to and suddenly see and recognize as manifestations of my vague fantasies, but the ones I was aware of but never excited by?  How is it that seeing people I find attractive or socially adept doing things that never used to turn me on – or were even beyond my hard limits – in the right setting, can make me change my mind? If sexual desire were so easy to turn on and off, how many problems could we as society have avoided! And, personally, why would anyone ever choose to be on the margins of sexual normativity, if they could choose to be aroused by more mainstream things?

Now, I know that female sexuality is notoriously more easily susceptible to social pressures than male sexuality, at least in the way it’s expressed.  According to one study mentioned in Sex at Dawn, while women may get physically excited by certain stimuli, they often don’t recognize their excitement if the sexual stimuli they are responding to are not socially acceptable. This makes me question: these kinks that I so easily take on, could it be that they were already my own, but I didn’t recognize them as such until I saw them approved by my community?  Or, do I take on these kinks precisely because I am conforming to the community that okeys them, and to the social pressure that tells me that “all the cool kids are doing it,” while these kinks are not inherently my own? And does it matter?

The difference, as I see it, should be between how my body responds to something and how my mind views it, and it can be an important one – I either receive pleasure, or I endure the kink for the sake of pleasing my partner and satisfying communal expectations, not losing my cool, not showing my fear. And if it’s not for my pleasure, do I diminish myself somehow by taking it on? Or is it ok to play along every once in a while in order to please others? Where is the line?

In my slippery slope frame of mind, I keep thinking of a rather silly film I once saw, with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts (No, not Pretty Woman): The Runaway Bride. One of the recurrent conversations in that movie turns around how Julia Robert’s character likes her eggs for breakfast – and it turns out that with each fiancé she eats them differently. At the end of the film, when she returns to Gere after leaving him at the altar, she tells him: I finally know how I like my eggs. It scares me to think that with kinks it too can be a subtle slide from “I can do this to please my partner, while I don’t particularly want it” to “when I do this, my partner is happy, and so it doesn’t really matter what I want,” to, finally, “I don’t have a clue what I want.”  By taking on other people’s kinks, could we be losing ourselves and silencing our self-awareness?

 In Sex at Dawn, I liked the explanation of bonobo sexuality – that sex is used not just for procreation, or to secure pair-bonds, but to relieve stress, to encourage sharing, to resolve conflicts. So why is it not ok, then, to use human sexuality not just for personal pleasure, but all of the above – for the good of others, for community building, as methods of compromise? In our feminist society, we look down on a woman who wants to please others – it is seen somehow as a weakness, as buying into and perpetuating the hated patriarchy – but if it’s not taken to an extreme, is it really that wrong? If it’s consensual – and informed – isn’t it just an intelligent way of life? And yes, the gender inequality is there – guys don’t compromise (as much), they pursue their desires (more openly, or, at least, despite the social obstacles). But can’t this be a feminine strength, then, on an otherwise unleveled playing field -- our ability to use our sexuality in so many different ways, to form or solidify bonds, create a sense of well-being, unify a community, and yes, receive pleasure and get our way?

And all along, I still wonder – if it is not truly my kink, why does even just thinking about it make me so excited and wet?

Nine ½ Weeks: The Issue of Consent

I know it’s an old film, but it has been on my mind a lot recently, for one reason in particular. Reading some of the critics’ reviews of the movie, I was surprised at how well some of them actually understood the dynamic between the characters: Elizabeth and John. But even Roger Ebert, whose review I generally agreed with, saw the ending of the film as a victory of personality over purely sexual desire: while kinky sex is all well and good, in the end without a deeper connection and knowledge of each other, Elizabeth walks away from John, thinking that she just spent nine and a half weeks having an erotic affair with a perfect stranger.

But somehow, watching the film after I already began my journey into BDSM, I didn’t see that lack of a more personal connection as the reason why the two characters split up. Kinky sex, or any sexual experimentation outside of the traditional heteronormative relationship, I believe, necessitates a deeper intimacy, as the participants are thrown off balance, taken outside their comfort zones, away from the prescribed reactions and responses: this is how you’re supposed to feel when he does this, and these are the sounds you make when you are feeling pleasure, etc. When you’re experiementing, you give up the advance knowledge of your body’s responses. All of a sudden, you may find yourself moaning in pleasure as you’re being hurt, or screaming in pain as you orgasm. You may find that you are not experiencing pangs of jealousy as your partner fucks another, or, you may realize you like to do things that for the outside vanilla world sound disgusting or even debasing. There is a kind of honesty inherent in such new experiences, that comes from simply not having had the time to fake a reaction, or from not having a prescribed path to follow. And from that honesty, in my experience, comes a deeper personal connection – not necessarily love or even a long-term partnership, but a deeper knowledge of one another in each other’s vulnerable and unscripted states.

So why is it that Elizabeth is so freaked out by the end of the film that she has to leave, while she’s still, obviously, longing for John? I think it is the issue of consent and communication. While we can tell that John is more experienced in this kinky lifestyle than Elizabeth, and that he is naturally dominant (which makes him responsible for her), he still makes the mistake of assuming that Elizabeth is self-aware and strong enough to follow him into his kink without getting hurt: that she knows her desires and her limits, and can stop him without breaking what they have. But Elizabeth has no idea what she is getting into! And having had no experience stepping outside her comfort zone, as well as being in a vulnerable place to begin with -- she is recently divorced, she does not have the sense of self, or the strength, to control her situation. And this is what most of the critics reviewing this film (and probably most its viewers) didn’t understand: in a D/s relationship, while one of the partners does submit to the other, they both shoulder the responsibility for the relationship, for setting and abiding by each other’s limits, for being able to safeword out of a scene that isn’t theirs. Though they are in a power dynamic where one dominates the other, they are still equals in the amount of power each of them has to stay in or end the scene, and to ensure that balance they have to communicate their desires, state their hard limits, and discuss the scenes either before or after (or both) to see what worked and what didn’t. Without that openness, they don’t leave each other room for mistakes, and every error or misunderstanding might break their relationship. This communication, in turn, involves consent on both sides, and even though it may look like the submissive has no control, she has to consent to giving it up – and even then, she has the power to get out of the scene she is not ok with through safewording. Anything other than that I see as a dangerous abuse of power that is fraught with danger of physical and psychological harm, or at least, misunderstandings fatal to any relationship.

Elizabeth doesn’t have the power of consent, because John doesn’t give her that option. We see throughout the film that she doesn’t know how to end a scene except by leaving after the harm has already been done: as we see when John puts her in a room with a prostitute. Because she never knows what’s coming next, Elizabeth can’t prevent things from happening, and so it really puts John in complete control over her (granted, he takes that control and doesn’t leave her with much of a choice). Yes, that makes for a better film that’s much more enjoyable to watch and shows the life of kink as much more dangerous and erotic than if we got to see the behind the scenes negotiations and the gradual growth of the characters that would prepare them properly for each scene – let’s face it, successful lovey-dovey relationships that don’t hit any major roadblocks don’t exactly make for great stories. But I think that’s exactly what goes wrong between John and Elizabeth in the end – they get into a scene that doesn’t work for her, one that pushes her limits too far, and she runs away. Their last meeting shows us exactly how much John cares for her – he is not the selfish careless bastard who just wanted her for the fulfillment of his sexual fantasies. I believe he really wanted to explore Elizabeth’s kinky side, to push her to open up to the desires hidden inside her, but because he didn’t do it gently enough or carefully enough, giving her the choice to either consent or break the scene without leaving him or getting hurt, she doesn’t see his love, and so he loses her. Without clear and open communication between them, he forces her to reveal aspects of herself without revealing much of himself, and that swings the balance of power unequivocally to his side, creating an unhealthy relationship. And while Elizabeth is strong enough to walk out when she is pushed beyond her limits, she is not self-aware or knowledgeable enough (neither about him, nor about her own choices in their relationship) to stay and fix what they have, to negotiate and make it work for the two of them. But she doesn’t leave a bad affair, one that only hurt and didn’t benefit her; on the contrary, she leaves with a lot of regret for what it could’ve developed into, but didn’t have a chance to become.