So, really . . . who IS that nice man "raping" you?

For what's it worth, I'm not entirely pulling this stuff out of the air . . . I have done a fair bit of background reading. On the other hand, of course, I am hampered by not being a practitioner: I am very much an observer from the (far) outside.

I think too I should say that I find talking about "BDSM" at all to be difficult because so many people define it so differently.

I have had conversations with Dolcett players who insist that THEY are "BDSM" too.

On the other end of the spectrum are those who insist that BDSM need have nothing to do with physical violence, or with sex, for that matter.

When I use "BDSM," I generally mean the latter, which I tend to think of as "true" BDSM.

If I "slip" in my usage sometimes, it is because of this confusion. Let me say unambiguously that I do not think that consensual BDSM, in RL or SL, is a form of abuse. I DO think, and I have (again) backup here from RL BDSM organizations, that abuse can be mislabelled "BDSM."

I'm afraid not. It ran circles around my comprehension abilities.

I *think* you might have said you believe "true" BDSM to, "need have nothing to do with physical violence, or with sex, for that matter. "

If so, that's a very limiting definition.

Regardless, it leaves me completely unsure of what you are trying to say, or what comparisons you are trying to formulate. Or how it fits into your agenda. Regardless, others seem to be doing a better job of discourse with you, so I'll leave it to them.

I personally feel that it stops being BDSM without sex. I'm not talking about a physical act - I'm talking about a physical response - arousal. But I know that some disagree.

Sorry spinster, the problem here is in some measure about language. I agree entirely that rape RP is not sexual abuse: by "virtual victimization" I mean someone playing the ROLE of a victim. I use the term by analogy with things like "virtual sex," which is also NOT "real" sex, but a simulation of it. So, really, I agree with you: rape RP is a consensual form of play, not an actual form of sexual violence or abuse. It becomes difficult to find language that isn't awkward sometimes to express the complexity of what is going in SL, so I probably get lazy sometimes, and use an ambiguous term like "virtual victimization" when what I more precisely mean is a representation or simulation of victimization.

Bree would need to explain exactly what she meant by this idea herself, but as I took it, what she was suggesting that taking on the ROLE of victim in SL might make one more susceptible to passively accepting that role in RL. Again, the model here would not be the "stranger" rapist, but rather ongoing sexual assault and abuse by someone in the family, friends, or what-have-you.

What I am getting at here is that BDSM need not involve rape RP; that is at best just one aspect of BDSM, and, moreover, a means to an end, rather than an ends in itself.

For BDSMers, the "end" should be the emotional satisfaction that comes from the transfer of power and trust: rape is merely ONE way to articulate this.

For someone whose interest is purely in rape RP, however, the kick is different, and neither trust nor a true exchange of power is involved: it is more about violence.

Not sure about this. Somebody who is interested solely in rape RP would come across as a bit obsessive to me, but as long as it's all just RP ... if they respect boundaries and limits, in what way is it violent?

allow me to be a scary voice...

let all the violent pervs act out whatever scary fantasy they wish in virtual space with willing partners, and if those same partners are willing IRL let them take that there too. the only targets should be the ones that try to lure or decieve unwilling participants.

I've heard the training and escalation arguments, but the numbers just don't support them.... and connecting these people with willing participants should actually reduce the problem, not increase it.

Well, I guess this is what I meant by the problems with defining what does constitute BDSM.

My understanding is that BDSM can be defined as a relationship founded upon a consensual exchange of power, and built upon trust.

This exchange can be manifested or expressed in any number of different ways, ONE of which is through sexuality, and another of which is through a kind of consensual "violence." But neither of these is necessarily an obligatory part of the relationship. The core elements are, again, about power and trust (the latter implying, of course, consent).

I understand that BDSM is most frequently expressed sexually, of course, and violent RP (in RL or SL) is often another means of its expression). But these are the ways in which trust and power are EXPRESSED: they are the means to an end, rather than the end itself.

For what's it worth, I'm not entirely pulling this stuff out of the air . . . I have done a fair bit of background reading. On the other hand, of course, I am hampered by not being a practitioner: I am very much an observer from the (far) outside.

That said, for the sake of argument, and because it IS an interesting question, let me throw out a couple of analogies and examples that might confusify the issue somewhat.

Should someone who has been convicted of violent crime with a firearm be permitted exactly the same rights of gun ownership as everyone else, once time has been served?

Should a daycare centre NOT have the right to deny a job to a convicted pedophile?

Should a driver with an established record of dangerous or drunken driving have the same rights to a driving license as everyone else? Should insurance companies be denied the right to increase his or her insurance rates, on the basis of past performance?

If you answered "Yes" to all of these questions, then you have taken an entirely consistent, if (to my mind) rather reductive approach to this issue. But if you said "No" to even one of these questions, you have essentially acknowledged that past performance CAN and, for societal safety, SHOULD be seen as a way of measuring probable future behaviour. You have, in other words, admitted to the possibility that, in principle at least, sex offender registries might serve a useful purpose in preventing a future offence.

Why not create a separate continent in SL and encourage all those who are so inclined to move there and . . .

Pep ( . . . ah, so *that's* what was behind LL's strategy. )

I confess that I agree with much of this. And even in the BDSM community there are brows raised when things "go extreme" even consensually.

A number of years ago a gentleman was looking for someone to castrate him. Severe CBT just wasn't doing it for him. Eventually he found a willing Domme with medical knowledge as well. But I remember chatting with some fellow Scene friends at the time and kicking around the legalities, pros and cons of such an act.

I always fall back to my usual position: Who am I to judge? If those involved are consenting, and have full knowledge of what they do and the repercussions, well... that's their business.

err, why?

It can't help anyone or anything, unless Linden Labs was to say that this particular interpretation had their support. Without their support, it becomes just another opinion. *All* sex involves an exchange of some form, and *all* of it can be equated to a gain or loss of status from *some* standpoint. "Love, Honour and Obey" is an emptily-repeated oath, which people commonly parrot out and then promptly apply selectively, as if it was none of our business who or what they might choose to *obey* - yet it's at the heart of the straightest possible component of society's approach to conventional sexuality...

So if the mainstream can't even get *that* right, or apply it consistently, or desist from killing one another when the failure to observe it's provisions becomes too much to bear - why, then, are you expecting infinitely higher standards from a community which can't even agree on definitions, internally?

Personally in RL I got along just fine for the thick end of a decade, doing BDSM without benefit of published rules and guidelines - in fact, the *absence* of such things made the initial seduction/negotiation a whole lot easier, and the accepted church of what was OK to do was both wider, and milder. The coming of the Net and later, the Web, introduced a lot of codified bureaucratic crap; there are good cultural reasons why this was so and I don't propose to bore on about those here - but the ideas that they introduce, that there is "real" and "fake" BDSM, and so on, are ultimately corrosive, and pointless.

Then you are coming in at a very strange angle from the heirarchy of risks & solutions. The only people who equate sex with violence are a particular sub-type of radicalist, who at heart believe in some of the more ill-considered headlines of the feminist revolution of the 60's & 70's: buried deep down in there are slogans like "all sex is rape", and "all male actions are violent", which are slowly bubbling to the surface and turning out to be the feminist movement's equivalent of the oaths of the KKK.

So work a bit on the scope of your background reading, and put it in some sensible contexts, before you fire off any assumptions about a situation you don't experience yourself. One interesting angle is; if the connotation between rape, violence and sex is such a male driven issue, then what is the background to the entire catalogue of publishers Mills & Boon, whose output is many times the volume of John Norman's (dull, tedious) "Gor" series, and which were collectively known as "bodice-rippers", at least in the UK? Mills&Boon novels were consumed almost entirely by... women.

I also find it useful to contemplate the shift in outlook shown by Warren Farrell in this:

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Male-Power-Warren-Farrell/dp/0425181448

Sorry, but this makes me sodding angry. Who the hell are you to define what "true" BDSM is? What do you think those last two letters stand for?

I am really curious, Scylla, to know what you think of women like me: not submissive, particularly (although I have my moments), but masochistic. Where do we fit in your world view? Do we need re-educating? Healing? Locking up?

Hell's teeth... what an unbelievably recondite thing to worry about! There are *far* more immediate, practical, and thus-far neglected jobs to be taking care of, before we get round to third-order-removed projects that speculate that people on the Sex Offenders register might be a-fixin to brainwash those regular family folks so that *someone else entirely* in their town can take wicked advantage of them...

In fact I think the topic here should face a different direction. There are people who get off on circling round a taboo subject, as a way of getting to say various words and contemplate certain scenarios without actually being directly exposed to them themselves - victims, if you will, of Lady of Shallot syndrome (for those who know their Tennyson). This is a form of self-teasing, or repression, and has overlaps with the original victorian definition of "Hysteria" (as written up, hilariously, in a recent Scientific American). I must say I am beginning to suspect that Scylla might benefit from some of the remedies described in that article...

I DO have judgments about BDSM practices. I don't like them, for a variety of reasons...

Don't sodding tell me what my "end" should be. Sometimes my "end" is just a good set of bruises and a grin whenever I sit down. It needn't be any more complicated than that. Just as rape RP is only one possible BDSM activity, so is power exchange. There are plenty of Dom(me)s who enjoy a service topping without really exchanging any power.

Not sure about this. Somebody who is interested solely in rape RP would come across as a bit obsessive to me, but as long as it's all just RP ... if they respect boundaries and limits, in what way is it violent?

it's a word game. See how various rights-movement authors have connected together the act of penetration, with the *concept* (not the reality) of violence, and by this means presented it as equivalent.

Much RL rape *reality* involves coercion, not physical assault, and is all the more insidious and unpleasant as a result. It's the coercive aspects of SL's presentation which produce the unpleasant encounters - you can coerce someone to get on a poseball, and by the nature of the poseball/object menu system, you can start out making it all look entirely innocuous. I'm quite sure many players have sat on an office chair, for example, and not realised that the poses therein are under someone else's control..

Please explain this in a little more detail

A gun and a car are both are both dangerous weapons from which I cannot easily defend myself. The internet is not a dangerous weapon, and I have the means to protect myself (not revealing information). In the case of the daycare center, minor children are not capable of protecting themselves from potential predators, and it is a requirement that a responsible adult take steps to protect them.

Past behavior is one indicator of potential future behavior, that isn't in dispute. It may or may not be terribly accurate depending on the individual, however. In any case, one needs to take into account the consequences of wrongly predicting, and the consequences of failing to accurately predict.

(I hope you haven't actually stopped following the thread. I only reply to something like this because I assume you are serious and passionate about the subject. Otherwise, I do have other things I can do with my time.)

/me groans quietly to herself . . .

I'll try tomorrow, Kira . . .