Vir Cotto's BDSM Blog

Interest Does Not Make Right

When I was in college, I read the "The Republic" which discussed many ideas, one of which is generally known in English as "Might Makes Right" (which it then disproves). Unfortunately, I've seen a theme in the kink community I'll call "Interest Makes Right". Here's how that argument generally goes:

If a heterosexual man writes a post that is demeaning to women or submissives, it's socially unacceptable.

If a woman (or gay man) writes a similar post demeaning submissive men or women it's socially acceptable.

I rarely gender my posts, but in this case, the gender is the critical factor, both for the poster and the audience.

That's because submissive men (and some submissive women) are more likely to respond to a post that is aggressive and demeaning in its tone, and posts like that are met with less criticism overall because they're generally responded to favorably by their audience.

That leads us to ask whether or not the response to such a post means that the post itself is acceptable.

One could make the argument that in making a post (whether an ad or otherwise) that one should put their best foot forward and make themselves more likely to succeed. One may also argue that you should represent yourself in writing as you would in person. If you are a domly person who enjoys humiliating your submissive, then this line of argument would dictate that you should do so in your writing.

Since the reader "knows what they're getting" and gets a good number of responses, then we could say the post is a success.

But I don't believe in this line of thinking. Instead, I believe in equality and civility.

I believe that all people, dominant, submissive, master. slave, woman, man, gender queer, etc. are all fundamentally equal. That is they all have equal value as people. And as equals, one may choose a role that suits them. Furthermore, they choose not only one role, but a role associated with a specific individual that suits them. One may choose to be dominant over one person but submit to another.

But amongst people who have no established relationship, we must all choose the egalitarian path. No one is submissive to anyone else, and no one should expect to be treated with anything but the normal rules of civility that they would get in the workplace or in a casual (vanilla) social setting.

When we give some people a pass due to their gender presentation and let fantasy get in the way, we set a number of dangerous precidents. Flipping entitlement or rape culture around does not cure it, it only serves to create an environment that makes people uncomfortable and turn good people away.

Rants