The Myth of ‘Protecting’ Women

Lucrezia Magazine
Written by FCK

One of the arguments in favour of this law is that women need protecting from men who commit crimes against them. This attitude is dated and incorrect, being based on the assumption that women are weak, abused people. Every gender is at risk from being harmed emotionally, physically and mentally, but this proposed law will not protect them – only information and guidance will. The government’s assumption that only heterosexual couples are involved in intense sensory stimulation shows their lack of understanding of the diverse range of people included in this lifestyle – from heterosexual to homosexual, pansexual, transsexual and everything in between, including poly relationships. My personal relationship within this lifestyle is with a female partner, where we participate in privates experiences that could be seen as ‘violent; and ‘abusive’, if perhaps a single image of our interaction was recorded. From an outside viewpoint, even some sex scenes could be misconstrued as ‘violent’ if a single frame was taken. This simply proves that images are not always what they seem, and there is much scope for errors in judgement. My partner and I could be targeted and dragged through media attention and slander if an image was released and misapprehended, possibly affecting our future work and bringing down family disgrace. The law needs clearer definitions of who they are protecting, including ways of finding evidence.
Information available on the Internet, including images, gives us guidance on how to correctly and safely take part in private emotional and physical connections through the powerful evocation of the senses. People who wish to participate in a fantasy recreation of intense sensory stimulation should have access to information on relevant safety issues. Fantasy can be a way of working out past issues in a secure environment, perhaps by borrowing images from films, books or art, and in the correct circumstances it can be a healthy expression of sexuality. People involved in these practices learn together and discuss and debate the safety issues of participating in such an experience, and also recognize a safe signal which can be used to convey to a partner that something is wrong. Adults do not need protection, the need knowledge and access to information so they can make their own decisions and decide on their own courses of action. Typically it is the submissive who controls and limits BDSM interaction to ‘This far and no further’, not the dominant – which completely contradicts the psychology of abuse. Within any arbitrarily selected group of people you will find someone who was abused but survived; however, that should not imply that if you take a cross-section of the population, those members of society who are involved in BDSM are always abuse victims.