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Tactical Ninja - I'm a deviant, you're a deviant, everyone's a deviant.
Jun. 10th, 2009
10:20 am - I'm a deviant, you're a deviant, everyone's a deviant.
I got approached by a guy in the train station the other day - he was stocky and tough-looking with facial tattoos, and was dressed as if for work on a construction site.
Him: Where did you get your cloak?
Me: I made it.
Him: I really like the hood.
Me: Hehe, I got overtaken by whimsy and now I look like a refugee from Harry Potter!
Him: I have one just the same, only mine's made of pure silk..
Me: *experiences cognitive dissonance*
About deviance. Not to say that owning a pure silk cloak with a pointy hood when you work in construction is particularly deviant, not at all, but based purely on first impressions, the guy looked more like he'd have pants made of leather and a hat made entirely of chains and barbed wire, you know? He certainly portrayed the 'real kiwi joker' image, until he started talking about his silk cloak. Maybe he thought I was a kindred spirit with my own pointiness?
Anyway, it got me thinking about appearances, and what people choose to reveal about themselves or not. I think that everyone's deviant in some way - even my Mum, who married a man 20 years her senior. "What?" I hear you say, "That's not deviant." Well, in sociological terms, yes it is. It's outside the norm, and anything that deviates from the norm is, well.. deviant. And keeping your deviances hidden seems to be quite important in maintaining 'civilised society'.
Foucault waxed at length about this, in a fairly convoluted and incomprehesible-to-many kind of way. He reckoned that by hiding our deviance we're giving society the power to label us as deviant. Or something like that anyway (you can never really tell with Foucault).
Sexual behaviour is one of the more obvious places where this happens. One's sex life is supposed to be private, and enjoying things that are not 'normal' by the standards of society is doubly so. But I have a bit of a problem with this.
OK, so getting naked and having it off in public is not socially acceptable behaviour - I do understand that (much to the relief of many people I see IRL I'm guessing). I don't really understand why it's become so important to hide sex, given that we all do it, we all know we all do it, and without it none of us would be here*. Visually it's probably only aesthetically pleasing to those participating, but you could say that about a lot of things that are acceptable to do in public.
So what is it about sex that makes it so totally wrong to be public about it? Why does it have to be private? And if one has a sexual kink, why do we keep it quiet?
I've been thinking about this and the only reasons I can come up with that someone would be secretive about their sexual kinks go something like this:
1. Fear of disapproval. Society only accepts a pretty generic and quite tame idea of what's sexually 'normal', and anything outside that is likely to meet with disapproval and/or consternation.
2. That disapproval and/or consternation is likely to lead other people to view the person with the kink differently from how they would if they didn't know about it, and therefore treat them differently. This treatment may extend to any partners who participate in the behaviour with the person.
3. People don't want to be treated differently. They want the benefits of being perceived as 'normal' and therefore safe - although I'm unclear on how having a sexual kink makes a person unsafe. Certainly the people I know who are public about their kinks are no different, my-safety-wise, from anyone else. In fact in a lot of cases, I consider these people to be safer. Engagement in edgy behaviour causes one to consider and be responsible for things that staying inside the boundaries of 'normal' does not.
DISCLAIMER HERE: I think some people are misinterpreting what I've written here. When I say that I consider openly kinky people to be 'safer', I don't mean that they are safer from society than 'normal' people, I mean that they are safer for me to be around, ie safer FOR society because of knowledge and responsibility that comes with edgy behaviour.
So anyway, we keep these secrets for the sake of being treated the same as everyone else. Which is weird given the acceptance of difference we're supposed to be learning these days.
What I am still wondering, is what is a reasonable level of disclosure regarding one's own deviances? How does one judge such a thing, and what sort of things would you consider before making revelations about your own kinks, and who would you reveal them to if you were going to?
This is the bit where you're probably expecting some revelation about how I like to bathe in frogs. WON'T ANYBODY THINK OF THE FROGS???!!!?? Nope, no confession/revelation/bombshells being dropped in this post. Mostly I'm curious, especially given my leaning towards trying to be as open as possible about my own life. I wonder where others' boundaries sit on this, and why I still have certain blocks to talking about some things.
* Actually, some of us might be here sans sex - we were all born since the invention of the turkey baster after all - but just bear with me mmk?
Hmm, that's a lot to come from some random meeting with a tough-guy with a penchant for silk robes with pointy hoods, huh? I think too much.
In other news, New Spam Tack! Add the subject line "You're a moron." Sure to get people buying your product. Or how about "Always good loving attack!" Go on, you know you want to....
More seriously...
4. Generally thinking that other people would just rather not know about those sorts of things. Of course, why people feel that way, or why we think they feel that way, is a discussion all unto itself.
Sorry, but I no longer want to tear off all your clothes.
*cue mass weeping from 50% of Wellington*
For example, embarrassment about public nudity. The theory goes that yes, other people will on be attracted to you. Well, so what? The 'so what' is the social need to show the partners of those other people that you're not happy to be causing those other people to be attracted to you and not the their partners.
Similarly for non-standard sexual behaviour, we all know, or at least suspect, that those strange people doing it are having a lot more fun than we are. So if those strange people start bragging on about the sensuous feel of leather/oddly-shaped vegetables/frog mouthwash/whatever, then it'll lead to misbehaviour, infidelity, and the corresponding fall of civilisation. Or something like that.
Whether this theory is bollocks or not, I shall leave for others to decide, but it makes a certain amount of sense to me.
That's an extreme case, but it's true that if other people think you're after interfering with their relationships in any way, they're likely to go into defensive mode and make your life tough. And revealing a kink, I guess, is a way of showing that you are willing to engage in sexually edgy behaviour. Trying to steal off with someone's partner is also sexually edgy behaviour, and if you were the kind of person who doesn't differentiate between types of edginess, it'd be easier to think "Oh that person is ok with whips and chains, therefore they probably don't respect the sanctity of my relationship because All Boundaries Are Really The Same."
Makes no sense to me, but I can see how it works in the minds of some folks.
I read your post and just stared at it for five minutes, comparing it to my own immensely complicated life experiences. The problems with my family. The time I got outed at a job - after speaking up to defend an ordinary gay person in a discrimination case. The friendships that failed to launch or were lost. The fact that "reasonable level of disclosure" must be judged for each and every individual.
If you'd truly like my thoughts on this, perhaps we could have a cup of coffee and a face to face conversation. Because of my own thoughts about revelations of this nature, I'll decline to say more in an unlocked journal comment....
spanking
*smirks*
actually i have wondered similar things about set and the whole taboo around it, it has become a topic of discussion in pagan blog circles because of a reference to sex with a minor which was eluded, or perhaps suggested in an early pagan book.. eek... however with keeping sex and the fact that we do it, or perhaps don't do it or do it by ourselves, is what gives it the power that it should not really have or didn't really have untill.. *ponders this*.. perhaps it was during the Roman times that it started changing, it certainly became something that only happened behind closed door with the xian thos, although i blame Paul for that whole shagg through a whole in the sheet and only for making babies thingo, but i digress and pass out from lack of oxygen cause my sentences are to long... *stops to breath*
now where was i oh yes sex with spanking, or perhaps giggleing, no wait.. sex as a weappon. ok.. so this power of sex it becomes a huge drama when *gasp* someone who is famous has their sex tape plastered all over the internet causes celebrity gossip whore to go into over drive.. also with this sex as a weapon is that whole chastity for young girls thing that is quite prevalent in America, event to the point that some young women are actually giving their viginity to their fathers, (no get your head out of the gutters its not in that way) so that they are virgins until their wedding night.. ack.. it pretty much delegates young women to the category of possessions again and that the only thing that has any value of their is weather or not they have shagged or not shagged.. again sex becomes a weapon, and in my mind it is not even a gender issue so much as a societal thing, in that factions of society are gaining far to much power with this chastity thing and those that are saiving them selves are by in large loosing all the power... *ponders this as well*...
this is not to say that we should all be letting it all hang out there, however it as in sex and things around sex or superposed deviant behaviour, is way out of balance, and there should be some sort of rebalancing.. a in how to do that.. well a start might be making july the international month of blogging about sexual deviancy and how its not really deviant after all?
well gosh..
*skips*
Of course that's not the same as being deliberately secretive, but in our TMI, tell-all, reality TV series world, people sometimes think so. I value my privacy for its own sake (yes, even with a LJ, there's tons I don't go on about).
Also, it's better to look normal and actually be interesting than to look deviant and be a completely boring conformist inside. Many members of "fringe" groups are exactly the latter.
some people walk with a self-knowing smirk: not on their face, mind, but in their manner.
reasons for hiding or keeping to oneself such relevant matters may just be along the lines of "I'm happy with it and it's none of your business" but also yeah there is already an overadundance of sexualised messages thrust at everyone (many/most of them "normative" as well as commercially expoloitative/manipulative) and it is nice to get through the day and do your business without also having to deal with people's reactions to one's own nature. as far as such "tame" issues as homosexuality go, well I think they are made fraught partly because of this persistent and pervasive media/advertising focus on sexualising "common" human transactions. (and it is indeed "tame" relatively if a prime time TV program such as Trading Spouses can spring Gay spouses on Straight couples [or spring Straight spouses on Gay ones! check your mental heirarchies, folks] and have no major issues with it. 20 years ago? no fucking chance!)
anyway, people are and have always been completely friggin kinky.
And every now and then someone like silk-cloak guy comes along and reminds me of the fantastic diversity of people-when-they-aren't-contrained-by-wo
I can't speak for the rest of society as a whole, but that's my $0.02 on it.
which is largely based on this
the thing in there that i think is relevant to your question about when and how we talk about sex and how it is perceived by "society" is about that concept of Purity
what it means to a person and how much weight they give to that particular moral value (in addition to the others) is going to determine where those boundaries are for each person.
for my own part, my open-ness waxes and wanes. largely based on feedback/societal setting.
when i lived in Thailand i reeled in any such talk.
that was quite a change coming from San Francisco, and specifically my social circle there which was comprised of all manner of people who tend to be very open about sex and relationships (and the variety of permutations on both).
here in Wellington it really does seem to vary not only person by person but in some cases different from one conversation with the same person to a subsequent conversation. i'll be talking and based on a person's reactions (both verbal and non-verbal) i'll become more forthcoming ('cause that's the direction of my personal moral compass) right up to the point at which i realize that i've gone to far.
some days i'm better at recognizing that line before i've crossed over it. other days, well, it's a bit awkward.
Surprisingly, the most disapproval I have ever come across is from those who practice the same kink.
I think it may be something along the lines of me being open about it means it may be more acceptable and not so naughty, therefore not so fun that they keep it hidden... but I wouldn't know.
And there are the older guys, who hear about a kink and impose over that their dirty old man fantasies... thinking that if I am open about "this" then behind closed doors must be and order of magnitude beyond that....
I am currently in a nice, happy, three way relationship... but people hear that and think about three way sex. I'd rather they did not... but such is life... I am yet to have a conversation with anyone about it, because I get the impression that the people who want to know, want to know the dirty details that I don't want to discuss, and others "respect my privacy" a little more than I really want them to.
When push comes to shove, I think that even in the most liberal of circles our society is very conservative.
...so conservative that an old testament relationship like mine is seen as revolutionary...? wtf?
...shrug.
i can't help using run-on sentences, sorry.
Then Regan comes in. The high divorce rates, explicit degradation of nuclear families, sex enthusiasts pushing public boundaries with 'kinky' sex as you call it (Time's square used to be quite a kinky street), along with the AIDs onset in the mid 80s, were all used as fuel for the fear fire politicians used to prey on Americans who were afraid out of ignorance about what was going on. After all, this outburst of a radical shift in the acceptance of sex in America happened in an incredibly short amount of time. During the 80s, there was a regress back to the ‘sworn-to-secrecy’ attitudes about sex that existed pre-1950s, though bearing an essential difference.
Perhaps the most contradictory part about the regress is that sexual imagery in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has become an unavoidable lynchpin theme for advertisers and media alike. You cannot avoid it by any means in a metropolis; there are fake tits and sweaty abs somewhere in your peripheral vision no matter where you go. The primary difference between these sexual images and the ones that existed during the 1960s-70s in America is that today’s are so hyper-sensationalized and exclusive to an idealist view of what sex should be, whereas before society accepted you for who you were and encouraged your sexual liberation. So perhaps today, where I live at least, sex is a publically suppressed because the relentless idealist imagery fosters insecurities in ‘normal’ people, and people haven’t collectively realized to overcome that bullshit.
Just a proposed answer to your question which I've asked myself.
If someone *who is looking for INFORMATION* asks me about sex or my body or what I enjoy or whatever, I will generally respond with full disclosure or as much disclosure as I feel comfortable with. I'll be more honest with my same-age sister than with her 16 year old son, for instance. Mostly, I would share to help make someone else realize that they're normal, too.
Generally, I don't care about anyone's kinks unless I'm thinking about having sex with them and I don't want to share my own with anyone unless I'm thinking of having sex with them.
Why I don't talk about my kinks
Does this make sense?
Re: Why I don't talk about my kinks
The only person who had said anything that doesn't fit those three statements is the one who talked about privacy for its own sake and its value as a larger part of life.
Sex is inevitable, and variety in it is as wide as different languages.