Next up on the RW agenda: Reinstitution of slavery in the USA...

[saras]

16. Good luck finding someone to the left of me... but links, sure

The problem I have with left/right is that they meet around the back, in this case where extreme personal sexual freedom meets extreme libertarian dominance relationships.

Once you grant the idea of a contract governing sexual performance, I personally think you've crossed that line from left to right, but lots of people who live in that world don't think so - if they're leftists in other areas, they consider their position leftist libertarian.

Here's a nifty quote that sums it up for some people, from a board linked to later

Yeah, I'm with tkchrist on this. I'm as much a lefty free love social liberal as the next Vancouverite, and because what they do doesn't affect anyone else, I can tolerate it completely.

It is, however, wholly deviant and fucked in the head. I cannot accept it as normal, desirable or sane human behaviour. Because it is, I think, insane behaviour, I cannot even agree that it is between consenting adults.
posted by solid-one-love at 1:57 PM on October 1, 2006

Here's a thought piece - no grandiose claims, AFAIK
http://carnival-of-anarchy.blogspot.com/2008/12/grounds-above-all.html

and a court case
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/16/bondage-bdsm-consensual-slavery

this one is as "twisted" and "kinky" in regard to the left/right political distinction as it is in any other area... as though a tribe of actual fundamentalist Darwinists (not scientists, or supporters of evolution as theory, but devoted worshippers of the dead Charles Darwin)
http://antimisandry.com/blogs/lady-catherine/bdsm-abuse-sexism-317/

the right wing literally cannot comprehend human beings - "is he a psychopath or normal?" "dunno"
http://reason.com/blog/2008/08/20/when-does-a-slave-become-a-sla

another left/right/libertarian twisted in a tight braid
http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/794777-bdsm.html

here's a good example of the left that disagrees
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_sexual_revolution_liberty_betrayed

and another, stronger one with better reasons
http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2009/02/07/please-somebody-come-and-defend-kinkcom/

Dan Savage (thanks for the santorum), on the other hand, has no problem with it, just with bad execution
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/25/sl-letter-of-the-day-whos-the-slave

A long history of S&M law, where the author drags Nine Inch Nails in at the end in his attempt to simultaneously assert that sexual freedom is a right but too far is too far.
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/lwsch/journals/bclawr/42_2/01_TXT.htm

another thoughtful leftist S&M practitioner
http://sm-feminist.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

I know, it's not the absolute pronouncement that the entire official Pravda line is "DO IT". But you're the one who postulated some sort of universal accusation on my part.

I think part of the problem is that there isn't a monolithic "left", there's a coalition of pretty different people, and there's a couple of leftist groups that are bothered by BDSM in general, or without extremely strong controls, around issues of consent. I'd put myself in that group. There are other leftists who are just as uncomfortable with it, but find it interesting or arousing. And there are leftists who try to stretch their leftism far enough to encompass their own sexuality even when it refuses to be PC. And there are people who aren't really "leftist" about a lot of things, but find themselves closer to that than anything else, or find themselves filed there by others for some other values. They're all "the left" to me, in the sense of a binary division (which isn't USUALLY the way I use the term).


Oh, and while we're at it, the right demonstrates that good is bad and bad is good, in the general case, just because. Enjoy.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/08/25/almost-everything-were-taught