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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline

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Speaker 1: and I'm Kristen, and welcome to King Week, Ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 1: Today we are talking about b D s M. Next

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Speaker 1: time we'll be talking about the Dominatrix figure Dominatrice E's um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, we we have fielded a lot of requests

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Speaker 1: to talk about these issues, these topics in the wake

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Speaker 1: of you might expect it, Fifty Shades of Gray. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as of the time this podcast is coming out, Fifty

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Speaker 1: Shades of Gray has probably the film Fervor has died

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Speaker 1: down a little bit. And I was thinking, Caroline, about

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Speaker 1: how Stuff I've Never Told You though, has been around

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Speaker 1: so long that in two thousand eleven, when the books

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Speaker 1: went viral, we got a ton of questions, and then

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Speaker 1: we're recently we got all the same questions again with

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Speaker 1: the film. So we decided it was time for us

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Speaker 1: to really talk about b D s M. That's right,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's interesting that there hasn't been a ton

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Speaker 1: of academic research about b D s M in the past.

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Speaker 1: It's it's only now that we seem to be really

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Speaker 1: seeing more academic papers, more actual books diving into the culture,

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Speaker 1: and not in a way that treats it like a

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Speaker 1: mental problem. Yeah, I think the fact that it is

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Speaker 1: becoming more and more accepted as a lifestyle and even

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Speaker 1: for some people as a sexual orientation. In fact, that

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Speaker 1: more attention has been paid to it as a legitimate

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Speaker 1: and fully acceptable and healthy expression of sexuality and also

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Speaker 1: a lifestyle, even a profession for some people. That's right. Well,

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Speaker 1: so let's get into a bit of an overview of B, D, S, M.

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Speaker 1: Talk about what it is and what it is not.

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Speaker 1: And one thing that it is not for sure is

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Speaker 1: a single homogeneous group of people activity and kinks. Even

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Speaker 1: the letters themselves in the acronym stand for more than

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Speaker 1: one thing. But B and the D stand for bondage

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Speaker 1: and discipline, D and S together our domination and submission.

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Speaker 1: And then the S and the M are sadism and masochism.

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Speaker 1: So what do all of those individual components mean. Well,

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Speaker 1: when it comes to discipline, for instance, it's usually a

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Speaker 1: dominant person or the dom training a submissive person. And

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Speaker 1: then when it comes to submissive you have have a

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Speaker 1: person who really seeks and consents, which is important to

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Speaker 1: submit to another person. And this is also where we

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Speaker 1: get into the realm of b D s M is

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Speaker 1: not fifty shades of gray right exactly, because so much

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Speaker 1: of the b D s M core is that consent,

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Speaker 1: that issue of consent, and so the dom or the

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Speaker 1: dominant as a person who enjoys being with the submissive

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Speaker 1: person for for myriad reasons, could just be the issue

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Speaker 1: of control, could be sexual, could be on sexual um

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Speaker 1: Switching is a term that basically needs alternating between the

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Speaker 1: submissive and dominant roles. Sadism is getting pleasure from the pain, humiliation,

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Speaker 1: or suffering of others, and masochism is getting pleasure from

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Speaker 1: your own pain or humiliation. And the way that this

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Speaker 1: manifest is through a huge range of activities as well,

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Speaker 1: which makes it difficult to define and even pin down numbers,

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Speaker 1: because some activities don't all involve pain, for instance, some

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Speaker 1: might involve power place, some might involve a fantasy scenes.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're all different ways in which b

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Speaker 1: D s M can be practiced and enjoyed. And this

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Speaker 1: is also too listeners one reason why we will not

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Speaker 1: be able to cover in granular detail every single aspect

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Speaker 1: of b D s M. Because again, it's not a

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Speaker 1: homogeneous group, and I think that that's one important clarification

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Speaker 1: for people not familiar with it, that it's not this

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Speaker 1: one group of people in the corner all doing the

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Speaker 1: same kind of thing, right, which is why I definitely

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Speaker 1: encourage you when you listen during, either during or after

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Speaker 1: you listen to this episode, to go to stuff I

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Speaker 1: ever told you dot com and check out the sources

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Speaker 1: that we're going to post for this episode, because there

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Speaker 1: is just so much more to learn about and read

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Speaker 1: about things that aren't just they're not just some shady,

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Speaker 1: dirty corner of the Internet like this. There's actual, really

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Speaker 1: great information out there for you if you're interested. But

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Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that b D s M doesn't

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Speaker 1: always even make up all of a person's sexual activity,

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Speaker 1: and this is coming from a two thousand and six

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Speaker 1: studies sided and some of the things that we read.

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Speaker 1: Eleven percent of b D s M practitioners in this

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Speaker 1: study exclusively engaged in b D s M play during

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Speaker 1: sexual intimacy. Thirty two percent said it constituted less than

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Speaker 1: half of their total sexual activities. So there's, like Kristen said,

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Speaker 1: there's a range of activities there's also just a range

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Speaker 1: of how ingrained these activities are in people's lives and

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Speaker 1: the type of sexual activity they pursue, and sex in

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Speaker 1: and of itself in thinking about different kinds of penetration

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Speaker 1: or even nudity may or may not be involved in

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Speaker 1: certain kinds of b D s M activities. But the

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Speaker 1: key to all of this, whatever form b D s

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Speaker 1: M takes, and this is something that anyone within the

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Speaker 1: b D s M community will emphasize over and over

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Speaker 1: and over again, is the importance of consent. The community

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Speaker 1: embraces the frameworker motto of safe, sane, and consensual because

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Speaker 1: this is erotic play, and as part of that, there

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Speaker 1: are often rules, there are safe words, there are boundaries

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Speaker 1: that are established before anything even happens as to what

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Speaker 1: is on and off the table, right because as boundaries

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Speaker 1: and the issues of trust and communication are so key

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Speaker 1: in addition to consent in the b D s M community,

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Speaker 1: and those are sort of the sticking points that a

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Speaker 1: lot of people have with Fifty Shades of Gray, both

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Speaker 1: of books and the film. Yeah, and before quickly before

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Speaker 1: we get into the b D s M versus fifty Shades,

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Speaker 1: because we got to talk about it people. Even though

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Speaker 1: I know a lot of folks cringe at the thought

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Speaker 1: of fifty shades, it's important for us to talk about this,

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Speaker 1: but also to making a note about that safe part

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Speaker 1: of safe, sane, and consensual. Even though yes, a lot

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Speaker 1: of b D s M play might involve pain, bondage restraint,

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Speaker 1: the point of it is not to hurt the other individual.

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Speaker 1: It might be to arouse pain, yes, but you want

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Speaker 1: to stay safe always in that in that case you're

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Speaker 1: not trying to break people's bones and do irreparable damage

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Speaker 1: to bodies, right, exactly. Well, So, Kristen and I read

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Speaker 1: this interesting article by Emma Green over at The Atlantic

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Speaker 1: which came out in February of this year, and Green

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Speaker 1: points out that, you know, there is a little bit

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Speaker 1: of good that came from the popularity of fifty Shades

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Speaker 1: of Gray, and that is that it's served a sort

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Speaker 1: of an opening to talk and think about b D

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Speaker 1: s M, H and kink and those communities and the

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Speaker 1: activities they're in, and the fact that it's reached a

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Speaker 1: broader audience than any other b D s M novel

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Speaker 1: before it, So it has people talking, It has people

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Speaker 1: thinking not only about other people's sexuality and what other

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Speaker 1: people are doing, but what they themselves might be interested in,

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Speaker 1: and it probably has people experimenting. How many flimsy trend

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Speaker 1: stories have we seen about escalating sales of rope at

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Speaker 1: hardware stores in Middle America? Yeah, but unfortunately according to Green,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's some good and some bad

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Speaker 1: with Fifty Shades of Gray, and the bad is everything else. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the the whole framework of fifty Shades of

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Speaker 1: Great which side note in gase you don't know? And

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Speaker 1: I love this fact about nippy Shades of Grade that E. L.

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Speaker 1: James originally wrote it as a Twilight fan fiction. So

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Speaker 1: this is really where we're starting from. Uh, And I

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Speaker 1: have read Fifty Shades of Gray airline, I mean skimming

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Speaker 1: some parts because yeah, it is really poorly written. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the big problem is that Christian Gray's uh proclivities

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Speaker 1: for bondage are framed as a problem that they are

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Speaker 1: rooted in the fact that his mother committed suicide and

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Speaker 1: previously had been abused by a pimp. So he has

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Speaker 1: all these issues and so that's why he has to

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Speaker 1: do this one thing. And the fairytale ending is for

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Speaker 1: when they can finally have vanilla sex. Yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: definitely framed is something that he needs to and does

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Speaker 1: work through in order to get to the better sex,

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Speaker 1: which is vanilla, which, by the way, for people who

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Speaker 1: might not be familiar with vanilla, that is sort of

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Speaker 1: the b D s M communities code word for the

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Speaker 1: usually straight sex, often missionary style that is the mainstream

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Speaker 1: go to i e. Vanilla boring. Right, But it's not

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Speaker 1: only Green. Green's problem with fifty Shades is not just

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Speaker 1: that b D s M and bondage and things like

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Speaker 1: that are are framed as something to work through and

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Speaker 1: a problem, but also the association between hot sex and violence,

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Speaker 1: but without any of the community's context of consent, communication, trust,

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Speaker 1: and boundaries. And she she writes about how the character

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Speaker 1: of Anna, the main character, is uncomfortable with a lot

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Speaker 1: of this stuff, but it's too shy to speak her

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Speaker 1: mind or is afraid of losing Christian and so she

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Speaker 1: gives consent to things she doesn't necessarily want to consent

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Speaker 1: to and ends up getting hurt and wanting to out

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Speaker 1: of it, but she doesn't get out of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and the very fact that there are no rules

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Speaker 1: and boundaries and safe words established beforehand. He just opens

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Speaker 1: up the door to the red room, and you know,

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Speaker 1: no holds barred. And also the fact too that it

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Speaker 1: portrays again that vanilla sex as the most intimate, that's

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Speaker 1: the most wholesome, that's the only acceptable kind, whereas kinky

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Speaker 1: sex is very unhealthy. It's not, as Emmigreen writes, a

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Speaker 1: form of erotic play. It's an emotional bargain and it

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Speaker 1: tolerates it barely because she's scared of what will happen

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Speaker 1: if she doesn't and that I don't know about you, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: But that doesn't sound terribly consensual. No, nor does it

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Speaker 1: sound very fun. Um. But plenty of people do think

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Speaker 1: B D s M. The lifestyle, the community and everything

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Speaker 1: they're in is fun because it has a pretty darn

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Speaker 1: extensive history, going all the way back to ancient times.

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Speaker 1: For instance, going all the way back to four nine DBC.

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Speaker 1: We have this thing called the Etruscan Tomb of the Whipping,

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Speaker 1: which has a painting on the wall and erotic painting

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Speaker 1: depicting two men flogging a woman. Um, And it's definitely,

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Speaker 1: like specifically portrayed as an erotic act, not as necessarily punishment.

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Speaker 1: But there were a ton of ancient cults back in

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Speaker 1: the day that incorporated flagellation and whipping of yourself or

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Speaker 1: or others, and it could be punishment or as a

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Speaker 1: way to enter an altered state of consciousness or even

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Speaker 1: communicate with God. And also to the Kama Sutra mentioned

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Speaker 1: sexual spanking, slapping, inviting. So this is not new behavior,

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Speaker 1: which is not surprising. Humans have been figuring out, you know,

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Speaker 1: but playing around with these lines between pleasure and pain

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Speaker 1: as long as we have existed. Really well, Kristen, you

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Speaker 1: mentioned spanking, uh and I mentioned uh flogging, and these

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Speaker 1: are two things that our favorite characters, the Victorians, were

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Speaker 1: way into. Oh my gosh, and it makes so much sense.

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Speaker 1: So Salon Tracy Clark Floory over at Salon spoke with

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Speaker 1: Deborah Lutts, who was the author of Pleasure Bound, Victorian

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Speaker 1: Sex Rebels and the New Eroticism all about the popularity

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Speaker 1: of the so called flage porn in Victorian England. And

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Speaker 1: it's also too ties in with our podcast a while

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Speaker 1: back on Fat Bottomed Girls in Victoria, Arian's obsession with

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Speaker 1: women's behind, which then got into Victorian pornography involving spanking,

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Speaker 1: lots of dairy aer centered. Yes, it's very debious into

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Speaker 1: the pornographic introduce. Well, yeah, this flagporn was super popular.

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Speaker 1: About half of the pornography from eighty centered on flogging.

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Speaker 1: And this was everything from novels to plays, two lectures,

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Speaker 1: two poems. Although it wasn't as a lead up to

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Speaker 1: intercourse necessarily mean flagellation was really the focus of these publications.

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Speaker 1: And for example, this is the title of an actual

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Speaker 1: lecture at the time. Get ready because it's a long,

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Speaker 1: one quote experimental lecture by Colonel Spanker on the exciting

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Speaker 1: and voluptuous pleasures to be derived from crushing and humiliating

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Speaker 1: the spirit of a beautiful and modest young lady, as

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Speaker 1: delivered by him in the Assembly room of the Society

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Speaker 1: of Aristocratic Flagelence on Spanker. I love it. I would

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Speaker 1: love to see the publication that that was in that

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Speaker 1: that whether I doubt it was like a real lecturer

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Speaker 1: who knows, who knows, We don't know, but I would

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Speaker 1: I would love to see where that was. I want

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Speaker 1: to see the accompanying illustration of Colonel Spanker. Oh my god,

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Speaker 1: do you think he looks like the Kentucky Friendschick and

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Speaker 1: Colonel maybe did he wear a military uniform I hope so. Um. Well,

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Speaker 1: then there was a memoir called The Spirit of Flagellation,

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Speaker 1: or the Memoirs of Mrs Hinton, who kept a school

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Speaker 1: many years at Kensington. So lovely background information there. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And also meanwhile, while this is going on in Victorian England,

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Speaker 1: hop over to Japan in the Edo period, which lasts

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Speaker 1: from sixteen o three to eighteen sixty eight. And this

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Speaker 1: is when you have the emergence of kimbako bondage, which

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Speaker 1: translates to the beauty of tight binding. So it's a

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Speaker 1: cross cultural thing as well. Yeah. And so in England

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Speaker 1: at the time, prostitution is legal and there are a

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Speaker 1: ton of flagellation brothels where men would go to be

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Speaker 1: whipped by women or other men. I mean, this was

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Speaker 1: a big thing. This was a big, like pop culture

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Speaker 1: secret not so secret obsession. Yeah. And we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the dominatrix in our next episode this week,

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Speaker 1: but a quick fact preview, Caroline. At those flagellation brothels,

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Speaker 1: the sort of proto dominatrix, women were often referred to

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Speaker 1: as whipstresses, yes, or governesses, which says a lot. Yeah, well, yeah.

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Speaker 1: One illustration of this cultural phenomenon is atheist poet Algernon

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Speaker 1: Charles Swinburne, who really resented Christianity's restraining sexual expression. And uh,

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Speaker 1: Swinburne compared the Virgin Mary actually to a kind of

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Speaker 1: sadistics sexual dominatrix, speaking of dominatrices, and he himself had

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Speaker 1: been flogged by authorities and eaten up by other boys

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Speaker 1: while eating and flagellation makes its way into a ton

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Speaker 1: of his writing, but he was not the only one.

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Speaker 1: This whole like flogged at eating thing is a theory

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Speaker 1: behind a lot of the popularity of flage porn, that

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Speaker 1: it was just like sort of a cultural phenomenon that

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Speaker 1: you were going to be beaten up basically as part

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Speaker 1: of your punishment at school, and so. Other theories though,

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Speaker 1: coming out of the Victorian period when they were so

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Speaker 1: obsessed with this stuff, was that middle and upperclass men

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Speaker 1: expect we're expected to control themselves, their wives, their servants,

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Speaker 1: and women were expected to be submissive, so perhaps men

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Speaker 1: wanted to lose control. And there were also issues of

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Speaker 1: closet and homosexuality at the time because lots of flageporn

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Speaker 1: focuses on men whipping boys, and that whole issue of

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Speaker 1: men being in control and women being submissive comes up

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Speaker 1: again when we talked about b DSM and dominate dominatrices.

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Speaker 1: Today the whole issue of like gender dynamics and gender

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Speaker 1: norms and who's responsible for what and who has to

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Speaker 1: be what in our society a theory we see today

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Speaker 1: a lot too is people losing control. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's a question too of how much is this are

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Speaker 1: there may be social influences, are our societal roles possibly

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Speaker 1: provoking us to want to upturn those a bit behind

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Speaker 1: closed doors? Or how many of how much of it

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Speaker 1: too is just simply you know, in the case of

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Speaker 1: the flogging it Eden when it happened, being like, oh

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Speaker 1: you know what, I actually kind of like that, and

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Speaker 1: it's as simple as that. Well, the thing is, though,

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Speaker 1: a guy named Richard Kraft von Ebbing did not simplify

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Speaker 1: things at all. He actually is a big reason why

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Speaker 1: a lot of this has been considered for so long

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Speaker 1: to be unhealthy deviant behavior. And in the mid eighteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: in this book Psychopathia Sexualis, von Kraft Ebbing comes up

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Speaker 1: with the term stadism and masochism based on eighteenth century

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Speaker 1: aristocrat and author market Asad who wrote Days of Stodom,

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Speaker 1: and nineteenth century Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher Massok who

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Speaker 1: wrote Venus in First and von craft Ebbing. I always

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Speaker 1: want to call him Craft von Ebbing. He characterized it

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Speaker 1: as a perversion. Well, sure he did, because this is

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Speaker 1: the same guy we cited in our female Ejaculation episode

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Speaker 1: where he said that the only women who ejaculated are

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Speaker 1: weak minded lesbians. So he's not a very tolerant, open

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Speaker 1: minded sexologist, although harolded it at the time for his genius. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course, as was Freud. He so in the early

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Speaker 1: twentieth century he and Havelock Ellis his buddy, stuck the

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Speaker 1: terms stadism and masochism together, and the theories that they

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Speaker 1: developed from that became part of the foundation for their

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Speaker 1: whole theory of sexual development. Basically, Freud thought sado masochist

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Speaker 1: personalities stemmed from a child watching the punishment of a sibling,

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Speaker 1: where that sibling is viewed as a bival for the

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Speaker 1: father's affection. Then that child begins to identify with the

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Speaker 1: sibling who's being beaten, imagines enjoying the treatment, and therefore

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Speaker 1: develops a masochistic fantasy. The child as he grows up

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Speaker 1: then represses the image and converts it into a fully

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Speaker 1: eroticized and sadistic fantasy. So that's that's Freud's explanation for this. Alright, Freud,

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Speaker 1: thanks for that contribution. Yep. Always Well, in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirties we have the earliest heterosexual s and m groups

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Speaker 1: in the United States, which were mostly centered in New York,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of them were really into the surrealist

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Speaker 1: art movement as well and highly influenced by the writings

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Speaker 1: of the market Assade, including American writer and explorer William Seabrook,

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Speaker 1: who fun fact, became a hit among hit Parisians at

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Speaker 1: the time after he allegedly participated in a cannibalistic rite

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Speaker 1: while traveling to the Ivory Coast. So he was he

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Speaker 1: was really really cool dude. He was like, hey, I've

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Speaker 1: done this, and also ps, I'm really into bondage, and

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Speaker 1: he was really open about it. Yeah, colorful character. He wrote.

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Speaker 1: My propensity for putting chains on ladies was common knowledge.

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Speaker 1: It was a sexual abnormality like many another. So he's

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Speaker 1: basically like, so who cares, I'm doing it anyway? And

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Speaker 1: in he commissioned artist man Ray, who was a surrealist,

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Speaker 1: to photograph women wearing bondage gear. And man Ray himself

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Speaker 1: was really fascinated with the philosophy of the market assad

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Speaker 1: And also, I mean he he kind of tried to

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Speaker 1: separate his sexuality from his b D s M fascination

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Speaker 1: and the photographs that he would take, and also his relationships,

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Speaker 1: his outright S and M relationships that he had with

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Speaker 1: wives and girlfriends at the time. Yeah, reading about man Ray,

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Speaker 1: it's all very complicated. Um, he does definitely, like you said,

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Speaker 1: try to separate the sexuality from the actual dominating behavior. Um,

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Speaker 1: there was definitely some beating women with belts and you know,

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Speaker 1: trying to control them and stuff like that. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: where that kind of behavior, at least reading it and

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Speaker 1: reading his account of it, seems a lot more like

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Speaker 1: domestic violence than consensual b D s M. Right, he definitely.

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Speaker 1: Although he worked very closely with Seabrook, he considered Seabrook

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Speaker 1: to basically be a weirdo, which I'm like, hello pot,

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Speaker 1: hello kettle. Um, But he considered Seabrook to be such

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Speaker 1: a weirdo because Seabrook definitely got off on it like

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Speaker 1: it was definitely part of his sexual preferences basically, and

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Speaker 1: man Ray was like, oh no, not me, I just

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Speaker 1: like to it's just aren't philosophy. And he actually, as

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Speaker 1: part of their work together, Manray helps Seabrook design and

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Speaker 1: erotic color in which Seabrook's wife was photographed that made

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Speaker 1: it hard for the war to breathe or swallow. And

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Speaker 1: apparently Seabrook really enjoyed watching his wife wear it at

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Speaker 1: dinner parties because she could barely eat or drink anything. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Seabrook also was known to have fancy cocktail parties

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Speaker 1: and invite important people over and then just in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the party have women in bondage gear just

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Speaker 1: come out and then I'm seeing what happened. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: the cocktail we NEI tree exactly after that. But but

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Speaker 1: man Ray's photography was definitely influential in terms of creating

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Speaker 1: all of these kinds of um erotic sized images of

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Speaker 1: women tied up or wearing bondage gear that we will

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Speaker 1: see to being depicted in lots of fashion editorials pretty

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Speaker 1: much ever since then. Um So Manory was a he

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Speaker 1: was an interesting figure in all this a bit. I

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Speaker 1: don't know exactly how I feel about him, but he's

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Speaker 1: a controversial figure but influential nonetheless, because this was the

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Speaker 1: thing Caroline and I were talking about this before we

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Speaker 1: were recording. How you have all of the flag porn

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Speaker 1: in the Victorian era, and then we have a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff happening after World War Two, which we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk about in a second. But then there's this massive

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Speaker 1: gap except for really these surrealists, particularly Seabrooke and man Ray.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of a there's sort of filling a

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Speaker 1: peculiar gap in all of this. Yeah, but I mean

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Speaker 1: speaking of post war after World War Two, that's when

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Speaker 1: we really see the gay, b D, s M subcultures emerging.

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Speaker 1: And it's often referred to as the Old Guard versus

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Speaker 1: the New Guard, which is more recent, although there is

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Speaker 1: some discussion about what really constitutes new But anyway, so

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Speaker 1: you have soldiers returning from the war, and over in

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Speaker 1: Europe they had really had their first homosocial experience from

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Speaker 1: many of them. Uh. This is coming from psychotherapist Guy Baldwin.

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Speaker 1: He basically points out that being part of the military,

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Speaker 1: there's lots of rule following it's a very exclusive brotherhood,

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Speaker 1: and so in the early fifties you see the emergence

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Speaker 1: of the hyper masculine uh dom subculture in contrast to

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Speaker 1: a lot of the effeminate stereotypes surrounding gay men of

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Speaker 1: the time. And then in the later fifties we have

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Speaker 1: emerged sort of the stereotype what we think about when

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Speaker 1: we think of leather culture, which is that whole leather

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Speaker 1: biker subculture that sort of revolved around camaraderie, risk taking

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Speaker 1: in hyper masculine sexuality. So not too far removed although

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Speaker 1: more leather, but not too far removed from that hyper

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Speaker 1: masculine military culture well. And speaking of hyper masculine military

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Speaker 1: culture to pin ups were very big during the war,

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Speaker 1: and with this too. More after the war we have

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Speaker 1: the arrival of Betty Page, who we could do an

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Speaker 1: entire podcast on, but she became an international sex symbol

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Speaker 1: and pin up and from to nineteen fifty seven an

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Speaker 1: estimated twenty thousand photos of her were taken, and she has,

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Speaker 1: for instance, one iconic photo in Playboy for a Christmas

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Speaker 1: edition where she's holding up mistletoe and wearing nothing but

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Speaker 1: a Santa hat. Lots of you know, pinupy photos like that,

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Speaker 1: but also too when she was first starting out, she

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Speaker 1: met Irving Claw and his sister Paula, who specialized in

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Speaker 1: bondage photography, so they're all of these photos. She kind

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Speaker 1: of became the face of this bondage photography, whether she

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Speaker 1: herself was the one tied up or wearing a ballgag

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Speaker 1: or the one wielding a whip dress up in more

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Speaker 1: dominatrix here. And she always looks so delighted though all

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Speaker 1: of all of her photos. But she's a fascinating figure

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Speaker 1: who after seven completely drops off. I don't think another

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Speaker 1: photo of her was even ever taken, except for a

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Speaker 1: mug shot many years later, But she was I feel

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Speaker 1: like in terms of our maybe pop cultural iconography, she's

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Speaker 1: definitely one in the fifties sort of symbolize heterosexual bondage

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Speaker 1: sex reality. Um. And we move into the sixties into

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Speaker 1: mainstream culture. There are also a couple of interesting examples

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Speaker 1: that pop up, such as the Adams family, which totally

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Speaker 1: has B d s M undertones and outright overtones with

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Speaker 1: Morticia often getting tied up. Um. And then Carol Queen,

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Speaker 1: who is a sexologist and chief cultural officer for Good Vibrations,

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Speaker 1: told alternate that quote m appeals cat suit in the

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Speaker 1: television show The Avengers back in the sixties is a

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Speaker 1: perfect example as of what would now be viewed as

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Speaker 1: fetish garb. And think of Catwoman too or the kit

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00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 1: on Batman. Yes, we're in the same kind of thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: cats suit whip. Yep, we'll talk about that more in

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Speaker 1: the Dominatrix episode. Don't worry. But when we move into

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Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies US and we really see formal support

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Speaker 1: groups emerging, like the Ulenspiegel Society in New York and

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Speaker 1: the Society of Janice in San Francisco. And when we

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Speaker 1: look to gay leather subculture in the seventies, uh, they

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00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: have bars and biker clubs as the foundations of their groups,

425
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: but those morph into social clubs UH and become more

426
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 1: formal organizations, to the point where in nineteen seventy two

427
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: we see the publishing of the Leatherman's Handbook. So people

428
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: are getting organized, and we shouldn't forget lesbians. They had

429
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: their own s and M organizations like Samoa, which first

430
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: met in nineteen seventy eight, and the book Coming to

431
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 1: Power Writing and Graphics on Lesbian s and M was

432
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: published in nineteen eighty one, and people still talk about

433
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: this book and the effect it had on them. It

434
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: was basically the first collection of information about lesbian S

435
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: and M and their community, and it contains plenty of advice,

436
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: theory discussions on the community, and it served as a

437
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: major resource for people back then but still now, and

438
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 1: it seems like the eighties in particular was pivotal for

439
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:55,879
Speaker 1: the b D s M community. Obviously this is pre

440
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: Internet days, but for the modern b D s M

441
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 1: community taking shape, and also too notably we have Robert

442
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: Mapplethorpe's highly controversial photography exhibit the Perfect Moment, which really

443
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: showcases that gay leather subculture for the first time. But

444
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 1: it's not until the nineties that the term b D

445
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: s M comes about. And of course, with the Internet,

446
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: as with other things such as polyamory a sexuality things

447
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: we've talked about before on the podcast, the Internet was

448
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: pivotal for people really coming together over these shared interests,

449
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: anonymously or not, and creating more community and even more

450
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: activism around this. But then that basically brings us up

451
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: to today, when the American b D s M community

452
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: comprises about a thousand diverse groups. And that's I mean,

453
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 1: that doesn't even count. That's just groups, that doesn't even count.

454
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: Just like people in the neighborhood, you know, just your neighbors,

455
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 1: your next door neighbors. Yes, Steve over there, you know,

456
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 1: and it's b D s M LA lifestyle. He's a

457
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 1: good guy. Yeah, cool dude. Um. Which although is understandable

458
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: at this point kind of understanding this rich history and

459
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,959
Speaker 1: also the diversity that we see today, it's understandable why

460
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: why the b D s M community might not be

461
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: so happy and having their entire community and lifestyle and

462
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: history collapsed into one book about a girl meeting a

463
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 1: very wealthy man, right, because there there is so much

464
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,919
Speaker 1: to it. There's there's so much more than just tying

465
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: someone up. There's so much interesting psychology to talk about

466
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: the personalities that are attracted to b D s M

467
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: and why. Um. But we will get into that when

468
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: we come right back from a quick break. So, you know,

469
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the top of the podcast that there

470
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 1: hasn't historically been a ton of research into b D

471
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: s M. Beyond that people have considered it's sort of

472
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: an abnormality. Um. But consensual beds and behavior has increasingly

473
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: been accepted as an alternative sexuality, not as evidence that

474
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: practitioners suffer from psychological disorder or were victims of childhood abuse.

475
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 1: Those two things were like huge theories for a long time. Yeah.

476
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: And even when the d s M four came out,

477
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: it defined kink and b D s and practices as

478
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: paraphelias or unusual sexual fixations, and that designation really stigmatized

479
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: the whole practice and made it unclear as to whether

480
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: or not say, this kind of sexual deviance, if you

481
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 1: want to call it, that is actually a disorder. So

482
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: fast forward to the d s M five, which was

483
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: released in May. It's still in there, but it's not

484
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: necessarily pathologizing all b D s M community members because

485
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: the new definition at least draws a line between consenting

486
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: adults playing rough and actual pathology, basically saying like, yeah,

487
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: usually the stuff is totally fine unless it is inhibiting

488
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: your day to day life and well being. Yeah. And

489
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: this was thanks a lot to efforts by advocacy group

490
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, which fought against certain types

491
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: of sexual behavior being classified as markers of mental illness. Um,

492
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: I mean, it was to the point where b D

493
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: s M could be used in court as justification to

494
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: remove kids from custody, and now they're seeing a drop

495
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: off in that that just because someone has this preference,

496
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: this hobby, this interest, whatever, it doesn't mean that they're

497
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: an unfit parents. So at least that's a step forward.

498
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: And there are some advocates to even pushing for b

499
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: D s M to be recognized as its own sexual orientation,

500
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: which is controversial. It is very controversial, but interesting to

501
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 1: think about it in that way. So what brings people

502
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,479
Speaker 1: to b D s M. Is it just Christian Gray's

503
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: men with lots of disposable income who have mother issues,

504
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: Caroline about what we're working with here. Uh, there's so

505
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: much more than that, although I'm sure he looks good

506
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: in a suit. And so this is coming from the

507
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: journal Psychology and Sexuality from and the authors essentially narrowed

508
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: down the reasons for being attracted to b D s

509
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: M two internal versus external influences. And so they said

510
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: that b D s M interests can be either an

511
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: intrinsic almost inexplicable part of the self. In other words,

512
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: you're born this way. And that's the explanation that's more

513
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: common in community literature, or they developed because of external

514
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: influences like a partner, friend, or the media. Fifty shades

515
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: of greg gets you interested in it? And what's interesting

516
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: in terms of gender, You know, people talk a lot

517
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: about the roles of a dominant versus a submissive in

518
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: these relationships, but the only differences they noted gender wise

519
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: were found among submissives. They found that more men than

520
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: women cited intrinsic self as the reason that they were

521
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: attracted to B D s M, and more women than

522
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: men at it external influences. Okay, now, when it comes

523
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: though to those external influences, a group of those female

524
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: subs said that those external influences eventually became an essential

525
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: part of themselves, as if they finally discovered their true

526
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: nature or identity. Although that said, an Atlantic video that

527
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: was also put together by and A Green who studied earlier,

528
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: cited a two thousand nine study in which both men

529
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 1: and women reported a preference for being dominated versus doing

530
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: the dominating, which is kind of interesting. Um. But one

531
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: thing too, in terms of this intrinsic explanation that you say, is,

532
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: you know, it's more common in community literature. There was

533
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: one study uh mentioned in one of our sources that

534
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: I don't have in front of me right now, which

535
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: talked about how most b D s M participants are

536
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: aware of their particular kink by the time they're teenagers.

537
00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: I mean that means that some of them are aware

538
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: of it from a very early age. Oh hey, this

539
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: feels really good. I like this. I'm drawn to this.

540
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: I see this. For instance, Bob Flanagan, who calls himself

541
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: a supermasochist and is the focus of the documentary Sick,

542
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: talks about how when he was a kid watching cowboys

543
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: and Native American TV shows in parts when someone would

544
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: get tied up, he was like, oh, hey, I really

545
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: like that. So a lot of these things do do

546
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: tend to start. We have an awareness of them, whether

547
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: we're aware of it or not. Yeah. And the authors

548
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: of that Psychology and Sexuality UH study talk about how

549
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: it's possible that intrinsic motivation is cited more often in

550
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: order to legitimize b d S and possibly in order

551
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: to make it to qualify it as a sexual orientation,

552
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: but also sort of following in the footsteps of LGBT

553
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: community members who have come before, who have worked to

554
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:54,719
Speaker 1: counter discrimination by saying we are born this way. This

555
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: is intrinsic. This is uh, you know, part and parcel

556
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: of who I am, not something that I just os

557
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: for myself one day. But also the researchers say that

558
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: this whole intrinsic versus external influence and man versus woman.

559
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: It follows previously noted patterns that men are more likely

560
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: to say that their sexuality and sexual orientation is set

561
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: from birth, whereas women are more likely to understand their

562
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 1: sexuality is fluid and responsive to social contexts and even

563
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: different partners. So I mean, I think that's fascinating in

564
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: and of itself. Yeah. And I want to say too, though,

565
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,760
Speaker 1: that their statistics seem to indicate that women are also

566
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 1: likelier to switch compared to men, which to me corroborates

567
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: the fluidity stuff that we hear about a lot when

568
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: it comes to women. But what about personalities? Um, there

569
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: was a study publish in two thousand and fourteen in

570
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:52,919
Speaker 1: the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality analyzing personalities associated with

571
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: DS relationships. So if it found that dom's score higher

572
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: than stubs desire for control, extroversion, self esteem, and life satisfaction,

573
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 1: whereas subs scored higher on emotionality. But one important thing

574
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: about submissives, even though the word is submissive, and that

575
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: might lead you to a lot of word association to

576
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 1: think that they must be inherently weak people. I will

577
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: again quote Bob Flannagan who said, by the way, has

578
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: cystic fibrosis, or had cystic fibrosis. He died um a

579
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: few years ago. He said, quote a massochist is actually

580
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,240
Speaker 1: a very strong person. I think some of that strength

581
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: is what I used to combat the illness. So there's that. Yeah.

582
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: And it turns out that b D s M practitioners

583
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: and may actually be better off psychologically than the rest

584
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: of us. And this is coming from a study in

585
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 1: the Journal of Sexual Medicine, our favorite journal. But writing

586
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: about this, the people are at Life Science said that

587
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: participants in the b D s M community were more extroverted,

588
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: more open to new experiences, and more conscientious than quote

589
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: unquote vanilla participants. They were also less neurotic, a personality

590
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: trait marked by anxiety. They point out that b D

591
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,760
Speaker 1: s M aficionados also scored lower than the general public

592
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 1: on rejection sensitivity, which is a measure of how paranoid

593
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: people are about others. Disliking them. And they said that

594
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,280
Speaker 1: people in the scene reported higher levels of well being

595
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: during the previous two weeks and people outside of it,

596
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: and they reported more secure feelings of attachment in their relationships,

597
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: probably because of the trust involved that is imperative for

598
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: these kinds of relationships to happen in a healthy way,

599
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 1: as the community advocates. Yeah, and when they broke it

600
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: down specifically looking at dominant, submissive, and switch roles, they

601
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 1: found that dominance tended to score the highest in all

602
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,319
Speaker 1: of these psychological health measures, submissive scored the lowest, and

603
00:36:56,360 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: switches were in the middle. But even though submissives were

604
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:05,280
Speaker 1: the lowest, they still never scored lower than your average

605
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,320
Speaker 1: one of the mill vanilla study participants on mental health

606
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: and frequently scored higher. So what's going on then, Well,

607
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: the researchers say that, I mean, and this makes sense,

608
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: B D s M participants tend to be more aware

609
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: of their sexual needs and their desires than these so

610
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: called vanilla people they were compared to, and that leads

611
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: to less frustration in the bedroom and in relationships overall. Plus,

612
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: I mean, they've had to come to terms with their

613
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 1: so called unusual sexual predilections and in choosing to live

614
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: that b D s M lifestyle, it takes a lot

615
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: of hard work psychologically. You have to come to terms

616
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: with a lot you're you're acting in a way that

617
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: is different from the norm. And so all of that

618
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: psychological work pays off in positive mental health. And so

619
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,919
Speaker 1: the lead researchers conclusion to all of this was, Hey,

620
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: you know what we should take out of the D

621
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: s M all of this stuff which is not linked

622
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: to poor mental health. Yeah. And you know a lot

623
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: of people point out are there people who are in

624
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: the b D s M community who were victims of

625
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,240
Speaker 1: abuse as children? Yes, but there are people in every

626
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 1: aspect of life who were had a difficult childhood or

627
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: a difficult phase in their lives that they still have

628
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: to grapple with to this day. And so that is

629
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:27,760
Speaker 1: not an explicit like definite connection. Yeah. And questions too

630
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: of violence and consent and all of these things. It

631
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: is so easy for I mean, we fingers tend to

632
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: be pointed to this community. But one thing we haven't

633
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: addressed with all of this, that we have to talk

634
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: about is reconciling b D s M with feminism Because

635
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,720
Speaker 1: for a long time, there have been some hard line

636
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: feminists who have said, no way, this whole DF stuff

637
00:38:56,719 --> 00:39:02,280
Speaker 1: is simply regurgitating patriarchal structure in the bedroom. Any kind

638
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,759
Speaker 1: of what would appear to be violent acts in the

639
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: bedroom is only you know, perpetuating patterns of domestic abuses

640
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: is bad, bad, bad. Yeah, and it's not that I

641
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: don't get the point. However, people's sexual lives are their

642
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,479
Speaker 1: own to choose and participate in. But we we owe

643
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: a lot of gratitude to Katherine Scott over at Bitch,

644
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: who did an entire twenty four articles series on b

645
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: D s M and kink, and she pulls so much

646
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff to talk about, including she goes all the

647
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: way back to the nineteen seventies and eighties Second Way feminism,

648
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: and that's when we get a lot of the division

649
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: with feminists saying that, you know, you, we just can't

650
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 1: tolerate women being dominated, and women who want to be

651
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 1: dominated for sure, that they're actually damaging feminism. Yeah. She

652
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: cites author Kathleen Barry, who wrote I believe it was

653
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: female sexual Slaves who described B D S M as

654
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: quote a disgus eyes for the act of sexually forcing

655
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: a woman against her will, and lesbians involved in S

656
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:10,359
Speaker 1: and m DS relationships, we're not off the hook as well,

657
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 1: because they were accused of replicating quote the very masculine

658
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: power dynamics used to perpetuate women's oppression, which is a lot.

659
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: But this is also around the time too, that you

660
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: have Katherine McKinnon, who is incredibly sex negative, who's basically

661
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: saying that you know, penis, vaginal penetration is is all

662
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:33,319
Speaker 1: kinds of bad just to begin with. M Yeah, the

663
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 1: argument was one of the arguments anyway, was essentially that

664
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: we as women can never truly consent to a model

665
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: that has been shoved down our throats forever and uh

666
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,959
Speaker 1: and writing in Miss magazine in n Norma, Ramos says

667
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: that women are socialized into actually getting sexual pleasure through

668
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: their powerlessness. Essentially, you can't even trust your own sexual desires.

669
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: You need to do whatever you can to uproot all

670
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: of that and figure out what's wrong with you and

671
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: why you feel this way and why you want to

672
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: be submissive, because clearly the patriarchy isn't stealing this in

673
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: your head and against you haven't been able to tell

674
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: from our tone in the past few minutes, Caroline, I

675
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 1: do not by this. I think that that's a very

676
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: toxic message and also a really simplistic message in way

677
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: to approach this not so simplistic community UM pro b

678
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,800
Speaker 1: D s M. Feminist Gale Rubin has written about how

679
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: the feminist who condemn female submissives quote mistake their sexual

680
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,320
Speaker 1: preferences for a universal system that will or should work

681
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: for everybody. In other words, slamming subs is simply bigotry

682
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: fueled by personal prejudices. Yeah, and continuing this theme, blogger

683
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: Cliff Provocracy says, listen, I don't get on vanilla women's

684
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: cases about how maybe they're only vanilla because society discourages

685
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: women from unconventional sexual choices. So, you know, don't criticize me.

686
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: And this was something too that blogger Jessica Wakeman dealt

687
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: with firsthand when a few years ago she wrote an

688
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: essay about her preference for spanking in the bedroom and

689
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 1: has also written openly about ds relationship that she had

690
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:24,760
Speaker 1: for a while, And she did an interview with Jezebel

691
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 1: about this and also the flak that she got from

692
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 1: some feminists about saying, you know, how could you be

693
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: doing this? How can you be a real feminist into this?

694
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: And she said, I thought she put it well, she said,

695
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: quote the argument that women who enjoy b d s

696
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: M are taught they should be submissive in bed is

697
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:42,800
Speaker 1: insulting to me as a feminist. I'm not a little

698
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: girl who needs other people to tell me what's best

699
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,399
Speaker 1: for me. I choose to trust the men I play with.

700
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 1: I know what kind of pornography and erotica turns me on,

701
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. In other words, saying yeah,

702
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: I have complete and total agency with these choices that

703
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: I'm making that I know, oh, I derive sexual pleasure

704
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: from and it's not like she's taking that and then

705
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: replicating it out in her day to day life. And

706
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: I think that that's what a lot of people have

707
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: had problems with in terms of differentiating between sexual fantasy

708
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:21,879
Speaker 1: and real life. Essentially, not to say that sex isn't

709
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: real life, but you know what I mean, Yeah, I'm

710
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 1: not very comfortable with the whole damned if you do,

711
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: damned if you don't thing in terms of telling women

712
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: how they should enjoy what kind of sex well, And

713
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:38,759
Speaker 1: hasn't female sexuality in general been so completely overlooked and

714
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: marginalized and or regulated for time immemorial. The feminists of

715
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: all people, don't do that to me too. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

716
00:43:48,840 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: And you know, it's important to remember the context of

717
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: today's b D s M community in which consent is everything.

718
00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,760
Speaker 1: So there is a line between consensual kink an actual

719
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: violence against women. And going back to the bit writer

720
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: Katherine Scott, she compares this to the difference between skydiving

721
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,359
Speaker 1: and getting pushed out of an airplane. One is all

722
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:15,760
Speaker 1: about personal choice and exhilaration, and the other is something

723
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: that you obviously did not consent to and could lead

724
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: to severe injury. She writes about how b D s

725
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 1: M places the submissives right to choose, the right to

726
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: change their mind, the right to say no, the right

727
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: to pleasure front and center. And after all, we're not

728
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,240
Speaker 1: questioning the agency of men who seek out the services

729
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: of a dominatrix, which will lead us into our next episode.

730
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:41,240
Speaker 1: And an important thing to keep in mind too when

731
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: considering the fact that these communities exist, and if it

732
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 1: is something that you hear about and that you think

733
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: about and that you want nothing to do with, that's

734
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: totally okay. Like the quote unquote mainstreaming of d s

735
00:44:57,640 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: M and just the acceptance of the fact that it

736
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: exists and it's not deviant and no people's you know,

737
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 1: child custody shouldn't be taken away from them because they

738
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: happen to enjoy a lot of leather. Is not saying that, hey,

739
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: you know what, you're going to have to do this

740
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: to ball gags for everybody. That's that's not the platform.

741
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: I think. In fact, though we do if by we

742
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: vanilla sex havers do have plenty to learn from the

743
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: b d s M community in terms of establishing trust

744
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: and establishing consent because before any of this stuff that

745
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 1: might frighten some of us, because before anything actually goes down,

746
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: there's a whole process there. You know, they're there their talks,

747
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:44,879
Speaker 1: there are meals, there are walks in the park, there

748
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 1: are lots of I mean, there's a relationship established and

749
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: there's something to be set for that that is far

750
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: different from the kind of knee jerk sex that we

751
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: deem acceptable, which could be equally if not more damaging

752
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 1: in some ways. Yeah, and I mean in terms of

753
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: telling people what they can and can't do. I mean

754
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: that leads us to a group that's often underrepresented in

755
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: discussions about b DSM and in depictions of b d

756
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: s M, which is the community of black women or

757
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: women of color who enjoy race play, which is something

758
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are wagging their fingers at

759
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:23,879
Speaker 1: women for participating it, and it is very controversial and

760
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: complicated because of our own countries history of actual literal

761
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 1: slave master relationship between whites and blacks. This came up

762
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: when Justin Timberlake and Sierra released a video where he

763
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 1: was leading her around on a chain, and a lot

764
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: of people got very upset about those depictions. But the

765
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,479
Speaker 1: one woman who Catherine Scott quoted, uh said I can't

766
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: do race play because I have people in my family

767
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 1: who had to submit to that where they had no choices.

768
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 1: It's too close to home for American black people. Um.

769
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,359
Speaker 1: But there were other people quoted who were talking about like,

770
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,040
Speaker 1: I know, it's I know, it's a little complicated. It

771
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: is then a little controversial, and I would never participate

772
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 1: in anything like this in you know, quote unquote real life,

773
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: but it's something that I do behind closed doors that

774
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: I just don't talk about. And it's the whole idea

775
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: that just because we shouldn't tell any woman in general

776
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: that she should not enjoy being a sub. No one

777
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: can really tell a person of color that she shouldn't

778
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: enjoy race play. It's another aspect of the b D

779
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: s M community that people can consent to. Well. I

780
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: think one of those people that Catherine Scott talked to

781
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: it might have been the woman you just quoted who said, Hey,

782
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: if I enjoy this, this doesn't mean that I want

783
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:37,399
Speaker 1: to walk out on the street back into the Jim

784
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: Crow era, you know. There again, it's about differentiating sexual

785
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: fantasy and playing with taboo and deviance and all that

786
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: and what is what the rest of life? You know?

787
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: But I mean along these lines, there is a documentary

788
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,919
Speaker 1: called Black Pervert coming out this year that's basically navig

789
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: dating where people of color fit into the b D

790
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: s M landscape, and it's just one of it. Will

791
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 1: it will be when it comes out, one of many

792
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: resources documentaries films about this topic, and Kristen and I

793
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 1: didn't even have time to really get into all of them.

794
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:19,919
Speaker 1: We could go on and on and on about this,

795
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 1: but we can't because I don't think anyone wants to

796
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 1: listen to an eighteen hour podcast. But we wanted to

797
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: close with recommendations from stuff mom Never told you listeners

798
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: on places to go for more information, sources that they

799
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 1: themselves have found helpful. And this is coming from Facebook

800
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: because we posted before we did this record this podcast. Hey,

801
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:43,320
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing this b D s M podcast.

802
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: What do you think? Send us your sources? So for

803
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:51,720
Speaker 1: further reading and listening. S and M one oh one

804
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 1: by Jay Wiseman has been quoted as a great resource.

805
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: The National Coalition of Sexual Freedom is an organization you

806
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: might want a google. Philip Miller and Molly Devin's Screw

807
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:06,919
Speaker 1: the Roses Send Me to Thorn's has been mentioned by

808
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 1: a number of Facebook fans as well as in a

809
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 1: number of sources. Mimstress Matisse is a great resource. She

810
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: appears on Dan Savage's Savage Love podcast a Lot to

811
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: talk about b D s M. Also cited was the

812
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: podcast sex Nerd Sandra Nina Hartley, Stacy Newmar, and Clarice

813
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: Thorne in the book Perv by Jesse Barring also has

814
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: some good sources in there. Um, So we definitely appreciate

815
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 1: the recommendations. Yeah, and speaking of Clarice Thorne, I'm curious

816
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: to look at her recent book, The S and M Feminist,

817
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 1: because I'm sure there was a lot to digest in that.

818
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: So we want to hear from listeners now. I know

819
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: that there was a little bit of trepidation about us

820
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: talking about this because from people who are in the

821
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: b D s M community, because I think anytime, you know,

822
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: mainstream outlets want to approach b D s M, it's like,

823
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: oh no, what are they gonna say now? So we

824
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,399
Speaker 1: hope that we did it justice and represented you as

825
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: as well as we could. But I know that there

826
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: was a lot of stuff that we couldn't talk about,

827
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:15,120
Speaker 1: and there are probably lots of reactions people are having

828
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 1: about this topic, and let's start a conversation. Mom Stuff

829
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 1: at house stuff works dot Com is our email address.

830
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast and

831
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages

832
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: to share with you when we come right back from

833
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:38,879
Speaker 1: a quick break. I have one here from Maria. She says,

834
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: I really want to thank you ladies. I'm a twenty

835
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 1: six year old woman who dropped out of college. I

836
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:45,360
Speaker 1: knew I wanted my degree and that I wanted to

837
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: go back to school, but I was really scared of

838
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:51,399
Speaker 1: going back, but I found your podcast. I can say

839
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 1: you ladies have helped so much as I am back

840
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 1: in school getting my degree. My major is mathematics, and

841
00:50:56,960 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 1: listening to women in math, engineering, and science really help

842
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 1: me see that I can totally do this. Not only

843
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 1: that I'm doing much more than getting a degree, but

844
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 1: that I'm also helping set an example. Thank you. I

845
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 1: really love listening to the podcast and watching videos on YouTube.

846
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: You ladies have answered so many questions that I have

847
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 1: been scared to ask other women. I will let you,

848
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: ladies know when I'll be walking and thank you again

849
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,840
Speaker 1: for motivating me and seeing getting my degree is totally

850
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 1: worth it. I can't wait to see the new things

851
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to be learning, not just in school but

852
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: on the podcast. So congratulations on this major lifestep Maria,

853
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Speaker 1: and thank you for writing in Well. I've got a

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00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 1: let her here from c J in response to our

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00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,440
Speaker 1: podcast on the history of fashion modeling, and c J writes,

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00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 1: I used to work for a fashion house and can

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00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 1: confirm a lot of what was said about modeling in

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00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: current times. It was my job to do castings, and

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00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 1: I can tell you that the models were considered less

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00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:53,920
Speaker 1: like people and more like objects. Not only did your

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00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: body have to fit the clothes properly, but designers and

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00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 1: photographers would talk about your flaws in front of you,

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00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,759
Speaker 1: as if you weren't present. As far as minorities, being

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00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:03,760
Speaker 1: a black model has to be hard for the ego.

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Speaker 1: We thought really hard to employ this one black model

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Speaker 1: for a particular season. She was clearly the best candidate,

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Speaker 1: but there was such reluctance from the owner of the label.

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Speaker 1: We eventually convinced the boss to hire her, but at

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00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: the shoot the owner kept complaining that her hair was

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00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 1: quote too ethnic. Now when I see models on the

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00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 1: streets of New York, I have such respect. It takes

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00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:24,960
Speaker 1: a lot to be a model, and although it may

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00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,960
Speaker 1: seem glamorous, there is such a strength that must be

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Speaker 1: had to make it. So Thanks c J, and thanks

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00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 1: to everybody who has written into us, and also who

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00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:38,359
Speaker 1: offered their B D s M sources and suggestions. Your

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00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: input makes such a difference always on the podcast, so

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00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: thank you, and again, if you want to email us,

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00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at house stuffworks dot com is our email

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00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: address and for links to all of our social media

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00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:50,399
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcast

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00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,320
Speaker 1: including this one with our sources so you can read along.

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00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:57,359
Speaker 1: Head on over to Stuff Mom Never told You dot

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00:52:57,360 --> 00:53:03,320
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Isn't how staff Works dot com