i guess i'll just do it myself

wherein i reluctantly break down the difference between fetishes that touch on issues of anti-Blackness and oppression and other “taboo” fetishes for y'all

i was trying really hard to stay out of this. not because i don’t care, i care deeply, this is something i have cared about since i first encountered the kink & Leather “communities,” but because other things felt more important. 

it still feels more important to me to be fighting against the GLOBAL presence of anti-Blackness & white supremacy, but as per usual, y’all are trying to try me. 

ever since the beginning of The Great white Awakening (or whatever you wanna call white people finally kind of acknowledging that white supremacy and systemic oppression of Black people are real things), this conversation has been simmering. it is a conversation i have (unsuccessfully) been trying to have with people since i discovered kink as a communal activity / point of connection.

and since Black women have to do absolutely every-fucking-thing for everyone, i guess i’m just gonna have to break this down for y’all.

let me explain what the difference is between fetishes that touch on issues of anti-Blackness and oppression and other “taboo” fetishes. 

• we as a society have agreed that incest is a bad thing and not something one should actually do.

• we as a society have agreed that the sexualization of minors is a bad thing and not something one should actually do.

• we as a society have (perfunctorily) agreed that rape and sexual assault are bad things and not things that one should actually do.

• we as a society have agreed that domestic violence is a bad thing and not something that one should actually do. 

  vs

• we as a society have NOT agreed that the police disproportionately target Black people because of anti-Blackness and systemic racism. (see current events re: protests and police murdering Black people with impunity as evidence)

• we as a society are NOT honest with ourselves or sufficiently ashamed when it comes to our history of slavery. (see current events re: reluctance to remove statues of slave owners, outlaw the rebel flag, and/or generally denouncing the confederacy and the antebellum south as evidence)

• we as a society have NOT recovered from our past to the point where white people no longer dehumanize, demonize, police, & oppress Black people and instead see us as their equals. (see current events re: white people calling the police on Black people for no goddamn reason, and police murdering Black people with impunity as evidence)

it is perfectly legal for a white person to call me a nigger and tell me they don’t want my kind in their neighborhood. it is perfectly legal for a white person to dress up in Blackface and perform whatever racist shit they want to on the internet (or at a Leather contest). they might lose their job or some social standing for it depending on where they live, but it’s not illegal and neither i nor any other Black person has any legal means of redress to address this behavior.

this is why it’s fun and hot and cool and none of my fucking business when folks do age play, or incest play, or CNC, or any kind of SM activities at all. because everyone (except for people that we would deem potentially dangerous) knows that if you did that shit in real life, it wouldn’t be cool. it is VERY clear that we are playing in the realm of fantasy. are there people who use BDSM as a cloak to play out their dangerous and abusive desires? absolutely, but that’s not what i’m talking about.

there is CLEARLY not a consensus in this country about how Black people should be treated—are we people? do we deserve rights? do our lives matter? is it a crime to kill one of us? do we feel pain and/or need the same level of medical care as white people? are we smart enough to be lawyers, doctors, CEOs, etc? are we lazy? these are (disgustingly enough) not questions that all Americans will answer the same way. 

you can only subvert something if there is a commonly held belief about that thing y’all.

so that’s why i don’t want to see another person in a law enforcement uniform at a kink/Leather/BDSM event. 

i see it, and immediately think of my personal trauma history as a Black person in the US with the police. but Chad over there might look at it and think “cops are so lucky, they can fuck up as many hoodrats & thugs as they want and nobody can do anything about it. fuck, that power is so sexy, i’m gonna suck his dick.” 

or maybe it’s not even that deep. 

maybe a Black person sees you in your leather CHP uniform and thinks “fuck that guy” and has a silent panic attack while a white someone else thinks “they look powerful” and wants to buy you a drink.

is that the effect you want to have? if it is then, cool, keep on doing what you’re doing because you’re an asshole and it’s working, but if it’s not. just think about what i am saying.

yes, there are potentially triggering fetishes unfolding ALL AROUND us in the Leather/kink/BDSM scene based on our own personal trauma histories, but at least for the majority of those kinks, we can fall back on the knowledge that we were the victim in that trauma that is triggered by them. someone else did something that everyone knows is bad to us, and it wasn’t our fault. 

i don’t have that luxury. i don’t meet white folks who use M/s language to describe their dynamic and get to remind myself that it’s ok and they are safe people because everyone knows what a monstrous horror American chattel slavery was and restitutions are being made to Black people as we speak.

i don’t get to see someone dressed up in a cop uniform (or any other uniform representing an oppressive, fascist institution) and know that they’re wearing it because they fucking hate the cops because of what they do to Black people, and they think it’s hot to come to gay Leather spaces in a cop uniform to subvert the police’s alpha-het-male image.

when i encounter shit that is directly representative of systems of oppression actively at work against Black people in kink/Leather/BDSM spaces, i cannot be certain that we are operating in the realm of fantasy. i cannot be certain that the police uniform you’re wearing isn’t being worn out of a sense of admiration and aspiration for the power and impunity that cops wield. when you talk about your M/s dynamic, i cannot be sure that you don’t have some romantic notions in your head about the antebellum south and enslaved people who “loved” their masters.

and since i cannot know these things, i cannot be certain of my safety.

this is why there is a difference. 

once y’all fix racism, and Black people have all the same rights, freedoms, privileges, generational wealth, protections under the law, and opportunities that white folks have, then y’all can talk to me about dressing up like cops and calling someone your slave. 

until then, y’all have more pressing shit to worry about.

xxxo

-D