Kinksters, we need to talk.
You know how you’re scrolling through the Kinky & Popular page on Fetlife, looking at the pictures, and they’re of all these sexy, sexy ladies showing off sexy curves by kneeling or crawling, in collars and cuffs and other fetish gear? It’s a running joke how common the sexy-butt-with-butt-plug-and-matching-collar picture is.
But, as sexy and enjoyable as these pictures are, do you notice something missing?
Where are the sexy guys?
These pictures are all of submissive ladies. Sure, there’s the occasional domina decked out in all her fetish attire glory, but the only men in pictures are dominant props for the submissive ladies. There are no men pictured in submissive poses. No men with perfect cane-stripes across their asses. No men kneeling in ways that perfectly display their toned bodies, eyes glassy with subspace. No delicious, well-oiled man bound and helpless….
*ahem* Sorry, got a little carried away there.
But seriously, even the writings are designed by and for male-Dominant-female-submissive relationships.
What the fuck, guys?
According to some surveys, subby-type men are the single largest subgroup among kinksters. Sure, many are being syphoned off by the pro-Domme industry, for a variety of reasons, but that can’t be the whole story.
Somehow, the kink community, the one place where we’re all supposed to be able to be our true selves with as few social rules as possible, has created a script of what is acceptable and what is not. We have subconsciously decided that submissives are supposed to be female. Submissive ladies stay home and take care of the house while the strong manly-man is at work. She makes his dinner, cleans his house, and sucks his cock when he gets home.
Can you see why some feminists have issues with us?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to be a female submissive or to take care of Sir’s house for him. But I am saying that, out of all the communities in the world, this one, at least, should exemplify variety. Instead, we’ve created a norm. We’ve created privilege. And it’s time we acknowledge our privilege.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Having one kind of privilege doesn’t mean you’ve had an easy life. It just means that, in that one area, you’ve had it easier than you would have if you weren’t a member of the privileged group. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means that there are other ways of being that, because of the way the system amplifies privileged voices and silences non-privileged ones, you probably haven’t heard yet.
It’s time we acknowledge our own limited perspectives and expand our horizons. We’ll all be better for it.
