DV? WTF?
Someone please explain to me how a black eye is any more or less “abusive” than anything else we do in this crazy, crazy bdsm world.
I don’t see it.
Someone got hit. Someone else was the hitter.
What does it matter if it was ass or eye? If it was consensual and everyone walked away smiling… why does seeing that black eye leave some who are otherwise cheering about marks feel uneasy?
(Not about me, btw. I do not have a black eye. Just a picture on Fet.)
Uncategorized | kaya | 
Tuesday November 10th, 2009 11:43am
my 2cents…think Farrah Fawcet and the Burning Bed…black eyes = abuse.
not my take on it if it’s consentual…just…bdsm is a….hmmm, hidden? thing in society (look how long it took me to find it, grin)…so to have so visable a marking? makes it less acceptable in the big ‘out there’….sorry, i’m pro’lly not making any sense today…i am swine. (flu)
[rq=1146502,0,blog][/rq]Bad Ass
But if it were that, then collars (another visible sign) would be looked at the same way, right?
YOU has the swine? Do I need to spray you with Lysol?
yes, lotsa lysol, puleeze…aaachoo…ooh, shameless bid for sympathy…that’s what I get for nursing 3 kids through it last week…if only the 3-day fever would break, yanno…i’m all outta sorts (very big pout) oink oink.
nilla
ps…you’re right about the collar but…it’s removable…a black i is smacked on there (hee)
[rq=1147904,0,blog][/rq]Bad Ass
Dear Kaya, it depends on the slave’s life, doesn’t it? If she, like me, has a job where a black eye is a big problem, the black eye may be a no-go, whereas the black ass is just fine. I like slaps in the face and similar things very much. To me, it is terribly exiting, when he forces my mouth open, or sqeezes it shut. But sometimes we must stop ourselves, because there mustn’t be visible signs in my face. If my dom gave me a black eye deliberately (which he wouldn’t do!) I would be deeply disappointed and see it as a crossing a borderline. However, accidents can happen – and they are hard enough to explain to colleagues and customers! (The last black eye, by the way, occurred when I kissed my daughter good night, and we both moved towards each other way too fast.)
Tina
Well that’s all fine and dandy.
However. Lets take someone who doesn’t care or worry about the public’s viewing. They planned it, let’s say. Or.. whatever the scenario. Point being, she is fine with her black eye.
But the people looking at it, the people IN the bdsm world, are crying abuse.
That’s what baffles me. Not the vanillas. Hell, they think everythign we do is abuse. I’m talking other kinksters pointing and saying abuse because she has a black eye- and is showing it off.
It’s all related to the social stigma placed on black eyes. We’ve all been feed that the picture of a woman with a black eye and disheveled clothing is abused and even if we are in the lifestyle sometimes that doesn’t deprogram. So when we see markers that have been ingrained in us as abuse, we see it as such.
[rq=1146929,0,blog][/rq]Bring on the Pain
Meh. Maybe.
I mean, I’m sure that’s part of it. But it seems to me that people who engage in those activities themselves should know better than to fall victim to social stigmas.
If that’s the case, then ANY picture of bondage or welts or whatever should trigger that reaction. Not just black eyes.
Argh. Now I have to go look up what you said.
[rq=1147281,0,blog][/rq]Lust for Lists
I didnt really say much of anything there..lol
I believe it is because of the dangers involved. You are not going to put yourself at risk for head injury with a black bottom. The Dom(me) has no idea what force to hit the eye with as they have no way to judge how much or little force could cause perm brain trama.
Okay.
But.
Agreeing to risk “trauma” comes with consent. Obviously we’ve a case of two consenting adults here. So is what it boils down to that the kink community is judging that agreeing to risk that sort of trauma is not acceptable?
that would be valid as an argument if the only things people were doing involved bottoms and bruises on butts. but they don’t. people use canes on torsos and the soles of feet, engage in breath and blood play, cut people, and draw blood from veins.
there are some seriously heavy things going on that people really COULD die from if done too hard, too long, incorrectly etc. (and by the way, even “you can’t die from a burised butt” doesn’t pass muster, because if the bruises are large, deep, and heavy enough, you can have an embolism. always a risk, though not one ANYONE seems to say much about, espescially if the bruises are on one’s butt.
and you can easily die from a staph infection if it’s not handled.
so i call hooey on your excuse for eye-hitting being anathema. too many other accepted and omg loved activities are JUST as dangerous.
Kaya, it’s called a double standard, because people just HAVE to have something that’s “too far” so they can laways say, “well, i may be kinky and whatever, but i’d never go THAT FAR…” and that necessitates having a “THAT FAR”. things normally associated with DV are an easy out.
i had a face slapping scene with Master once in a public dungeon. He was slapping my face with a low-to-medium amount of force, and my cheeks were barely even getting red. right next to us, a guy was seriously tearing chunks out of his girl witha whip onher shoulders and upper back.
folks left the area because of OUR scene.
personally, i didn’t give a rat’s patoot about it. their loss.
I think I commented on this exact picture! Or at least I commented on a picture of a woman with a black eye.
Essentially everyone was saying that it was too over the top, non consensual, etc. etc. even though SHE posted the picture. Obviously it was consensual!
It’s amazing how people involved with this lifestyle are just as judgmental as those who are not. Who cares what other people do? It’s their decision!
[rq=1147371,0,blog][/rq]Our First Feature!
You did. You led me right to the picture.
I think what it likely comes down to is evolutionary behaviorism. The face has a weird significance in psychology. One reason facial scarring has a much more forceful impact and is frequently used in movies. The face is a collection of very fragile organs, and the majority of our sensory organs. It is also home to some of the most sensitive parts of the body, so we have an evolutionary drive to protect it. Generally the only part of the body we have that kind of drive to protect from harm, large and small, is genitals. That means that marks on the face are much more likely to trigger sympathetic responses in people seeing these marks. In some primal way the desire to avoid whatever caused those marks gets stirred and people that are normally pretty collected and rational freak out.
Second major psychological factor is related to a couple of the posts above. The face, even more than clothes, is our interface with the world. It is what we show people and a large part of how we communicate with them, identify them, and interact with them. This means we tend to put more weight on the visual cues that we pick up from looking at someone’s face. We are designed to have unconscious, deeply emotional reactions to the slightest facial tics and expressions. Millimeters of difference in the contraction of a single muscle in the cheek, or around the eye, can mean the difference between sympathy or rage. So when something as jarring as widespread discoloration and/or swelling is apparent, we tend to make a big deal out of it on an instinctual level.
That said, breaking down the problem morally and sociologically is a different thing. I ascribe to similar beliefs, that if it is between consenting adults, have at and have fun.
That’s why people tend to react to it dramatically, I can’t say why people argue about it dramatically.
I like what you say. *nods*
It would seem to me, then, that the reaction, most especially from the kink “community”, should be one of distaste rather than cries of abuse.
I can see several practical differences, but from a strictly BDSM perspective it’s really all the same.
Nilla, I’m really sorry to hear you have the aporkalypse.
[rq=1148603,0,blog][/rq]A Surprisingly Lengthy Post
Aporkalypse! *Dies laughing*
[rq=1154551,0,blog][/rq]Public Post
OMG! took me 3 tries to type my email in the form I was laughing so hard (and coughing) APORKALPSE!! (nilla keels over, laughing to the end….)
ps fever broke, nilla is better
[rq=1157183,0,blog][/rq]Benched
mmmm….i don’t know a black eye just seems so very,very uncivilized! lol..yes i would like to think there is a thread of decorum in this lifestyle, and yes i agree in principle it is the same as a paddled ass..but it just doesn’t sit well with me, maybe its the idea of permanent damage, i have this thing about eye sight i sorta like it…and there is a line in my mind between erotic pain and just fucking uncivilized no pussy wetting involved at all..go figure? to each his own…but if it were me? i think he’d better sleep with one eye open…do you think i have some passive aggressive tendencies?
lol. I think you might.
btw- your question is still circling in my head. I haven’t forgotten. What I also haven’t done is come up with an answer. It’ll come to me though. Or not. Because maybe there isn’t an answer. You might have stumped me. FIRST TIME EVER!
i win! i win! i win! the first time ever stumper award! me thinks that this triumph will be short lived as i have full faith and confidence that you will in fact respond…hence i will wallow in glory for a limited time….*wiggles off whistling a tune rolling in glory*
I want a black eye!
It sounds awesome. I wonder if Antonio will give me a black eye if I ask really, really sweetly? No, probably not. Lame.
(I regularly fantasize about busted lips, bruised cheeks, black eyes. I’m deranged, I guess)
ANYWAY. With that out of my system…
I shudder to think how horrific it must be for these people to watch professional fights. I mean, these fighters spend their WHOLE lives learning to punch harder and more accurately than anyone else. And then they get together and agree to punch each other. Often until one of them has been knocked out cold!!!
Sure, from a practical point of view, facial tissue is much more delicate… There are a billion more capillaries so bleeding is an issue… Your eyes/retinas are quite fragile… Your brain is in there and hell, that Natasha Richardson woman died from a TINY conk on the head… Etc. Etc. Etc.
So maybe being a UFC fighter (and/or having your Dom punch you in the face) is not the SMARTEST thing to do in the whole world. I’ll agree with that.
But two people getting together and agreeing to do something slightly stupid because they both enjoy it isn’t fucking abuse! It’s two people getting together and agreeing to do something slightly stupid because they enjoy it.
Anyone who does a contact sport, not just pro fighters, agree to do that sort of thing EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Is THAT abuse? I think not.
If this couple was, I dunno, agreeing that one would kill and eat the other, okay. Yeah. Maybe the police should be called. Possibly a psychiatrist. If anyone had a direct line to God, that might be helpful as well.
But, really. My brother comes home with black eyes once in a while. I’m not concerned about abuse. I’m concerned he isn’t keeping his guard up like he’s supposed to.
So I make fun of him.
Tee hee hee. LOSER.
I… Have no idea how I ended up here… I’ll just go now…
~Chloe
[rq=1149222,0,blog][/rq]My Collar? No, Thanks.
Yeah! What you said!
That’s pretty much what I think, too.
Sir is a black belt in martial arts (I can’t spell it properly ^-^) and I happen to adore face slapping, but he’s told me that even a slight slip could leave me with a black eye. It doesn’t take much force even- an open handed slap could do it. I pout, he ignores me, we go back to our regularly scheduled day.
To answer your question though- really no difference in action, just in peoples perception. If they have weighed the risks carefully and still want to go for it power to them I guess.
I think that’s what gets me. The people saying it’s abusive aren’t believing that they’ve weighed the risks carefully.
Mostly all I can think about when you ask this question is how I have about 30 pounds of squishy fat on my ass and none on my eye. My boyfriend will not hit me in the face (beyond slaps) because of the damage he thinks it could do, whereas he regularly beats me everywhere else. He’s especially concerned about breaking my cheekbones or the bones of the occipital lobe (sp? wtf). He’s told me that the effects are a lot more unpredictable than what happens if he hits me on the ass. I don’t know that he’s right, but to me, that’s the difference.
Of course, if we’re looking at the after-effects, and the person’s eye has ALREADY been hit and didn’t fall out, there’s no difference between a bruise there and a bruise on the ass, and everyone can just breathe.
By the way, I read the responses to that thread differently. Aside from the one rather freakish person, it seemed like a lot of people were saying, hey, look, I’ve been in DV situations, so this is not sexy to me. I can get that. I can understand someone who, I don’t know, was locked in an ACTUAL dungeon once not thinking dungeons were hot, although for me, at this point, nothing is hotter than a moldy drippy dungeon. On the other hand, you know, if that’s your experience, maybe just don’t comment on the picture and take your squick elsewhere?
[rq=1150458,0,blog][/rq]Lust for Lists
I think the thing that really made me angry was seeing people say things like “See if a domestic violence survivor finds this acceptable” as a way of masking what was clearly their own, personal discomfort. I think I can make my own decisions about what I find cool and what I don’t. I don’t need some sanctimonious jackass invoking potential DV disapproval on my behalf.
Exactly.
Besides, I know some DV “survivors” (I hate that word) who would lust over it.
“maybe just don’t comment on the picture and take your squick elsewhere?”
There is that.
“My boyfriend will not hit me in the face (beyond slaps) because of the damage he thinks it could do”
Yeabut- if he weighed those risks and did it anyway, would it be abuse or would it be, like most every other “edgy” kink thing, worth the risk for the desired outcome?
Fuck. Orbital bone, not occipital bone. The second one is on the back of your head. Duh.
Okay Imma stop spamming your comments now, really.
[rq=1150515,0,blog][/rq]Lust for Lists
Kaya,
In my early days of studying the lifestyle, I found numerous references in the SSC and RACK literature about how the face (as well as the lower back, etc.) should be avoided because of the dangers inherent with those areas and their vulnerable internal organs (brain, eyes, kidneys…). The thinking was that it took far less force to accidently cause severe and potentialy lethal damage to those areas. Yet, some of these same sources would go on to describe how to practice breath play, water sports and the like, with no cautions beyond not doing breath play alone and such.
I think some of the other comments have touched on many of the reasons, but I’d like to throw this one out as well. Fear. Think about it. Here are people who have a steadfast rule against hitting in the face in play, and then they see someone who not only does it, but shows the results for all to see, and apparently hasn’t suffered any of those dire consequences. Now they’re faced with 2 options. 1) their rule is silly and not needed, because you can play safely with those areas of the body. 2) these other people are more extreme…better slaves…whatever…than they are. So, of course, they take option 3) this must have been abuse, not play; while ignoring the obviously correct answer 4) I guess they’re just different than I am.
I recall seeing two scenes at Spankfest that touched off my, “Oh My God!” meters at first. One had a sub being manhandled by two doms who were physically restraining her and using an honest to goodness quarterstaff on her; and the blows didn’t seem to be pulled. The other had a sub (I think) being kicked and punched all over her body (including the head). Yet, at the end of both scenes, the participants were hugging, laughing and gushing about how much fun they were having. People are different; viva le difference!
One othe note: Have you noticed the gender bias? If a woman has a black eye, the people she meets assume she’s been abused and, if they do anything, offer her support at getting out; to the point of disbelieing any other reasons put forth. If a man sports a shiner, the first reaction is, “I wonder what the other guy looks like?” No one assumes the man’s been abused, just that he was in a fight. Something to make you say, “Hmmm…”
Dave
“1) their rule is silly and not needed, because you can play safely with those areas of the body. 2) these other people are more extreme…better slaves…whatever…than they are. So, of course, they take option 3) this must have been abuse, not play; while ignoring the obviously correct answer 4) I guess they’re just different than I am.”
That was awesome, Dave! I’m totally going to quote you on that at some point in the future. That is exactly the thought path a lot of them take, I bet.
I remember those two scenes (I think. If we’re on the same ones) and I had that gut reaction of “OMGZ! She’s gunna DIEEE!”- and then quickly reaching point 4 on your list and being able to enjoy watching it for what it was.
“Have you noticed the gender bias?”
I have. In fact, I’m probably guilty of it.
Kaya,
Ironically, it was you and Toy that got me to the point where I can reach option 4. Both of you provoked that, “OMG!” reaction when I first found you. My heart said you were being abused, but my mind said, “but, she seems so happy about it.”
I also recall seeing similar initial reactions to your boob nailing scene. At least two people looked; their mouths dropped; and they had to sit and watch the “train wreck.” it was so cool.
Dave
Wait, I comfused….it is ok for me and mine to do breath play, edge play, blood play, whipping, caning, flogging til skin breaks, slapping, striking the body, shitting on her face, pissing on her, fucking her whenever I want, however I want, but a strike to the face that results in a black eye is too much???? Goddamn, I’s doing it wrong again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“but a strike to the face that results in a black eye is too much????”
Well. It’s just abusive, that’s all. You got a problem with that????
BTW, congrats on making the 100 top sex bloggers list.
http://www.betweenmysheets.com/index.php/top-100-sex-bloggers-of-2009
[rq=1151101,0,blog][/rq]20 Things About Me, Sexually Speaking
Oooooooh! Thank you! I had no idea.
I have wanted a black eye for quite some time. I love the way that bruises change colour, like a flower on my skin. Black eyes are always visible and thus, to me, even more beautiful.
Society’s reaction is one of the main reasons I have never gotten one. While my friends in the lifestyle *might* accept my black eye, people walking down the street certainly will not. I do not live my life to please other people, but I also take into consideration the hassle I might receive from such a public display of my kink. The other reason is that I do modeling and proDomme work, and neither would benefit from me having a black eye.
On a side note: I know someone who can give a black eye without punching. There is a specific spot on the inside of the nose / eye that, when pressure is applied, will cause a black eye to form. I would much rather this be done to give me a black eye, as I’m into punching but not in the face.
[rq=1151862,0,blog][/rq]I am the collared disciple of Domina Angelina.
“There is a specific spot on the inside of the nose / eye that, when pressure is applied, will cause a black eye to form”
That’s interesting! I wonder if that would eliminate the abuse label.
“While my friends in the lifestyle *might* accept my black eye, people walking down the street certainly will not.”
I agree. And had that picture been on a vanilla site, I’d have not been the least bit surprised over questions of abuse. That it was on a kink site and still had some of that reaction was just baffling.
I know I should, someday, stop being baffled by things like this.