KINK ADVERSITIES
KINK ADVERSITIES
[Presented within a wider context of adversities, so: Trigger warnings: the below includes discussion of kinkphobia, with some partial analogies made which refer to e.g. (and not necessarily just) homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, biphobia, marginalization of Survivors and 'within community bullying'.]
1) People of non-normative sexuality have of course very often been persecuted in the less aware and tolerant past.
Vanillanormativity, kinkphobia, and kink-shaming
are very real prejudices which Kinksters have faced, and in many cases still face.
Plenty of Kinksters have had their lives ruined or ended by such.
In these ways, these bear a number of similarities to 'more established' notions of prejudice, such as the following.
Heteronormativity, homophobia, misuse of LGB terminology as insults or to belittle or discredit.
Cis-normativity, transphobia, and misuse of Trans terminology similarly.
Male-centred 'patriarchy', misogyny, and such as 'slut-shaming', 'body shaming' and 'clothing shaming' (not that the last three of these have solely been aimed at ladies).
Also consider at this point 'victim blaming', since at least some of the above 'shaming' has been done to discredit Survivors of sexual assault or similar.
As it happens, some of the 'kink shaming' has been meted out to silence, discredit, even dehumanize Survivors who so happen to be Kinksters. Occasionally, even people who aren't Kinksters have been labelled as such in order to silence or discredit them.
So there's a further serious side to being a Kinkster or similar. Such have faced a lot of oppression, and some of that is ingrained enough that the world at large refuses to acknowledge that oppression, and actively or passively, goes on in ways that further harm Kinksters.
What Kinksters do is consensual and legal, and it being 'different from the norm' is no excuse whatsoever to continue to mistreat and persecute such people in the modern world.
In particular, Kinksters who also happen to be Survivors are often particularly badly let down by support services 'intended for Survivors' or 'Welfare in general'. Various underlying reasons for this are as follows.
A) Many such things were set up on assumptions amounting to 'Kinksters don't exist', 'Kinksters are irrelevant', or 'being a Kinkster is asking for it'.
B) Many such things were set up under the assumption that Survivors are sexually and socially normative. That their being attacked, harassed etc took a normative form. And that their attacker behaved normatively.
Kink's diversity means a wide range of things that Kinksters don't consent to. Trying to kiss or grope someone will be seen widely as harassment and assault, but doing things that a Kinkster is not OK with can often evade detection or be 'deemed irrelevant' under current anti harassment policies or the law of the land.
If a Kinkster is a Survivor, then our being treated as if our way of life is an irrelelevant variable at best, an inconvenience or even a 'valid excuse' for our attacker, by those who purportedly help survivors, or run welfare, disciplinary and pastoral matters, represents a second round of adversity.
This is totally unnecessary and must stop. We here raise awareness only, rather than demanding that other groups and institutions change how they do things so that many vulnerable people don't remain being left out in practise, or too scared to even dare to approach 'sources of help' due to how other such called us irrelevant. Other groups elsewhere may wish to ask for such changes to welfare, pastoral and disciplinary matters, as regards what doctors and counsellors, police officers and lawyers, can currently get away with doing out of ignorance (or, occasionally, malice, and there being no effective procedures for calling out that malice).
Here are a few pages on Non-normative Survivor issues
Broadening inclusion of Survivors by broadening understanding of what people perceive as sexual
A start on the true diversity of Survivors
Some basic points concerning Survivors.
Some basic points concerning Non-Normative Survivors
2) We next turn to how, aside from non-LGBT people being hurtful and harmful to LGBT people, prejudices have often been seen against subsets of LGBT people.
For instance, quite long ago, many such were LG or LGB communities out of excluding Trans people.
Such as transphobia and biphobia exist in more than one form.
There is for instance the external world's transphobia prior to Trans being legally protected.
The more subtle e.g. ostracism based transphobia by people who daren't be seen as transphobic but don't want any Trans people in their social circles, workplaces or societies.
But also transphobia by trans-exclusionary feminists and/or by lesbian groups, by gay groups and by LG or LGB groups. This is in some sense 'within community' persecution, bullying and exclusion. In the sense that some Trans people would have elsewise liked to be parts of some such groups but were 'refused admission' or 'expelled upon being outed'. Some others were able to be part of such groups, but only while either being, or feeling, 'second class citizens', or 'only welcome while agreeing with larger subgroups' opinions and ways of being, even when these were manifestly transphobic.
There are Bi parallels of these matters. And some LG , LGB or LGBT groups have experienced e.g. Gay members being prejudiced toward Lesbians, or vice versa. With time and demographic variations, it may well come to pass that in nominally LGBT groups, whichever subset of the letters bullied or disregarded whichever other subset.
There is by now quite a lot of awareness about bullying, harassment and worse by 'community insiders' and what difficulties this presents. Such as pretending it does not happen, or the procedure for dealing with complaints lying in the hands of the oppressors, or not telling anyone outside the community anything, ever. Or who to believe when two members of the community both point the finger at the other and say 'that's the abuser'. We are only mentioning the above as a known case, prior to talking about somewhat related Kink matters.
Another issue to mention is that some Trans people and Allies wanting LGB communities to become LGBT communities is far from a unique occurrence. Some communities are e.g. LGBTQIA, where, in some cases, Q stands for Queer, I for intersex and A for Asexual, though in other cases Q can stand for Questioning or... In a number of such cases, further peoples were accepted (often locally: a given city's club, a given uni society, a given message board or specialized welfare providing body). In a number of other cases, however, people asking for such extensions were subjected to blankings, abuse and threats. So 'established communities' can have their own internal prejudices, contain 'untouchable' abusers (unless carefully set up with not being prone to that occurring in mind), and sometimes also mistreat people asking whether that community would mind expanding slightly.
A good feature of the current world around here, at least, is that there has been widespread acceptance of Ace and Poly people. Also of nonbinary gender, intersex, queer, and genderfluid people. This is encouraging in many ways as regards further people coming to be accepted, understood and not badly left out by such as welfare and pastoral provisions. It could come to be that Kinksters, and the approximately ninety percent of Survivors who don't currently feel safe enough with such as welfare and pastoral provisions to even tell any such folk that they are Survivors, also get to be included in some manner satisfactory to such Kinksters and Survivors. This will not necessarily however be in the form of an ever larger community along the lines of LGBTQIA...
9) Let us next turn to what groups some Kinksters already form. These are quite often private or semi-private, similar to e.g. some Poly groups. As with LG, LGB and LGBT groups in the past, some Kinkster groups have been exclusive toward certain subsets of would-be members. 'Internal prejudices' against some types of Kinkster exist in some places, with a number of parallels to Bi and Trans experiences within LGBT communities, or in first asking if they could join LG communities.
Due to these, similarly to how some Trans people don't feel represented by current, let alone past, LGBT communities, some Kinksters don't want to belong to Kink communities, or to an LGBTQIA... which accepts some or all Kinksters as further people.
At this point, those who've read their way round here can return to item 8) of the Kink front page .