Can I Be A Feminist and Enjoy Submissive Heterosexual Sex?

There’s a fine (but sometimes difficult to understand) line between BDSM sub/dom sex and anti-feminist rape culture .

“I’m all yours to play with. Make me your toy.”

That is my favorite thing to sext. I spend nights sweating in my bed, texting my boyfriend and playing submissive. As I scroll through the sexts in the daylight, however, I am disgusted with myself. I did what every feminist hates; I begged to be objectified. Since when did I so badly want to become an obedient man-pleaser? 

This causes me to question if my fantasy of being dominated gives into female oppression. Are my desires setting me back to the 1950s? Can kinks and fetishes be anti-feminist and even worse, encouragement of rape culture? 

1970s and 80s feminists were opposed to BDSM. Feminist author Kathleen Barry described BDSM as “a disguise for the act of sexuality forcing woman against her will,” according to Catherine Scott of BitchMedia. These sub-haters worried that when heterosexual women played a sexually submissive role, they were “reinforcing the legitmacy of power imbalances outside the bedroom” (as quoted by Margot Weiss, according to BitchMedia).

Heterosexual feminist women who enjoy playing a submissive role get attacked from two sides, explains Catherine Scott in her book Thinking Kink: The Collision of Feminism, BDSM, and Pop Culture. Submissive roleplayers are first told by conservatives and the religious right that they are “drawn to the books because they know deep down that equality is wrong and they need a man to dominate them.” Secondly, they are attacked by feminists for being “in league with the patriarchy and sexiest media.” 

It is obvious that areas of BDSM contain anti-feminist components. Even dominatrix heterosexual women are somewhat objectified by having outfits, appearances and actions that are still constructed for the male gaze, according to Thinking Kink. 

It is also true that heterosexual women are assumed to be interested in being submissives. Straight males are left stratching her heads wondering how lesbians EVER have sex because who is gonna make the first move??? Rom com sexy scenes often show a man pressing a woman against the wall (think The Notebook), causing her to lose her breath as she is dramatically taken. We never see a conversation where the guy goes, “so, what are you into? I like to be more dominant, is that cool?” 

We have learned that since the 70s, BDSM has gotten a bad rap. As BDSM activities are brought more into the public light with the sex positive movement (and 50 Shades of Grey), there is a growing fear that it will be “okay” to have anti-feminist sex. 

A few months ago a male stranger in a bar reached over and slapped my ass, assuming it would make me feel powerlessly horny. This act was due to rape culture, not BDSM and kink culture. 

How BDSM Culture Fights Against Rape Culture

Those concerned that BDSM and kink destroys women’s equality and encourages rape culture may not understand the basics of BDSM. 

The BDSM community worships consent and ethics, according to Celeste Pietrusza’s Kink in Flux: BDSM Theory and Sexual Praxis. All BDSM engagements begin “with talk and communication, in the form of negotiation of fantasies, desires, erotic hopes and dreams.” These negotiations “involve a discussion of ‘safewords,’ or what a bottom will do if they want to end the scene.” The players also discuss what each other “desires for ‘aftercare,’ their time after the scene to rest and emotionally, physically, psychologically spiritually reconnect to the world.” 

Any BDSM fiction or pornography that doesn’t depict consent is understood by true BDSM-ers as only fantasy: “The kinds of relationships depicted are perhaps not desirable or even possible. Many who love these fantasies know they would hate it in reality,” according to Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy’s The New Topping Book.

I have hooked up with many a guy who thought he was into BDSM. The interactions all carry out the same way. We text and I’ll say something along the lines of “yeah, I sometimes like to be submissive” and bingo, suddenly he thinks it’s okay to not ask for consent. One guy (let’s call him Ben) loved to push my head down into the bed so I couldn’t breathe. I would tap him aggressively, wiggle myself up for air and yell “I don’t like that.” To which he would get defensive and say “Sorry, it’s my kink and you SAID you were submissive. I’m just dominant, don’t shame me.” 

Ben’s actions cannot be excused as a “kink” and they were far from BDSM-inspired dominant/submissive sex. One with any type kink should follow the BDSM basics and always communicate beforehand. Ben allowing himself to not ask for consent for the sake of “kinkiness” is due to rape culture, not BDSM culture.

Therefore, I would argue that it is not “anti-feminist” of me to enjoy being tied up and controlled if it was something thoughtfully discussed in advance. 

My Pleasure Isn’t Evil 

But, what if I only enjoy being submissive because that is all I know? Welp. That’s probably true.

I grew up watching those wall-pressing rom com scenes. The classic 13-year-old first time Googling “porn” takes you to the most popular videos of women being dominated. 

Apparently I’m not alone. A study titled Sensual, Erotic, and Sexual Behaviors of Women from the “Kink” Community surveyed 1580 participants between June 2010 and May 2011 found that 85.13% of women surveyed were spanked during sex. 84.24% had their hair pulled, 81.52% were bitten and 76.58% participated in light bondage. 

It is hard to change how my sexuality was molded in my childhood and teens. The media taught me to enjoy submissive sex and damnit, now I enjoy it! Sarah Smith in her essay “A Cock of One’s Own: Getting a Firm Grip on Feminist Sexual Power” explains “that there must be a way to have sex that is ‘Feminist,’ feeling that it results in ‘laundry list of must-nots that would hold our libidos hostage.”

When participating in a dom/sub dynamic, both parties gain great pleasure from enacting their chosen roles and perceiving the enjoyment of the other person. “Any sexual interaction concerned with mutual pleasure is already far away from the vision of patriarchal, misogynistic sex that some feminist assume must accompany all objectification,” writes Celeste Pietrusza in Kink in Flux: BDSM Theory and Sexual Praxis.

Pietrusza also quotes a study by Katherine Martinez that looked into the self-objectification among consensual sadomasochists. Martinez found that “contrary to the accepted belief, especially among feminists, that objectification leads to reduced self-esteem, increased anxiety, BDSM practitioners who self-objectify actually report better mental health and greater happiness.” 

Therefore, choosing to have a type of consenual sex that gives pleasure is actually a very feminist act. However, there is also nothing wrong with me opening up my horizons. I am well aware that my sexuality was forged by the patriarchy. Therefore, I have the power to discover new fantasies. 

This power to find your own sexuality is what the feminist movement should be fighting for in the future. I hope that my children are given a pleasure-based sex education in which they learn that the roles to play in bed (or in the shower) are completely up to the individual. 

My concern about my sexuality being anti-feminist and encouraging rape culture comes from internalized kink shaming. When I condemn my own pursuit of pleasure, I take part in keeping sexuality in the narrow boxes of the past.

So, BRING ON THE HANDCUFFS!