The Big Phallus Theory: The Big Bang Theory, Nerd Culture, and Women

(While I tried to avoid them, you may find some SPOILERS for The Big Bang Theory in this post.)

 

One of my favorite sitcoms is The Big Bang Theory. While the show is not always strong on plot and rarely portrays life in academia accurately, its likeable characters and nearly unending stream of insider gags for nerds make it an entertaining means of spending half an hour. I love Leonard, the everyman. I enjoy Sheldon’s elevated dialogue. And I can both sympathize with and laugh at Howard and Raj’s awkwardness. I also appreciate that it features a smart, sensible heroine, Penny, who isn’t afraid to assert herself and can talk back to the guys.

What I can’t stand is that, like most of nerd culture and the wider culture, the show often reeks of sexism. Some of it, like Howard’s frequent lewd comments that reduce women to sex objects, I can ignore. Indeed, if I restricted myself only to popular culture that presents women as nothing less than fully realized human beings, I’d probably never be able to watch another movie or television show again. I’ve become so used to explicit sexism, in the form of derogatory comments about women, in my media diet that, I confess, I often recognize it and then choose to ignore it. It’s one of the patriarchal bargains I make as a feminist and a woman living in a culture that recognizes my gender’s worth only in so far as it meets certain standards of sexiness, attractiveness, and compliance. What does bother me about the show that I haven’t been able to ignore so easily is the implicit sexism in the lack of female nerd characters.

Seriously, where are the women nerds? I see them everywhere in real life. They attend conventions, they go to the movies, they cosplay, they talk about Star Wars and Star Trek  and play Skyrim and Dungeons & Dragons. They consist of the majority of people that I know and I’d say nearly all of my female friends are nerds. I know women who can code websites, quote Lord of the Rings, act out scenes from Doctor Who, recite the noble gases and their atomic weights, and kick your ass in Call of Duty. Why are these women not represented, or even acknowledged, in The Big Bang Theory? I’m not even asking why they aren’t main characters–though a show about four female nerdy friends would be awesome and so much more entertaining than Sex and the City–so much as I’m wondering why, in the show’s universe, they don’t even seem to exist.

Well, one might point out, what about Amy and Bernadette? Perhaps, in the strictest sense of the term “nerd,” someone who is brilliantly smart and obsessives over even the tiniest minutiae of something, Amy and Bernadette are nerds. They’re both smart, they’re both biologists, and they both have Ph.D.s. To give credit where credit is due, just a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable to have not one, but two women characters in the S.T.E.M. fields on a television show. However, Amy and Bernadette are still ultimately defined in the show by their relationships with their male significant others. They are judged, and often found wanting, by their ability or inability to meet cultural standards of attractiveness, and they do no participate in what has come to be the domains of nerd culture–things like comic books, science fiction shows and movies, and video games. There are no women regularly featured in the show who enjoy these pursuits, even though such women exist in real life.

In real life, however, nerd culture often has just as much, if not more, of a problem with sexism than The Big Bang Theory does. While The Big Bang Theory ignores nerd women and pretends that they don’t exist, real life nerd culture can be downright hostile toward women attempting to claim the identity of “nerd.”  Whether its people accusing women of only pretending to be nerds in order to hook up with guys or creating the “Idiot Nerd Girl” meme that I’ve attempted to reclaim in this post, a lot of guys seem to want women out of their conventions, their role playing games, and their Internet spaces. But why? The most obvious answer is sexism, but it would be too simple to leave it at that, so I’m going to dig a little deeper.

Though the cultural perception of nerds is changing, it is still largely a negative one, as evidenced by the male main characters on The Big Bang Theory. All of them, in some way, have failed to live up to to our culture’s unrealistic and burdensome ideals of masculinity. None of them are physically strong. Neither are they particularly attractive. They know little of sports. They aren’t charismatic or suave or charming. They aren’t physically or emotionally tough. They prefer the comforts of their apartments to the outdoors. Nerdy men are, as the show and the wider culture seem to suggest, not masculine. The show has frequently paired short, wimpy Leonard with Penny’s tall, dark and handsome beaus to make this point. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj could often be better described as “feminine” than masculine. There is, however, one group that is lower than nerds on the social hierarchy: women. Whatever male nerds are, they are still more masculine (and thus higher on the hierarchy of patriarchal culture) than women. But when women start entering nerd spaces–and demanding an equal right to be there and be recognized as nerds–they challenge the modicum of masculinity that nerd culture has been able to salvage for itself. They also challenge the perception of women, within both nerd culture and the wider culture, as nothing more than accessories that convey masculinity, and thus worth, on a man. (Think about how, when Howard was first dating Bernadette, he worried that she wasn’t good-looking enough. An attractive girl conveys to society that there is something “manly” or “masculine” about the man she is dating, thus increasing his worth in the eyes of patriarchal culture.)

I think there is a place for women in nerd culture, and I’m sure that women will continue to attend cons, play video games, and go to special screenings of Star Wars. Just as women have fought, and are still fighting, for their right to inhabit the biology labs and physics departments where Bernadette and Amy have managed to reside, I suspect that women will continue to exist in nerd spaces and gradually gain acceptance there. I also suspect that, as nerd culture continues to grow within the mainstream, the stereotype of nerd men as less than masculine will diminish.

However, just because the stereotype of nerds as feminine may disappear does not mean that sexism within nerd culture will necessarily end. Though I would be very glad to see our culture expand its definitions of masculinity beyond its currently narrow confines, I suspect that this will do very little to challenge the standards of beauty to which women, even nerdy women, are held, both inside and outside of nerd culture. Maleness, I still sadly suspect, will still be privileged within nerd culture, in part because nerd culture is inherently exclusionary. To be a nerd, it helps to be male. It also helps to be white, cisgender, and educated. I suspect being able-bodied helps too, though I have seen a broader spectrum of ability represented in nerd culture than I have in mainstream culture. It is required that one be at least middle class, as I doubt the working class has the time and money that are necessary to indulge in nerdy pursuits. Gaming systems can be incredibly expensive, as are books, DVDs, and high-speed Internet connections. One must also have the leisure time to master the games and fantasy worlds present in nerd media. Sadly, in many ways, nerds are often primarily defined by what they consume.

I would like to think that nerd culture is smart enough to look at its own privilege and try to include a wider range of people. After all, many of us nerds define ourselves by our inability to fit in, our difference from mainstream society, and our stories of bullying and rejection. Perhaps we could use those experiences to sympathize with those whom society bullies and rejects. Until more nerds are willing to make this effort and look beyond their own privilege, however, I suspect that nerd culture will largely remain another old boys club.

Why We Want the World to End (Or Don’t)

(I’m not completely happy with this post, since I seem to be writing it from a very Western, very humanistic perspective. Usually I try to write in such a way as to challenge Western-centric views, and I ultimately tend to prefer Donna Haraway’s posthumanism to humanism. However, like the rest of the nation, I’m still reeling from the tragedy of the Sandy Hook shooting and I’m not really sure how to process it. So I’m falling back on old worldviews that I’ve been surrounded by all my life and that are Western-centric and humanist.)

December 21, 2012, has come and gone, and yet we and the world are still here. (For my fellow Whovians: the Doctor saved us! Again!) But why all the hype and build-up? Why are people so attracted to the idea of the end of the world?

A fascination with the apocalypse is nothing new, of course. Perhaps as long as there have been people, we’ve been contemplating our own demise. Many different religions have stories about the world ending or nearly ending or predicting the end of the world. We have movies about the end of civilization brought about by global warming or a zombie virus or another species. Why are we so fascinated with this stuff?

In some sense, I think it’s cathartic. When bad things happen, especially really, really bad things, I think a part of us believes that the world just can’t get better. This weekend, after being bombared by news of the tragic shooting in Sandy Hook, when I was searching for something to read, I didn’t reach for the comforting essays of David Sedaris or the wisdom of Greg Epstein or the motivation of Eve Ensler. No, I cracked open World War Z by Max Brooks, a faux historical account of the zombie apocalypse, set in our own near-future. It was a morbid mix of media—Sandy Hook on the television and a book of grisly zombie attacks in my lap. Yet the combination seemed fitting. The shooting and the book both spoke of the darker sides of humanity, the destructive parts of our nature, our callousness. It’s easy to look at all of the violence in the world, the poverty, the inequality, the injustices, and (worst of all) the indifference, and think that we really are, as a global society, devouring ourselves. Sometimes we seem like the snake that eats its own tail—we’re causing our own demise and yet we keep cannibalizing ourselves.

Of course, this is only one perspective. While Sandy Hook showed us humanity’s low points, it also showed us how noble and courageous we can be. There was the teacher who, after hiding her students in a closet, bravely defended them from the attacker at the cost of her life. There was another teacher who barricaded herself and her class in a bathroom until the police came. We can’t bring back the 26 people who died, but we are finally having serious, national conversations about gun control and about better care and access to care for the mentally ill and support for their caretakers. For every sensationalistic reporter who’s blamed mental illness for the shooting, I’ve heard at least two people point out that those suffering from mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than its prepetrators, so we’re also having conversations about the stigma surrounding mental illness. Yes, much of the talk surrounding the shooting is unproductive, but at the same time, we’re also bringing up topics that need to be discussed and dealt with.

And that is, ultimately, why the apocalyptic genre has never really appealed to me. Yes, it has its place. It warns us of our faults and failings and shows us the sides of ourselves that we’d rather not see. But it rarely goes beyond that. It cuts out all of the hard work that needs to be done to truly make this world a better place. It’s lazy. Why worry about greenhouse gases or pollution when we could all be raptured tomorrow? Why advocate for legislation that grants women and people of color and those in the LGBT community equality when the world could end in a week? Why promote a living wage or workers’ rights when the zombie virus is going to infect us any day now? If the aliens are coming next year, do we really need to worry about finding a cure for HIV/AIDS or preventing world hunger? If we are, as a species, inherently destructive, then why should we try to fight our nature and make the world a more equal and just place? Creating change is hard. Waiting for the world to end is easy. I think a part of us is so drawn to stories about the apocalypse simply because ending it all would be so much easier than working slowly and diligently, day by day, to fix what we’ve got.

Yet, every day, so many people are doing just that. From individual random acts of kindness to large-scale social movements, people all over the globe are working to make the world a better place. And change happens. It’s incrimental, of course. It’s not nearly as dramatic as the apocalypse. Instead of basking in the glory of being the lone survivor of the end of the world, it’s building networks and teams of people, putting aside our own desires for the good of those around us. It’s engaging in the daily drugery of community organizing or volunteering or taking the time to listen to a friend’s problems or even just being polite to someone when we’d rather snap at them. It often doesn’t feel like we’re making headway, but we are. Violent crime rates are actually dropping in the U.S., despite what we see on the news. We’ve found cures to diseases that once would’ve been deadly. The idea that women should have the right to the same educational and career opportunities as men was once unheard of. Gays and lesbians can now openly serve in the U.S. military. This is not to say that the world is perfect—far from it—but to point out that change does happen! Society can get better. It happens slowly, but it does happen. And it will continue to happen because of the dedication of ordinary people to doing what they can to improve the world.

At the beginning of this post, I made a little in-joke for other Doctor Who fans. For those not in the know, the Doctor is the humanoid main character from a British television series, Doctor Who, a story about time travel, space travel, and the better nature of humanity. I doubt that we will ever see zombies in Doctor Who. Yes, the show has featured antagonists that are zombie-like, but they tend to be comical and easily defeated. I don’t think that we will ever see the Doctor facing down an unstoppable zombie horde like the mass of Zacks in World War Z  because zombies simply cannot exist in the same universe that contains the Doctor.

Here’s what I mean: zombie stories, like other apocalyptic stories, rest on the assumption that humanity and this world that we’ve created for ourselves is ultimately ruined. Humanity is corrupt, we’ve devastated the world, and there’s nothing left to do but end it all. But there are other stories, stories like Doctor Who (and The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and Star Wars and Star Trek and so many others from countless time periods and cultures), that believe in the better nature of humanity. These stories tell us that we are brave and strong and smart and that we can ultimately progress toward building a better world. They tell us that ordinary people can create change, that we can perservere and make the world a more equal and just place, and that over time, even the smallest gestures and efforts can build into something significant. Out of tragedy, they tell us, we can rally together and, through our hard work and better nature, we can create change. Even in the wake of something as terrible as a shooting at an elementary school, we can believe that people really are good. We can create a world that brings out the best in humanity and where troubled young people get the help that they need instead of resorting to violence and where everyone feels safe enough and supported by the social system that surrounds them so they don’t feel the need to own guns.

We can sit around and dismiss humanity and the world as not worth bettering. We can give and wait for an apocalypse to wipe us all out and do nothing. We can look at all of the problems in the world and say that there’s nothing we can do and nothing is worth fixing. Or we can say with the Doctor, “The human race just keeps on going—keeps on changing. Life will out!” But we have to act. We have to make that change happen. It isn’t easy, but it’s ultimately worth the work.

For Whose Entertainment?: Images of BDSM in Pop Music, Part 3

(I would rather be safe than sorry about TRIGGER WARNINGS. So, just so the reader is aware, the following series will contain discussions of the bondage/discipline/domination/submission/sadism/masochism (BDSM) subculture and sex positive feminism. While the series contains no descriptions of graphic or violent sex, if any of these topics might disturb you, please refrain from reading it.)

Part 1 discusses BDSM generally. Part 2 looks at common depictions of BDSM in popular music videos and why these depictions are problematic.

For YOUR Entertainment: A Positive Pop Depiction of BDSM  

The video and lyrics of  Adam Lambert’s “For Your Entertainment” begin innocuously enough. We are first presented with a typical city street, and then the camera moves below the concrete, where we find ourselves in a basement club. Lambert, weilding a wicked black cane and dressed in a black leather trenchcoat, is entering the club with an entourage. In the background, the bass beat is emphasized with a sound like the cracking of a whip. These are the accessories of BDSM, but pop has borrowed them so often that they are hardly worth noticing. As he enters the club, Lambert sings, “So hot! Out the box!/Can we pick up the pace?/Turn it up! Heat it up!/I need to be entertained.” We are, so we believe, in a typical pop video. It might have a dark and shady atmosphere, but we expect that we will be subjected to nothing more than images of singing and dancing while we hear lyrics about having a good time.

The song and video both take a sudden turn, however, when Lambert glares at the camer and declares, “I’mma hurt ya real good, baby!” This is unexpected. The declaration has a rawness, an honesty, that is rare in pop depictions of BDSM. Even Rhianna’s “S&M” is more light and flirty, presenting Rhianna as a naughty girl who’s up for anything. Lambert, however, lays bare the message of the song and the video. The line contains the contradiction of BDSM play. Yes, it can hurt, but it is also a good kind of pain, a pain that the bottom wishes to experience and the top wishes to give. This is the good kind of pain, not the pain of mental illness or bad press, which are not consensual.

The lyrics continue with the sort of lines one would associate with a top. “Let’s go! It’s my show! Baby, do what I say,” he commands, establishing his control. But the control is not just for his own pleasure. “I’mma hold you down until you’re amazed,” he sings. The amazement that he references his bottom feeling suggests that his actions are not purely for the sake of inflicting pain (or shock value) so much as they are to please his bottom. Later in the song he adds, “I’mma work you ‘til you totally blow!” reinforcing the idea that the play is ultimately about what that the bottom recieves and the top gives. The second verse reinforces this idea, when he sings, “It’s all right. You’ll be fine. Baby, I’m in control.” For many bottoms, the appeal of being dominated is not necessarily pain itself but the sensation of being controlled completely by another person. In fact, plenty of forms of BDSM play do not involve pain. The line and its reassurences also underly the trust that must exist between a top and a bottom. To place himself in a top’s control, the bottom must trust that ultimately, he will be all right, that the top will respect his limits and stop when they are reached. Whatever actions are inflicted, a top will ultimately be concerned for the welfare of the bottom, as the lyrics reflect.

The song continues to reinforce the idea that BDSM play is not about mindlessly inflicting pain in the chorus, which repeats, “I’m here for your entertainment.” This simple line expresses the complex relationship of power that exists between the top and the bottom. On the surface and in the context of the play, the top holds all of the power and control. The top may inflict pain, bind or gag the bottom, or command the bottom to obey him. However, at the heart of the play, the bottom holds his own power. After all, the top must respect the bottom’s limits, and with one word, the bottom can bring an end to the whole scene. Nothing happens in the scene without the bottom’s consent. In a way, the top is in service to the bottom as much as the bottom is in service to the top. The top, after all, is there for the bottom’s entertainment, just as the bottom is there for the top’s entertainment. Despite all of his words about control, Lambert, in the chorus, ultimately recognizes that as a top, he does not hold all of the power and another power is held by the one he controls.

In this picture of BDSM, fulfillment, pleasure, and satisfaction are mutual. The bottom desires to be controlled and the top desires to control. The play is not that of a superior overpowering an inferior but of two collaboraters in a game of mutual desire and satisfaction. (This is perhaps what we would all like to have in our relationships and sex, be they vanilla or BDSM.) The BDSM play is just that—play. It is based on mutual understandings of consent and of the acts that will take place. Each partner takes his or her role, based on his or her desires and not on society’s dictums of their gender. (Traditionally, women are expected to be submissive in their relationships with men while men are expected to take control, even if these roles do not fit the individuals who are expected to play them out.) At the end of BDSM what has just taken place is a play, a scene. It has been acted out and no one has really been harmed without their consent.

The dancing in the music video “For Your Entertainment” reinforce this idea of play and mutual consent.. No violence is actually shown, and the control that Lambert as a top exercises is visualized through dance. He controls the other dancers with the movements of his cane, almost like a director conducting a band. They are working together to create something, and while Lambert might be in control, each member of the scene is equally important in its creation. There is no devaluing or debasing of his female bottoms. In another scene, the backup dances cling to him, supporting themselves on him, until he pushes them away. Before they fall, he catches them by their throats, and then rights them in a matter of seconds. The image is something like a trust fall, in which one person holds her body still and falls backward while her partner catches her. The control that Lambert exercises indicates that he is capable of preventing his bottoms from coming to real harm. He will simulate dangerous situations—part of what a top does for his bottoms—but will not let them undergo pain that they do not want. The action is also stylized in the form of a dance. It is a collaboration between the top and his bottoms. They are creating something together that they could not create alone, reinforcing the idea of mutual satisfaction in BDSM play.

The images of the video also emphasize the idea of play. In between the dancing, there are shots of people in the underground club. They smile and laugh at each other, even when they are wearing blinders and other BDSM gear. Everything happening here is all happening as play, they seem to say. This is not something serious. This is a scene we’re acting out. When it’s all over, we’ll walk away unharmed. The music video is an inversion of everything that pop music usually presents BDSM to be, and in presenting that inversion, it shows BDSM to be what it ideally is. The club, underground and filled with snakes and palms, suggests a kind of Eden, but an Eden in which Lambert, on his throne and dressed in his black corset, rules as a sort of Satanic king. The apple of knowledge, however, in this Eden, does not bring death but instead an understanding of what BDSM and consent really are—a kind of play, a kind of trust that people in both the BDSM and vanilla communities can support.

“Let Me Entertain You ‘Til You Scream!”: BDSM as Performer-Audience Power Plays

Not only does the “For Your Entertainment” video present BDSM in a more accurate light than other pop music videos, it also uses BDSM to illustrate the complex power relations between the performer and the audience. After all, the song is titled “For Your Entertainment,” and as a pop singer, Lambert is an entertainer. His job is to sing in front of thousands of people and entertain them with his music. The video ends with him not as a dancing top or a master on a throne but as a singer on a stage, performing for everyone in the club.

Just as a top in a BDSM relationship or scene appears to have total control but control is also in the hands of the bottom, so a pop singer on a stage appears to have control over his audience. He can tell them to put their hands in the air, and they will. He can command them to jump and dance, and they will do so. He can ask them to sing along with him or he can initiate calls-and-responses. The audience seems ready to follow his every command. They scream their love and adoration for him. Their applause after each song is thunderous. He appears to have great power, for he can envoke almost fearfully strong emotions in his fans and make them obey his commands.

However, in the pop singer-fan relationship, the fans have a subtle power that is not immediately recognized, much like the power of the bottom. Yes, they might appear to be under the control of the singer, but he is just as much under their control as they are under his. They are, after all, the ones who allow him to continue being a pop singer. They buy albums, download his singles, and pay for concert tickets. They view his televion appearances and buy magazines that feature interviews with him. Their money and their attention allow him to continue being a pop sensation. As such, they have power in this relationship too, and the singer is just as beholden to them as they are to him. They consent to listen to his songs and buy his music. If they were to lose interest and stop buying, the pop game, as it were, would stop. Like the bottom, they have the power to initiate the play and the power to stop it. While power may seem to lie with the performer, ultimately, the fans are in control.

One could be cynical about the pop singer-fan relationship (It’s reliance on capitalism and a music industry that is often more interested in maintaining the status quo to make money instead of using its music to promote social change are particularly suspect.), but the video does not take this view. Just as the top-bottom relationship is a kind of play, a collaboration, so too is the pop singer-fan relationship. They come together to create an event, the performance, the spectacle of pop. Pop, with all its glamour, is nothing without people to pay attention to it. The music is meaningless if no one will hear it. The singer and the fan each have their power, annd each use it to contribute to the play. At the end of the video, the concert that takes place would be impossible without Lambert and it would be impossible without the fans. He wants to sing, to perform, and they want to hear him sing, to watch his performance. Both get the satisfaction of experiencing what they want and in doing so, they come togethr to create a concert.

But I’m Still Not Satisfied: Some Problems and Conclusions

While “For Your Entertainment” is a better depiction of BDSM than is usually found in pop, it is not perfect. Someone who understands the underlying ideas of BDSM or an astute viewer of the video would probably see it as a positive depiction of BDSM or at least as a message of mutual collaboration. An ignorant or less-than-observant viewer, however, could easily mistake the lyrics and miss the message that the play is, ultimately, about mutual satisfaction between the top and bottom. The lyrics could be interpreted as someone insisting that his partner will enjoy his control eventually, despite the partner’s protests. While I think a close inspection of the lyrics resists that interpretation, most audiences of pop music will probably not listen too closely and could easily miss the point. As I have shown, BDSM culture is full of paradoxes and contradictions—the bottom is not in control yet also has control—that are not easily or intuitively grasped. Many viewers could easily miss this message.

My other source of discontent in the video comes from the queer nature of BDSM. BDSM, even when it is between a heterosexual man and woman, is ultimately queer because it is not the normal and largely accepted sexual script that society presents. Instead of fitting individuals into roles of submissive and dominant based on their gender, BDSM allows individuals to be themselves and decide for themselves if they want to be dominant, submissive, or a mixture of both. Because it is outside of mainstream sexuality and because it rejects traditional gender roles, BDSM is queer.

Adam Lambert is also queer. Despite the strides that have been made in acceptance of homosexuality—he is, at least, openly gay. Elton John had to hide in the closet.—Lambert shows us just how far we still are from the ideals of acceptance and equality. To date, (I admit, I’ve yet to watch any of his new music videos. This may have changed.) none of his music videos have shown him kissing, caressing, or longing for another man. In “Whaddya Want From Me” and “Time for Miracles” he sings exclusively to the camera, to some unnamed and genderless “you” that is left to the imagination of the audience. The video for “If I Had You” employs a similar technique, in which Lambert, surrounded by a forest of dancers, ultimately dances alone. In a television performance, when he kissed another man, there was a large conservative outcry. Such behavior, between a man and a woman, would be considered tame compared to what is shown on many sit coms, but when such behavior is between two men, society still sees it as deviant.

Even in a song and video about sexuality that exists outside the mainstream, “For Your Entertainment,” Lambert’s sexuality is referenced only on the periphery. He is primarily shown being stroked and caressed by women. There are a few men who adore him as well, but the camera does not focus on them and they are portrayed as almost androgynous. He sings mostly to the camera, to genderless “you” that the audience can construct to suit its own politics. In a song and video celebrating queer sexual practices—“queer” as in “outside the mainstream.” I am not suggesting that all homosexuals practice BDSM.—Lambert ought to be able to express his own sexual preferences more openly. Unfortunately he must cover up his “deviant” sexuality in order to appear acceptable.

Despite its flaws, “For Your Entertainment” is perhaps one of most accurate depiction of BDSM in pop music. It reveals the important values of BDSM subculture—consent, trust, and mutual play. These are values that those in the vanilla community can certainly agree with, and by presenting BDSM as it is and not merely for shock value, the video paves the way for other accurate depictions of BDSM that could lead to a larger conversation about consent, open discussion about sex, and power relations in both BDSM and vanilla relationships. By opening up these conversations, we can perhaps build a more sex-positive society in which all sexualities and preferences and respected and adult, informed consent is paramount to all relationships.

Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 2

Part 1 appears here.

I flopped onto the red, paisley hotel bedspread and opened my laptop. “Thank god, free wi-fi!” I muttered. The hotel in Washington, D.C., had not provided free  Internet connection. My friend Erinne, Dr. Smith, I, and assorted other students and professors from the English department had been there for the past four days at the Associated Writing Programs conference (AWP), one of the biggest and most prestigious conferences in the creative writing field. Now I was itching to check Facebook and my email.

We’d been held up in Baltimore because of a snowstorm and couldn’t fly back to Detroit until the following morning. So we’d found a hotel—paid for by Dr. Smith’s English department credit card—and were getting ready for dinner, which Dr. Smith and her partner, another professor, had offered to buy. I was planning to enjoy as much of the free food and accomodations as I could before returning to campus, where I would find myself touching up final papers and studying for exams. At least, I thought, I have my capstone out of the way.

“Hey, our grades for our capstones are up!” my friend, Erinne, said, looking up at me from her spot on the other bed, where she sat with her laptop. I watched her scroll for a moment before her face broke into a grin. “Hey! I got an A!”

“Nice! You were great, though. You deserve it,” I said as I waited for my email to load. At the top of my inbox, starred and marked “important,” was an email from our capstone advisor with the subject line “Final Grades.” I eagarly clicked on it.

Dear Em, I wanted to mention this to you in an email so it didn’t surprise you when you read the attached comments from your graders…

What? What’s that? That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound like the comments I usually got on papers. I was a straight-A student. I didn’t get comments like that!

…I wanted to let you know that I don’t think Dr. Smith meant her comments in a hurtful or negative way. I think she was only making an observation about your creative work and your presentation….

Hurtful or negative? What did that mean, “hurtful or negative”? What did Dr. Smith say?

…It was a pleasure having you in the class and you did a fine job on your project and presentation…

I skimmed the rest of the email and then downloaded the attachment. I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breath. What did Dr. Smith say?! I’d always thought Dr. Smith had liked me and my writing. Why would her comments be so ambiguous that they could be construed as hurtful or negative?  I didn’t have to wonder long. The attachment opened and I bit my lip as I read Dr. Smith’s comments.

I believe that, in her heart, Em is not truly a creative writer. I think she is a theorist and an activist who uses her writing to draw attention to issues of social justice.

Not truly a creative writer? Not truly a creative writer?! Since when were creative writers not allowed to write about social issues? I scrolled down the attachment to see what my grade was, but a part of me already knew: seventeen points out of twenty, an eighty-five percent, a solid B.

To many students, this news would be a relief. To me, it was devestating. For three and a half years I’d cultivated my GPA of four-point-oh like a rare rosebush. I’d monitored it constantly, ensuring that it always received just the right amount of care and work. I pruned out imperfections before they festered into problems and prided myself on its beauty and perfection. It was my everything, my best thing. It defined me. And now, like a rot that sank deep into the root, this one missing point had ruined everything. Sure, my GPA was still good, but it was no longer perfect, and for three and half years, perfection had been all that mattered to me.

“That bitch!” I snarled, loudly enough for Erinne to hear. Even though I was still in shock, I wanted some sympathy.

“Huh?” Erinne asked, taking out her earphones.

“That bitch, Smith! She said about my capstone that I’m not a real creative writer!”

Erinne narrowed her eyes. “That’s crazy! Your presentation was so good!”

“Thanks,” I spat. “God, I hate her!”

Erinne nodded.

“And I got a B!”

“Really? But your presentation was better than mine.”

“My GPA is ruined!”

Erinne sighed. “Wow, that sucks. But we’re graduating in a few months, anyway. It’s really not going to matter in the long run.”

“I just…I can’t believe she did that!”

Erinne shrugged and put one of her earphones back in. “Just remember, soon it won’t matter.”

Erinne seemed uninterested in commiserating with me further, so I planned to spend the rest of the evening sulking privately.

However, my self-pity was quickly interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hey, guys! It’s Alex!” a friend of Erinne’s and mine called. “Dr. Smith and the rest of us are ready to go to dinner. You coming?”

Erinne took out her earphones and hopped off her bed. “You coming?”

I sighed.

“It’s free,” Erinne reminded me.

“I guess…”

* * *

What is creative writing? To a roommate who was a brilliant writer but who claimed she was  uncreative, I used to say that all writing is creative. And in a way, it is. All writing, from the worst fan-fiction story to Shakespeare’s masterpieces is creative in the sense that it is choosing words and putting them in an order that has never before been formed. From there, these sentences are arranged in a way in which they are unlikely to ever be arranged again. In the sense that all writing is forming something new, all writing is creative.

There is also, I would argue, a creativity in critical and analytical writing, particularly in the fields of poststructuralism and deconstruction, fields that I learned to love from my old professor, Dr. Smith. Say what you want about Derrida. He’s esoteric, dense, reflexive, and performative. But he is also creative. No one wrote theory like Derrida, and those that have tried it since usually just end up copying him instead of forging new ground. Derrida was a theorist, yes, but there’s also something poetic about his theory. He was—dare I say it!—a creative writer.

There is also, again I would argue, an element of social justice in many creative works in the so-called “canon.” Toni Morrison is praised for her rich characters and lyrical prose, but her stories also often center around the plight of African-American girls growing up in a culture that snubs their beauty and their minds. Is Toni Morrison a creative writer? You’d be hard-pressed to find a critic who’d say she isn’t. Is she an activist for social justice? Of course! She’s been very open, both in her novels and her public speeches, about her fight against racism. Does categorizing her as one—an author or an activist—negate the other? Of course not!

I often find myself drawn to writers who straddle the line, if there is any line to begin with, between social critics and creative writers. David Sedaris might make his readers laugh out loud, but he also subtly draws our attention to the U.S.’s class pretentions and cultural insensitivity. Judith “Jack” Halberstam, a professor of cultural studies who has written many books about the intersections between homophobia and capitalism, writes in a critical style that has been described as “playful,” but which I find poetic. Ani DiFranco plays guitar and sings lyrics about gender and class inequalities. The creativity, for this diverse array of people, is in how they compose their message through well-placed words and well-formed sentences. The subject matter, at worst, certainly does not detract from the superior writing. At best, it enhances the writing, allowing the writing itself to perform the message of the text. The reader isn’t merely told the message through a direct statement—“homophobia is bad”—or through the actions of a main character—Sedaris goes to France and doesn’t find the stereotypes he expected. The writing itself becomes an element of the message. (Ani DiFranco places her message within the legacy of a folk tradition, which her musical style and lyrics reflect.)

This isn’t an idea that I came up with myself. I actually learned it in my four years as an undergraduate creative writing major at a small, Midwestern university. I idolized my creative writing professors, and in doing so, I not only absorbed their wisdom regarding the craft of writing but also their social and political awareness. They wrote poems and novels and short stories, but they also read Foucault and were just as likely to talk about power and the panopticon in class as they were punctuation. They loved writing and words but they also had a sense of responsibility to the broader culture of which they were a part. One of my professors wrote creative nonfiction pieces about the impoverished American Indian reservation where he’d previously taught. Another professor was very open about her role in exposing a serial date rapist after a number of her female students had come to her for guidance and compassion after being assaulted. These were people who’s teaching I loved, whose creative works I respected, and whose social awareness I wanted to emmulate. I didn’t see any conflict between their creative writing and their activism.

Honestly, I still don’t.

The third and final installment of this piece appears here.

For Whose Entertainment?: Images of BDSM in Pop Music, Part 2

(TRIGGER WARNING: The following series will contain discussions of the bondage/discipline/domination/submission/sadism/masochism (BDSM) subculture and sex positive feminism. While the series contains no descriptions of graphic or violent sex, if any of these topics might disturb you, please refrain from reading it.)

I began the first part of this series a while back, and even though I’d finished it, I never got around to publishing it. This isn’t to say that I didn’t do anything with it. The ideas in the drafts of the blog posts actually turned into an academic paper, which I wrote in a pop culture class. However, I hate it when bloggers start a series and never conclude it, so I figured I’d post what I’ve got, just to round out the series.

Pain Without Pleasure: Typical Presentations of BDSM in Popular Culture

Certain accoutrements of BDSM have become so commonplace within pop culture that they are hardly noticeable. Corsets, fishnets, combat boots, and leather jewelry may be worn by pop artists, and while they look “bad ass” or “edgy,” viewers will probably not associate them with BDSM. Occasionally, however, pop artists will bring more explicit images of BDSM into their music videos. While I think that these images are somewhat problematic, I think they can also be used to comment on the music industry itself, which is full of dominants and submissives of its own, though these relationships are often based on money and not mutual consent. BDSM in pop music videos can be a way to comment on power—who has it and who wants it? Unfortunately, in these images, the importance of consent in the BDSM community can easily be lost.

Perhaps when thinking of BDSM in pop music, the first song that comes to mind is Rihanna’s “S&M.” After all, the title itself contains a reference to sadism/masochism. However, Rihanna has an earlier song, “Disturbia,” which also uses images of BDSM, though the song itself does not specifically refer to BDSM in any way. Most interpretations of the song, in fact, reference it to being about mental illness, specifically panic attacks or depression. In the song, Rihanna sings about feeling as though she’s going insane. She is oppressed by emotions that she cannot control, so much so that she believes she is in another world, a disturbing and frightening world in which she has no power.

The video situates these feelings of helplessness in the context of BDSM. The video shows Rihanna bound, trapped in a cage, and wearing clothing and makeup that are traditionally coded as part of the BDSM community—dark, heavy eyeliner, black corsets, and thick black boots. The dark make up and macabre imagery also bring to mind the goth subculture, an important feature of the video, as African-Americans are rarely portrayed as part of the goth subculture (or the BDSM subculture, for that matter), and even those African-Americans who do take part in those subcultures can feel alienated and estranged because they do not see people who look like them traditionally represented as being in those subcultures.

The BDSM suggestions of the video might be there for shock value, but I believe their purpose is larger than mere sensationalism. If the song is indeed about mental illness, then it is, on some level, a song about power and control. Someone suffering from mental illness may very well feel that her life is spinning out of control, that she is prisoner in her own mind. She has no other choice than to submit to the dominance of the mental illness. While this is certainly an interesting observation about the difficulties of suffering from mental illness, it is still an inaccurate representation of BDSM. One does not consent to mental illness. Mental illness recognizes no safe words or limits. It is a situation that happens, regrettably, to an individual. As such, while the BDSM imagery may make an interesting commentary about the powerlessness felt by those who suffer from mental illness, nothing is added to the cultural understanding of BDSM.

Rihanna’s second song, “S&M,” explicitly mentions BDSM in its lyrics. In them, Rihanna claims “now the pain is my pleasure.” She extolls her enjoyment of naughty sex—“I may be bad, but I’m perfectly good at it.” The video, however, is not so much about BDSM culture as it is about the turbulent relationships that pop stars have with the media, which is certainly its own kind of power play.

In the video, Rihanna acts as a kind of switch, first being bound in plastic by reporters and then later binding them in duct tape and whipping them. It is certainly an insightful commentary about the relationship between celebrities and the press. The press have the power to reveal information about celebrities or spin situations involving them in unflattering ways, which can leave celebrities feeling powerless. At the same time, however, celebrities have the power to create news, leaving the media at their mercy and waiting for their next outrageous stunt. However, in both forms of these relationships, the relationships of power and control are certainly not consensual and are more the result of our capitalist news market and entertainment industry than personal preference and desire for fulfillment. While the video does much to bring to light the power plays between celebrities and the media, it misrepresents the BDSM community.

Another video that features BDSM play is Christina Aguilera’s “Not Myself Tonight.” The video features images of Aguilera bound and gagged, as well as dressed in rubber and dancing with a crop. She also kisses a woman whose hands are tied above her head, and crawls on all fours, catlike, toward a bowl of milk.

In many ways, the video performs the chorus: “I’m not myself tonight.”, Aguilera borrows costumes and dance moves from other pop singers, including Madonna, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga. I would also like to add that there is nothing inherently wrong with the BDSM images presented in the video. There is little real violence or harm displayed in them, and they are probably there for shock value more than anything. From the perspective of someone who understood the underlying ideas of BDSM—informed consent by willing adults—they would be harmless, more or less. However, most viewers probably do not have a background understanding of BDSM, and so the images of rough sex, group sex (perhaps even the playing out of a rape fantasy?), and bondage are not seen in their proper context. The video presents the message that rough sex, scary sex, perhaps even nonconsensual sex, is sexy. This is, unfortunately, not the message of BDSM.

With all the pop videos misrepresenting BDSM, even those that do so to make a comment about power and control, are there any that do BDSM right? Positive, accurate depictions of BDSM are few and far between; almost nonexistent in popular culture. However, there is one song and its accompanying music video that give a relatively accurate and even positive depiction of the BDSM subculture. Adam Lambert’s “For Your Entertainment” presents both lyrics and a video that capture the nuances of BDSM more accurately than “Disturbia,” “S&M” and “Not Myself Tonight.” At the same time, the song also uses the ideas of power and control in BDSM to comment on the complex relationship between pop performer and audience.

Part 3, the final installment, does a close reading of Adam Lambert’s music video for the song “For Your Entertainment” and gives some concluding thoughts about how BDSM is presented in popular culture.

Synergia: What Is Creative Writing? Part 1

(While I write a lot of critical essays, I also write creatively, mostly poetry and nonfiction. I thought I’d experiment with posting a creative  piece I’m currently working on.)

“It’s sort of like The Great Gatsby, isn’t it? Like Nick Carraway.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” I took a deep breath and tried not to fidgit. I had just presented my undergraduate capstone project, and after giving a dramatic reading of several of my creative nonfiction pieces, which were met with resounding applause from my classmates, my professors were grilling me about my work. If they liked my presentation and felt I answered their questions adequately, then I passed. But if something went wrong, I failed and the past three and half years of hard work to earn my creative writing degree were meaningless.

Dr. Truman ran one of his large, pink hands through his thin thatch of straw hair as he replied. “I mean, the point of view in your pieces. You’re on the outside, always watching everybody, never judging. You’re an observer.”

“Oh, well, yes, I guess so.” I searched for an response, one that would make me sound smart and literary and creative. Then an idea came to me. “But isn’t that our duty as writers—to observe the world around us?”

Fortunately, Dr. Smith came to my defense. “I think, Dr. Truman, if I could just interrupt briefly, that this project is unique because not only does it tell a story but it also attempts to bring critical theory into everyday life through examining life experiences with feminism and queer theory.”

With a new surge of confidence, I continued: “Thank you, Dr. Smith. Exactly! And as critical theorists, it’s also our duty to observe the world as well and point out trends and inequality where we see them.”

Dr. Smith smiled at me. I smiled back.

Dr. Truman nodded and stroked his double chin. “Yes, I think I see that.”

I held back a sigh of relief.

* * *

How does one write creative nonfiction when nothing seems to happen to one? In many of my stories, I find the events of my life building toward a sort of crescendo that never resolves. I almost get into a crazy romance or almost win the lottery, but then these dramatic scenarios never pan out or live up to their tumultuous potential. I’ve traveled, but throughout my journeys to China or England or Germany I’m usually so jet-lagged and so hell-bent on squeezing the most out of the few precious moments I have there that I’m in too much of a sleepy daze to write about my experiences. I also don’t find traveling to be greatly revelatory. I learn things about other cultures or places while I travel, but I rarely learn much about myself.

I’m also not funny, which is almost a prerequisite for being a successful creative nonfiction writer. Either you have to have overcome an addiction or some sort of abusive relationship or you have to be funny. If you have all three and a good agent, you can write a bestseller. Overcoming mental illness is good too, but like most of my experiences, my depression and anxiety have never made for a three part story arc. Instead of being like the lover you meet unexpectedly, spend years with, and finally leave and make peace with, my experiences with mental illness have been more like a day-to-day slog. They’re the lazy roommates that showed up one day and have never left, and I try to work around them as best I can. I expect this is most people’s experience with mental illness, but it doesn’t exactly make for a thrilling memoir, or else we’d all be on the bestseller lists.

What I do have, however, are dramatic, funny friends. And as a creative nonfiction writer, this is the next best thing to being dramatic and funny myself. My friends get into the crazy relationships, triumph against some horrible disease, or make amusing quips, and I go along for the ride. If I’m there when it happens, I figure it’s just as much my story. Right? So I change some names, make up a few details, invent some dialogue, and omit certain identifying particulars, and I have a meaningful, amusing story that I think people will find worth reading. I may only be a supporting character, but I still get to narrate from my own point of view.

It’s also much easier to bring order to someone else’s life than my own. In other people, I don’t see the self doubts, the neuroticism, or the apprehensions. I just see the final product, the front that we all put on to impress the rest of the world. I know it’s a front, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as duped by it as everyone else. I look at people on the bus and think that just because they’re wearing a suit or Gucci pumps they must have life all figured out. Most likely they’re looking at me and, despite my jeans and t-shirt, thinking the same thing. When other people relay their lives to me, I can pick out patterns or romanticize them. In my own life things just seem to happen at the whims of chaos, and I never quite know what I’m getting into until it’s already over. It’s easier to package other people’s lives into neat, tidy stories with a theme and a meaningful ending. My own life never seems to make sense.

Click here for Part 2.

Some Thoughts on Job Searching

So, on a personal note, I’ve been job searching this summer. I had a temporary retail position, but I’ve had to quit that since my lease is up soon and unless something pans out, it looks like I’m going to be moving in with my parents at the end of the month. I’m really not happy about that. Don’t get me wrong, my parents are great people, and through their influence I became the inquisitive, thoughtful critical thinker that I am today (even if it didn’t quite turn out the way they expected). I had just hoped that once I graduated and finished school, I’d be able to live on my own, pay for my own things, and generally be independent.

One of the many problems with job searching is that it requires a lot of introspection. I write an individual cover letter for every job I apply for, which means that for each job, I spend a lot of time thinking about what makes me qualified, what experiences I’ve had that I can bring to the job, and why my background makes me a good fit for this organization or that company. I find myself second-guessing my past a lot. Should I have bothered with a Master’s degree? With only a couple exceptions, the jobs that I’m looking at and am qualified for don’t require one. The Master’s seemed like a good idea at the time…(This was when I really thought I wanted to teach English at the college level and stay in school forever. Graduate school quickly cured me of that.) I also second-guess my internships. Yes, they lead me to realizing that I want to go into non-profit communications and, yes, they are better than no job experience on my resume at all. But they were both with very niche organizations that espouse ideological values that, to some, could be controversial. Okay, I interned with feminist and atheist—erherm, “secular humanist”—organizations. In many ways, I don’t regret these internships because I loved working for them, met some amazing people, and had some wonderful (and practical) experiences. But I do wonder if I should’ve done something safe (and maybe paid?) and less controversial. It was a little awkward when I realized I was applying for a communications position at a Catholic university and nearly all of my writing samples are pro-LGBT rights or pro-abortion. (I didn’t get that job. No surprises there.) I’ve always prided myself as someone who stays true to her values, holds out for the best that she can get, and doesn’t take the easy road. But it was a lot easier to be that sort of person when I was in school, which I’m realizing is a very controlled environment that has little bearing on life in the real world, and when I didn’t have health problems to worry about.

This introspection has also made me realize that as I applied for and worked in these internship positions, and pretty much every job I’ve ever had, I kind of fell into them without really understanding what I was getting into. When I applied to intern with a feminist non-profit in Washington, D.C., I didn’t think, “This is an experience that will build a foundation for my future career goals!” I thought, “Everyone else is doing summer internships. I should do a summer internship. Ooo! Feminism and writing! I like those! I’ll apply for that!” The internship with the secular humanist organization was a bit more calculated. It was a a resume builder and fall-back in the event that I didn’t get a paid summer job. But I still didn’t really see it as something that would affect my future. I think I had this attitude because, at the time, I saw myself as a student. In the end, I figured, the internships would be over in August and I would go back to school. School was what I focused on most. Now I’m realizing that, in terms of jobs experience, the portfolio that I built with these organizations matters much, much more than my degrees.

Ultimately, because of that portfolio, I really don’t regret my internships. I also don’t regret them because they were experiences in which I grew not only intellectually but also personally and emotionally. Sure, I wasn’t getting paid, but the intrinsic value that comes from working on projects that I felt excited about, from not just feeling but knowing that I was making the world a better place, and from meeting people that shared my interests and passion more than made up for the dent in my back account. (And, yes, I realize that I was privileged to be able to spend my summers working for free. I’m not denying that I got where I am today at least in part because of that privilege. And one of the reasons why I want to work with non-profits is so that I can extend that privilege to the many, many people who deserve but don’t have access to opportunities that people like me have.) At the time, even though I didn’t fully understand how those internships would play out, I’m ultimately glad that I did them.

And now I have two upcoming interviews, and in my over-thinking fashion, I’m wondering how they’re going to pan out and what that will mean for my future, because at this point, I don’t have school waiting for me at the end of the summer. Both of the interviews are with non-profits whose missions I care about. One is in a city about six hours away from where I currently live, doesn’t pay well even for non-profits, but does offer full benefits. Though I’ve spent the past year whining about how much I can’t stand my current location, as I’m starting to think seriously about moving, I’m kind of bulking at the prospect. I wouldn’t know anyone and I’m not sure what I’d do if my carpal tunnel flares up before my health benefits kick in. On the other hand, this is the best job I’ve had a shot at so far. The second interview is for a paid, part-time internship position. Even if I got a second job, I’d still probably have to live with my parents, a prospect I’m not thrilled with. However, it would only be until the end of the year, by which point, I’d hopefully have had a chance to network with other non-profits and maybe, maybe land a full time job. Also, hopefully, by then I’d have this damned carpal tunnel sorted out and in the meantime, I’d still be close to my doctor and physical therapist. I’m realizing that, however this situation plays out, I’m probably going to just fall into something again without fully realizing the consequences until it’s too late to back out.

I’m trying to convince myself that it’s okay not to know what the future holds. All I can ask of myself is that I make the best decision I can with the information that I have right now. (And to calm down, because I haven’t even been offered either of these positions yet! I’m just being interviewed!) I’ve fallen into things in the past—undergrad, jobs, internships, grad school—and overall I’m happy with the way they turned out and how I dealt with them. The same thing will happen in my current job situation. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason or that there is some cosmic greater plan. I do, however, believe that we ourselves give a reason and a meaning to everything that happens. I’ve managed to give meaning to many of my past experiences, like my internships. However, I have other past experiences, like going to graduate school, that I regret. (Maybe in a few years, when I have more perspective on it, I won’t regret it. Who knows?) Right now, I’m hoping that however my job search turns out, I end up with more meaning than regrets.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that life is unpredictable, and while I know that, sometimes it’s hard to come to terms with, especially when I’m used to being in school, where everything has a nice, easy rubric to follow and results are guaranteed. On a more theory-related note, I watched my first Quentin Tarantino film this weekend and I have some thoughts on it. I’ve also read a serious, academic book related to current political and social issues. So, stay tuned for more serious posts coming later this week!

For Whose Entertainment?: Images of BDSM in Pop Music, Part 1

(TRIGGER WARNING: The following series will contain discussions of the bondage/discipline/domination/submission/sadism/masochism (BDSM) subculture and sex positive feminism. While the series contains no descriptions of graphic or violent sex, if any of these topics might disturb you, please refrain from reading it.)

Introduction

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me!

            — Rhianna “S&M”

 “Do you know what you got into?/Can you handle what I’m ‘bout to do?/’Cause it’s about to get rough in you./I’m here for YOUR entertainment.”

            –Adam Lambert, “For Your Entertainment” (emphasis added)

Images of the bondage/discipline/domination/submission/sadism/masochism (BDSM) subculture have existed on the periphery of popular culture, much to the consternation of both the conservative and the BDSM community, for quite some time. Wearing leather, cuffs, collars, and corsets has become almost commonplace in images of popular culture and fashion, so much so that many who wear them might not even be aware of their significance to BDSM. As a teenager, when I bought my first leather armbands, I had no idea that they were related to BDSM culture.

Not until I was in college did I learn the significance of those armbands and other accessories I’d acquired in my infatuation with the goth subculture (corsets, leather collars, etc.). My interest in sex-positive feminism had lead me to an interest in the BDSM subculture, which I learned was actually, in some ways, more affirming of sexuality and more promoting of consent than traditional, straight-laced, “vanilla” culture. The problem is, for both conservatives and the BDSM community, that images of BDSM that get presented in popular culture do not adequately reflect all of the shades and flavors of BDSM. Conservatives would probably prefer that sex were not presented in popular culture at all, but because sex sells, I will turn to the BDSM community’s concerns when their subculture is portrayed by the mass media.

BDSM is not a subculture that can be easily grapsed. Those who are introduced to its ideas are often shocked or revolted at what is presented because it seems to stand in such stark opposition to how we are taught to think about sex and love. Somebody whips you and burns you with hot wax and you enjoy it? You willingly undergo sensory deprivation because you like it? You choose to be humiliated? The idea, initially, is inconcievable. So I will being by explaining what BDSM is and what it is not. BDSM is a complex and diverse subculture, so this post will be meant to give an overview and not a complete and detailed account of BDSM.

BDSM and Vanilla: Not So Different Underneath the Leather

Firstly, BDSM, at its core, is based on ideas that govern all relationships, sexual or otherwise, and its values are, essentially, not too different from those of progressive liberals who wish we could be more open and honest in discussions about sex and consent. Forget the stereotypes of whips and crops for a moment and think purely about healthy human relationships of any sort, be they BDSM or vanilla.

In all relationships, one person is generally “in charge” while the other person is content to let that person lead. Even in relationships that claim to be equal, a closer examination of the dynamics almost always reveals that one partner is usually the one to make the final decisions. There is nothing wrong with this. This does not mean that one partner makes the decisions in an authoritarian manner that leaves out the feelings of the other partner. This does not mean that one partner is coerced, manipulated, or forced to do anything. It simply means that, in any relationship, decisions affecting both partners will need to be made. This decision will most likely be discussed between both partners, both of their needs and wishes will be taken into account, but ultimately, the final decision usually lies with one partner.

Sometimes the final decision for one issue will be decided by one partner, and the final decision for another issue will be decided by the other partner. Each individual relationship has its own rules about who makes what decisions and how decisions are made. But in each relationship, someone is going to have more power than someone else. There is nothing wrong with this. It does not mean that all relationships are based on an abuse of power. I am simply observing that in relationships, there is a (sometimes sliding) distribution of power. (Also, I am not speaking of relationships in which one partner uses this power to verbally, physically, mentally, or sexually abuse the other partner. I am speaking of relationships in which the power between partners is managed in a healthy way that attempts to benefit both partners.) Often, these power imbalances accomidate the personalities and decision-making preferences of the partners involved and are beneficial to the functioning of the relationship.

While most relationships have this imbalance of power, in “vanilla”—the BDSM term for traditional romantic relationships and sexual practices devoid of BDSM play—partnerships, this imbalance of power is rarely discussed, both in and out of the bedroom. Couples tend to feel their way through the relationship blindly, and while they may have some unconscious sense of who is in control and who is not at any point in time, they rarely have direct discussions about them. They may fall into these roles out of habit or attempt to act them out based on social expectations.

In BDSM relationships, be they merely for the duration of a scene or long-term, discussions of control are extermely important. People in the BDSM community often identify themselves based on their role as a submissive (also called “bottom”), dominant (also called “top”), or switch (someone who switches between the role of a bottom and top). Other varities of these roles exist, but they often refer to specific kinds of play. A bottom might indentify as just a bottom, or he might also describe the role as that of a “slave,” someone who wants his top to keep a tight control over many aspects of his life both in and out of the bedroom. A bottom might also describe herself as a daddy’s little girl (DLG), meaning that she is looking for play with an older man who will treat her like a child in some respects. (Please keep in mind that all of this play is enacted by of-age, consenting, fully informed adults.) In the BDSM community, someone’s identification tells their potential partners what role they will take in sex play.

However, what playing out this role entails is different for every individual, and before play takes place, partners will have to discuss exactly what scene will be played out. Does the bottom want the top’s control in every aspect of his or her life, or just during play? What are their hard limits (acts that they will not perform under any circumstances)? How will limits be communicated? All of these things must be taken into account and discussed explicitly and in detail before any play takes place.

This brings me to the topic of consent in the vanilla and BDSM communities. In both, consent to sex and/or play is the ideal. However, in the vanilla community, because explicit discussions of what sex acts will be performed and who will take what role rarely take place, consent may not always be communicated effectively. Both men and women may engage in sex acts that they do not particularly want but feel that their partner expects. Partners may assume that because an act has been consented to in the past, it will always be consented to. Often, in the vanilla community, the lack of a clear “No” is interpreted as a “Yes,” even when that is not the case. This is a problem that sex positive feminism wishes to address. Ideally, when a sex act would be performed, both partners would enthusiastically consent or the act would not take place. Enthusiastic consent would need to be given at every stage of foreplay and sex, and consent on one occasion would not translate to consent in all occasions.

I do not think that this lack of sex positivity in vanilla relationships means that there is something wrong with vanilla relationships. I think that problem is that in our mainstream society, we are not taught how to have these discussions about sex, consent, and control, and so it might be difficult for partners to negotiate these boundaries together. They may have trouble talking about what they were taught was a taboo subject or they might lack the vocabulary in which to discuss their relationship. They may feel vulnerable or embarrassed. They may think that they are intuitively supposed to know what their partner wants and being told takes away from the romantic mood of the moment. All of these problems, however, can lead to poor communication about sex, which can lead to partners engaging in sex acts that they do not want.

Many sex positive feminists, who are working to promote open, honest discussions about sex and sexual relationships in our society, have turned to the BDSM community for ideas about how to talk about consent. Consent, in the BDSM community, is discussed in depth before the sex play even begins. Even after the scene has started, the top needs consent from the bottom to move on to new stages of play. Consent is and can never be assumed, and consent on one occasion does not mean consent for every future occasion. Limits are to be respected. Despite the shocking nature of much BDSM sex play, despite the difficulty for someone in the vanilla community to understand why a partner would want to be controlled, the knee-jerk reaction against BDSM can be softened when it is explained that everything going on is completely consensual. Consent in the bedrock of BDSM play and nothing happens without it. (I realize that no community is perfect and that violations do occur within the BDSM community, just like they do in the vanilla community. However, I believe that, in both communities, consent is the ideal. My argument is that in the BDSM community, partners are ideally expected to have discussions about power and limits in the relationship. In the vanilla community, these topics are often not discussed explicitly.)

Explaining these nuances of BDSM culture, however, is time-consuming and difficult. Most people don’t understand it, and so it exists on the periphery of our culture. It is something most people have a vague notion of, and they vaguely think of it as wrong, and that is all. So, when BDSM shows up in popular culture, the accessories, toys, props, and acts are shown, while the ideas underlying BDSM play—thorough discussion of control, limits, and consent—are ignored. For this reason, BDSM is more often than not misrepresented in popular culture. It can be used to show acts of violence enacted upon unconsenting women. It can be used as a tool for shock value. Most often, it is a backdrop over which pop can appear “edgy.”

These misrepresentations can lead to problems when partners see the images of violence, without the discussions of consent and limits, and believe that this type of relationship is what they should want, even if they personally don’t want it. When people expect sex or play to hurt or believe that it should inherently be violent, then there is a problem. When BDSM is represented in pop, it presents the violence but leaves out the discussions of power and consent, and the discussions of power and consent are what is most important to BDSM play. Sex can hurt, but only if the bottom wants it to. Sex can be violent, but only when fully informed, consenting adults have agreed upon what that will involve and what the limits are. Unfortunately, the viewers of BDSM-as-filtered-through-pop are unaware of these discussions, and so these viewers, particularly teenagers, can come away with ideas about relationships and sex that are based purely on control without limits and violence without consent.

Part 2 looks at common representations of BDSM in pop music videos.

We’re Straight! We Swear!: Being Homosocial in a 3OH!3 Music Video

What do you call two straight men who are very, very close friends?

Give up? I don’t know either. While our society seems to recognize and often even celebrate purely platonic bonds between women, we still don’t quite know what to do with men who are close but not romantically interested in each other. Recently, we’ve attempted to give a name to this relationship—the “bromance,” but the term is still a pun on the word “romance” and has a homoerotic undercurrent.

This is the bind that patriarchal society puts men in. On the one hand, they are expected to be blatantly heterosexual. A man’s not a man if he can’t seduce and impregnate a woman, and the more women he can do this too, the more manly he is. At the same time, however, women are mere objects for his sexual pleasure, and as a man (who is expected to be intelligent and strong while women are expected to be flighty and weak), he can’t really form a deep and meaningful bond with a woman. (I’m referring here to the ideals of patriarchal society and how they are often portrayed in certain aspects of popular culture, not to how relationships between men and women really play out.) He can seek out these meaningful bonds with other men, but these relationships must be tempered. They can’t be too emotional, lest they seem “womanish” or “sissy,” and they must be restricted in how they show affection, lest they be mistaken for homoeroticism. You can save your buddy’s life, beat up his enemies, and tell him you’ve “got his back,” but you can’t hug him or tell him that you love him.

So how does popular culture present close, emotional bonds between two men and avoid homoeroticism? It surrounds those men with adoring, beautiful women. The effect the women are supposed to serve is a that of a signifier for heterosexuality. “See, we’re straight,” the men seem to say as they bask in female attention. “We’re surrounded by all of these women, and we love it! Oh, that guy over there? He’s just my buddy. But we’re totally straight! I mean, look all of these women!”

Many of the music videos put out by 3OH!3, the pop duo consisting of Nat Motte and Sean Foreman from Boulder, Colorado (area code three-oh-three), take this convention to ludicrus extremes. Nearly all of the videos focus on a platonic relationship between Motte and Foreman, but to avoid the accusation of homoeroticism, the videos surround them with adoring women. The videos are often concoted around ridiculous premises to explain why women would be fawning over them, but the absurdity of the videos often highlights the bizarre position in which patriarchal society places men and their platonic relationships.

(Note: From here on out, when I refer to Motte and Foreman, I do not mean them personally. Instead, I am referring to the pop personas that they have taken on and perform in their music videos.)

3OH!3’s best known song and video, “Don’t Trust Me” features a ridiculous premise. It is, so an introduction informs us, the story of two male models who are the only survivors of a virus that has wiped out the rest of earth’s male population. While anyone else faced with this highly unlikely situation might show some concern,  Motte and Foreman, in the context of the video, see this as an opportunity to bask in the adoration of a planet full of women who are starved for men. (Because, of course, women want nothing more than a man to satisfy them. Even lesbians are just waiting for the right man.)

But are they really basking in the women’s adoration? A quick view of the music video might assume that they are, but a closer look reveals that the video isn’t so much about the women as it is about Motte and Foreman. The women exist on the periphery, literally. Most of the camera shots focus them as they stand together in the middle of the shot, its focus, while the women are placed, like props, to the side of the frame. Te women’s prescence is merely that of a signifier of male heterosexuality. They are there to reassure us that, no matter how much Motte and Foreman might wrestle with each other, rap together or playfully shove each other, they are ultimately heterosexual.

I also think that the video, to some extent, is aware of its own ridiculousness. At the beginning, after we have established that Motte and Foreman are male models, the first shot of them we see portrays them as adorned in purple capes and speedos. They don’t look like male models so much as they look like two frat boys playing at being male models. Neither of them are particularly muscular or toned, the “ideal” body for male pop stars. (Aside: I actually find their average physical appearances refreshing. Unlike many pop stars, who are so perfect-looking as to be interchangeable, Motte and Foreman actually stand out.) Motte is tall, skinny, and lanky, with long, stringy hair, while Foreman is short and stocky. When paired together, their opposite physiques are even more noticeable. They do not dance so much as they flail and crudely mime the lyrics to their songs. The video mocks the performance of pop—the elaborate costumes, the impossible perfection of pop stars’ bodies, and the ostentatious dance routines that often accompany music videos. “This is all in fun. Don’t take it too seriously, because we certainly aren’t,” the video seems to say to the audience.

Stripped of its spectacle and reduced to what looks almost more like two fans rocking out to their favorite song than two pop artists in a music video, the video makes Motte and Foreman more relatable to the audience. They’re just two average guys—straight guys, mind you! Very, very straight! Did you see all those hot chicks back there? They’re kind of hard to see because they’re just on the edge of the camera shot, but they’re there and boy, are they hot!—having a good time together. This stripped version of pop, however, adds to the masculine image of the video. Dancing artistically, wearing elaborate costumes, and looking beautiful are all coded as “feminine” in patriarchal society, so to prove that they are not feminine (and therefore not gay), Motte and Foreman, in their video, eschew anything that could be construed as homoerotic.

Their “Starstrukk” video, featuring Katy Perry, goes one step further and inserts a girl between them. All of the elements from “Don’t Trust Me” remain. The new ridiculous premise is that the guys have found a fountain full of coins that women have tossed in, wishing for men. When they remove the coins, they become the answer to the women’s wishes, and the women run at them, eager (we are led to assume) to have sex with them. Unlike in “Don’t Trust Me,” in which Motte and Foreman were paired as the focus of the camera shots and interacted with each other, they are now joined by Katy Perry, who stands between them, like a bulwark protecting them from any accusations of homoeroticism.

However, the video is still more about the buddy relationship than it is about relationships with women. The scenes in front of the fountain are intersperced with scenes of Motte and Foreman, always together, doing manly and adventurous things…in order to attract women, of course. In one scene, they are boating in Italy and hold up champagne glasses to the (presumably female) viewers with “come and get it” gestures. In other scene, they pose for the camera while dressed as street toughs, the bodies of other, weaker men whom they’ve just beaten, strewn on the side of the shot. Though these scenes appear to be about attracting women, they actually emphasize the relationship between the two men. Women may come and go, but they’ll still have their friendship and be able to do things like climb mountains while feeding each other sashimi (a homosocial and perhaps even vaguely homoerotic image if there ever was one). Like the “Don’t Trust Me” video, this video also emphasizes the buddy relationship between Motte and Foreman, and it uses the women in the video to assert their heterosexuality. They may be close, but they’re not that close.

All of the hypermasculine imagery of the 3OH!3 music videos works for the purpose of establishing Motte and Foreman as heterosexual men. The videos are unkind to women, perhaps even misogynistic, but the reason for it is to establish the 3OH!3 duo as he-men. The bind that patriarchal society puts women in is obvious in these vidoes, but what also becomes apparent is the bind that patriarchal society also puts upon men who have close friendships with other men. There is a tension in the videos between emphasizing the bond between Motte and Foreman and also trying to de-emphasize the bond so that their relationship does not seem homoerotic.

This tension points to the larger problem within patriarchal culture, which does not seem to know what to do with male-male friendships. When women are nothing but objects, to have any kind of meaningful relationship, men must seek out other men. At the same time, however, these men cannot appear to close to each other for fear of being branded homoerotic. Our society lacks any kind of way to talk about and discuss male relationships that are not sexual, and as a result, the homosocial and the homoerotic tend to become inflated. Men can, of course, be straight and have close, platonic relationships with other men. Unfortunately, our society lacks a way to place and understand these realtionships outside of homoeroticism.