CW: Talk of ED restricting, Sexual Abuse, Self-Harm.
Ever run into a tweet then think about the topic it covers for an entire day? That daily special interest phenomenon happened to me with this xeet (tweet):
An abundance of quote xeets from the most confident radical feminists on the internet only plunged me deeper into the feminist style rabbithole.
My fanaticism was tied to my repulsion. This article will be a prudish critique on the culture of “Consensual” non-consent, which is a term that refers to abuse roleplay in the bedroom. If you’ve never heard of this, it includes hits, degrading, and pretending to not care about the other person’s consent. Under “C”NC, “stop” doesn’t mean “stop,” but any given safe-word does. Safe-words are meant to be a term to break up the roleplay.
Given that my arguments against “C”NC are similar to others, it’s crucial to separate my arguments from the status quo of shaming. (Welcome to journalism, where finding a completely original idea is as difficult as finding a hidden movie theater on the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s campus.)
2 Bad arguments for condemning “C”NC — I’m not like the other prudes.
The first: Why does your partner want to hit you?
I know, on a surface level this may seem like a silver bullet towards “C”NC, but it isn’t that simple. While it is a silver bullet for a sadist (the partner who is roleplaying the abuser) to enjoy the pain of their partner, the sadists can get pressured into “C”NC in the same way a masochist could.
After all, you will find many masochists who claim that getting abused is helping them with their trauma. As a result, a sadist may be uncomfortable in hitting their partner but willing to do it so long as their partner is “happy.”
To provide an example, I’ll introduce another xeet from the thread that inspired me to make this article.
The second: All BDSM is harmful
This is a common sentiment from feminists who condemn all porn as perpetuating misogyny. (As a side note, I’ve always been curious about this philosophy. Are we talking exclusively like action or is amateur and drawn included?)
Arguments for “C”NC cleverly mimic arguments praising more gentle forms of BDSM. Hopefully potential-persuadees see through this and realize submission doesn’t mean getting hit or degraded and dominance doesn’t mean abuse roleplay.
Feeling in control is a good thing and different people feel in control through unique ways, including through roles in sex. This should leave a wide array of possibilities to be comfortable in a sexual relationship without getting rough.
A comparison to my experience with Anorexia — This is my blog and I’ll overshare if I want to.
Arguments in favor of dangerous kinks like this often regurgitate the point that the person being hit is actually in control of getting hit (because they get to re-enact trauma and suffering).
An adjacent mindset gave me anorexia nervosa.
When I was 19 going on 20 I came home from my semester in Kansas overwhelmed with life. I wasn’t without close relationships or friends, but I still felt helpless. I wanted control over my life and restricting what I ate gave me that.
There are a lot of negative ways one can feel in control, and losing weight in a desperate attempt to stop hating myself was my chosen poison.
But people still tried to help me no matter how pushy I was. Every time I argued that it’s okay for me to “give in” to my anorexia. I wanted to give up. I’ve never cut but I wanted to cut my losses and bar myself from eating like other people do. After all, I could never be like them, right?
I told people the same thing: “The benefits outweigh the costs.”
“How do they know the harm is worse than the control I feel over my life?” echoed my thoughts each time I was challenged or annoyingly encouraged to overcome my anorexia.
But that’s not how arguments work. If I’m claiming something is positive for my mental health, then the burden of proof is on me. I could prove that my medicine or alone time helps ease my mind, but not so much my anorexic tendencies.
This applies to abuse roleplay just the same.
On a base level, “C”NC is no different from self harm, be it in the traditional way or the calorie restrictions that subdued my life. The only real difference with “C”NC is that the agent of harm (e.g. razor blades or the notes app) is another person.
Hopefully my comparison of a human to a razor blade is concerning if BDSM culture keeps glamorizing violence to women.
Conclusion
If you know me, please take to heart that I’m trying my best to not relapse for all the same reasons I would discourage other acts of self-harm irregardless of how empowering they may feel.
Instead, this is how I’m coming at the whole world:
