FemDom, Gamers, and Rape Culture

Violet Blue posted a tweet with a link to an article about gamers and rape culture that I found particularly interesting to read. The story takes place in and around the popular cultural icon Penny Arcade which originated as a web comic about gamer culture.

I’m a nerd, certainly, but I’ve never been much of a gamer. Nevertheless, back in 2004-2005 I could be frequently spotted at LAN parties. The gamer scene was full of interesting people doing interesting things (like using 6,400 Post-It notes to recreate the Mario Brothers on university property). The gamer nerds on campus were smart, creative, and I’m going to be honest with you about the fact that I attended LAN parties in college without having ever actually played any of the games.

I was there prowling for nerd dick.

[Note: potentially triggering language under the cut]

At this point in time I was beginning to explore BDSM. I was even a leader of our on campus leather group. I was also noticing that I wasn’t finding the kind of kinky sex I wanted from men at dungeon parties. There wasn’t a large enough pool of submissive men for me to filter and find an ideal partner. At the same time I was also working as a professional domination provider. I lacked the context to make any real analysis of why I wasn’t getting the FemDom sex I wanted from either clients (for whom I was indeed providing a detailed service and bear no grudge about my lack of personal sexual satisfaction) nor my local dungeon scene. As soon as I identified formally as a female dominant in a BDSM context, the only men I seemed to be able to attract were the kinds of men who would dictate the entire script for their ideal sexual encounter with the expectation that my sexual pleasure would come strictly from serving that desire for them. On paper we would be on the same page for a scene negotiation but I would notice very quickly that the expectations were less of a close match than I thought. My actions were ostensibly those of a dominant, but my role was much more submissive in nature and it just wasn’t doing it for me. I began to even question whether or not I was a dominant because I wasn’t having fun doing all of these so-called “dominant” things.

After awhile I felt jaded about the whole formal Fem Dom thing and eventually scrapped it out of frustration. Without any understanding of identity politics and the way that systemic sexism was getting in the way of my bedroom fun I had been trying to shoe-horn myself into the role that was available to me without critically looking at either myself or the construction of those roles. I stopped going to BDSM parties “as a domme.” Given that I could also enjoy heavy bottoming without a submissive context (a type of play I had to learn how to articulate and negotiate well) I abandoned my formal quest to find submissive men to play with inside the BDSM scene. It wasn’t too long after that when I stopped going to dungeon parties completely because the bulk of my sexuality had been put on pause. I still loved and respected the spaces and it always made me happy that lots of people were getting what they wanted. It just didn’t feel like the kind of place that I fit into as well as I had hoped.

That doesn’t mean I stopped possessing those kinky sexual interests and the nerdy gamer boys were a constant source of satisfaction. No one came into a LAN party with a sexual label. No one wore a collar. Although there were frequent conversations about sexuality and personal interests, the context was very different. My desire to be dominant in the bedroom and direct the course of a sexual interaction with a man was welcome so long as I did not formally identify myself as a dominant female. At the time I didn’t find this problematic in the slightest because I too was more than a little fed up with other dominants who would approach me with a, “ME DOMINANT, YOU SUBMISSIVE” attitude. I was empathetic to this situation and just trying to find a compatible partner for myself so that I could get laid right, so to speak. I spent most of that time thinking with my clit rather than my head.

My aggressive sexual nature packaged in my feminine body was even a social asset in this subculture. I loved the quick-paced verbal sparring and the long intellectual tennis matches we had out loud. I was just as stubborn as they were about my opinions and when I displayed that in an assertive flirtatious nature it was fairly well-received. So long as I could make myself “one of the boys” my curves were welcome. My confidence was also bolstered by my motivations: I wasn’t in the space to play a video game. I had no interest in them. I was in the space to find someone who wanted to play a sexual game. I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and I loved it. Making a boy physically shiver with intimidation and anticipation of my robust sexual appetite was exactly what I wanted.  Afterall, why should I go to the trouble of acquiring and wearing a tight corset, tall uncomfortable stiletto heels, and pay a door fee just to be pressured to donate dominatrix services when I could wear jeans and some sneakers and actually fulfill my desire for a change?

Don’t get me wrong, I love rocking a corset and some heels and they do make me feel sexy but that’s what I wear when I want someone to chase and pursue me. When I’m out to prowl I need to be able to have the mobility to give chase. I need room to breathe and walk without worrying about my balance. What felt sexiest in the mirror was hindering my mission and moreover when I’m in a dominant head space I’m not very interested in its aesthetics. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’m knocking folks who do like to dress up in mobility limiting accessories when engaging in SM play.

Regardless of my own personal inclinations, anyone who can really bring out the full range and wrath of a single tail whip in a tightly laced and constricting corset while teetering on stiletto heels as tall and thin as pencils has nothing but the utmost admiration from me for their mastery of those skills regardless of their gender. That shit is hard. Just because I can’t do it doesn’t mean I don’t have a special place in my heart for those who do and believe me, I love watching it. That’s the point; I like watching but I don’t get the same satisfaction out of doing it. As far as I’m concerned it’s none of my submissive partner’s business what I look like during a scene and I’m probably going to take that ability away from them as soon as I can because that’s my kink. The so-called vanilla gamers just so happened to be more into my kink than my formally organized kinky community.

Penny Arcade Apology

I remember when the initial “Dick Wolves” comic was posted on Penny Arcade and I remember the controversy being discussed at length. I knew enough about different kinds of game structures to understand that Penny Arcade was making a joke about just one of the many fucked up elements of video game narratives. It was an important piece of criticism to make as it is vital to de-construct any and all media depictions of violence rather than censor them.  Thing of it is, that’s an exceptionally complicated issue. To discuss rape and violence well, one must have a nuanced understanding of what rape culture is before you can successfully tackle well in a medium like a graphic comic but its a non-traditional context for that kind of discourse. People have different expectations of web comics than they do academic dissertations and people do receive the contents differently. I understood the intention behind “Dickwolves” but even with my objective understanding of that intention I could see that Penny Arcade was unaware of the dynamite in their hands. Without that nuanced understanding the joke was not told as well as it could have been and it started a firestorm that raged out of control for years.

I understood that the Penny Arcade creators were, at heart, making a comment about the negative aspects of rape culture. No one likes being called formally called a rapist or a rape apologist but the creators of Penny Arcade have a different set of standards as discourse facilitators and as artists and writers. Without going too heavily into “The Death of the Author,” it is the artist’s aim to communicate their ideas and intentions in a way that their audience can understand. If your audience is missing your intention completely, that’s a sign that you may not have articulated your intentions well. Expending energy defending your intentions rather than re-expressing them in a way that your audience can understand makes you look like a sophomoric asshole. Accepting criticism objectively is going to help you understand and develop a greater command of your art. Having said that, virtually everyone who constructs any form of media specifically for public consumption will fall into that trap from time to time. The difference here is that the stakes were much higher. Penny Arcade was more than a comic as the article by Maddy Myers states. It was a focal point of gamer culture and gamer culture has not always been so welcoming to just anyone and everyone who likes to play video games.

The article about Penny Arcade and rape culture goes on to discuss many of the overtly aggressive displays of masculinity that go on in gaming culture. Many gamers do make use of taboo words to demonstrate power and strength without any real understanding of how their privilege changes the meaning of those words for the people objectified by them. Many gamers get defensive when you tell them that those words are racist, sexist, or homophobic because for the most part gamers deplore those qualities when they are expressed through actions rather than just words. They don’t relate their use of these words to the types of actions that are associated with them and rationalize their use by pointing out that they’re not actively engaging in those activities. By and large they’re not. What they fail to recognize is that they are using those kinds of words to bolster their egos because it is a reminder that they do not compose the bottom rung of the privilege hierarchy.

Words in and of themselves possess no power because they are nothing but sounds and scribbles. Words that were composed specifically for the purpose of facilitating oppressive actions by people with the unchecked power to enslave, rape, incarcerate, and marginalize others less powerful than them can be received as threats when they are iterated by individuals who stand to benefit from their existence. This is why some people “can” say some words while others “cannot.” As a queer slut, for instance, I in no way benefit from the marginalization and oppression of other queer sluts. I’ve been identified on camera as a queer slut and I am at risk when the origins of those words manifest themselves before me. When I make use of those words there is no implied threat because it is more than evident that I have nothing to gain from their negative implications and everything to lose. When someone in a position of power calls me a queer slut it is a reminder that people in power believe they have the impunity to punish me for this identity through legislation and denial of social services or courtroom justice.

It is for those same reasons that I do not make use of racial slurs because they can be seen as threatening. People of my race in America have historically and systemically benefited from the violent oppression of people of color. I love words and I hate turning them away from my vocabulary but until I live in a culture where I no longer automatically benefit by their meaning and origins I do not feel that I have any right to use them. I am not self-censoring, I am standing in solidarity. I am not calling for censorship, I am calling people to question how they benefit from their use of words. Even though you are not literally calling for a lynching, a rape, a homicide, or a suicide when you invoke those terms, being an asshole about the fact that people felt offended does not match the objective cost-benefit analysis of a self-aware individual concerned about social justice. No one is a hero by not actively engaging in rape and other forms violence. That’s called “not being an abusive asshole,” and while I do think that everyone should try to reach the goal of not being an abusive asshole, we aren’t going to make any real changes until more people adopt actively anti-oppressive mindsets.

The how’s and why’s behind taboo terminology are taken into consideration by an audience at every use. If you are making use of taboo rape terminology to competently analyze its persistent nature in our culture, I’m all ears. If you’re making use of taboo terminology of rape purely for 15 seconds of extra attention from the crowd I’m more likely to be offended because at the end of the joke, I still have to protect and defend myself from the reality behind what made that joke so shocking in the first place. If you’re using the words purely because they’re loaded and offensive words you are making use of how shocking they are without having fronted the cost. I’m paying for the ticket, you get to go on the ride. Making a cheap joke about rape is just another way to demonstrate how you benefit from rape culture. You’re encouraging its prevalence and even though I’m usually pretty certain that I am not in imminent or immediate threat of rape from you, I can no longer count on you to fight the conditions that make it possible because you feel entitled to continue benefiting from them. It’s no longer rape analysis, it is rape apologism.

Furthermore when it comes to the potential rape of my body, I am under no obligation to give anyone the benefit of the doubt because it was funny HAHA and I should lighten up and take a joke.

The phrase, “Rape is about power, not about sex” is often misused. Rape is about sex. Rape is rooted in sexual desire. At the same time, rape can only be carried about by someone who has the power to take sex from another human being.  Rape is not, as Myers points out, strictly a feminist issue. Power hierarchies are not static. Our personal power in any given situation is determined by our environments. Rape can occur when someone takes sex by making use of their power to physically overwhelm or threaten someone with bodily harm. “I am stronger than you and I am armed. Unless you give me sex, I will hurt or kill you.” That’s a pretty obvious example of rape. Physical power is not the only type of power that someone can utilize to take sex from someone else without regard to their own enthusiasm and active consent. Often times this is implied rather than stated overtly. Some individuals have the social capital to coerce people into either having sex with them or at the very least to be silent about a violation. Social power comes from leadership positions like like those of teachers, priests, coaches,  politicians, team captains, or employers and some individuals abuse this power to obtain sex on command. It is important to remember that social capital (or popularity) is another form of power that has the potential for abuse. As a whole, cisgender men occupy more than their fair share of these positions within our culture.

Power is an aphrodisiac and there is nothing wrong with that. Power makes you feel good about yourself and it is not inherently bad or evil to posses. When you forget that you possess more power than the people around you and you believe that it entitles you access to their bodies that is when power becomes a problem. Some people are uncomfortable with using the word “rape” in this context because they’re intellectually married to the idea of physical violence being implemented without regard to the fact that social violence can be infinitely more dangerous because it is a systemically acceptable use of power. Your ability to offer active and enthusiastic consent is altered when something negative will happen if you say “no.” That negative might mean that you don’t get a job, that your grade in the class will be affected, that you won’t get to be the first onto the playing field, that a bad rumor will be started about you and you’ll lose your social circle, etc. In order to protect yourself and thrive you are forced into a sexual situation with the person who holds the cards regardless of whether or not you really want to fuck that person.

Gamers, who commonly make use of shocking language as a way to bolster personal morale, were my primary source of submissive male sexual partners. Thing of it is, I never articulated that out loud. I was afraid that the same fucked up system designed to make everyone feel anxious about their relative possession of power would turn the fun sex I was having into an insult against them because of commonly perceived notions of masculinity and femininity. Gaming becomes more and more mainstream with each new technological advance but the hardcore convention-attending, LAN party-hosting gamer nerds are often treated like complete crap by their peers. Their masculinity is under constant attack because their behavior doesn’t match how we think men should behave. It’s the same fucked up and contrived notions of power that contribute to rape culture at work but gamers can forget that when they gather en masse the power shifts. The power hierarchy is reassembled in its new environment but it still exists and it is still exploitable.

Hey, I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution and take a bow for the new revolution. The words of The Who still ring true in my head because I’ve met the new boss and it is the same as the old boss and it always will be until people are willing to be critically self-aware of their power even is they are still processing the pain of being a victim of it. It was once said that all men are potential rapists but the way I see it every single one of us is a potential rapist until we have a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of what it is we wield everyday without thinking.

If you asked any of my sexual partners from the gamer scene if they personally identified sexually as a submissive male, most of them would tell you that they did not. This is because we exist in a paradigm where men who do possess those sexual desires are devalued and because most of these gentlemen were coming from a history of being treated very poorly for not fitting into the contrived notion of masculinity that our culture possesses. If you asked them if they enjoyed the kinky sex we were having, gauging by the number of repeat dates and special requests I had, they would probably tell you that they did enjoy those instances of sexual activities.  To walk into a BDSM context and embrace the label of male submissive takes an inordinate amount of personal work and a constant uphill struggle. It’s very similar to the number of men who aspire to be stay-at-home Dads but feel that they can’t because for the most part we look at families where a female is the primary breadwinner and a male as a nurturer as an example of masculine failure rather than good teamwork between two people.

Sex fascinates me because it is a fascinating stage for an exploration of power. Although I’m using words from the gender binary, I am not intellectually excluding the fact that these paradigms oppress everyone and especially individuals who are not cisgender. For people grouped into marginalized demographics, the stakes are higher and often deadlier. As they say, shit rolls downhill. Rigidly enforced notions of masculinity and femininity hurt everyone but for some people the consequences are much more frequent and much more dire.

Intellectually, I understand that when I’m in a pair of ratty jeans and a dirty sweatshirt walking to the corner store to buy a gallon of milk and I get cat-called that it has very little to do with me and everything to do with them. I understand that these stupid comments aren’t immediate threats against my body so much as they are a quick emotional pick me up for the person saying them to me. My caller is reveling in their power. It’s hugely disrespectful because I’m not here on this earth to fill that role for complete strangers. It is infinitely frustrating to have every single space I enter become sexualized against my will. It does make me feel like I’m in danger because it is another reminder of why everyone reminds me to carry my pepper spray around wherever I go.

To add insult to injury, the actual pay off for the person making me feel that way is minimal at best because they didn’t put the work in to understand why they’re shouting what they’re shouting and they aren’t going to give it more than a 5 second chuckle as they drive by because they don’t have to go through life defending their own bodies the way that I have to every time I leave my house. All they know is that they can shout whatever they want at me from their cars because they can. I am empathetic and sympathetic to the demands that they feel they need to meet because I feel them too. I am not so sympathetic that I’m going to be a passive sounding board for every asshole that passes by and I have begun shouting back. That power is not theirs to take from me. I no longer possess the quiet lady-like patience to be complicit in these instances let alone patience with the expectation that I should be.

Privilege is a very, very, very complicated issue. We have a lot of words that end in -ism. Sexism, racism, heterosexism, cissexism, ageism, ableism, classism, etc are words that we use to focus in on the ways that power is utilized in those different contexts. As we collectively move towards a more nuanced understanding of how our culture benefits some to the detriment of others we’re going to identify more places of study. Based on my experiences alone, I can feel confident that most gamers are not actively racist, sexist, or homophobic in their own personal lives. The problem is that the gaming community also needs to be aware of the fact that it is, in many ways, a reformation of the same bullshit they’ve had to put up with assholes for most of their lives and be aware of the power that the wield in the spaces that they create. The instant that you believe that it is your prerogative to humiliate, threaten, or intimidate people who want to confront you about the way that your words or behavior is actively making them feel excluded from your common passion or goal it’s time to objectively re-evaluate your power.