[UUPoly-L] BDSM and UUism

["Desmond Ravenstone" <gentlemonster@lycos.com>]

   Do you really see poly and kink as equivalent? While I am kinky and

   don't think it's anyone's business to tell me what to do or not do in

   bed, it's hardly the same. If I like to get whipped until I bleed or

   wear a Ronald McDonald suit while I participate in a gangbang, it has

   very little bearing upon, well, much of anything at all outside of my

   bedroom. If people want to hear about it and I want to talk about it,

   I would expect to not be judged, but it hardly seems the same as

   homosexuality, polyamory, or any family-structure issue. "This is my

   wife and my husband and my girlfriend" has bearing outside of the

   bedroom. Unless someone wants to wear a collar and chain to church

   and introduce someone as their "slave" because thats pervades the

   entirety of their relationship (and maybe someone does want to do

   that?) I just can't see much equivalence.

   A large part of BDSM is dominance and submission (D/s), which is not
   always confined to the bedroom. No, you may not call your dominant partner
   "Master" or "Mistress" in church, but if yours is a 24/7 relationship,
   certain ways you interact could very well stand out.

   Also imagine talking to your minister about your relationship, and trying
   to explain the difference between consensual BDSM and domestic abuse.

   Or whether or not to express indignation at a sensationalistic
   misrepresentation of BDSM in the media ... or a nasty comment made by a
   fellow congregant.

   Or how what you do "in the bedroom" is as much a source of transcendence
   and transformation as meditation, prayer or creative work.

   To assume that BDSM -- or any part of sex or intimacy -- is something that
   "stays in the bedroom" is part of the false dualism that views sexuality
   as something separate from who we are, esp as something separate from our
   spiritual selves. As theologian James Nelson would say, it is the
   difference between "having bodies" and being bodyselves.

   Desmond Ravenstone

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   http://www.lulu.com/gentlemonster
   http://www.myspace.com/desmond_ravenstone

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