I’ve been on a kick lately of watching movies relating to the BDSM lifestyle and I’ve decided that I’ve yet to come across a decent movie with an accurate portrayal of a kink lifestyle. I’m a filthy f*****g sadomasochist myself, so this is of particular interest to me.
I started off my marathon with Secretary, which is a movie I saw for the first time when I was 18 and I vividly remember it as the beginning of myself admitting that this is what I’m into. Watching it the second time though… Oh gads no. Don’t get me wrong, Maggie Gyllenhaal doing chores while shackled in arm restraints will forever be one of my most fapped to mental images. There’s some pleasantly dirty stuff going on in it and that’s awesome. What really irked me though was the portrayal of masochism.
Sure, there’s lots of instances of self-harmers later in life understanding that what they were doing was just misguided sadomasochism; I get that. But in a world where sadomasochism is still listed in the DSM as a paraphilia, this gets touchy. The freaky, awesome s**t I do in my bedroom with consenting partners shouldn’t get me put under a psych evaluation, but this movie completely reinforces the idea that there is an element of abuse to D/s type play.
Actually, the lack of negotiation in general was pretty unimpressive too. I don’t care if you’re the Domliest Dom to ever dom, you don’t pull that s**t. Safe words, people. They’re necessary. And if you think they aren’t, go watch Piss by Bette Bentley. But I digress…
I followed up Secretary with an episode of Secret Diary of a Call Girl in which she takes lessons on how to be a dominatrix, and my rage continued. I’ve noticed an influx lately of women trying to enter the professional world of BDSM as self-proclaimed Dominas because it sounds like easy money to them. Not every woman can put on a catsuit and flail a riding crop around.
Pro-Dommes that are skilled and truly in love with their work are hard to come by but I have the pleasure of being amazing friends with one of the best in Toronto. What she does in her scenes doesn’t even begin to compare to what these watered-down pro-Dommes, who can barely throw a flogger, do. For a character who is shown as so caring and considerate of her clients, she took one on whose fantasy she wholeheartedly was not prepared to fulfill. Just leave him to the pros, darling. We’ll take just fine care of him.
Next, I took in Tokyo Gore Police. Not necessarily a movie about kink per se, but its imagery is certainly heavily influenced by fetish culture. A vanilla friend of mine who I’ve brought to a fetish party actually watched it with me and mentioned that the party scene is probably what people think that kink parties are actually like. And he’s right. Fetish parties are really low-key, chill parties, not a whole bunch of masked people in latex rubbing on each other (though that would be awesome…); I don’t think I can actually even name a movie with a decent kinky party scene.
And that’s where I just got fed up. Why is it that in a world where 50 Shades of Grey is a #1 bestseller, we don’t have any accurate representations of actual BDSM culture as the healthy, vibrant community it is? Is that too much to f*****g ask? BDSM is treated like such a dirty little secret. Middle-aged white women can get off to some shitty book, but if an RCMP officer has a profile on a kinky social networking site he gets fired, publicly outed and shamed? Not cool, guys.
No one is lily white. We’ve all got demons in our bedroom closet. Let them out to play sometime. I promise, the world will not burn because of it.
Emma Marssy is a 22-year old, seemingly innocent sadomasochist whose primary interest include flesh hooks and rope suspension. She lives in Toronto where she hosts and attends various fetish parties and is quite visible in the kink scene. She is a professional submissive and smut seller at a private local dungeon. She is a self-proclaimed poet (which means f**k you), and an angry feminist.
She spends most of her time watching movies, listening to obnoxious chick rock, drawing, trying to not be an a*****e and lots of other boring s**t.
Watch “Crash” by David Cronenberg
well written and to the point…very proud my dear m
The reason why we have 50 shades is because the author could only write it because she is a vanilla person peeking into the “dark world” of BDSM from the outside. There is no true value in the story itself, but I think that it might help create a better book and movie down the line that is written by someone else who will take the time to learn more about BDSM.