Subbing For Sartre

Sartre

Jean Paul Sartre was a polyamorous anarchist who thought deeply about ethics.  It’s no wonder i love him so much!  Today i want to consider what Sartre can teach us about the ethics of BDSM.  Specifically, i want to consider how his ethical ideas can tell us something about the role of equality between a Dom and a sub.  As a subby boy myself, this is quite important to me.  First, Sartre:

"Do you know that in 1955 when I was in China, Chou En-lai said that the notion of equality is a petit bourgeois notion. That really shocked me. I guess party communists must believe that, so as to justify their central committees running everyone’s lives. It’s very hard for people to understand that equality does not mean that we are all as intelligent; it means that our joy, our pain, our need to be relevant, are equal" (quoted in Gordon, unpublished: 23-24).

In relation to a BDSM lifestyle and subbing, i think this is especially important.  Here’s the thing, sub and Dom relationships are rooted in a power exchange. One person (the sub) is “handing over” some of their power to another (the Dom).  This is a kind of contractual exchange (though without the capitalist overtones of the idea of the contract).  Rarely is one permanently handing all of their power over to another (even a live-in-slave could presumably exit the agreement; that’s part of what makes it consensual).  In doing so, one by definition creates a temporary imbalance of power in that scenario, but it’s an imbalance rooted in consent, desire, and sexual positivity.

Furthermore, this imbalance does not necessary create inequality in the way we normally mean it.  This is a subtle distinction that needs to be fleshed out more.  Most importantly, and following Sartre above, a sub’s “joy, pain, and need to be relevant” are, ultimately, of some sort of consequence even if, in the scene, it may not appear so to an outsider.  With that in mind, it’s necessary that the wants, needs, desires, and hopes of a sub be taken into consideration in a given sexual scenario (though what that will look like will depend upon the people in the scene).  This is true even if the sub wishes that her/his/their wants and needs appear ignored in exchange for the power of the Dom (this would most obviously be true in rape play, but can also be true in other scenarios).  For the duration of a scene (whether that lasts minutes, hours, or years) the sub may appear unequal because of the power exchange, but the previously negotiated consent and a general respect for the use of safe words allows for the sub’s joy, pain, and need to be relevant to the scene, whatever that might look like for them, to be maintained.  Therefore, they are equal in an existential sense even if there is an exchange of power.

This came up recently in a conversation with a woman i’ve been dating as we discussed inequalities in kink culture.

The point is, a Dom is a Dom.  And good for them!  i love Doms!  But that form of play doesn’t make someone existentially “better than” someone else.  We are all equals; we just want different things.  Some of us want to exchange our power and get off on doing so.  Cool!  Good!  Consent to that shit!  But we’re still all equals in the grand scheme of things, and consent is still everything.