Onyx and I have had many conversations since Marla came into the mix, understandably so. Sometimes things like these happen at the times you least expect them to, but they usually come at the right times for your life. The universe decided that now was the time for us to get a third or someone who may resemble a possible third or something similar, however it all works out.

These conversations have consisted quite a bit about our own relationship in addition to how Marla might fit in to that relationship. Basically we’re very open to whatever happens as far as her joining both of us or she and I foraging out our own relationship while she and Onyx getting to know each other and be friends as well. We kind of think the former is more likely than the latter, but it all depends on what happens and we aren’t going to put caveats on possibilities. She seems to be thinking along the same lines as us as well.

We’ve had many talks about how strange this all seems, how suddenly it has happened, how we weren’t looking for it to happen but it suddenly did. We’ve talked about how scary it is that it seems to all be working out so well and we all seem to be fitting in together. It’s not often that something comes along that feels so right.

Really the only thing that’s “wrong” with her is that she is also a Top/bottom switch (and I use “wrong” very lightly here). She and I had a conversation about that a bit tonight in which I don’t think she fully understood my meaning for a while. I’m not sure if she still understands what I meant by that, actually.

I went back and read through a few of my entries regarding switching, including the first one I wrote last summer, and I am amused at the changes that have happened since then. I wrote that I wouldn’t want to Top Onyx because I wouldn’t want to switch with one person but rather I would want to have set roles but be able to explore different set roles with different people.

This is still true to an extent, but not the extent that I don’t want to Top Onyx ’cause, well, that happens often. We’ve moved comfortably into a space where we switch freely. What is still true is that I do want to have set roles with different people, but those set roles can include switch. Maybe that seems counter-intuitive in a way, because how can switch be a set role, right? Basically what I mean is having a set role of a switch with someone means that you don’t have set roles, so it’s a bit of an oxymoron, but that’s the way I see it or at least the way I choose to label it, and I’m not sure if I made that clear.

I enjoy switching with one person. I enjoy switching with Onyx and I imagine I’ll enjoy switching with Marla, though our relationship hasn’t progressed to the physical just yet.

I think (and I could be wrong for everyone but at least for me) that switching with one person is mostly done on a Top/bottom level as opposed to a Dominant/submissive level or an Owner/slave level. This is opposed to switching with multiple people which would mean having different roles with different people–being submissive with A, an Owner with B, and a bottom with C for example.

Personally, I want to both be able to switch with one person and multiple people. Have set non-switch roles with some and switch with others. I’m pretty much up for whatever it is that works best with any given person I desire to have a relationship with.

The reason why Marla being a Top/bottom switch is something “wrong” with her (again, not really “wrong” just not ideal is more accurate) is because I already am with a Top/bottom switch and I have no outlet for other levels of power play. It’s not a bad thing or a negative in any way on her or on our potential for a relationship, but it’s a hindrance to something I’m desperately needing: power play.

This is not to say that Top/bottom play isn’t great, because it is, and I enjoy it immensely, but I also desire something more… permanent is maybe the best word? It’s difficult to use terms like this without sounding like I think that there is some inherent betterness to other forms of power play, but I don’t think that way. Power play is just one way to play and regardless of the permanence of the power (Top/bottom to Owner/slave) none is better except what works best for you.

That said, I do have the desire to work on different levels of power play, but I am also over trying to make my relationships to conform to something I want them to be, instead I just want them to be what they are. This may seem like a “duh” kind of attitude, but that’s what Onyx and I tried to do for so long: operate on a level that we didn’t work on. I didn’t really realize what I was doing at the time with trying to make us squeeze into that box, but now that I am aware of it I can try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I guess it comes down to the fact that I’m open to whatever happens. I want to grow and explore with her and figure out what works right for us without putting limitations on it, and I think that’s what’s going to happen.

At the same time I also really want someone or someones I can play on a different power level with too. Basically: I just want it all.

Technorati Tags: change, life, long-distance relationships, power drag, power exchange, relationships, switching

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Foucault, in an interview in Salmagundi, said “Men think that women can only experience pleasure in recognizing men as masters”(1) (talking about cisgendered regular men who buy into the compulsory misogynist hegemonic paradigm, of course). He also, in the same interview, “praises sado-masochistic practices for helping homosexual men (many of whom share heterosexual men’s fear of losing their authority by “being under another man in the act of love”) to “alleviate” the “problem” of feeling “that the passive role is in some way demeaning”(2). The article this was in, by Leo Bersani, was one I had to read for my Queer Theory class. Bersani basically says that Foucault is wrong, and that the point of the “passive” or bottom or powerless role is that it is degrading and it should be valued as degrading. I think they’re both right.

In some ways, the point of submission, the point of putting oneself in the powerless role, is the ability to feel that loss of control, the ability to not have to think, but it also is a way to grow. Though experiencing degradation (and I don’t mean specifically degradation play, I mean degradation in the sense of being “reduced in rank, position, reputation, etc.” (3), which is, the way Bersani used it as well) one is able to find out what is truly valued as well as truths about the self which may not be known any other way. When one is reduced to a state of powerlessness, that is when one is degraded, there is a vast amount which one can learn about oneself. In this way it should be valued as degrading, as Bersani said, but viewing it in that light can also take away from the fact that it is degrading and demeaning, as Foucault said.

There is great power in submission and powerlessness, and great value in it. However, I wonder if it is the ability to be powerful or powerless at will that makes this more valuable. That is, if one is always powerless, constantly powerless, and unable to change their power for some reason or another would the worth of powerlessness be able to be seen, or since it is simply the way that one has to be would it not have the same kind of value? I’m honestly not sure. I’m also not sure if there is a situation where power could never change, never being so absolute. I think this is a catch in/emphasis of my power drag theory as well.

Since bdsm is power drag, and power drag is emphasizing the non-essential nature of power dynamics, that power dynamics are ever present, and that power is fluid and changeable, what would it mean if there were situations where power was never able to change? Like I said, I’m not sure if there are instances of this, but there probably are. Though, looking at gender drag and mirroring it, I’m sure there are situations where people feel like there is no way they would want to or could change their gender, so this might not be much of a snag after all.

(1) “Sexual Choice, Sexual Act: An Interview with Michel Foucault,” Salmagundi, nos. 58-59 (Fall 1982-Winter 1983), p. 21.
(2) Bersani, Leo. “Is the Rectum a Grave?” The MIT Press October, 1987 p.212-213.
(3) “degraded - Definitions from Dictionary.com”

Technorati Tags: power drag

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This is just a draft, I’m working on organizing my ideas of this, once I get it down perfectly I’m going to post it to communities and such.

This concept was actually the idea of Lisa Diamond, Ph.D, a professor of mine here at the University of Utah. We were talking about BDSM in my Gender and Sexual Orientation class yesterday, and this is a concept which she came up with.

What does it mean?
The term “power drag” is playing on the same idea as gender drag is, most notably Judith Butler’s idea of performativity, that all gender is drag, all gender is constructed “woman is to drag not as original is to copy, but as copy is to copy. all gender is drag” (paraphrased). This does this by showing that gender is simply a performance, and regardless of the body that masculinity or femininity is placed upon it is still masculinity and femininity.
What power within BDSM and specifically D/s or M/s relations does is emphasize the power dynamics between the two people, going to one extreme of power, with absolute power and absolute submission, it is showing that power is a performance, and without an exchange of power no power can be gained or lost. Power drag shows that there is no natural power dynamic between people just as there is no natural gender.
However, just as one cannot escape gender, one cannot escape power dynamics either, but power drag brings awareness to the power dynamics between all people, not just people within BDSM relationships. It shows the constructedness of “natural” power, such as white dominance or male dominance, even when it is a white male dominating a non-white female there is still a choice being made as opposed to blindly accepting the dominance of the white male. Most obviously this constructedness or non-naturalness is shown when a female dominates a male or when a non-white person dominates a white person, or any other inequalites (age, class, ability, etc.).

Why is it important?
By exposing the non-naturalness of power dynamics between people we can begin to play with power (though we in BDSM have been doing that for a long time now already) and we show how power is fluid, and power dynamics can change from moment to moment. The realization of power drag could help both with keeping roles within relationships strict or being able to relax the usually strict roles within our relationships.

Gender drag is to Gender as Power drag is to Power?

What else? I’m sure there’s more I can/should talk about. What kinds of questions do you all have about this? What else should be included in a conceptualization of power drag? What else do I need to discuss?
This is so huge and I’m so excited by it that I don’t quite know how to cover everything or what I’m missing.

Technorati Tags: bdsm&kink, gender fluidity, power drag, power exchange, relationships

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