Patriarchy (as etiology)

Radical feminists offer a particular etiology for kink presented in combination with political and ethical questions, which I will discuss elsewhere@. The etiological claim is that BDSM is a personal replication of patriarchal power relationships. It is a behavior pattern “learned in an alienating context” (Rian 1982) or a “learned intolerance of difference” (Lourde 1982, see also Rian 1982, Jeffreys 1990). A major counterpart to the argument, which I address separately, is that pornography@ is a crucial distribution mechanism for sadomasochism.

This theory is heavily critical of the idea that kink (or other sexualities) might be genetically determined (which see). However, it differs from other etiological proposal which also view kink as a learned behavior. Radical feminist writing describes kink (and other sexualities) as essentially political decisions made under political pressures. No other etiology of kinky desires ascribes this much agency to the individual.

The Scope of Patriarchy

It is unquestionably true that many of the myriad tropes@ that make up kink are adopted (or adapted) from behaviors that are obviously associated with patriarchy. Radical feminists have especially pointed out the symbolic equation of masculinity with dominance, and femininity with submission, even in gay and lesbian contexts. (e.g. Jeffrys (1990), Stoltenberg 1982 [1979]). This identification is often so direct as to preempt comment: forced-feminization tropes are an example, as is the association of penetration with dominance, or gay male hyper-masculinity.

Other kinky scripts—such as animal role-play, agalamatophilia, infantilism, foot worship, and even bondage—do not seem to be based on obvious patriarchal themes. Patriarchy provides a rich source of themes, but so do prisons, boarding schools, slave societies, domestic animals, parent-child interactions, human-object interactions, capitalist market interactions, and the like.

We can, of course, view all of these things as allied to patriarchy. Indeed, despite using sightly different definitions, radical feminists and anthropologists are in general agreement that all human societies are historically patriarchal. But this leads to a problem of overdetermination, even tautology: if all human behavior is caused by patriarchy, than it is irrelevant to point out this is true of kink, as well.

Radical feminism does not propose an etiology for kink in isolation; it is concerned with the broader goal of dismantling and transcending patriarchy. This allows us to escape the problem of overdetermination: while all human activity may be influenced by patriarchy, it is not equally influenced, and some behaviors might be counter-patriarchal. This allows us some means of looking at the etiological claim empirically. There are three several lines of evidence which might be brought to bear in this regard.

Normalcy of Kink

Radical feminism tends to portray kink as a mainstream or even "ubiquitous" phenomenon, which might be expected if it is closely aligned to the dominant political system (e.g. Usul of the Blackfoot 2009).  Moreover, kink is presented as an increasingly prominent sexual mode by many radical feminist authors. These claims are often contrasted to arguments that kink is stigmatized, or that patriarchy has weakened in the time frame under consideration (which spans roughly four decades).

Such claims are not necessarily antithetical.  It is quite possible for a group to achieve media saturation while simultaneously being stigmatized: that has certainly been the case with women and many minority groups, over time.  Again, this line of argument has been defused by several radical feminist authors in Linden et al (1982), who argue that insofar as the patriarchy stigmatizes kink, it is precisely because kink is too obvious a manifestation of patriarchal values.

In the end, this line of argument involves the comparison of two questions.  Is patriarchy increasing or decreasing?  Is BDSM endorsed or denigrated by that patriarchy?  Answers to either question are necessarily subjective, and evidence is apt to be cherry-picked.

Role Demographics

Radical feminist theory contends that while BDSM originates from (and promotes) male domination of women, it is capable of moving as a sort of independent meme through any permutation of the participants' genders. Robin Morgan (1982), discussing lesbian BDSM, writes “no one appeared to wonder whether this S-M proliferation was a lesbian copy of a faggot imitation of patriarchal backlash against feminism.”  In other words, the idea of BDSM can be considered an assault on feminism regardless of the genders of the top and bottom.  


Still, if kinky sexualities are caused by copying and imitating patriarchal roles, we might very well expect that the majority of heterosexual kink would involve male domination and female submission.  It is troubling, then, that at a best guess, M/f and F/m sexualities are about equally frequent.

If kink has its origins in male domination of women, this parity surely deserves considerable explanation. It is certainly possible that F/m kink simply involves an “reversed imitation” of patriarchy. But there is no proposed explanation for why such a reversal should be just as common as a direct imitation. Indeed, Farley (1993) grossly overestimates the lesbian dominance-to-submission ratio in what appears to be a clear attempt to whitewash this problem.

Feminist Values

There is only one study that I know of that directly examines the feminist values of self-identified kinky people: Cross and Matheson (2006). The results, discussed here, suggest that kinky people equal or exceed the general population on two measures of feminist values. Another study, less directly focused on kink, finds no correlation in either direction (Shulman and Horne (2006)).

If kink is viewed as ipso facto patriarchal, then we might ignore these claims. However, it would still suggest that kink is not associated with other forms of misogynistic attitudes, and it is hard to integrate this with the idea that patriarchy produces kink.

Kink in Less Patriarchal Societies

While there are no actual matriarchies on earth, three of the five societies listed by Ford and Beach (1951) as having sadoerotic practices lean heavily in the direction of matriarchy. This includes the Trobrianders, often considered the closest thing to an actual matriarchy. The number of intercultural subjectivities make it hard to draw any conclusions, but certainly this observation offers no support for the idea that kink is a product of intensive patriarchy.

Conclusions

There is undoubtedly a deep and complex interaction between patriarchy and the culture of BDSM. It seems clear, in particular, that practices and images associated with M/f kink dynamics are routinely viewed by the wider society as an endorsement of patriarchy.  This raises serious political questions that are entirely distinct from etiology.  Where etiology itself is concerned, though, there is little or no empirical evidence consistent with the explanation proposed by radical feminist theory.  In large part, this is because the body of radical feminist theory frequently rejects evidence that could be used to test its claims: notably, any attempt to measure changes in the intensity of patriarchy from era to era or culture to culture.  Due to this epistemological divide, it seems unlikely that arguments about BDSM between radical feminists and others will ever conclude in agreement.

Updated 2/5/13