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Identity, power, and ritual "rape play" in the S/M community
Title
Identity, power, and ritual "rape play" in the S/M community.
Creator
Halena, Megan., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Abstract/Description
Rape play is a type of consensual, ritualistic domination and submission, developed and enacted in a sado-masochistic (S/M) sex culture, which involves the appearance of force. There are two feminist theories that can be employed in a feminist analysis of rape play: dominance/radical feminism and libertarian/"sex positive" feminism. Libertarian/"sex positive" feminism holds that S/M, including rape play, is potentially compatible with feminism because the power dynamic between a dominant/...
Show moreRape play is a type of consensual, ritualistic domination and submission, developed and enacted in a sado-masochistic (S/M) sex culture, which involves the appearance of force. There are two feminist theories that can be employed in a feminist analysis of rape play: dominance/radical feminism and libertarian/"sex positive" feminism. Libertarian/"sex positive" feminism holds that S/M, including rape play, is potentially compatible with feminism because the power dynamic between a dominant/"rapist" and submissive/"victim" does not draw on either practitioners' actual social identity and the power it possesses or lacks. Dominance/radical feminism argues that gender, which is socially constructed, can best be understood as a form of sexualized domination and submission, so social identity could not be dissociated from power in S/M. My reading of guidebooks and narratives about rape play suggests that the dominance/radical feminist position is more accurate in the case of rape play, though not necessarily all of S/M culture.
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Date Issued
2011
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3183128
Subject Headings
Sadomasochism, Sexual dominance and submission, Sex role, Dominance (Psychology), Identity (Psychology), Feminist theory
Format
Document (PDF)