That’s a really good way to put it. Rape culture does not exist in a vacuum. The desire to want to control/dominate/force your partner into sexual submission does not exist divorced from rape culture. It is learned. The reason that (predominantly men) doms want to role play sexually abusive/rape fantasies is because they have been socialized with rape culture. Those desires would not exist if we lived in a world free of patriarchy (and subsequently gender).

-Abigail

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That’s the problem: sex choices are not inherently problem-free just because they’re during sex. I think this concept itself is a part of rape culture - let me do whatever I want to my girlfriend or wife in the privacy of our own home and focus on yourself. Doms/men don’t want us to spark discussion about their sex life because they don’t want subs/women to stop disassociating themselves from what’s really going on under the guise of ‘sex’.

They keep saying “but we have consent!” They repeat it, and repeat it - it’s becoming their only argument. But what they fail to realize is that under patriarchy; males are socialized to be manipulative, to control women and society in general, to define consent itself, to take consent away, to pose women as liars, to even force their wives into things like pornography. Consent is obviously important, but under patriarchy it’s a complicated concept. When women are manipulated in such complex ways, it’s hard to believe every choice we make is completely autonomous. I’ve seen 15 year olds having sex for the first time because they feel pressured - but they will never tell anyone they feel pressured, and they will ‘choose’ to do it (even with an age appropriate male). So yeah, she might have consented - but it does not change the fact that women are pressured to perform certain things under patriarchy - and being kinky, shaved like a little girl, innocent like a little girl, and fucked will behaving like a little girl is COMMON. Whether or not she’s calling her partner ‘daddy’, the dom/sub dynamic is in most relationships - and there are more conventional ‘little girl’ expectations to women during hetero sex than we would all care to admit.

I am so sick of consent being used to reject criticism. The private life is political. You can’t be against pedophilia whilst pretending to rape a child in your sex life (even if the adult consents). You can’t be working to abolish rape if you pretend to rape your girlfriend during sex (even if she consents). You can’t be against abuse if you choke your girlfriend during sex (even if she consents).

There is more to this than consent. It is what you’re promoting with these choices. Everyone is accountable for the choices they make, and sexual choices will never be inherently ‘good’ just because you recieved an orgasm from them. This isn’t ‘doing what you need to do to get off’ - because you can unlearn it. It’s about what your choices reflect about yourself, what you stand for, and who you are a potential danger to.

- Ash