flexibeast.space - quotes
van der Beek et al's “‘I wish people knew that there are other flavors’ Reflections on the representation of poly-kink in mainstream media by polyamorous kinksters in the Netherlands” (2023)
Although studies have remarked upon the increase in representation of kinksters and BDSM practices in mainstream media narratives, community voices indicate that these narratives do not provide an authentic portrayal of their community. This misrepresentation of kinksters results in stigmatization and forces the community to manage its minority stress.
[R]eactions from within the kink community suggest that Fifty Shades does not present an authentic depiction of BDSM practices and relationships. Community voices report not only a disappointment regarding this important potential source for mainstream recognition of kink, but even an increased stress due to the faulty image of kink that mainstream audiences might walk away with due to the misrepresentation on this global scale.
The present study started out as an exploration of the Dutch kink community. However, it soon became apparent that polyamory was such a prominent feature of this community that it could not be ignored. In academic literature, there is a broad acknowledgement that the two categories often intersect. However, there is relatively little academic investigation of the poly-kink-identified community. In a literature review from 2016, Pitagora points to the historical connection between poly and kink communities, both in terms of origin and establishment and in histories of moral and pathological stigmatization (2016: 395-6). She finds three reasons for the frequent intersection in both communities: first, “central tenets of transparency, negotiation, and communication,” second, “openness to sexual and gender diversity and other non-mainstream identifications,” and third, “willingness to challenge social norms” (2016: 393).
Although this exchange of power is an aspect of kink that is usually foregrounded in academic literature, our participants insist that it is not the only or even a necessary characteristic of kink. Participants point out that kink can include many forms of play, or: activities that incite excitement and pleasure (possibly of a sexual or sensual nature). There exists a large diversity in forms of play, including impact play, fear play, and shibari (a form of rope bondage that originated in Japan and has been incorporated in kink culture).
[A]fter a close analysis of the ways in which the [“Fifty Shades”] books represent kink, they conclude that this depiction is largely based on the notion that kink is both trauma-induced and psycho-pathological. These findings resonate with the larger studies into the media representation of kink in an American (Weiss, 2006) and a British (Wilkinson, 2009) context.
The critical readings by Leistner and Mark, Weiss, and Wilkinson all demonstrate that an increase in visibility does not necessarily result in a more accepting or progressive attitude toward poly-kink relationships in mainstream society. In most instances, these representations do not accurately portray the poly-kink community as a queer community, that is, as a community that deviates from the romantic love model. These studies all find that most media portrayals of polyamory and/or kink either heighten the transgressive element of kink to such an extent that it is driven into the absurd, the comical, or the criminally dangerous (which invites audiences to disregard these practices all together), or the transgressive element is underplayed and undermined so that kink can ultimately be folded back into the romantic love model and the ideological structure that is built on this model. This suggests that these representations are primarily invested in upholding the existing structures that regulate love and desire, rather than acknowledging how transgressive ideas and practices can result in the kinds of meaningful relationships that exist in these queer communities.
Before we discuss the four different ways in which our participants see media narratives misrepresenting their community, we want to acknowledge their frustration over the overall lack of public portrayals of the poly-kink community. One thing that all participants in the present study agree on is that they do not know of any mainstream media narratives that accurately portray the poly-kink-identified community as they know it.
Three movies that are consistently brought up are Secretary (Shainberg, 2002), Eurotrip (Schaffer, 2004), and Fifty Shades of Grey (Taylor-Wood, 2015). One or more of these movies are mentioned by our participants in almost every interview. Although all three of these movies include depictions of kink, our participants explain that they all work to negate the transgressive elements of the community by positioning poly-kink within a heteronormative framework and as such do not provide relevant representations of their experiences in the community.
The first of four ways in which participants claim that mainstream media misrepresent the poly-kink-identified community, is an absence of key community values such as consent and safety. These are key elements of kink play that require clear and open communication, which is often rendered invisible in media narratives. Our participants argue that the lack of these forms of communication and the lack of care that is taken with regard to consent and safety denies some of the most important elements of the community.
In the movie [“Eurotrip”], protagonist Scott is an American teenager who travels to Germany to meet his female pen pal Mieke. Although the movie is not directly concerned with kink as a theme, the participants point to one particular scene that bothers them. In this scene, Scott ends up in the grips of a dominatrix. Without consulting Scott, she writes down a safeword and places it only just within reach of him. This safeword proves impossible to pronounce for Scott and he inadvertently ends up on an installation covered in dildos. Jordi remarks about this scene: “It is precisely that disrespect regarding the safeword that I find a very big ‘no go’. The same goes for consent.”9 The absence of any respect regarding safewords and consent render the scene not only as inaccurate, but actively works to reproduce the stereotypical idea that kink would involve non-consensual violence.
At the same time, the scene renders this key value of the community as something comical and thereby as something that can be lightheartedly dismissed.
[In “The Secretary”, t]he relationship starts out as strictly professional, but slowly develops into a sadomasochist relationship. Our participants point out that the fact that Edward is Lee’s boss means that there has not been an open and equal negotiation about consent, because one party has professional authority over the other. This undermines the notion of full consent that is central to kink relationships as an honest and ethical power relation requires a discussion about consent that is conducted in a setting of equal positions.
Similarly, in Fifty Shades of Grey, we see how Christian Grey dominates Anastasia Steele before any form of informed consent has been established. Jip remarks “My biggest problem with Grey is that he is already dominating before there has been any negotiation.” ... In Fifty Shades of Grey, we see how Christian, who has already been in several kink relationships, presents Anastasia, who is new to kink, with a contract including rules of conduct and a checklist of hard and soft boundaries. Our participants argue that this is not the correct form of consent negotiation because of the unequal power relation.
Flexibility is important in kink relationships because boundaries and interests may vary from moment to moment and from person to person. This lack of any accurate portrayal of consent and negotiation suggest that the movie is not necessarily interested in doing justice to some of the key features of the community ... According to Julia, Fifty Shades of Grey is primarily meant to function as an eroticized version of kink, meant to be consumed by vanilla audiences. As vanilla sex stresses eroticization over community values, the movie renders invisible those elements that are key to kink experiences, but do not resonate with vanilla audiences.
A second recurring observation made by our participants regards the sensationalized nature of the representation of poly-kinksters in mainstream media. These narratives work to frame poly-kink exclusively as an extension of sexual activity. However, our participants stress that sexuality can be a part of kink, but it is not a necessary element. Rather, kink relates to a set of relationships and activities that revolve around playful intimacy.
Both kink and polyamory are communicated to a mainstream audience framed as sexual practices, rather than forms of intimate playfulness. What is more, this sexualized version of poly-kink is often portrayed as excessively deviant. Media portrayals of kink often focus on extreme kinks ... This sensationalized version of kink renders the representation unrealistic to many of our participants. They argue that this type of representation works to frame kink as a sexual practice that is so far removed from any recognizable mainstream practice, that it does not need to be dealt with in any respectful way. Rather, it allows mainstream audiences to derive pleasure from this seemingly bizarre practice.
Wilkinson notes a similar strategy in the portrayal of poly-kinksters in UK media. Referring to Binnie (1994), Wilkinson recognizes the framing of the poly-kink world as “the twilight world of the sado-masochist” (2010: 185). This narrative uses a recurring script that contrasts the kinkster’s unattractive, suburban daily lives with descents into “seedy” sex clubs and swingers’ parties.
What is more, [Wilkinson] points out that these depictions are often grouped together with narratives about other deviant sexual identities and practices, such as “swingers, porn stars and transvestites” (2010: 185). As a result, “[s]adomasochists and other sexual ‘deviants’ are often thrown together into one large group of sexual outcasts” (2010: 185). This strategy of representation provides entertainment for a mainstream audience while it works to estrange itself from the community it is supposed to represent.
A third observation on the limits of the mainstream representation of poly-kinksters relates to the reductive portrayal of the community. Frank remarks: “The representation is one-sided in that it usually seems to exclusively focus on pain.” He explains that this insistence on pain in media narratives of kink informed his own understanding of kink before he became involved in the community. This preoccupation with kink as a sexually framed version of committing harm to each other’s bodies and minds is linked to the history of pathologizing kink. In this longstanding cultural narrative, kink is understood as an expression of someone’s desire to inflict pain on others. Often, this desire is understood as a coping mechanism for someone who has experienced pain themselves, often in the form of a childhood trauma (Lin, 2017). We find this narrative in both Fifty Shades of Grey and Secretary.
[A] distinction between kink as a practice and kink as an identity ... allows a mainstream audience to engage in certain kink practices, while still pathologizing kink-identified people ... It is based on the idea that participating in some kink practices can be fun and exciting, but identifying as a kinkster must certainly be based in some deep-rooted trauma.
Due to this normalization of mononormativity as a socio-medically approved relationship structure, polyamorous intimacies are quickly deemed unacceptable within psychological and therapeutic discourses. This can lead to direct social consequences, such as loss of employment or rejection by family and friends (Barker, 2013; Sheff, 2013; Crowe and Ridley, 2000).
Media narratives representing kink confirm stereotypical gender roles by portraying men as dominant and women as submissive. We do not find portrayals of non-binary-identified kinksters or relationships that challenge traditional power structures between these binary identities. As such, these narratives ignore the participation of genderqueers in the poly-kink community and work to portray kink as a part of the romantic love model (Newmahr, 2008). Wilkinson shows that depictions of kink that have entered mainstream media narratives in the UK are often catered to the male heterosexual gaze. She argues that “these mainstream images could be read not as a sign of the acceptance of SM culture, but as part of a wider picture of an increasingly kinky, mainstream, heteronormative porn market” (2010: 184). In her early historical sketch of S/M pornography, Shortes (1998) demonstrates how certain kink practices and attributes such as bondage, leather wear, and collars, have frequently been included in pornography that was marketed to mainstream audiences since at least the 1970s. Kink arguably functions here as a “naughty” practice to be enjoyed by vanilla audiences. The eroticization of kink allows audiences to place it within the heteronormative model prevalent in mainstream media narratives. Similarly, Weiss notes that these portrayals allow vanilla audiences to take pleasure from kink, while distancing themselves from the transgressive kink community.
This portrayal of kink as an extension of the heteronormative fantasy is confirmed by the insistence on monogamous relationships that our participants observe in mainstream media. This leaves very little room for representations of polyamory in relation to kink. Some of our participants point out that media narratives tend to focus on polygamy rather than polyamory. Polygamy differs from polyamory by being based on the notion of participating in multiple marriages. Because polygamy is a form of CNM that is structured around the notion of marriage, it is more easily consumable for a mainstream audience.
In her study on the reception of the movie Secretary, Weiss finds that non-kink-identified audiences respond to the portrayal of the kinksters in the movie as fundamentally normative. In this American context, the normalization is not so much directed to the “young, heterosexual, male” esthetic that Wilkinson described in the UK context (2010: 182), but rather to an American normativity that focuses on monogamous commitment. While the movie depicts a man and a woman in a play relationship, the story ends with the both of them in a monogamous marriage and living in the suburbs of an American town. Weis argues that “[i]n this way, Secretary offered a glimpse of something sexy and exciting that, in the end, was not alienating, was just a traditional – if odd – love story” (2008: 114) ... Weiss therefore concludes that Secretary does allow non-kink-identified audiences to accept kink, “but only insofar as it could be normalized” (2008: 115).
These [four] strategies [to make poly-kink practices consumable for vanilla audiences] ultimately deny accurate representation of the poly-kink community. Participants lament this lack of accurate representations of community values but they seem even more concerned about the idea that mainstream audiences might not be aware of the inaccuracy of the portrayal.
[O]ur participants argue that the movies do not allow much opportunity for either identification or education.
One participant, Nadine, [remarked] “Monogamous culture is difficult because there is zero understanding for other forms. And I understand monogamy, I do. I just wish people knew that there are other flavors’.”
☙