Centrist on feminist issues? (NSFW)

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Can I be in the middle of certain subsets of political ideology?

I'm a TIRF.

Trans inclusive radical feminist.

I believe in trans rights. I believe people know who they are and I trust people in that. I believe trans people should have bodily autonomy to change themselves if they want - same as anyone else.

But my experience of pornography & sadomasochism is that a lot of it is abusive. So I share the views of rad fems on it. I'm against it.

In an ideal world, porn would just be pictures of good looking men and women. 'Kink' would be for certain types or maybe pictures of certain body parts such as feet. Or maybe it would be videos of people having sex.

I feel like the world I grew up in and the world I know, too many people are engaging in unsafe sexual practices where one partner (usually the man) holds all the power and can sexually degrade the other (usually the woman) through coercive consent. I know too many women & afab trans people, myself included, who have been coerced into this stuff by cis guys. I'm against that.

I'd also be against it in gay relationships or if the positions were reversed. It's not a healthy way to live. I'd esp be against women treating men like this in a matriarchy. Or gay interracial relationships where the white man is the 'master'.

But there are two kinds of feminism I'm aware of:
One - sex positive, pro trans
One - sex negative, anti trans

Can I pick and choose positions from both? Do I have to 'pick a side'?

You don't have to pick a side.
Having your own opinions on various issues means you're a person thinking for yourself.
That's a good thing.

There are definitely sex-negative feminists who are trans-inclusive.

That said, I'm not sure quite how sex-negative you are. Almost everyone who considers themself a feminist is against coercive sex and abusive relationships. You don't seem to be entirely against pornography, but you are opposed to a lot of the tropes in pornography such as extreme acts, exaggerations, violence, etc. I get the impression that you'd be fine with realistic, consensual pornography depicting ordinary safe sex acts. I don't think that's by any means a fringe position, or one that means you have to metaphorically get into bed with transphobes.

There aren't hard and fast lines, but broadly speaking, do you think people should be allowed to choose safe practice of BDSM if that is genuinely a free choice for them? I think, traditionally, the point at which you start to be viewed as sex-negative is when you try to regulate what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, depriving some people of their autonomy for the protection of those who don't have genuine autonomy.

In theory yes.

In practice though, I've never come across it in a healthy way. Including talking to other people.

And I've come across a lot of kink in relationships. My own (which was coercive) and others (which when they break up with their partners seems coercive... they tell me about other aspects of the relationship outside the bedroom which border on emotional abuse and control or they tell me about how they're not 'allowed' an open relationship but their partner is).

I think my ideal bdsm acceptable relationship would be something like 'ok dear one night you're the sub, next night I'm the sub'. That way nobody gets to exert excess power over the relationship. Or it would be things like extremely sexy tickle fights/wrestling etc.

I've also not met many heterosexuals or bi/pan sexuals in 'hetero' relationships where the female was the dom. So it really does seem to match onto what society already expects of men/women in relationships and I'm uncomfortable with that. Esp since the gay relationships I've known also have predictable power dynamics in them.

Did these relationships exist in the context of an organized or semi-organized BDSM/kink social scene, in which the people (especially the women) had friends who were into the scene, in addition to their partners? Or were they just isolated couples, with no friends to mentor them?

For various reasons, it seems to me that kink, especially BDSM, is MUCH safer -- and also much less likely to be coercive -- in the context of an organized or semi-organized kink/BDSM subculture than in the context of an isolated couple. The organized subculture can provide needed mentoring plus social pressure to be "safe, sane, and consensual."

I was very active in the local BDSM scene when I was in my twenties, and for a while again in my thirties. (These days, I'm not into kink/BDSM with my current partner, nor have I been in touch with the organized scene for the last two decades or so.)


I was the dom in all my relationships except during my first year in the scene.

If you or anyone else has questions, it might be best to ask via PM rather than here in this thread. I am under the impression that discussion about BDSM/kink is frowned upon here on WP. I hope you and I have not stepped over the line already.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 30 Oct 2020, 8:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

Sex-negative radical feminism scares me because of its potential to be co-opted by groups with which no obvious connection would otherwise be assumed. By which I mean religious extremists of all varieties.

That has certainly happened already, alas. The "Satanic ritual abuse" scare of the 1980's (see also articles here and here) was an especially egregious example.

To bring this thread back on topic:

In general I would call myself a moderate feminist. I believe that women's rights, including reproductive rights, are absolutely essential, not only for the sake of justice for women, but also as the only humane way to limit population growth (and thus avoid one type of ecological catastrophe).