Rethinking Sadomasochism: Feminism, Interpretation, and Simulation

Abstract

In reexamining the "sex war" debates between radical feminists and lesbian feminist sadomasochists, I find that the actual practice of sadomasochism provides the basis for a philosophically more complex position than has been articulated. In response to the anti-SM radical perspective, I develop a distinction between simulation and replication of patriarchal dominant/submissive activities. In light of this important epistemological and ethical distinction, 1 claim that the radical feminist opposition to SM needs reassessment.Sadomasochism has often been considered by feminists to be a major epistemological and behavioral structure of male dominated societies.' Most often, this structure has manifested itself in the form of dominant males coercing and controlling females for their own aims. This manifestation has not been limited to blatant sexual activity, but has included, even mote importantly, pervasive, hidden beliefs about the proper, "natural" relationships between men and women-beliefs which have allowed men to control the behavior and attitudes of women for their own economic, political, religious, as well as sexual purposes. It has been one of the primary goals of feminists to articulate, and then eradicate, the model of dominance and submission upon which so much of human behavior in patriarchal society is based. In particular, radical, separatist, and lesbian feminists have focused on eliminating this model as key to any hope for women's liberation, resisting instances of the dominance/submission model as expressed in pornography, rape, battery, and various 'malestream' media.It was then both shocking and horrifying for many radical and politically active feminists in the late 1970s and early 1980s to discover that there were women who called themselves both feminists and sadomasochists. These were Hypatia vol. 9, no. 1 (Winter 1994) 0

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