We are turned on by patriarchy? We have a patriarchy kink?
An email exchange between Lizzie Derksen and Dylan Rhys Howard, AKA MakeLoveNotPornstars Hierophant
LD: I think that when people think of kinks, they often think of elaborate or unfamiliar scenarios — fantasies they could never (or would never) fully realize in “real life”, play experiences of social taboos they’re afraid to break. There are lots of examples of kinks like this — a vore fetish, for example, or the intrigue many people find in the Omegaverse.
But other kinks are almost too familiar; they’re based on very real “real life” scenarios; they’re familiar situations with a frame around them, a way to step in and out; they’re familiar scenarios that have been turned into games. Rape fantasies fall into this category, and so, I would argue, do Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, boss/secretary play, and many other sexified variations on mundane human experience. It seems that many kinks are a way for people to process and control and come to terms with aspects of their lives that aren’t taboo or exotic. Or that are taboo/exotic in certain contexts while remaining the oppressive status quo in others.
Which brings me, in my typical too-theoretical way, to the mutual kink that we’ve been exploring lately. I’ve been calling it a patriarchy kink — would you say that’s accurate?
DRH: I suppose I’ve been struggling to define it myself, because “daddy dom” doesn’t feel quite extensive enough — as much as I’ve recently discovered how much I like being called that. “Patriarchy kink” feels right and I think what I’ve been struggling with for the last year or so that we’ve been really exploring this — and this relates to why I haven’t wanted to make any videos for MakeLoveNotPorn during that time — is that it feels more shameful than like hardcore BDSM stuff or even like “waterworks” or any of these things that should in theory be more clandestine than what we’ve been doing. But that of course is what makes it so appealing. In this day and age of extreme political correctness and constant behaviour policing, performing these traditional patriarchal scenarios like expecting you to have dinner on the table at 6, or even something as simple as taking you out for dinner and paying for everything, feels intoxicatingly subversive. I know you agree with me.
In other words, if our ultra-woke left-wing peers have all this compassion for the traditionally subversive behaviour that has more-or-less been the collective association with the word “kink,” which I think still conjures up images of a dungeon with whips and chains for most people, then to be subversive within our peer group, we actually have to entertain the very thing that defines traditional, “vanilla” heterosexual interactions.
LD: Why am I turned on just reading this. Please come home and order me around soon.
DRH: Count on it baby
LD: To continue . . .
Right. It feels like everything is permissible except this. We’re polyamorous, sex-positive feminists who exist in an open-minded, progressive community. So the things that turn us on are the things we “can’t” have.
As sort of a side note to all of this, or just another example of a similar thing happening, I (a person who is “allowed” to sleep with anyone I want) predominantly get crushes on married, monogamous men. The forbidden fruit appeal is strong.
Can we talk about the forms this kink takes? I know you already mentioned some of the domestic scenarios we play out. But this kink can also look like paying (in your case) or getting paid (in my case) for sex with other people. It can look like a more classic BDSM dynamic where you’re restraining me physically, or slapping my face, or calling me names. It can look like you bragging about how many women you’re sleeping with and enjoying the jealousy that sparks in me (which I also enjoy). It can look like me bragging about how many men I’m sleeping with and you pretending to get angry and possessive. We’ve also played around with things like rape fantasies and daddy/girl scenarios involving consensual non-consent.
But there’s something even more nebulous at play here. And I think it comes back to the norms of our progressive community and our complicated feelings about our own respective gender identities and sexualities. While both of us have at different times felt disconnected from binary gender labels and performances, we also find these performances super hot. I guess what I’m trying to say is that a certain kind of codified heterosexuality turns me on. Which on one hand is unsurprising, since I am a mostly-straight person, but on the other hand feels wrong because heterosexuality is distinctly uncool in leftwing circles right now, and because I recognize how oppressive traditional gender norms can be.
For instance, I was noticing today how much the trappings of masculinity turn me on. Fancy watches. Fast cars. Suits. Muscles. One of the big pickup trucks that are ubiquitous in Alberta drove by me today and I thought about how there is a part of me that finds these vehicles ridiculous, wasteful, ostentatious, not-practical — and a part of me that wants nothing more than to be picked up in one, despite the fact that I take the climate crisis seriously, that I would have moral qualms about driving one of these vehicles. Another example of something that I’m not supposed to find appealing, but do.
DRH: Similarly, I find myself pretty turned on by girls who are performing “basic” these days. Fake nails. Lululemon. Etc. (I draw the line at lip injections, don’t worry.) It’s in line with everything we’re talking about: it’s enticing because it feels other worldly compared to the usual people I sleep with, i.e. people who tend to read books and have septum piercings. Don’t get me wrong: these people are absolutely fantastic and I love them dearly and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to sleep with them. But it’s human nature to look at whatever you don’t have and go: “I wonder what that would be like.”
Going back to paying for sex, this attraction to “basicness” is part of the appeal of hiring SWs for me. At this point in my life, it’s going to be very hard for me to be attractive and desirable to a basic bar star girl who I might fantasize about; it would essentially involve a complete re-working of my outward presentation and personality. But fortunately for me, a lot of escorts curate a look that’s quite “basic” or “girl next door-y” because it’s kind of the cultural standard for what’s desirable to men — for better or worse. So hiring a sex worker for me is an opportunity to essentially explore these fantasies in a controlled environment. The thing about fantasies is that you probably don’t want to live their reality for longer than an hour anyway, so that works out perfectly.
As for how these fantasies play out in our marriage, it’s all in alignment with those expectations surrounding the patriarchy. I would never expect or demand that you consistently perform a certain level of traditional femininity, and I know you feel the same way with me and traditional masculinity. But what we’re learning is that it’s a lot of fun for both of us when we lean into a contained performance of traditional gender roles in order to curate a particular experience. There’s something relieving about it…like we can truly leave the complicated political reality of our world behind for these moments that we’re together. How liberating. I think it allows us to recharge our batteries and be better people / better feminists when we’re back out in the world again. I guess what I’m saying is: like most vaccines, the antidote for the patriarchy probably involves a little of what constitutes the genetic makeup of the disease itself.
LD: Yeah, Foucault writes about this in “Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity”:
“There are roles, but everybody knows very well that those roles can be reversed. Sometimes the scene begins with the master and slave, and at the end the slave has become the master. Or, even when the roles are stabilized, you know very well that it is always a game. Either the rules are transgressed, or there is an agreement, either explicit or tacit, that makes them aware of certain boundaries.”
I think there are two things going on with regards to the appeal of the trappings of masculinity and femininity — there’s the taboo, in progressive culture, but there’s also the straightforward appeal of power, the appeal of giving in to the pressures inherent in our society. Sometimes I wonder whether playing with patriarchal tropes feels like a relief because it’s “naughty” or simply because it’s what we’ve been conditioned to appreciate and reproduce since childhood? Either way, I don’t feel like indulging a patriarchy kink is wrong or damaging. (Foucault goes on to say that “This strategic game as a source of bodily pleasure is very interesting. But I wouldn’t say that it is a reproduction, inside the erotic relationship, of the structures of power. It is an acting-out of power structures by a strategic game that is able to give sexual pleasure or bodily pleasure.”) But this patriarchy kink does make me think about the very small extent to which people have control over their sexual proclivities and desires.
I also, of course, sometimes feel like a bad feminist. I spent a couple of years resisting indulging in power exchange sex (or fantasies), because I felt like my own desires were in conflict with my values. But was it empowering or progressive to deny myself a satisfying erotic life? Did it help anyone else? Did it make me happy? No.
Circling back to where we started, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fantasy and realizable vs. unrealizable desires. There are many desires, I think, that are only satisfiable within the realm of fantasy — many fantasies that people don’t actually want to realize (or only want to realize for an hour). For instance, I don’t feel as satisfied by actually getting paid for sex by a stranger as I do by the fantasy-scenario in which you (someone I love and trust, who loves me and knows me well) pays me for sex. Why is this? Because fantasy can always conveniently omit whatever aspects of reality don’t support pleasure.
I’ve come to the conclusion that patriarchy itself is a fantasy. One that humans shouldn’t have ever tried to realize but that governs the structure of our society. One that controls resources and relationships. One that, unfortunately, we’re all being forced to play along with in our everyday lives. Patriarchy is a power fantasy that conveniently omits the complexity of human beings in relationship to the earth and to one another. Under patriarchy, it’s like the whole world is collectively indulging its shadow side — letting its shadow side run the show, in fact.
So why bring patriarchy into our bedroom? I think we do it because the shadow side is real. The appeal of power is real. But there are lots of aspects of human nature that don’t deserve to be turned into policy or allowed to determine the organization of economic systems or circumscribe our relationships. There are lots of fantasies that should remain fantasies.
DRH: I couldn’t agree more. That’s a beautiful place to end, but if you’ll allow me a brief coda: based on my experience, this kind of role play has the potential to be quite healing during this time where there’s a lot of confusion surrounding how we should be performing gender and what our relationship to traditional gender roles should be. As I think most people within the MakeLoveNotPorn community would agree, if we could more broadly integrate discussions about sex and sexual politics into the over-arching conversations about how we should structure our societies, it sure seems like there would be less anger and loneliness in the world.
❤
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