So, I came to my blog to talk about the hurt that ripped through me upon catching up on the TW disaster in the making on twitter. Dude doesn’t know what’s coming to him when he gets back. Read here, if you want… TW trashheap  But. I’m finding that I really, really don’t want to talk about it.

I listen to my gut, and since it’s telling me not to go there, that I’ve already had way more than my share of experience with suicide, I won’t talk about it. I’ll cover it in my YA memoir, when I get there, if I’m brave enough to finish writing the damned thing.

So. I’m going to talk about something that I love. Kink.

Lol, who, me? Love Kink? Naw… pshaw, not really, she’d never do that?!

*giggles madly*

Ahem. Serious authorial face… okay, fine, I tried. I’m rarely serious enough, despite my resting bitch face, to pull off gravitas.

So.

It’s still feminism to like to be hit, spanked, humiliated, used et cetera, in a consensual, sexual manner.

It really is.

It’s still feminism to like to hit, spank, humiliate, use et cetera, in a consensual, sexual manner.

I’d hope that anyone following me by now knows that I’m an unapologetic feminist.

I also love men/males for all the glorious masculinity they can express.

I see it mixed up sometimes, hell, a lot of the time, that feminism=man hating. It really doesn’t.

For those who need a refresher. Feminism on Wikipedia.

Feminism, at it’s core, is the struggle for equality.

That means what it seems to, that males are equal-if-different to females, that gender fluid individual and trans individuals are equal. Same rights, same responsibilities, same repercussions.

I’ve had individuals read my work and attempt to censure me for the characters liking to (Insert kink practice).

But that’s just it. If we’re equal, we all get to say what we like and what we don’t like. NO one gets to tell us, hey, we don’t like that so you aren’t allowed to.

So, if I say that I like to both Spank, AND Be Spanked by a consenting partner in a scene, I’m exercising my right to my own equality.

I’m not supporting male dominant in a cishetwhite society by enjoying a good flogging, (although in the right circumstances, oh yes, sir, please may I have some more! ;) geez, you had to know that was coming.)

It means that I’m saying that no one other than myself owns my body and how I use it or choose to allow it to be used. It means I’m supporting my own right to acknowledge my needs and desires and to go after them in a respectful way. It means that I want to (and have to) accept that my partners desires may not be my own, and that that is okay too.

It means, I’m supporting my right to exercise the very basis of equality, that of free choice.

For years now, I’ve really longed to rip a certain series of Shades books to pieces. Honorably, I choose not to do that to another author. Being a writer is damned hard, and even if I feel the writing misrepresented my lifestyle in a dangerous way, I won’t castigate the person who wrote it.

I will say this though. Respecting ‘no’ is just as important as respecting ‘yes’. I know, so many people still struggle with the concept of respecting ‘no’ (not many kinksters that I’ve met, thank goodness.) Actually, I’ve never met a lifestyle kinkster who didn’t hold the word ‘no/chosen safeword’ as holy, but, I digress.

Respecting anyones’ right to say, in whatever fashion floats their boat, ‘yes, please I’d like some more’ is just as deep a tenant of feminism as respecting anyones’ right to say ‘no’.

If you may be lagging behind on that concept. I invite you to consider what being a feminist means. Equality.

‘Cause the worst detractors I’ve ever met of kinksters ability and right to say ‘yes’ are a certain brand of “feminist.”