BDSM can be a positive in a healthy relationship. But I've also seen lots of abusive relationships where the abuser gaslit the target into accepting the abuse as BDSM. And the line between the two is rather fuzzy.
Therefore the fact that it is CALLED BDSM doesn't make it healthy.
Doesn’t necessarily make it healthy. Gaslighting will use any and all labels at hand, no matter how irrelevant they are to gaslighting. So, keep in mind that this advice is generically correct for any category label, not just BDSM. “But I love you!” is much more commonly used as a gaslighting substrate, for example.
Gaslighting uses all labels at hand. But BDSM is convenient in that pretty much any form of abusive behavior can be excused with, "We're just kinky people into BDSM."
So sure, "I love you" is used as a bad excuse for a lot of unpleasant stuff. BDSM is used as an excuse for far worse stuff. This does not make either love or BDSM bad - ideas are not responsible for the people who hold them. But it does make me uncomfortable about having people blindly trust an LLM's advise on the topic.
> But BDSM is convenient in that pretty much any form of abusive behavior can be excused with, "We're just kinky people into BDSM."
> But it does make me uncomfortable about having people blindly trust an LLM's advise on the topic.
Never understood why that community struggles to disambiguate this. Seems obvious that it stops being kinky and starts being abusive when the other party no longer derives pleasure from the arrangement.
H. L. Menken's quote applies. "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
It really isn't that simple.
Coming at it from the one direction. A variety of conditions from Stockholm syndrome to battered housewife syndrome will cause people to believe that they want and enjoy abusive dynamics. It is speculated that these are tied to evolutionary adaptations to allow us to adapt sudden changes of life circumstances, such as becoming enslaved.
Coming at it from the other direction. People who are into BDSM often trigger these or related dynamics. This is done, on purpose, for pleasure. Search for "maintenance beatings" to verify. Once triggered, it is easy to wind up with those syndromes.
Now if you're looking at these two couples, how do you tell the difference? Their lives are the same. Thanks to the way we rewrite history, their memories are indistinguishable. And, even if it was once consensual, sometimes people change. How can anyone, including them, know if this is what they would freely choose any more if the abuse dynamic were removed?
While you think about it, go read up on battered housewife syndrome. Then listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2odlGAxuwQ. Is that written from the point of view of a victim of domestic abuse, or a women who simply likes it rough and got what she wanted?
It starts being abusive when the other party is coerced, pressured, obligated, or otherwise compelled through force or misdirection, to continue the arrangement.
Coercion often begins while the other party is enjoying themselves. That’s still abuse.
BDSM can be a positive in a healthy relationship. But I've also seen lots of abusive relationships where the abuser gaslit the target into accepting the abuse as BDSM. And the line between the two is rather fuzzy.
Therefore the fact that it is CALLED BDSM doesn't make it healthy.