BDSM

 

I am from North Dakota and we were raised Christian (Roman Catholic), heterosexual and rather straitlaced in terms of sexual morality, and, overall, that is a sensible norm of decency in sexual practices for a society of virtuous supercitizens to believe and practice.

 

On the other, if deviant or kinky sexual practices occur between sane, consenting adults that do not abuse children, domestic partners, pets), that pretend to hurt each other, and really don’t psychologically or physically, if they keep it to themselves, and neither flaunt it or publicly exhibit themselves, it is not much my concern or business. We do not want to persecute people for their relatively benign sexual appetites.

 

 

Today, I was cruising the Internet, and came upon an article about Hollywood actors from its classical period (1925-1970), who were gay or bisexual but were publicly known to be straight to protect their careers.

 

 

Then up came a piece on James Dean, and I previously knew that he swung both ways, but they said he practiced or allegedly practiced BDSM.

 

I had no idea what that was, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. This acronym stands for Bondage, Dominance, Sadism and Masochism.

 

Here is a bit from the Wikipedia article (11/17/23): “. . . This article is about consensual adult sadomasochistic activity. For the medical condition involving non-consensual ideation or behaviour, see Sexual sadism disorder. For the medical condition in which pain/humiliation is required for sexual arousal and causes distress or impairment, see Sexual masochism disorder . . . BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves to be practising BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture often is said to depend on self-identification and shared experience. “

 

My concern is the danger of granting practitioners of BDSM moral equivalency with the much more buttoned-down, accepted and largely followed sexual mores of the middle-class families in rural Park River, North Dakota.

 

We want sexual mores for virtuous supercitizens to largely conform to the sexual mores of the rural middle class, rather than the anything-goes, all-practices-are-lovely-as-practiced-openly in San Francisco among many of its urban, educated, affluent secular adults.

 

This is what God wants. As a moral and modest egoist, I want sexual mores never to lead to anyone being dominated or seeking submission from anyone else. The golden rule for rational egoists, in adopting sexual mores, is to love others and as oneself, to hurt none, and allow none to hurt oneself. All are more or less equals, as supercitizens in our constitutional republic.

 

As moral moderates, we do want the norm to be 19^th century sexual mores practiced in Peoria, Illinois without laws calling for the arrest of gays for the act of sodomy or whatever. If a partner is abused illegally, or children are preyed upon by anyone, then let these wicked practices be morally condemned, and legally prosecuted.