BDSM as a gateway to Faërie
Jun. 16th, 2017 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI've been reading a lot recently about the Inklings, four writers at Oxford university in the early 20th Century. You may be familiar with two of them: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. One of the things that's really grabbed my attention was Tolkien and Lewis' use of Faërie. Lewis did it with Narnia, and Tolkien does it, not with the entirety of Middle Earth, but only within the realms of the Elves and the Orcs. Tolkien wrote
There is no more powerful expression of Faërie in the real world than kink. The BDSM I've practiced and the BDSM I've seen others practice can be corrupted into a form of domination, but most of the time I've seen it where both parners, men and women, entered in a creative circle of energy and delight, a shared enrichment. It is one born in a crucible of challenge and trust, trial and honor, passion and dignity, and yes, pain. The entirety of negotiation, the expectation that both partners bring everything to the table, lay it out, and honor the commitments made, is the heart and soul of kink.
As Tolkien says, Faërie must be taken seriously. But it is the world of Faërie that demands respect, not the moments within it. Just as there are some very silly moments in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, kink can have its own comedy, and laughter isn't unheard of. (People new to the RACK— Risk Aware Consensual Kink— scene are often bothered by this, because they have mistaken a moment in time for the very world they have entered.)
Tolkien continues:
BDSM is a kind of respair: once you've gone through it, the world is rendered brighter, the colors seem to be stronger, and yes, having met the dragon your cat does seem more interesting.
More to the point, Tolkien believed that Faërie stories always had sudden turns, moments of utter chaos where the world seemed to waver and even fall apart, only to be restored in even greater beauty and clarity afterward. Tolkien wrote that these stories are never absolute: the world of Faërie goes on, that the joy of those moments is fleeting, and that the battle to hold the world together starts anew the next day.
If that's not an accurate description of "the place" you go at the end of an intense kink scene, I don't know what is.
Of course, I take my kink seriously. Which is why giggling is good.
In a fairy-story the one thing that must not be made fun of [is] the magic itself. That must in the story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away.Tolkien writes that to bring the reader into Faërie, the writer must begin with description, must bring to the reader new and powerful ways of seeing the world. Tolkien believed that done well, Faërie stories transcended mere tales of the weird, that Faërie, when allowed to be "... uncorrupted, it does not seek delusion nor bewitchment and domination; it seeks shared enrichment, partners in making and delight, not slaves."
There is no more powerful expression of Faërie in the real world than kink. The BDSM I've practiced and the BDSM I've seen others practice can be corrupted into a form of domination, but most of the time I've seen it where both parners, men and women, entered in a creative circle of energy and delight, a shared enrichment. It is one born in a crucible of challenge and trust, trial and honor, passion and dignity, and yes, pain. The entirety of negotiation, the expectation that both partners bring everything to the table, lay it out, and honor the commitments made, is the heart and soul of kink.
As Tolkien says, Faërie must be taken seriously. But it is the world of Faërie that demands respect, not the moments within it. Just as there are some very silly moments in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, kink can have its own comedy, and laughter isn't unheard of. (People new to the RACK— Risk Aware Consensual Kink— scene are often bothered by this, because they have mistaken a moment in time for the very world they have entered.)
Tolkien continues:
Before we reach such states as boredom and tedium we need recovery. We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves. This recovery fairy-stories help us to make.There's a gorgeous word, "respair," which means "the return of hope after a period of hopelessness," that goes beautifully here.
BDSM is a kind of respair: once you've gone through it, the world is rendered brighter, the colors seem to be stronger, and yes, having met the dragon your cat does seem more interesting.
More to the point, Tolkien believed that Faërie stories always had sudden turns, moments of utter chaos where the world seemed to waver and even fall apart, only to be restored in even greater beauty and clarity afterward. Tolkien wrote that these stories are never absolute: the world of Faërie goes on, that the joy of those moments is fleeting, and that the battle to hold the world together starts anew the next day.
If that's not an accurate description of "the place" you go at the end of an intense kink scene, I don't know what is.
Of course, I take my kink seriously. Which is why giggling is good.
