BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
18 august 2011
Believing in bondage
Why can't the law see BDSM or consensual slavery as beliefs? It's not just the 'right to spank', although that could be part of it…
Source: www.guardian.co.uk - The Guardian - UK
UK - Opposition to fox-hunting and a commitment to combat climate change may now be protected under the law - but the UK is not yet ready to recognise "consensual slavery".
The issue arose last week as the long-predicted collision between protections for "philosophical belief" and proponents of the BDSM (bondage, discipline, sado-masochistic) lifestyle hit the courts in Bedford. In balance was the claim by a local midwife that her dismissal for wearing an emblem of her beliefs - a silver collar - was discriminatory.
Not so, according to North and East Herts Health Authority, which represented this as purely an issue of health and safety.
Nonsense, shot back the midwife, alleging a distinctly lesser degree of fastidiousness over the wearing of other traditional (religious) symbols and costume. And the game was afoot.
The heart of the matter was whether her lifestyle was capable of constituting a belief in accordance with the employment equality (religion or belief)
regulations 2003, which have already seen beliefs in foxes'
rights, and the hypothesis of man-made
global warming , - not to mention a belief in the higher purpose of
public service broadcasting, - all ruled capable of being protected philosophical beliefs. As debates went, this was possibly a tad above the pay grade of a local employment tribunal.
For the health authority, a barrister valiantly chipped away, focusing her efforts mostly on extrapolating a view of how you might spot a genuine philosophical belief in practice by looking at Christianity and atheism. Oh dear. This was a distinctly beta-minus culture-centric argument clunking awkwardly into the middle of a debate that has preoccupied some of the world's greatest minds for centuries.
Besides, it missed the point. The judge appeared to have few qualms accepting that "D/s" - the somewhat more esoteric philosophy of dominance and submission at the heart of BDSM - had most of the qualities, including cogency, consistency and personal importance one might expect of a belief system. He got that this was not about the "right to spank" - even if, as witnesses testified, that could be part of it.
No. His very real difficulty was whether a way of life sometimes described as "consensual slavery" or "consensual non-consent" could possibly be worthy of recognition in a democratic society.
Which was where I came in. After spending well over a decade following, studying and writing about alternative sexualities, could I assist the court? I tried. The key point, I argued, was the substance - how the principles operated in practice - rather than the wordage. Christianity, for instance, has had its own issues as critics have represented its practice of eating the body of Christ as cannibalism. And as for the Masonic oath…
D/s is not sexist: there are probably far more male submissives than female ones. Nor is it truly inequal. It embodies different and, in the everyday, unequal roles. But its cornerstone is equality and formality: it is preceded in most cases by highly protracted negotiation; there is agreement of rules and boundaries; and an absolute recognition that "no" means "no". Could we claim as much for the average marriage?
But, the barrister asked: was I really suggesting that entering into a relationship in which someone else might tell you what to do, and where and how, was consistent with modern values? My answer was brief: "wage slavery".
In the end, the court remained unpersuaded. If nothing else, I suspect that the idea of being the first employment tribunal in the land to give comfort in any form to "slavery" made the judge quite queasy.
That's not the end of it, though. No precedent was set. There may yet be an appeal. And even if there is not on this case, it's an issue that won't go away. As the BDSM community increasingly finds its voice, it is likely one day to test the wisdom of an altogether higher authority: the supreme court, natch.
