I Am A Feminist

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[URL="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/authors/amberly-mcateer"][COLOR=#0066cc]Amberly McAteer[/COLOR][/URL]

The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jul. 18 2013, 4:29 PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Jul. 18 2013, 5:12 PM EDT





[I][B]Welcome to Sex Qs, a weekly column where The Globeâ??s Amberly McAteer seeks answers to your sex questions, talking to sexperts and regular Canadians alike. Have a question? Fire away:[/B][/I] [COLOR=#0066cc][email protected][/COLOR] [I][B](All questions will be published anonymously.)[/B][/I]

[B]The question:[/B] I consider myself quite the feminist â?? I really think gender equality is very important, but sex with my new boyfriend has me questioning my feminist ways. We have been having sex for three weeks now and it gets physical. To my surprise, I have found I like to be dominated. He hits me during sex and chokes me, and I actually like it. I find myself asking for it. How can I be a feminist and still enjoy this?
[B][B]The answer:[/B] [/B]

[B]Youâ??re not alone. Actually, I couldnâ??t find a single woman who didnâ??t, on some level, enjoy submission, à la Anastasia-Christian Grey style. Of course that isnâ??t to say that a woman who would fully reject [I]50 Shades[/I] doesnâ??t exist. But there is a reason why the dom-sub erotic trilogy is an international bestseller, and believe you me, itâ??s not for the beautiful prose.[/B]

Pain and sex, power and pleasure: These are the two sides of the same leather-tassled furry-zebra handcuffs. To me, the thrill of a good bedroom romp is surprise and respect, with a little dash of verboten thrown in. Only you can determine what that dash is.
Colleagues blushed, friends gushed and every softball girl, dog-park lady, and oversharing waitress I asked about bedroom domination said theyâ??d consider themselves a feminist, but they also enjoy being â??thrown around a littleâ? by their partner. â??Thereâ??s a time and a place to be manhandled,â? says my best friend, â??and itâ??s so good when itâ??s done right.â?
Still, I should have braced myself for the full confession from Alexandra, my real-estate agent and probably the most powerful, self-confident woman I know. (Picture successful, convertible-driving, classic-rock hot blonde.)
â??Oh, yeah, I totally want to be respectfully choked,â? she offers without hesitation. â??I want to be spanked and told itâ??s time to punish me. â?¦ I like to feel like he owns me a bit.â?
Good for her, I say, trying to play it cool. She knows what she wants and asks for it â?? which is, I surmise, the ultimate definition of a feminist. Alexandra says her love of power in her professional career translates to a â??power fetishâ? in bed.
â??Listen, the last thing I want to do after spending the day telling people what to do and how to do it at work is to come home and dictate what happens in the bedroom.â?
And hereâ??s good news for all of us â?? er, all of you. A new study involving 902 volunteers, from last monthâ??s Journal of Sexual Medicine, found people who are into kinky sex â?? particularly those who have a thing for bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism â?? are more emotionally stable and more secure in their relationships than their â??vanillaâ? counterparts.
Still, I get a little sweaty advising you that physical abuse is cool. The choking also sounds dangerous, particularly since heâ??s a new boyfriend. So I called a professional pain-inflicter, Montreal dominatrix Mistress Magnum. A quick glance at her Twitter account at my desk and Iâ??m feeling a little short of air myself.

â??You have to really trust someone to want them to choke you. You are honouring your dom with that trust,â? says Magnum, whose hourly sessions can run up to $360 and whose website lists dozens of menu options. â??With neck play, itâ??s very high risk behaviour, â?? she says from her home office. â??In the moment youâ??re so passionate and having this hot amazing sex, and the next you could be dead.â?
She advises you to talk to your new guy about the choking before it happens again. Let him know you like it, but establish a safety signal with him before he places his hands around your neck. And this should go without saying, but letâ??s say it any way: If ever there is a time this â??bedroom playâ? is non-consensual, you end that relationship on the spot.
Magnum has â??playedâ? with submissive females and says women have a much higher pain threshold in the moment, so know when enough is enough. â??She has to feel safe, even when sheâ??s being choked.â?
Magnum says your man should look into â??smart waysâ? to inflict pain, too, ones that donâ??t leave marks or bruises. Start by warming up the skin: â??You lightly slap the area to increase blood flow, then you can really start going,â? she instructs, in such a way it sounds lackadaisical for an office interview in the middle of the afternoon.

Still, Magnum says all of this is perfectly normal, although she understands that â??emotionally it might cross some wires.â? Sheâ??s a good person who wants people to be happy in their â??regularâ? lives. What you like in the bedroom shouldnâ??t interfere with how you define yourself.
Just as Magnum, who practices a service called ball-busting behind closed doors (you donâ??t want to know), is actually a very sensitive, caring woman in real life, so too are you a feminist who likes to be dominated.

From the most overly analytical person youâ??ll ever meet, I say stop overthinking this: Turn off the â??what does this say about meâ? girl brain and enjoy the ride.

All is fair in love and war and the bedroom.

You like what you like; if itâ??s choking, so be it. But in sex, as in all relationships, safety, communication and trust is key.

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[I]Thanks for posting this. Interestingly, Dan Savage provided a response this week to a similar question. He and his S&M advisor placed much more emphasis on the risks associated with this activity.[/I]

[B]Gasping for advice: My girlfriend wants me to choke her during sex, but Iâ??m worried Iâ??ll hurt her. What do I do?[/B]

Savage Love
Dan Savage


[B]Q[/B] Never thought I'd be writing to you for advice, but here goes: I'm a straight guy with a long-term girlfriend who has a choking fetish. She needs to be choked during sex to get off. I'm more of a vanilla kind of dude, but in the spirit of being GGG, I've been doing this for her. The thing is, it kind of scares me. I don't particularly get off on it, and it actually brings out parts of me that I don't like. More importantly, I'm really scared of hurting her.

Recently while on vacation, hotel security was called because our neighbours thought I was assaulting her, as she's a screamer and likes to struggle during sex. I'm trying to be GGG, but now it feels like every fuck needs to be a rape scene, complete with choking. She doesn't like it any other way. I don't want to accidentally hurt her or kill her and wind up in jail, but she's dismissive when I share my concerns. My friends in the BDSM scene scold me and say that breath play is never OK. Your thoughts? â??Throat Harm Really Obsesses This Terrific Lady Entirely

[B]A[/B] Here's what BDSM author, educator, and activist Jay Wiseman has to say about choking in his book SM 101: A Realistic Introduction: [B]"I know of no way whatsoever that suffocation or strangulation can be done that does not intrinsically put the recipient at risk of cardiac arrest...I know of no reliable way to determine when such a cardiac arrest becomes imminent. If the recipient does arrest, the probability of resuscitating them, even with optimal CPR, is small." Even if choking weren't dangerousâ??posts about people accidentally killing themselves during solo choking scenes appear on fetish blogs with depressing regularity[/B] â??being this woman's boyfriend/assailant has to be tedious. Even if choking were safe, THROTTLE, you need to ask yourself if you wanna spend the rest of your life with someone who's as inconsiderate, selfish and sexually limited as your girlfriend seems to be.