Unhinged: what came first, the taboo or the whip?
Regardless your opinion on rough sex and the whole BDSM universe, there’s no denying it’s getting a lot more coverage than it did fifty, or even twenty years ago. Whereas our parents’ generation might shy away in repulsion, younger generations are not only leaning towards it, but actively normalizing rough sex as part of their boudoir experience.
And what I wanna know is — were these impulses here from the get-go, or are we just developing them now? While it’s tempting to argue that a heavily puritanical and taboo-ridden society would kink-shame the secret BDSM community of yore, I wonder if the answer is really that simple.
Did our parents and grandparents crave to be spanked, choked, and held down, as much? Or are our current sexual fantasies the result of a radically shifting society?
Criminalizing manliness — when dominance goes soft
One of the potential explanations for why aggressiveness is so desirable in the bedroom (“hardcore” and “rough sex” are seeing a 80% spike in Pornhub searches) is that we’ve made it undesirable anywhere else.
As a society that cracks the whip on traditional bastions of masculinity (such as physical strength, assertiveness, independence, but also chivalry), we’re forcing both our men and our women to go without.
Men today are shamed and medicated into submission, and perhaps something in our animal brain is recognizing that as unhealthy. By insisting that men and women are the same, we are negating the delicate and vital balance between male and female energies.
And perhaps that’s showing up in our sexual behaviors. If we’re to hearken back to the “wife-beater” stereotypes that plagued the previous century, it’s hard to believe those women — so submissive, so oppressed, so voiceless — craved more violence and oppression in the bedroom. Or, for that matter, that men did. Because if we examine the “wife-beater” stereotype more closely, we find he’s also the primary breadwinner, the one in charge of fixing things when they break. He has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, already, and perhaps not so much time to grow bored, so maybe whipping his wife isn’t really the first thing on this guy’s mind?
Since both men and women initiate aggressive sex on a roughly equal basis, it’s safe to assume that both men and women desire submission and/or dominance in the bedroom. So, if women are craving submission because we’re becoming more independent and self-sufficient, is it safe to assume men are craving dominance because they’ve been robbed of it in the real world?
While our superficial society praises buff, gym-worshipping men, it does a complete 180 when it comes to physical strength. Men who’re perceived as overly male, aggressive, capable, strong, or athletic are often labeled as “toxic”. Whereas before, waiting for a man to handle the more physical labors inside a household was the norm, now it’s perceived as deferring to the patriarchy.
And maybe men are lashing out towards it. Perhaps, through rough sex, men get to take back a vital part of their aggressive “primate brain” that they deemed lost. Relationships now are on a far more equal plain than relationships fifty years ago. Gradually, we’re bridging pay gaps, and watching traditional gender roles become reversed.
We are searching for a new, better equilibrium in the male-female dynamic, and maybe that’s what rough sex is, for some — a means for balancing a foreign dynamic in the relationship.
On the other hand, we have a reversal of roles in the boudoir, with the man submitting to an assertive woman’s dominance. It’s reasoned that this, also, is a natural response to our shifting roles in society. For both women and men who are independent and self-reliant, being dominated behind closed doors is perceived as an equalizer. According to theory, the reason why some people want to be spanked, tied up, blindfolded and maybe even humiliated in private is that no one dares to, in real life.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that in this scenario, both sexes are experimenting with traditionally opposite roles, men with the “submissive female” stereotype, and women with the “dominant male”. Once again, this is more than just a journey to sexual climax, but inherently a way in which we’re rethinking and redefining who we are, and how we interact with one another.
A taboo too convenient?
It’s no doubt easier to assume we’re the first to explore kinkier realms, a, because we’re deep egomaniacs, and b, because no one wants to think of their Nan liking it rough. And at a cursory glance, it seems solid enough:
The further back you go, the more jaded our society. For centuries, sex was viewed as a solely procreative endeavor, so of course, people didn’t get creative.
Alas, this logic is severely, painfully flawed.
First, assuming that a jaded society leads to tame sex is obviously a weak point. Rather, the contrary ought to be true, as studies show the more jaded one’s personal life, the more wild their erotic fantasies. So perhaps it’s not that our ancestors wouldn’t think of rough housing, just that they didn’t dare spank and tell.
Second, it depends just how far back you’re willing to go. And how well you know your history.
Our Ancient Greek ancestors were widely known for their sexual prowess and variation. Long before we had the sexual revolution of the hippy 60s, we had the Greeks praising sex for pleasure’s sake, and habitually engaging in ritual flagellation. We had the Etruscans, an even “worse off” lot, with their voyeuristic, polyamory tendencies. Now, if you don’t know your history, those dudes lived a heck of a long time ago (900 BC–27 BC, to be exact), and definitely knew how to party.
Nowadays, we get to look back on Etruscan tomb paintings openly depicting anal sex, threesomes, whippings, and having sex with an audience, and realize we’re not as unique about our sexual tendencies as we thought. The infamous Winged Whiptress painting depicting Aidos, the goddess of humility, getting ready to flagellate someone is particularly telling as to what those Etruscans were up to.
Fast-forward a couple hundred years into more recent history, namely to our great-great-grandfathers. Stoic, stern types. Or were they?
If you think our great-great-grandfathers were goody two-shoes prudes, then you need to revisit your history.
We owe the term sado-masochism to two famous writers: the Austrian Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, and the French Marquis de Sade. Sacher-Masoch — who was very insulted by having his name associated with a deliciously kinky movement — penned the infamous Venus in Furs all the way back in 1870. This revolutionary short explored the author’s fantasies of luscious, powerful dominatrix types, adorned in furs (fantasies that Sacher-Masoch spent his life chasing).
As for the Marquis, well, we all know what he was into, don’t we?
“Sex should be a perfect balance of pain and pleasure. Without that symmetry, sex becomes a routine rather than an indulgence”.
- Marquis de Sade
These men showed us that the link between humiliation, submission, and orgasms, was old even in their time. So perhaps rough sex has always been here. We just didn’t look for it hard enough.
As with the infamous chicken and the egg, I don’t think we can ever know which came first. Was it society’s taboo nature that pushed our sexual lives into the realm of the “unhinged”? Or have these desires, perhaps, always been a part of us, merely to be assuaged, or heightened by the turn of society?
Is our increased interest in dominance a symptom of our changing society? Could be. Or perhaps, the libertine nature of our modern society is just what we needed, to properly explore versatile, sometimes risque boudoir interests that have been here since the dawn of time.
