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One such question is the "BDSM versus sex” question. Is BDSM always sex? Is it always sexual? A lot of people see BDSM as something that "always" includes sex, or is "always sexual in some way." In the documentary "BDSM: It's Not What You Think!", one famous BDSM writer is quoted saying something like: "I would say that eros is always involved in BDSM, even if the participants aren't doing anything that would look sexual to non-BDSMers." But a lot of other people see BDSM, and the BDSM urge, as something that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex -- that is separate from sex. I see two sides to this question: the political side, and the "how does it feel?" side. Both sides are intertwined; when it comes to sex, politics can't help shaping our experiences (and vice versa). I acknowledge this. And yet even when I try to account for that, there is still something deeply different about the way my body feels my BDSM urges, as opposed to how my body feels sexual urges. I don't think that those bodily differences could ever quite go away, no matter how my mental angle on those processes changed. te KK The Political Side of BDSM versus Sex "BDSM versus sex" could be viewed as a facet of that constant and irritating question -- "What is sex, anyway?" I've always found that the more you look at the line between "what is sex" and "what is not sex," the more blurred the line becomes. For example, recall that ridiculous national debate that happened across America when Bill Clinton told us that he hadn't had sex with Monica -- and then admitted to getting a blowjob from her. Is oral sex sex? Maybe oral sex isn't sex! Flutter, flutter, argue, argue. It is my experience that (cisgendered, heterosexual) women are often more likely to claim that oral sex is not sex, while (cis, het) men are more likely to claim that oral sex is sex. I suspect this is because women face steeper social penalties for having sex (no one wants to be labeled a "slut"), so we are typically more motivated to claim that sex acts "don't count" as sex... whereas men are usually congratulated for having sex (more notches on the bedpost!), so men are typically more motivated to claim that sex acts "count" as sex. (Unless they're Bill Clinton.) So we already have this weird ongoing debate, about what "qualifies" as sex. And you throw in fetishes such as BDSM, and everyone gets confused all over again. A cultural example of this confusion came up in 2009, when a bunch of professional dominatrixes got arrested in New York City... for being dominatrixes... which everyone previously believed was legal. Flutter, flutter, argue, argue, and it turns out that "prostitution" (which is illegal in New York) is defined as "sexual conduct for money." But what does "sexual conduct" mean? At least one previous court had set the precedent that BDSM-for-pay is not the same as "sexual conduct for money"... and yet, in 2009, the Manhattan District Attorney's office decided that "sexual conduct" means "anything that is arousing to the participants"... and then decided that this suddenly meant they ought to go arrest dominatrixes. It's not clear why the Manhattan HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018536