Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary

I begin this book with an origin story to hint at my stakes in the topic at hand. Hoping that my confessional will have a seductive effect on the reader, I wrote a dramatization of a micro-battle in which I engaged (both internally and externally) during the so-called feminist sex wars. Both persona...

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Main Author: UMMNI KHAN
Format: eBook
Language: Bahasa Inggris
Published: University of Toronto Press 2014
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Online Access: http://oaipmh-jogjalib.umy.ac.idkatalog.php?opo=lihatDetilKatalog&id=52610
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spelling oai:lib.umy.ac.id:526102021-06-16T13:06:22ZVicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal ImaginaryUMMNI KHANSadomasochism,Social aspects – Canada, Law and legislation, The Legal Fondling, Epistemic ViolenceI begin this book with an origin story to hint at my stakes in the topic at hand. Hoping that my confessional will have a seductive effect on the reader, I wrote a dramatization of a micro-battle in which I engaged (both internally and externally) during the so-called feminist sex wars. Both personal and biographical, the impact of the narrative relies on memory to project the past onto a screen of truth. Yet such a documentation of past experiences, as Hayden White has pointed out, “arises out of a desire to have real events display the coherence, integrity, fullness, and closure of an image of life that is and can only be imaginary” (White 1987, 24). The chronology of my screenplay offers a classic narrative, complete with the initial set-up (establishing my affiliation with the feminist community), catalyst (meeting Daphne, who challenges my feminist understandings of sexuality), rising action (arguments with Daphne and then Dragyn about the meaning of s/m), climax (attending a fetish night), and denouement (doing legal research on sexual rights). As White observes, “Where in any account of reality, narrativity is present, we can be sure that morality or a moralizing impulse is present too” (24). The story romanticizes sexual alterity, with an underlying critique of the ideological constraints around sexual citizenship.1 In short, accounts of s/m – including my own – always involve normative storytelling. This book investigates some of the stories society spins about the truth of s/m. Practitioners tell us that s/m rests on appropriating social hierarchies, restaging power imbalances, and/or re-signifying pain within a consensual context. As such, s/m desires are based on the drive to retell a particular story, to replay a particular scene, but in a way that seeks to transmute the social scripts from which it borrows (McClintock 1993, 89). But my focus here is not on s/m itself. Rather, I examine how three major cultural discourses and frameworks about s/m – science, feminism, and film – interact with one another, and with law’s construction of s/m as an object of knowledge.University of Toronto Press2014eBookebook 341Bahasa Inggrishttp://oaipmh-jogjalib.umy.ac.idkatalog.php?opo=lihatDetilKatalog&id=52610
institution Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
collection Perpustakaan Yogyakarta
language Bahasa Inggris
topic Sadomasochism,Social aspects – Canada, Law and legislation, The Legal Fondling, Epistemic Violence
spellingShingle Sadomasochism,Social aspects – Canada, Law and legislation, The Legal Fondling, Epistemic Violence
UMMNI KHAN
Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary
description I begin this book with an origin story to hint at my stakes in the topic at hand. Hoping that my confessional will have a seductive effect on the reader, I wrote a dramatization of a micro-battle in which I engaged (both internally and externally) during the so-called feminist sex wars. Both personal and biographical, the impact of the narrative relies on memory to project the past onto a screen of truth. Yet such a documentation of past experiences, as Hayden White has pointed out, “arises out of a desire to have real events display the coherence, integrity, fullness, and closure of an image of life that is and can only be imaginary” (White 1987, 24). The chronology of my screenplay offers a classic narrative, complete with the initial set-up (establishing my affiliation with the feminist community), catalyst (meeting Daphne, who challenges my feminist understandings of sexuality), rising action (arguments with Daphne and then Dragyn about the meaning of s/m), climax (attending a fetish night), and denouement (doing legal research on sexual rights). As White observes, “Where in any account of reality, narrativity is present, we can be sure that morality or a moralizing impulse is present too” (24). The story romanticizes sexual alterity, with an underlying critique of the ideological constraints around sexual citizenship.1 In short, accounts of s/m – including my own – always involve normative storytelling. This book investigates some of the stories society spins about the truth of s/m. Practitioners tell us that s/m rests on appropriating social hierarchies, restaging power imbalances, and/or re-signifying pain within a consensual context. As such, s/m desires are based on the drive to retell a particular story, to replay a particular scene, but in a way that seeks to transmute the social scripts from which it borrows (McClintock 1993, 89). But my focus here is not on s/m itself. Rather, I examine how three major cultural discourses and frameworks about s/m – science, feminism, and film – interact with one another, and with law’s construction of s/m as an object of knowledge.
format eBook
author UMMNI KHAN
author_sort UMMNI KHAN
title Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary
title_short Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary
title_full Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary
title_fullStr Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary
title_full_unstemmed Vicarious Kinks: S/M in the Socio-Legal Imaginary
title_sort vicarious kinks: s/m in the socio-legal imaginary
publisher University of Toronto Press
publishDate 2014
url http://oaipmh-jogjalib.umy.ac.idkatalog.php?opo=lihatDetilKatalog&id=52610
isbn ebook 341
_version_ 1702748781666107392
score 14.79448