Pronoun Primer- Leather Edition

Well hi everybody! Pronoun Primer sure seems to take on a life of it's own at times! This month in honor of Northern Exposure 9, I decided to ask some people not just about how they identify under the LGBTQI+ spectrum, but also how they describe themselves when we discuss BDSM, Kink, and the Leather community. It seems to me that these identifiers are as varied and valid as everything that has been discussed regarding gender and orientation! Let's get started.

Let's start with a couple that most people have heard of, sadism and masochism.

Sadist

adjective

deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others

Masochism

adjective

the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one's own pain or humiliation

The current Ms Alaska Leather Emma identifies with both of these terms and therefore is a sadomasochist, and says “I am a giver and reciever of sensation, pain and power exchange.”

In the BDSM community people may identify as dominant or submissive, top or bottom, master or slave, or for many they identify as what is referred to as switch.

Switch

verb

change the position, direction, or focus of

SG and Gretchen both identify as switch and basically they say what I said. “I switch in both the Sadist/masochist role, and the Dom/sub role” so let's move on to one of his other identifiers, ethical slut.

Ethical

adjective

relating to moral principles or the branch of knowledge dealing with these

Slut

noun

a woman who has many casual sexual partners.( really? Well that is sexist )

When put together we look at the Urban Dictionary description which is pretty great.

“An ethical slut is a person of any gender who celebrates sexuality with more than one partner and works to do so in ways that are ethical and respect the feelings and rights of others.” or as SG says, “who doesn't like sex?”. While I could go into a rant about asexual people here, and my refusal to erase their experience, SG knows what he did, and he will feel shame when he reads this.

The next word we are going to explore is one of my favorites in the BDSM world.

Brat

noun

an ill-mannered annoying child

Well, that's not exactly how the kinky people I have talked to use it. Let's see what Jessica has to say. “I taunt those in charge of me to get beat. I’m submissive to a few. I’m mouthy and sassy. It’s evolving.” For this submissive, her brattiness is all part of the game that she plays when exploring her kinks.

For many I talked to the words exploring and evolving came up quite a bit. Like V who said “I am also evolving and currently exploring other aspects of my kinks. I guess currently I would say I am a voyeuristic submissive hedonistic exhibitionist.” or SF who identifies as an “evolving switch”. Again we come back to the point that things like gender, orientation, and even sex and kink roles can be fluid and are not static. With this fluidity, and the ever changing ways that people identify the best policy is as always, to ask politely. See you next month!