As this brief was given to me, I felt it was the perfect time for me to actually go ahead and explore this community, and being new to London and knowing it has a vibrant and open culture in the kink community, I thought it is a good opportunity to pursue this theme, and I can see so much potential in this space.
I started trying to take a more journalistic and ‘get out there’ approach to this project, and I got on FetLife, a well-known online platform for kinksters (exploring, new, amateurs, pros) and there are various groups and forums based on various parameters like location, age, kink, level of willingness ( I mean there are groups where people can vet for potential play partners, some where they can post unsolicited and uncensored nudes and so on) these groups and forums also tend to organise various events from time-to-time, like play parties, sex parties, but the most common of them all are munches. I RSVP’d to one online and let’s see how it goes. I am also reading this book called ‘Kulick,1995, Taboo: Sex, Identity and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork’ which is anthropology, but it talks but anthropologists having relationships with their subjects and how it changed their view on society, but they never accounted for it in their studies due to “ethics”, which leads me to wonder what might happen if I tend to get friendly with my participants, and from past experiences of not being able to receive participants, I figured it would be quite helpful to become friendly with the participants, because then there’s a certain baseline of trust and comfort for the participant to talk about some of their ‘personal’ experiences, but anyways, it was interesting how some anthropologists mentioned that it’s an unspoken rule in field-work to not mingle too much with the community, but when some eventually do, they talk about how their positionality and position as researcher in the community is a perspective for the study, and when it is a White person in a minor community or previously colonised community, they talk about their feelings of colonisation within this relationship and some might even face experiences of sexual abuse and assault from the community, and do these count as interactions with the community, which might tamper with their findings, but is it also inevitable and just how society works? I may not be studying kink-shaming from an anthropological perspective, but I certainly think this analysis of other anthropologists who knowingly or unknowingly worked in a similar space/ researched topics around sexuality can be of great importance in transferable principles and understanding how to navigate around field work
While doing my secondary research, I also had to keep in mind that this a journalistic pitch, and I’d have to adapt and use their methods and techniques, and I was hoping to look and read articles which talk about kink-shaming victims, but to my surprise I could find articles, which were shaming some porn channels and stars (Anonymous2019, Mar 27. Why Channel 4’s Mums Make Porn is a kink-shaming insult to young women. Telegraph.co.uk.), and if there was any talk it was about celebrities who spoke up about their experience and the papers/magazines/blogs trying to debate it? It seemed a bit ridiculous to me, like we’ve made strides to be more open and accepting and this is the articles I see in the media, what kind of example are we setting for the future, that it is okay to make someone feel weird because of what you consider “weird”! While I was looking into the secondary research for this, we were working on our Unit-2, and had a workshop on ‘Agency and Social rights’, which I think fits quite well into this framework, and we have to try and fight for our own rights and are we doing it in this aspect, or are we staying silent and letting others also be silent!
I am going to individually talk about some of the news articles or blogs I have read as a part of my secondary research in order to form a base for my primary research and so:
““Vanilla-shaming” has dethroned “kink-shaming”. TikTok’s “KinkTok” has fostered a community in which shame is eradicated and anything goes – unless of course, you’re into “vanilla” sex. Others have called out this trend – as one video noted, “you all have turned vanilla into an insult”. More than a third of women prefer missionary sex over any other position, but we rarely see that on screen – unless it’s used to imply that the sex is boring or forgettable.”( HURT, L., 2023, Jul 18. Kinks, BDSM and even torture porn are everywhere. Why has vanilla sex disappeared from our screens?.) (The Guardian, 4. I think I myself have seen people being “vanilla-shamed” it is perfectly normal to be vanilla, or want to be vanilla with certain partners.)
Portrayal of kinks/fetishes in media, as I had mentioned my personal example of fifty shades of grey is that it is not a healthy representation or accurate and is more a marketing strategy and follows the “sex sells” ideology, and with the rising access to porn to youngsters, what effect does this have? Does it enhance the persepctive on kink, or are we vanilla-shaming instead of kink-shaming? (BOURNE, H., 2023, Sep 23. Holly Bourne: Porn is normalising violent sex — why can’t we talk about it?. Irish Examiner)
The inaccurate portrayal of kink/fetishes in porn leads to a narrative in young teens’ mind which is unhealthy for them and their partners, and they may not know it at first, because who do they ask about these things, and when there is some sort of bodily harm they’re being “sexually violent” when in reality the kids just don’t have the right knowledge and awareness about safe and healthy practice. (Anonymous2023, May 15. Concern grows deeper over normalised sexual violence. Sydney Morning Herald, 8. ISSN 03126315.)