(Note from Anne: I have chosen images by the prolific Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki to feature with Dr. Johnson’s post. Araki is very strong in fashion and culture, being recently featured at NOWNESS for his holiday 2010 work at Barneys. There is nothing accusatory in my using these images in conjunction with an essay on BDSM. The vast majority of images that Carla describes can’t be exposed on AOC. They are too graphic and degrading for our readers. In his own words, Araki is very interested in rope bondage. These images are from The Old Photo Album, a general interest photo blog.)

Note: Images are provocative and involve nudity

Guest writer Dr. Carla Johnson

Floggings continue as reported by Anne of Carversville, and women are sentenced to be stoned as well as victimized by brutal domestic violence around the world. While such acts are illegal in the United States, they remain surrounded by such webs of fear that a domestic crime puts a woman’s life at risk, usually greatest after she has left the abuser.

Statistics on domestic violence in the United States tell us that one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, and about 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. Historically, females are most often victimized by someone they know.

Reading Anne’s protest against the public flogging of women that still goes on in what is supposed to be a progressed world reminded me of research I did for a blog post. I was writing to protest the flood of BDSM images on the mega fine art sites. You see, I do not consider these images to be art as I see no enlightenment in showing women bound, gagged, and tortured for the gratuitous enjoyment of largely male audiences.

When I googled “bondage art,” I was shocked at the sites that came up. These go beyond pornography to unadulterated cruelty and perversion. There is no reason to force any human being, male or female, into restraints and torture them except for the sexual high that comes from the rush of Power. Everyone knows rape, bondage, torture, murder, and the institutionalization of these as “punishments” are about nothing except a titillating display of Power.

At my blog WHAT WE SAW TODAY I have written numerous times about my dismay when I view photographs of otherwise legitimate models suspended, tied up with ropes, chained, gagged, and duct taped. In some cases, these women show pleasure in being subjected to what look to me like crime scene photos. In other cases, they dramatize - always badly - some degree of pain and/or terror.

In a post titled “Cruel Again”, I wrote:

Sex and violence. Fetish. Bondage….when we show these categories gratuitously, i.e., as sexually titillating, we downplay the seriousness of such events. In real life they carry life and death consequences for women. I oppose the lucrative underground porn industry that profits from videos that depict the rape and torture of women and children.

If you click through to my blog, you will encounter an orange warning banner required by google for those of us who show fine art nudes, no matter how classical and tasteful they might be. Nevertheless, the “bondage art” sites I encountered were required to give no warning, yet they show women chained in dungeons, tied to stakes and other devices to be beaten, flogged, and abused with various instruments of torture. I find that mind boggling. Why do we persecute those who create images that celebrate the beauty of the body, spirit, and mind, while we openly display violent depictions of the desecration of the human being?

Who are the people who make these photographs, drawings, and videos? I have known several models who participate in them, all of them educated, professional women who do not need the money this industry pays. What makes a woman an accomplice in an industry that is so demeaning and damaging to her fellow women? I have yet to get an explanation from any of them. They remain oddly silent about their reasons. I have written about this in another blog post, “About Bondage”.

We like to think only men support cruelty against women, whether institutional or criminal, stranger crime or domestic abuse. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. It is human nature to turn a blind eye to society’s outcasts, to think of our own safety and comfort first, and to remain silent in the face of such atrocities. It strikes me as perverse that individual women take this even further and allow themselves to be used in support of an industry that perpetuates the idea it is a man’s right to humiliate and mutilate women.

More reading:

Old Ladies Rebellion Condemns Censorship at Smithsonian

We feature the controversial ‘Fire in My Belly’ by David Wojnarowicz video removed by the Smithsonian over protests from Fundamentalist Christians, coupled with Biblical quotes that command women to be silent and ending with the flogging of women in Sudan. Carla and I (and Alex B not here this moment) see these topics as a continuum of conversation in the total world of female sexuality.

Anne of Carversville and Sensuality News are unique Internet properties because we try to examine the total picture of sexuality and sensuality. Age, gender, sexual identity, food and flowers, sexual politics, religion … we are weaving a total web of images, facts and international exploration of the enormous subject of human sexuality with a particular emphasis on women.

Carla and Alex from our Ageless Fabulous initiative:

Initial Interviews: