Sex, work and feminism

I struggle to call myself feminist. I struggle to call myself that not because I’m not a feminist but rather how the word is seen and what feminism means. Simple word, but it has a different meaning to different people. Depends on your socioeconomic status, culture, country’s political state. The way I sometimes explain this to people is the Sweden-Finland-Estonia cycle, as I call it. Sweden is a very developed culture, politically. There it has been okay for a government to declare itself as feminist for years. In Finland, we’re at a crossroads, discussing if it is okay for a man to say they’re feminist. And then there is Estonia, which while being an amazing country and having skipped the 2000’s in technological development (or so it seems), still has (or had a couple of weeks ago) a minister who calls our PM a “sales girl”. Thank fuck Mart Helme is out, finally.

I struggle to call myself feminist because some people take feminism as a radicalized idea. Something that it’s not, at least for me. A lot of people think feminism means stripping men of their rights. That’s not true, although I’m sure you can find women who think this should be the case. I’m not one of those. I don’t see feminism as a radical idea, mostly because to me it means equality between genders and I have that. Sure, men and women have different duties, but I’m not getting into that. We have the same rights, legally and socially too. But that’s because I’m at an exceptionally good position. I’ve never had to question my equal rights just because I’m a woman.

I used to be quite insecure as a kid. There is a lot of pressure on women to look good and put on make-up and whatever. Over the past year or so, I’ve become comfortable with not doing that if I don’t feel like it. Maybe it’s the fact I’m in higher education. New people, a new town. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not, which was what I did most of elementary and secondary school. Maybe part of high school too. I love being confident enough that I don’t care about what others think of me or how I look. It’s completely fine of me to get out of bed, put on some college pants and a hoodie, tie my hair instead of actually doing something about its messiness and use a mask to cover up the fact I have no make-up on. I love that about myself and the culture nowadays. I don’t have to do what I don’t want just because it’s socially expected of me.

I’ve had two discussions about this issue over the past week and that’s what got me to writing this. First one was with classmates. Technically, we’re engineer students, and there are a lot of women in our class. We talked about how we’re supposed to dress for a job interview. Because believe me, that’s ridiculously hard at times. Especially in a male-dominant field. How do I dress to make myself look professional yet at the same time like I can be taken seriously? Like yeah, I own a pair of black slacks and a jacket. Of course that’s my only choice, really, because anything less fancy will look like I’m not taking this seriously, anything fancier or more colorful and I will either look like a wanna-be whore or Angela Merkel. This was an interesting conversation and really, we have to ask our communications teacher. She’ll know, supposedly.

The other discussion was with my Dom. He’s a great guy and I’m not gonna address him like that ever again because me trying to write correct English in a correct context? Not happening. Besides, we’re friends above all. He just happens to tie me up and fuck my throat at times (which is fucking amazing, I’ve never realized how much better that is than me doing all the work, my neck muscles are so happy). Now, I feel like there are two sides to sex, especially BDSM and especially female subs when it comes to feminism. Other one being go for it, do what you want and the other saying I shouldn’t be doing this. I get both sides even though I disagree. But I get it. Why would women want to give up power to a guy when we’ve been trying to get rid of that idea for decades?

I get there is a possibility of shit hitting the fan in a scene. To me as a sub it’s always a bit risky, but I trust this guy. If I ever go see another Dom, I know I’ll tell at least him and a friend of mine (another sub) where I am and what I’m doing. It’s good to have someone know where you are if you go to someone else’s apartment that you don’t know that well. I know there are risks (I’ve experienced that) but that’s why trust is important.

I have to trust the other person to trust my limits and safewords. I do, and he’s nice enough to always check even if I don’t. If we ever do something we haven’t tried before or we start a scene the second I get in, he checks. It’s almost annoying, but I appreciate him doing that. Usually we loiter around his apartment and chitchat about work and school before actually doing anything, even during a scene, but at times it’s nice to get pinned to the wall the second I’ve taken my shoes off. I’m more likely to the one to get carried away so it’s good to have a guy to make sure I remember our signals and words if I want him to stop. And he knows me well enough to notice if I’m not good even if I don’t notice. There’s been a time when I was shit but I didn’t even realize until he pointed it out and called it off. I felt like shit but that’s what aftercare is for, right?

To me that’s feminist, in a way. Me being able to do what I want sexually is equality. I don’t want to be anyone’s Dom, hell no. We talked about this one day too and nope, just not for me. I would be so pressured to do good and I’m really shy at times. I don’t know what to do and I’m not comfortable with having so much power over someone.

Despite disagreeing, I get the counter-argument. Believe me, I’ve met surprisingly many women who despise women who are open about their sexuality, let alone are subs. I see why someone would think so. I shouldn’t put myself in a position where I’m vulnerable to abuse. Hell, some people think that I cannot give my consent to someone because hurting someone is always abuse, even if I don’t mind at the time.

I get why it can be a thin line. Do I like being hurt at times? No. At times I tell him to hit me outside a scene and that’s like… funny and awkward. Like last week. We were randomly watching a movie on his couch and I was really jittery. I don’t really know why. Long day, probably. And my solution to that was telling him he should slap me in the face. It was hilarious, because neither of us take it as anything else other than “kinky people are fucking weird” but to someone else that’s abuse. I get that too. Yesterday, we were kind of starting a scene, he was tying my hands and then turned me so I was facing him and I just had to scratch my forehead against his shoulder because I’m the kind of person who will get itchy the second I don’t have my hands free. He slapped me, and honestly, I just felt bad. Aroused, because I love it when he does that, but at the same time I felt so ridiculously neglected. For like, a second. Maybe that’s just him being different than usual, because he’s really nice even in a scene. I was kind of startled by him actually giving a fuck. Not that I mind, really. But again, I can see why some people might think he’s just hitting me for no reason other than being an asshole.