Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday Randomness: Of Whiteness, Pony Play, and Race
I am in a provocative mood today. Why not, it's Friday?
Question: whose mustache is better? The Rent is Too Damn High Brother or Mr. Pony Play?
Random factoid: In Brazil during the slave regime, white slave owners would adorn their favorite human property with gold, jewels, and other accouterments in order to signify prosperity and power. In the United States, slave children were often given as human dolls to white children to be abused and used for fun and frolic.
As I watch two adults indulge in human pony play in the 21st century, I see echoes of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Please indulge me as I share a thought. How is whiteness operative in this? No, I am not bounding the erotic by virtue of race, for a brother or sister who chooses to be a dominant or a submissive is not necessarily negotiating away their blackness in my book. Why? the freedom to be, is by definition the freedom to be a freak.
But let's be real,would you look askance at a person of color indulging in pony play with someone across the color line? And finally--so many questions tonight--how is this play exclusive (or not) to the relationship between those fully enrolled in Whiteness?
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13 comments:
Mr De Vega:
If I found Black couples who indulge in this type of sexual expression per their own will would this blunt your attempts to racialize this?
Here is where you and I differ.
A few years ago when I went with my son's class on a "Hay Ride" where they showed us the various elements of a farm I noted how racially diverse his class was. Everyone was represented.
We got to the COTTON FIELD and were handed small brown paper sandwich bags to fill with cotton bols.
As I looked at a field full of Asian, Hispanic, White and Black children picking cotton for RECREATIONAL purposes I thought as to how much our society had ADVANCED.
Not only is there great diversity in the make up of the class, not only did all of these races get assigned to pick the cotton...........the fact that they were picking cotton was RECREATIONAL but instead was for EDUCATIONAL purposes with the hopes that they would see how their lives tie in to nature.
No longer did anyone have to work from dawn till dusk picking cotton, their bloody hands tinting the cotton.
I usually make note of how some people are forced to make use of black and white film footage for their indictment of the past while I make use of HD color film to refocus them on TO-DAMNED-DAY.
You, however, are taking us back to a time when the camera was not even invented as the point in time that we are supposed to connect to.
@Constructive.
mr. blogger by proxy. do you have a sense of humor? Or are you that thoroughly miserable?
Chauncey, you were kind enough to drop by my blog and ask why you haven't heard from me lately. Posts like this are why you haven't heard from me. Not that I find anything objectionable in the post, it's just that I need a lot of time to think through ideas that you are throwing us. I've been trying to get a handle on BDSM sex for several years now. Is it about hierarchical society? It it about trauma? Do people who enjoy BDSM experience pleasure the same way other people do? Now you throw in race and give me more to think about.
I'm not just speculating either. I've been talking to people who enjoy BDSM, reading up on the subject and, for a while, working in a neighborhood with BDSM clubs and stores selling kink gear. One day I found myself having lunch with Fakir Musafar-
http://www.bodyplay.com/
(His idea not mine by the way) One thing I couldn't help but notice was the almost complete absence of people of color from the public BDSM scene. Is that because white people can get away with aberrant behavior? Is it because white people feel sufficiently empowered to play pretend with power?
I've also come across people who have master/slave relationships. A few of them have expressed an interest in historical chattel slavery including one woman who insisted that chattel slavery was based on love and mutuality.
I still haven't reached any conclusions. I don't know if I will. Dammit, you've given me one more thing to puzzle over.
Good to hear from you.
Well, this is just a tease of something I really want to write about. I don't know how many folks will like it or be offended, so I will take this little dip in the water as a barometer. I think the meaty piece I want to do could arouse--pardon the pun--some interest by folks.
But, we shall see.
Well, you know I'll read it.
As I watch two adults indulge in human pony play in the 21st century, I see echoes of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Oh my dear Chauncey, y'allz from the ivory tower need to take a weekend trip to SF during the Folsom Street Fair, which will give you an endless field of study for your inquiry.
Put it this way: 15 years ago, the BDSM people were querying the limits of personal autonomy, wondering where that legal line is drawn when someone of their own volition signs away their personhood to legally become someone's slave/sub.
That's not my scene, especially when you get the Conservative Feedback types running around in leopardskin speedoes and dogcollars comandeered by white males in business suits.
But the hetero/downlow world is light years behind the queers in this regard. We're defining the terms, fbofw.
A recent, less hardcore spat in the Chronicle of Higher Ed might shed some light on issues at stake. http://bit.ly/8YLpqW People are complex.
CD,
You my friend are creating one of the best venues in the world..
Bravo!!!!
After watching this video, I looked at another video of the same event. The mustachioed, "owner" featured in your video, is shown riding in a cart pulled by his pony, and on the back of his cart is a confederate flag license plate(?).
Check it out, you can see it at the 1:00 mark:
http://current.com/participate/vc2/92461317_pony-play-in-central-park-i.htm
OhCrap--Always pushing limits. Such innovators.
@Thrasher--So kind. You haven't seen anything yet in regards to my curiosities about sex and the divine...and the frightening.
@Voluminously--I am not surprised. Those good ol' boys are freaks.
sigh, wistful longing for myriad flashes of cleansing, ionizing radiation....,
CD: I will make an attempt to address some of your musings:
Specifically how (maybe why too-not sure on the statistics) is this play exclusive to those fully engrossed in whiteness?
I'm especially intrigued by how the mrs. pony makes sense of her role in all of this. She explains that she feels good about overcoming the challenges put before her as a pony to make her man happy. In that I see echoes of the way many women (usually more conservative) identify themselves. The idea is that they view their own strength only in relation to how well able they are to keep there families happy and healthy. This often times centers around the ability to support and keep their men happy as well.
I have personally seen this kind of identification with woman who are "threatened minorities" (forgive the lack of prettier jargon, but this isn't my specialty). I'm thinking particularly of those Muslim women who have a sense that their 'Nation' of which needs to be made strong again.
Such Po dunks probably have a sense of history which is self glorifying and sated to the point that no existential project need be undergone. Because they lack awareness that they are anything but the image of perfection, a bizarre power dynamic must be created to satisfy man's inherently violent instincts (violence against the self--the woman; violence against the partner--the man) (by the way Nietzsche does a good job of addressing these issues albeit from the perspective of class).
I'm definitely not completely convinced by the synopsis, but perhaps someone would like to carry these ideas further/in a different direction.
@Constructive Feedback: Please forgive the mental masturbation. I've been socialized to believe it's more wholesome than pony play.
@Cnu--You know you like feeling dirty. Just a little, thus your and mine observing Cobb's crap flinging monkeys.
@Adam--I don't know if hijab nationalism is in parallel, but I am not offering an answer as I will have to sleep on it. But the idea of some Christian pseudo serving your man feminism does seem to resonate.
There is so much to kink and race that I will be touching upon after X-mas. It will be either a glorious car accident or a cricket silence filled event.
Pony play comes in many forms and there is nothing bad at all when doing something that is based on a consent. You can listen to our podcast and our interview with Rebecca Wilcox who is known within the pony play community.
http://kinkypod.com/special-feature-pony-play/
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