March 8, 2011

Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. If you forgot about this holiday, you’re probably not alone. I myself might have, had a male friend not kindly congratulated me over gchat. I was ...]]>

Photo: newcentrist.wordpress.com

By ADRIEL SAPORTA

March 8, 2011

Today is the 100^th anniversary of International Women’s Day. If you forgot about this holiday, you’re probably not alone. I myself might have, had a male friend not kindly congratulated me over gchat. I was on the phone with Read My Lips at the time, and it turns out even she had forgotten about IWD. So what gives? Why is it that we almost never forget Mother’s Day, but almost never remember International Women’s Day?

International Women’s Day took me by surprise last year too, when I was in Cuba with a friend for spring break. We spent each day of the two weeks with a wonderful tour guide to whom we grew fairly close. The morning of March 8, when we met up with him after breakfast, we found him waiting for us with some flowers and a small box of Montecristo cigarillos for each of us to smoke during our stay. I was touched that this man whose family of four was subject to severe rationing and could afford only the barest necessities had gone out of his way to buy us gifts in celebration of a holiday I hardly remembered. As the day went on, though, my feelings became more conflicted. What, exactly, were we celebrating? And, less important, why had he gotten us cigarillos, a much smaller cigar that is smoked, he told us, primarily by women? Did he not think we could handle a true cigar?

International Women’s Day is a holiday that is socialist in origin.  It was a day to protest for a greater breadth of women’s rights.  This may be surprising considering socialism’s attempt to break down gender boundaries in order to increase participation in the work force. Socialist states often have the project of communism in mind, which can only work when the entire world economy is communist. Therefore unity became a priority. The opportunity to unite half of the world’s population through an international holiday was not missed (not to mention that holidays were in high demand for a party that wouldn’t recognize religious holidays).

Is there some kind of political bent in IWD that is masked by a pretense to unite women internationally? Is it significant that today the holiday is mostly celebrated in former Soviet Bloc states (it’s a national holiday in Cuba and Russia)?

As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Daisy Sindelar writes, “But if it had first been used as a rallying cry for a woman’s right to work in Russia and elsewhere, it had since softened into a kind of socialist Valentine’s Day, with flowers and gifts replacing fresh calls for women’s rights.” Is the purpose to IWD in some countries to thank women for successfully occupying a domesticated role, or that of the double burden (one shift in the work place, and then another at home)? In many countries, such as Russia, IWD is equated with, and thus celebrated instead of, Mother’s Day. Is this more or less progressive? Does this identification of the two holidays acknowledge the many different ways of being a woman or does it equate womanhood with motherhood? And who, exactly, is being thanked? Many of these countries don’t recognize more than two gender identities. Does IWD celebrate, for example, transgender women, as well?

IWD was originally marked by a feminist demand for women’s rights, when almost 100 years ago, on March 19, 1911, more than one million people rallied in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland, to support women’s right to vote and hold public office. After celebrating IWD for two years, in December 1977, the United Nations, according to its website, “adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States.” IWD is still seen as an opportunity to rise up in unity against gender oppression, such as men and women did in Iran in honor of IWD in 2007 (only to be arrested and brutally beaten by police).

And although we don’t celebrate IWD too much in the United States or Western Europe, many are starting to see this holiday as an opportunity to remind ourselves of injustices that women still face today (see Rebecca Price’s article in the Huffington Post, “10 Reasons We Need International Women’s Day to Help Raise Awareness”). Even President Obama recognized the significance of IWD when he proclaimed March 2011 as Women’s History Month, writing:

“This year, we commemorate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, a global celebration of the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future.  International Women’s Day is a chance to pay tribute to ordinary women throughout the world and is rooted in women’s centuries-old struggle to participate in society on an equal footing with men.  This day reminds us that, while enormous progress has been made, there is still work to be done before women achieve true parity.”

The success of IWD depends on what you make of it. So, has International Women’s Day worked for you? How did you celebrate this holiday? Share with our readers in the comments section below!

Adriel Saporta is a senior in Yale College and the Editor-in-Chief of Broad Recognition.

December 14, 2010

“Mistress is making a painting for you,” Blunt leans over to tell me.

She is referring to the series of welts on Slavid’s backside that Mistress Collette is creating with a single-tailed bullwhip. Slavid ...]]>

Photo: Madame and mine, 1995. Barbara Nitke. (Madame and Master R, Founders of La Domaine Esemar.)

By ADRIEL SAPORTA

December 14, 2010

“Mistress is making a painting for you,” Blunt leans over to tell me.

She is referring to the series of welts on Slavid’s backside that Mistress Collette is creating with a single-tailed bullwhip. Slavid is leaning over a black sawhorse in the basement dungeon of La Domaine with his underpants around his ankles. His sixty-year-old rump is bright red, having been hit for the past ten minutes by a variety of different instruments: white paddle, whips, bare hand—all of which have been carefully selected by Mistress Collette.

“Slavid is the type of sub who likes to beaten bloody,” Master R explains to me, as the marks that Mistress Collette’s flogging has left behind begin to rise. On my right, Master R and Blunt are seated next to me on a couch. His hand rests lightly on her crotch, and the two giggle together.

Meanwhile, Mistress Collette runs her right hand gently over the canvas of Slavid’s buttocks.

“See how they change over time?” Mistress Collette asks me. “Would you like to feel?”

I politely decline.

Back upstairs, seated around a dinner table, Mistress Collette tells me, “When you apply marks to someone, it’s done in an artistic way. There’s an aesthetic and sensibility.”

She once bull-whipped a man fifty strokes. The slave later commented that his back looked like the “delicate grass” from a Monet painting. “I never broke the skin,” Mistress Collette says proudly. “Each mark, skin reacts differently, and it’s beautiful to see them flush and change. At first it will be a flat red mark, then dark purple, then it will raise, and the bruise evolves: it changes from red, to purple, to yellow, to green.”

La Domaine Esemar, founded seventeen years ago, is “The World’s Oldest SM Training Chateau,” according to its website. It is a school and professional dungeon for BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism), run by Head Master R and Head Mistress Collette. The establishment is considered one of the most prestigious dungeons in the business. People from the farthest reaches of the world come here for the sole purpose of visiting.

After reading “Will the Real Dominatrix Please Stand Up: Artistic Purity and Professionalism in the S&M Dungeon,” written by Columbia’s Danielle Lindemann for publication in Sociological Forum, I became interested in the possibility of BDSM as an art form. I got in touch with several pro-dommes, one of whom had just finished her PhD at Yale. She suggested I speak with “the folks up at La Domaine” if I wanted to explore the artistic side of BDSM. Next thing I knew, I was driving along I-91 on my way to Master R’s sex dungeon.

While forms of BDSM have been around for thousands of years, it has recently become decidedly mainstream and linked to prostitution. Although BDSM may involve penetration, as long as the exchange is monetary, no genital touching of any type occurs. Mistress Collette tells me that in her personal sexual experiences as a domme, she could sit on a slave’s face; with a client, though, she wouldn’t do that. “Technically,” Master R explains, “this counts as sexual entertainment.”

Slavid, a friend of Master R and Mistress Collette, is La Domaine’s resident lawyer of sorts. He is dressed as though he has just come from the office, and wears a pair of black thick-rimmed, square-shaped glasses. He emphasizes that despite the sexual context of the dungeon, there is no contact with either the domme’s or the client’s genitals. It is important to make this distinction clear, he tells me, because genital touching is considered prostitution, and, thus, illegal.

Pro-dommes who partake in such prostitution are stigmatized by those who don’t. “The dommes in Chicago give hand jobs!” Mistress Collette cries in disgust. These mainstream pro-dommes, and their breach of the law, distract the public from the psychological benefits and artistic merit of BDSM.

There is a significant ideological difference between BDSM and standard prostitution. Master R says, “At one time, there were temple priestesses, and they had huge sexual powers.” He explains that many women would bring their sons to these priestesses to be “initiated into their sexualities.” The priestesses would also see warriors who had recently returned from battle—presumably with forms of post-traumatic stress disorder—in order to restore them to health before sending them back to their wives. Pro-dommes are a modern realization of these temple priestesses, whereas, as Master R puts it, “prostitution is a male-dominated society trying to strip temple priestesses of their rights.”

At La Domaine, BDSM is more than just sex work; it is a form of art.

Masters, Mistresses, and slaves are hosted and trained to the highest standard at La Domaine. As is the case for many reputable institutions in the arts—Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism—there are skeptics in their respective fields who insist that such schooling is a waste of time.

However, considering the weapons, and psychological and sexual humiliation, implicated in BDSM, it’s not unreasonable to consider the importance of proper training.

Master R demonstrates a remarkable academic and emotional understanding of his life work, and has created a sanctuary in which he may impart his wisdom to others. It is a Hogwarts-like establishment where men and women, otherwise at loss in a hetero-normative world, can come for refuge. Among their clients are gay and transgender men and women, even animals (people who act like animals, that is). Suddenly, at La Domaine, they are no longer alone.

From the outside, the La Domaine “château” is fairly understated: a worn cottage thickly surrounded by woods. The natural environment and the isolation it provides are important aspects to the training experience (they are often visited by black bears and cranes). The evening of my visit they are serving rabbit and fresh trout caught in the nearby stream.

When I arrive, in the front yard are a man and a woman, both of whom help Master R and Mistress Collette around the house in exchange for sessions in the dungeon. “Harry was superb today,” Master R tells us later. Blunt agrees, “He’s really grown a lot.” Harry is a crooked older man with the flowing white hair of Ian McKellen’s Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, into which a yellow flower is neatly tucked. He is shirtless, and a large bellybutton protrudes from his potbelly.

I first meet his female counterpart, a large woman with extremely dry skin, as her arms are gently massaged and lathered by Mistress Collette with a thick yellow paste. “Oh, I got some on your boob! Sorry!” Mistress Collette laughs. The woman glows under Mistress Collette’s gaze.

Mistress Collette is a self-taught expert in homeopathy. After seeing so many men and women naked, she came face to face with a variety of terrible skin conditions. She took it upon herself to learn how to cure her clients and friends naturally, so that “they feel more beautiful, open.”

Mistress Collette escorts me inside a dark, yet homey, space that serves as both a living and a dining room. It has a warm, intimate feel, and is charmingly scattered with various eclectic pieces. Empty bottles of wine are lined on top of a brick hearth, in front of which sits a wood-burning stove that Master R gets up to stoke every now and then. A large cozy leopard-print armchair, with a white shag carpet hung over its back, sits on top of a beautiful oriental rug, and a red curtain hangs in the doorway to the kitchen. There is certainly something of the New England homespun at La Domaine.

I meet Blunt, a Mistress in Training who is hardly twenty years old. She’s a beautifully fresh-faced girl with a head full of luscious, maroon-colored corkscrew curls. As long as she is in training and until she graduates a Mistress in her own right, she is referred to as “slave” by Master R and Mistress Collette—although her relationship with them is remarkably familial. As her slave nickname suggests, Blunt is a bit reserved at first, but quickly opens up over the course of the afternoon, sitting at the dining room table with me, biting her nails, painted bright turquoise.

I have been invited to stay the night at La Domaine, and Master R is incredibly excited to show me the guest room. In contrast to the dusky warmth of the living room, this bedroom is bright and airy; everything was impeccably fresh and clean.

Hung on a long row of hooks that spans an entire wall were various tools for flogging—including a rubber chicken. On the next wall were two bookshelves filled with a multitude of texts, almost all of which concerned sexuality: from erotica, to the United States Constitution in Braille, to a book of Barbara Nitke’s photography, entitled KISS OF FIRE: A Romantic View of Sadomasochism (on the cover of which is a photograph of Master R and Madame, the former Head Mistress of La Domaine).

Next to the bed stood a tall dresser.

“Those are the Snoop Drawers,” Master R tells me. “For guests who like to snoop.”

Inside is every imaginable dildo and vibrator, and scores of other such sex toys.

The bathroom is equally as luxurious as the bedroom. Four erotic cartoons hang above the rather large bathtub.

Then, after much anticipation:

“Should we show her the dungeon?”

Mistress Collette lets out a soft laugh that Master R accurately describes as “chilling.” Both her voice and touch strike the perfect balance between remarkably gentle and terrifyingly sharp. Leaving Slavid draped over the sawhorse, she glides gracefully over to her wall of weapons where she contemplates her next flogging tool. She chooses two whips and returns to Slavid. She circles her arms rhythmically in front of her body, twirling the whips as a bandleader would batons, striking Slavid’s rear on each upswing.

She steps back to look at the damage done to Slavid—perhaps as Pollock might have inspected a canvas after going at it with splattering paint. Cocking her head to the side, pacing, she seems to be contemplating what type of hit she would like to try next, which cheek needs more work, which instrument hasn’t been used in a while. As she decides, she lays her left hand gently on Slavid’s back and slaps each butt cheek alternately with her right bare hand. She then leans over to whisper in Slavid’s ear. Although the specifics of the conversation cannot be heard, the two seem to be sharing a loving exchange of words. Slavid turns his head and smiles; Mistress Collette chuckles softly. She straightens, steps back, and continues her flogging.

Meanwhile, Master R is staring at Mistress Collette with a mixture of pride and awe: “You’re looking at one of the top five dommes that I have ever seen.” And Master R, over the course of his lifetime in the business, has seen, firsthand, the world’s best dominants.

Master R’s long brown hair, turning grey and balding a bit on top, is pulled back into a low ponytail. He wears skintight black lamé leggings and a black long-sleeved shirt with the La Domaine logo printed on it. On the bridge of his nose rests a pair of large-framed, metal-rimmed prescription glasses.

It doesn’t take long to recognize Master R’s intellect; lines of wisdom and experience are etched into his face. He is a paternal figure at La Domaine, presiding over all that transpires, encouraging dominants and submissives alike to reach their full potential. His knowledge of the world spans all fields—from the fine arts to history, from politics to pop culture. It seemed that his wealth of knowledge was never-ending.

Master R and Mistress Collette have an “open, but very anchored-to-each-other, relationship.” Mistress Collette is a beautiful woman, who looks much younger than the forty-three years that she has behind her. Her thin, skeletal frame only emphasizes her striking features and angular face. On the day of my visit, she wears a red faux-snakeskin leather halter-top, cropped above her belly button, and a matching red pencil skirt, which ends right below the knee. She wears lavender eyeshadow and her brown hair is pinned up in a plastic alligator clip. She ices her right wrist, which is incredibly sore from too much one-handed spanking the day before.

From as far back as she can remember, Mistress Collette considered herself a woman worthy of worship. “[My childhood fantasies] definitely involved Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, and the woman tied up on the railroad with the big blade spinning towards her crotch,” she tells me. “It takes you a long, long, long time for the penny to drop, but, I mean, these were images that really influenced me, inspired me, polarized me, made me think, made me cream.” As a child, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she couldn’t give a straight answer—she knew it would be something of which she could not yet conceive.

At thirteen years old, she was introduced to the possibility of becoming a dominatrix. Ava Taurel, a highly esteemed New York pro-domme, was on The Phil Donahue Show. “Growing up in the very conservative, white, middle-class, factory worker, no-books-in-the-house, no-musical-instruments, very stifling atmosphere and the impressions of the women I had around me… and then I saw this woman, and she was intelligent, articulate, beautiful, interesting, and she had this career and she went home to a husband. And I was like, Wow, how do I get there? How do I get to grow up to be a woman like that?”

Mistress Collette doesn’t consider herself a feminist. “Because I don’t like ‘isms,’” she explains.

“Except for ‘jism,’” Blunt reminds her.

Much of La Domaine’s ideology is based on the destruction of gender dichotomies. There is an immense amount of respect exchanged between dominant and submissive. “We don’t think subs are less than doms,” Master R tells me. “There’s an unstated equalization process there. I wouldn’t want to dominate someone who’s not my equal. And everyone’s equally entitled to use sex as sex, and use sex as metaphor. And metaphor has a huge amount to do with democratizing the world.” In fact, as Blunt adds, slaves “can dom most Mistresses and Masters from a submissive side. If you’re good enough.”

Master R says that some new clients will ask, “Are you bisexual? Pansexual?” “To us,” he tells me, “we do so many things that are beyond gender that those barriers break down. Gender fluid and role fluid. Some people come in saying ‘I’d never allow myself to be touched by a man’ and then they change. We say ‘It’s not the shape of the genitalia but the quality of the domination and submission.’”

As Mistress Collette tells me, “I don’t believe in female superiority. Everyone has a huge potential and I want everyone to attain their huge potential.” Mistress Collette wanted to level out the playing field.

She tells me that much of what appeals to her, though, about being a pro-domme is finding herself, finally, on an equal level of power as the men she dominates: “Way before we had male patriarchy, we had female dominance.”

“The Neolithic emergence to the Bronze Age—that’s what you’re talking about,” Master R adds encouragingly.

Mistress Collette’s husband took on a pro bono case (Barbara Nitke and NCSF v. Alberto Gonzales) against the Communications Decency Act of 1996, meant to regulate all things pornographic on the Internet. Barbara Nitke, as a world-famous photographer, was cherry-picked for the case. She argued that she couldn’t upload her most extreme S&M photos for fear of prosecution. Mistress Collette’s husband eventually lost the case in 2006, but the question had already been posed: Can BDSM be considered “art” or to have “artistic merit”? How does one make such a decision?

During the court proceedings, Mistress Collette’s husband needed to raise sufficient funds (the transcript cost alone was over $20,000). Stir-crazy at home in Long Island, Mistress Collette decided to throw what turned out to be a successful fundraiser called “Indecent.” It was a silent auction in which any work that an artist was afraid to publish was auctioned off, including pieces concerning couples of mixed race, different ages, and even bestiality.

Here, Master R first met Mistress Collette. He remembers that she wore a stunning red dress and was surrounded by men. He could tell she was a natural dominant.

He invited her and her husband to a gathering at La Domaine, where Mistress Collette “just did some cock and ball bondage.” The next day Master R told her that she had outshone all of the other dommes the night before (and given the quality of dominants at La Domaine, this was no easy feat): “I had seen it and was transfixed.” Although her bondage technique had been impressive, more memorable was the way in which she communicated so instinctively with her slaves. Mistress Collette was awestruck when Master R told her that she should do professional domination.

She struggled often with her husband’s double standard as to sacrifices made for their relationship. Her husband was an experienced submissive who agreed to be Mistress Collette’s slave for a number of years. They fell in love. But navigating a relationship can be difficult for a sex worker.

As a lawyer, trying to make partner at a firm, he kept his BDSM life fairly quiet. Before she knew it, Mistress Collette was a Long Island housewife. It was difficult to make it into the city; she felt alone. “I just started to shut down, get really like, Well, is this it? Is this all there is?” Mistress Collette tells me. “I started to feel really dead.”

For example, Mistress Collette has always wanted to have two men: “There’s always the motif of the man with two women, but way, way, way, way, way before that started going down, it was women who had multiple male partners.” She found herself co-topping with women occasionally, though, instead. Although she would allow him to continue bottoming for other dommes, he could not accept her topping for other slaves.

“She was amazingly generous towards him and she was envisioning having a three-way open relationship with [an ex-domme of his],” Master R says.

“I was honest about what I did, but of course he wasn’t happy with it,” Mistress Collette tells me. “At some point I said, I got to snap out of this.” She and her husband got a divorce.

“My home life was very oppressive and very abusive,” she confesses to me. She remembers promising herself that she would never let anybody hit her. “I just felt very, very clearly from the earliest age on that I was to be worshiped … I grappled with feeling like a victim, but at the same time I was very, very certain that I was a dominant person.”

Blunt tells me that most of the other dominants she has known have been other types of artists before coming into this business. Mistress Collette is no exception.

She received a scholarship to one of the best art schools in the Midwest, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Although she focused mainly on painting, she wound up attending the Fashion Institute of Technology where she got an Associate Degree in Jewelry Design. Mistress Collette shows me a painting and a pair of diamond earrings both of which she made herself. She doesn’t have as much time as she would like to continue painting or jewelry design. She has chosen a new avenue of expression: BDSM. She tells me, “I think one of the things an artist does is practice the art of transformation. So, it’s all about completely inducing a whole other mood, state of consciousness, another level of awareness. Art opens up new doors.”

Any form of art must imply a certain amount of compassion. Without it, the piece will lack all impact. It is exactly this compassion that makes Mistress Collette’s work so compelling. While she was flogging Slavid—even when I spoke with her over the phone for the first time—she demonstrated a gentleness that was astonishing considering the activity.

“I resonate with other people and their sexuality,” Mistress Collette explains. “I don’t see any boundaries. Everyone’s sexuality is completely unique and different, and I want to be able to relate to them on some kind of a sexual level.”

“Resonance is a big word,” Master R cuts in.

Slavid, who works with Mistress Collette frequently, can attest to her sensitivity and warmth: “Collette is so good. She really gives people that reassurance and compassion, and puts people at ease initially. And when people come here for the first time, they’re nervous and feel like something is wrong with them.”

Mistress Collette recognizes the origin of the public’s misconception of dominants: “There are a lot of nasty bitch pro-dommes. They think dominance means force.”

Master R breaks in, “And they think that arrogance is mastery.”

Blunt recalls a man who went to one of these pro-dommes. He was whipped 300 times, and then just sent right home. “That’s abuse!” she insists.

“We are constantly healing people who have seen bad dommes. They are people with no training and no psychological empathy whatsoever,” Master R said. These abused men and women have been struggling with their repressed sexual preferences for almost their entire lives. When they finally work up the courage to see a professional dominant, they are psychologically, emotionally, and, of course, physically, destroyed by those who are untrained. It is the difference between “treat[ing someone’s] sexuality” and regarding that someone as a “moneymaker.”

I ask Master R how many pro-dommes of all those on Max Fisch, arguably the most widely used online domina guide, are well-trained. He guesses about only five percent.

After every session, Mistress Collette hugs and caresses her slaves—something that I see her do with both Blunt and Slavid. “I find that many people have not been touched in a very long time,” she says sadly.

There is a consensus among this group at La Domaine that BDSM goes far beyond a sexual fetish. It involves an immense amount of psychological awareness and emotional delicacy—truly only attainable by professionals. In fact, a minister who spent his entire career training others to be successful counselors once told Mistress Collette that she was one of two people he had met in his life who had such genuine care and concern.

“Don’t be misled,” Slavid promises me. “Collette can be wonderfully sadistic.”

The healing power of such work is apparent. And such, many could argue, is the importance of art in our everyday lives: its ability to repair our senses. Mistress Collette’s compassion allows her clients to open themselves up to this restoration.

Untrained pro-dommes lack this sensitivity and skill. “There are a lot of dommes out there who won’t even see veterans because they’re so scared of them breaking down,” Master R tells me.

Harking back to the temple priestesses of before, Mistress Collette tells me about a firefighter who was horribly disfigured in 9/11, who she saw at a strip club in Albany: “It was easy to see he was shunned by probably his wife and no one wanted to touch him. And those women—and it wasn’t just for money—they never left him alone. Religion doesn’t pick up the slack with these people. Their families can’t handle them. They feel like they’re going out of their mind. Who can serve them? Who has the courage?”

Mistress Collette views herself as a therapist: “People say things to me that they don’t say to anyone else on the planet. I’m privy to complex psychological insight that people rarely have.”

“On the one-on-one relationship, its our sexuality, so its our form of love. In the larger extended family which happens here, we all want to make each other proud and devoted to each other,” says Master R.

Without taking into consideration this foundation of affection, it’s too easy to misconstrue the ultimate intention and capacity of BDSM. Its artistic potential would be entirely lost.

Much of what separates a well-trained dominant from one who is untrained is the former’s capacity as a therapist of sorts. The relationship between dominant and submissive should be one of release. Mistress Collette explains, “The intent is that you’re going to open yourself up and trust someone, and they’ll cherish that and revel in your openness, and you’re going to allow yourself to be taken. It’s not this denigration that happens, but you get a glimpse of all that you are and what you could be.”

“People gain so much self-confidence, and you might not expect that.” Slavid is speaking from experience.

As a slave and as a dominant, it’s possible to understand further what you are and are not capable of; what you do and do not want to tolerate. You understand, more thoroughly, the intricacies of your emotional state of being, and the delicate relationship between mind and body.

“I love when you tell slaves, ‘you don’t let anyone else abuse you except for us!’” Blunt tells Mistress Collette.

“That’s one of the huge values of being a slave,” Mistress Collette explains to me. “You understand where you can have control in being victimized in the outer world.”

There’s a self-preservation involved in BDSM. Much of it is about getting to know oneself in order to better protect oneself. As Mistress Collette puts it, “If you don’t control your sexuality, someone else will—gladly.”

Master R talks to me about his theory on the origins of BDSM: “We all come from thousands of years of being pharaohs and slaves, all over the world. … This is the basic nature of how we’ve been made up. We’re aggressive and submissive. It’s deeply imprinted on our genes and cultural patterns. … There’s a deep psychological ten thousand years at play here.”

Blunt emerges from her usual reticence to offer a more believable rationale behind this supposed need for abuse: “Like religion, you need someone to lead. … There are some people who are leaders and some who are followers. We forget we’re part of something larger than our intellectual view of ourselves as humans. It’s an intellectual conceit, based on the fact that we dissociate ourselves from the senses that we share with the animals.”

Blunt is addressing another crucial way in which the practice of BDSM demonstrates the need for an artistic sensibility: the sharpening of the senses and a heightening of awareness.

Shklovsky, one of the leading advocates of Russian Formalism, writes in his Art as Technique that “art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. … [T]he process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important.”

In Shklovsky’s sense of the word, then, BDSM can certainly be considered a form of art in its own right. Master R describes not only the human body as a form of art, but also the process of communication between dominant and slave. Both he and Mistress Collette discuss repeatedly the importance of a heightened awareness between dominant and slave.

Master R discusses this further with me: “We stress here that we’re all beasts. We’ve been isolated from our senses. But if you don’t use all your senses fully, then your intellect has nothing to ground it. We tell people all the time here to sniff. When in a session, you should be able to tell me what that slave is feeling by the sniff. We should be able to tell, but we can’t, because we’re cut off from it. In New York, the dommes blare music, but here we want to hear the softest breath. The intellect should feed on the senses, but society now has it the other way. Art succeeds, BDSM succeeds, when your senses take a primary importance to our intellect.”

“People walk around in this world blind to their senses,” Blunt agrees.

Master R continues, “We see people locked so much in their bodies that when you touch their skin, they don’t even feel your touch.”

Mistress Collette’s explanation sounds incredibly familiar to Shklovsky’s: “Artists are trained in ultra-perception and they translate that in ways that can be digested by others to help bring them to that place of greater perception. …When someone, a lawyer, the Rolex, the three-piece suit, and in front of me, they’re naked, and I see them as a being. There’s something greater than their job. There’s so much more.”

All forms of art maximize perception, but the public’s attitude changes once the canvas involves the human body. Even method acting is criticized for this very reason. The same could be said for BDSM. As Mistress Collette puts it, other forms of art have “limited palate[s].”

Mistress Collette explains that a well-trained dominant should be able to use all of her senses to judge the emotional and psychological state of her slave. As a result of this standard for La Domaine’s Mistresses and Masters, they do not use “safe words.” A dominant should know when to stop. No dominant ever wants to take a slave farther than he or she wishes to go. It’s the worst feeling in the world, Mistress Collette tells me—a fact I readily believe.

She describes the process in which she first gets to know a slave: “The first thing I’ll do is put someone in slave posture. I’ll teach them posture and how they should address me. I go through that, and I note how they respond, their slave energy. Does it get them aroused? Are they very connected? The tone of their voice, is it distance or dripping with lust? These are all the mental notes that I make.”

Other comparisons can be made between certain aspects of BDSM and other artistic mediums. Master R referred to “the physical grace that resembles ballet”—which Mistress Collette certainly demonstrated in the elaborate spinning of her arms while flogging Slavid. Certainly the instruments used in BDSM are as varied as those used in any other form of art.

A strong association can be between the role-playing involved in BDSM and the theater. “We play with archetypes,” Mistress Collette tells me. “I’m calling up every archetype resonating between me and the other person. Because that’s what’s coming up in them. … I understand that I stand in as a primal archetype in their DNA.” As Blunt puts it, “It’s theater without acting.” A performance takes place in the dungeon, but all of the gestures are bred in the bone.

For Mistress Collette, the medium of the human body and the context of the dungeon are more truthful: “In paintings, I feel it’s very furtively danced around. People look at a Poussin orgy and no one recognizes it for what it is. No, let’s name it! Let me take your cock and transform it into the “canon”!

Even music is created in the dungeon. “I love the sound of the implements, the sound of the smack on the ass,” Mistress Collette passionately confesses.

Master R tells me about the other day when a composer friend came over to La Domaine. Mistress Collette had just bought some new handmade bamboo canes, which Master R took out for me to take a look at myself. They were certainly beautiful specimens that, because of how they were cured, flexed easily, whistling as they swung through the air. As the composer tested the canes, Master R, in the corner with his guitar, noticed that one cane whistled a D note. They tried the others and found that they were F-sharp and A: all three notes came together to make a perfect D major chord. Master R was amazed: “The canes were perfectly in tune, as if some cosmic tuning fork!”

There is incredible skill in different types of bondage, as well. Mistress Collette uses Sakura bondage. Master R learned this technique from a Japanese man who in turn was taught by Seiu Ito, the last great master of Japanese bondage. Master R loosely quotes Seiu Ito to me: “I practice my art for sixty years and they still call me pervert.”

Mistress Collette explains that the word sakura means “cherry blossom”: when the bondage falls, it should roll off a slave’s body “in a beautiful gliding sheathe, like a cherry blossom falling off of a tree.” This is only one of many types of bondage.

What horrifies most people about the concept of BDSM is, of course, the pain involved. But as Mistress Collette aptly points out, there are many different tribes that utilize pain to reach transcendence and a heightened spiritual level. For example, in some cultures putting hooks in one’s flesh or tattooing is perceived as beautiful. Even in our very own Western culture, monks and nuns would perform self-flagellation as a form of self-punishment and to achieve similar divine transcendence.

It is this same transcendence that many of us look for in art.

Slavid tries to articulate his pleasure in pain, speaking of a “real connection between two people in an S&M relationship. You actually feel that energy and connection with the other person. … It can be a very special experience.”

Mistress Collette adds, “There are times when you actually feel that your two bodies are melded together. As a dominant, there are many precious times when I feel what I’m doing to someone in myself.”

As I watched Mistress Collette whip Slavid in the dungeon, even I recognized the love and humanity shared between the two—it was a bond palpable even for an unversed onlooker.

The door that opened to the steps leading down to the basement dungeon was right off of the living room. Throughout our conversation, Master R and Blunt would excuse themselves to the dungeon to take care of something or other, and would occasionally leave the door seductively open a crack, so that all that escaped was an emanating warm, red glow from below.

I thought they would never ask, when Slavid finally suggested I take a look downstairs myself.

Master R let me lead the way. As soon as I took a step down, I felt the warm air from below, carrying the soothing scent of cedar, hit my face. I climbed further into the depths, anxious to see the extent of this hidden playground. But before I could enter the space, Master R asked me to lean against the cross that stood at the bottom of the stairs with my arms out to my side. I looked up the stairs I had just come down and noticed that on the inside of the door was an erotic photograph. Like a slave might have, I felt exposed, but ready for what lay ahead.

I walked into a large golden space of seemingly infinite possibilities. Layer upon layer of games and instruments, beds and mirrors. There was The Evil Gym: a Bowflex-type exercise machine. Floor-to-ceiling shelves spanned an entire wall filled with various sex toys: every variety of whip or size of mace; there were spiked gloves and a medieval knight helmet. I wondered where such quality tools were bought, or how Master R and Mistress Collette decided what to use on whom with such a wealth of options.

Mistress Collette pointed me to William Sin-oma, an entire shelf devoted to kitchen utensils used as instruments for punishment. Various erotic paintings and artwork were scattered across the room, and black garbage bags lined the walls of the basement to cover the brick behind. A drag post was set up for the humiliation of male slaves, complete with wigs, eyelashes, and pounds of makeup. In one corner stood a cushioned table on which hot wax is poured on slaves.

I was in awe. And I hadn’t seen the half of it.

Master R pointed me to a doorway that led to yet another room. This room was more intimate than the last, with a heater placed right in the center. It was clear that this room witnessed the more severe practices of BDSM.

To my right, Master R introduced to me to Vlad the Impaler, a stool in the center of which a hole was cut out and in it placed a mechanized dildo that moved up and down. In front of that stood the sawhorse over which I would later see both Slavid and Blunt whipped by Mistress Collette. On the other side of the room was a Saint Andrew’s Cross (also known as a saltire cross) on the frame of which a slave is tied. This cross was supported in its middle, so that the slave could be upended. As the cross seesawed from side to side, the chains holding the structure together would crank menacingly.

“That’s my favorite sound in the dungeon,” Master R confides in me.

Mistress Collette proudly shows me her collection of whips, all dangling in a line from the ceiling. Hidden behind them is another, darker alcove where a bondage bed is surrounded by dozens of candles and above which a mirror is suspended. Towards the center of the room sits a large plush couch. Above sways a black wooden box into whose bottom a neck hole has been carved, so that a slave’s head may be encased in the box. Later on, while Mistress Collette was flogging Slavid, pranksters Blunt and Master R hid his clothes in this box.

Master R tells Mistress Collette to show me her favorite part of the dungeon: the doctor’s office. Behind some curtains is a fully equipped dentist’s chair, with all sorts of medical supplies (they have a generous doctor friend, they tell me). Mistress Collette enjoys performing piercings on her clients, dressed as a nurse.

It is a fantastically thorough set up.

I ask Master R and Mistress Collette if they harbor any hope that the public will one day recognize BDSM as a form of art.

Master R insists that “it is recognized—by the advertising industry.” It true that the theme of dominance and submission is often utilized for commercial purposes, “throw[ing] something intellectual at you without emotive understanding.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” Mistress Collette says. “But that’s not my purpose. I touch the people that come here. The great people that I have met, who are in the high echelon of this world, are the most multifaceted, intellectual people.”

Master R admits more disappointment, though, than Mistress Collette: “We take our training seriously, but we often feel we’re not making a dent.”

It’s a fact of life, though, that Master R has come to terms with: “The depths of devotion that are possible and the depths of respect that we can grow with each other—that’s what keeps me here… That’s what this is all about.”

Adriel Saporta is a senior in Yale College and the Editor-in-Chief of Broad Recognition.

October 26, 2010

The Party of the Left, the leftist party of the Yale Political Union that most values formality and solemnity on the floor, came together, elegantly attired, to debate the above resolution for over three hours ...]]>

Photo: Yale Political Union. Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library.

By ADRIEL SAPORTA

October 26, 2010

The Party of the Left, the leftist party of the Yale Political Union that most values formality and solemnity on the floor, came together, elegantly attired, to debate the above resolution for over three hours in the Calhoun common room on the evening of Oct. 21. Chair Dominick Lawton ‘12 presides over the room, gavel in hand, the large “Party of the Left” banner hanging in front of the fireplace behind him.

Men are clearly in the majority tonight, but amid the sea of khakis, Toastmaster Cecily Carlisle ’13 takes the floor. She raises a red Solo cup, filled with some soft beverage, “to language,” not only the cause of misogynist chants, but also the means by which we can rid our campus of them. She holds forth on the power of language and its potential harm. “Expression is not self-contained,” she reminds her audience.

The Toastmaster concludes by calling for administrative action: “So, do I think the University has a responsibility here? Absolutely. Non-action is not pure, innocent neutrality.” The room explodes with knocking, as the members of the PoL, in a sign of approval, bang on whatever surface is within reach. Ms. Carlisle’s speech gains momentum and vigor: “Non-action is an active decision to accept and … justify and legitimate conditions as they are within [public] spheres … Of course I think the University has a serious obligation here to regulate speech and environments that put women at risk.” With this, and to ear-splitting thumping, she proudly, and calmly, waits for questions.

Ms. Carlisle is asked to address the difference between misogynist chants and, say, hateful comments made in class. She replies that “no one can engage with” chants such as DKE’s, which “forcefully [assert] a perspective in a way that’s completely inaccessible to other people in the community … When you assert or posit something in a conversation, … it becomes a question.”

Mr. Logan Mohs ‘11, Vice President of the YPU, and whom everyone refers to as such, is next to take the floor. As the first to speak on behalf of the Neg, he begins by reminding his audience that one need not approve of misogynist chants to be against the University’s banning them. “To me, the purpose of the University … is to provide an education … I think the University should be imposing rules and regulations when it’s in the University’s interest in furthering education,” he says.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Mr. Mohs’ speech is met with considerable hissing, which slowly weighs on his confidence. Like Dean Mary Miller, he sets store by the discourse on campus brought about by the chants; the resulting backlash will change students’ views.

“[T]he University could ban misogynist chants and then they wouldn’t occur.” (Hissing.) “They would occur much less frequently,” he concedes, a little uneasy. “You will not hear that particular chant…for the rest of this year, or most of next year.” (More hissing.) “It will be much less than it was before.” (Frenzied hissing.) “Even if it’s not, it’s going to be in the back of people’s minds, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t do this.’” (Even crazier hissing.)

After continuing to defend himself, he pauses. “Wow. This is a really conservative gradual-change argument,” he admits with a smile. His audience knocks in agreement.

When the Vice President stops for questions, one woman asks, “How do women receive an education in an environment where…,” the rest of which I’m unable to hear over the racket, enthusiastic pounding spurring her on.

But as Chief of Staff Benjamin Crosby ‘13 asks later in the evening, “I get that [campus discourse on misogynist chants] is a good thing, but is it really such a good thing that it is worth allowing half of [Yale’s students] having their wellbeing severely damaged?”

“The ban will do nothing to change the culture on campus,” the Vice President desperately insists over continuous hissing. “I agree there needs to be change. I just don’t think the University ban is the way to go about that … I don’t see a lot that the University can do.”

General Secretary Stephen Marsh ‘13 rises to address the room for one minute. He immediately tackles Mr. Mohs’ argument: “I’ve talked to … people outside of the leftist circles at Yale … nobody really sees this as much of a problem. They see this as sort of the way Alex Klein [‘12] saw it … that the Women’s Center overreacted … And this is the problem with the Vice President’s argument … While the backlash is very loud, it’s not something that’s very widespread.”

Mr. Marsh believes that the Vice President establishes a false dichotomy between campus-wide discourse and the University ban: “Cold policy and action is part of the discourse … University bans are a particularly powerful part of discourse … They’re, in fact, a giant sledgehammer.”

Mr. Mohs challenges him on the University’s commitment to its students’ freedom of speech.

“The government is a very different institution than the University,” the General Secretary replies, “in that the government can’t so much protect people from discourse because that leads to problems of totalitarianism … But the University is not as powerful as government, and serves the goal of providing an education … and part of that education is shaping how we interact with other people.”

Later in the evening, the National Socialist Party of America’s march on Skokie, Illinois, home to a considerable number of Holocaust victims, was put forward for comparison. In the Supreme Court case, National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, it was decided that the neo-Nazi party’s rally was, indeed, constitutional, if detestable, and protected by the First Amendment. Mr. Mason Marshall ‘11 highlights the “important distinction to be made” between what a university and a body politic can regulate.

But, as YPU Speaker and former PoL Chair Adam Stempel ‘11, who takes the floor next, asks, referring to DKE’s misogynist chants, “How far do we want to go to prevent this kind of stuff?”

Former PoL Chair James Cersonsky ‘11 asks permission to address the room. The gentleman is recognized. He says the administration should “feminize and postmodernize the [Directed Studies] program” and “decentralize the core curriculum,” so that it would be available to more students. This would force the University and its students to refashion “the way [they] think about philosophy and think about politics.”

Ms. Jessica Belding ’13 reminds the room of the grave consequences of misogynist chants. “I’m not just offended by this,” she says. She felt threatened.

When one listener asks how to tell the difference between someone who is threatened and someone who is simply oversensitive, Ms. Belding answers that an individual should be allowed to draw that line for him or herself. The room responds with equal knocking and hissing.

For what purpose does Danila Kabotyanski ’11 rise? To reinvigorate the Neg.

“I’m appalled to see the left even debating this,” he announces, followed by an uproar of hissing. “A leftist has to value free speech. I think freedom of speech is absolutely crucial to attaining freedom of equality.” He continues, “Free speech is the best tool we have for marginalized groups and oppressed minorities … to oppose hegemonic power structures, of which Yale is one … In an academic context, this is … all the more important … Freedom of speech becomes more than just freedom of speech. It becomes academic freedom.”

By the time Mr. Kabotyanski is done speaking, a sea of hands are impatiently stretched toward the ceiling; many listeners are anxious for a chance to rebut the speaker.

“No questions for Mr. Kabotyanski?” the Chair jokes.

“The epidemic of LGBT teen suicide in this country is caused by the free speech of their bullies,” Ms. Belding says brusquely.

In answering questions, though, Mr. Kabotyanski does make some observations that resound with many of his audience members: “If we give the University the power to ban [misogynist chants], … it changes our perception of what institutions like Yale are allowed [to do] and allowed not to do.”

Chief of Staff Crosby, a thoughtful and enthusiastic man, takes the floor. He paces emphatically while he speaks, his hands dug into his pockets. “As a university … we should make sure that … those voices that get stifled … are heard … And does that mean restricting the speech of others? You bet it does!” The room explodes with knocking and approving applause.

“You bet it does!” he repeats. “In the interest of making these marginalized voices heard, that is a sacrifice that I am more than happy to make. And that is why we should be perfectly willing to ban the misogynist chants. And with that, I yield to questions.”

Thank you, Mr. Chief of Staff.

Adriel Saporta is a senior in Yale College and the Editor-in-Chief of Broad Recognition.

October 21, 2010

Let’s talk about administrative action.

When New Haven Police raided Elevate in the early morning hours of Oct. 2, Dean Mary Miller officially responded by 6pm that same day, assuring Yale students that the ...]]> By ADRIEL SAPORTA

October 21, 2010

Let’s talk about administrative action.

When New Haven Police raided Elevate in the early morning hours of Oct. 2, Dean Mary Miller officially responded by 6pm that same day, assuring Yale students that the administration was taking the police brutality seriously. She promised that the administration was requesting a formal investigation into the incident, and instructed students in how to file formal complaints about it.

Why, then, has it taken her seven days, over 2,000 online signatures, and coverage by The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, USA Today, Jezebel, Feministing, Slate’s Double X, Salon, and CNN to react similarly to the DKE action of Oct. 13?

Why didn’t Dean Miller send out a similar email to the Yale student body, perhaps instructing witnesses to the DKE action to file official complaints with the Executive Committee, Yale’s disciplinary body of last resort? When Broad Recognition requested an interview with Dean Miller on Tuesday, Tom Conroy of the Office of Public Affairs and Communications said in an email, “Dean Mary Miller is not doing media interviews at this time.”

Before yesterday afternoon, Yale students had heard from Dean Mary Miller once in the seven days since DKE pledges marched through campus shouting, “No means yes! Yes means anal!” and “I fuck dead women and fill them with my semen.” Her one official statement came on Friday, in room LC 102, at the “Forum on Yale’s Sexual Climate.” She delivered a ten-minute speech (which Broad Recognition has recorded and posted below) that was utterly disappointing and conciliatory.

After hastily referring to “the demeaning behavior we’ve witnessed on this campus” as “disturbing and appalling,” Dean Miller instantly diverted our attention to what she apparently sees as the silver lining of the DKE incident: that it has reminded us “that Yale is an extreme free-speech university.”

The complete irrelevance of this point (not even DKE has been so disingenuous as to hide behind the First Amendment) was matched only by its staleness. Miller was quoting the 1975 Woodward Report, which guarantees students’ right to freedom of expression on campus. She then opposed this with a quotation from an official Yale statement on sexual harassment—a false opposition that much legal scholarship has addressed (In the words of the fifth most cited critical legal scholar of all time, discriminatory acts are not protected by the First Amendment. Or, take a look at Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth.), but which the University nevertheless invokes whenever it wants to wash its hands of hate speech targeting its students.

After this pathetic feint, Miller went into a little performance to prove that she was still a foe of sexual aggression. “Sexual harassment is antithetical to academic values and to a work environment free from the fact or appearance of coercion,” she read from the official statement on sexual harassment, at which point she looked up at her audience, raised a finger, and repeated, “appearance of coercion,” as if to imply that DKE’s chants would indeed qualify as sexual harassment. “It’s a violation of University policy,” she said, “and may result in serious disciplinary action.”

But instead of expanding on that point, or saying right out that she deems DKE’s action to be sexual harassment under University regulations, she instead directed the audience’s attention to the Report issued to Dean Peter Salovey in May 2008 by the Committee on Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention Education (SHAPE) in Yale College. The Committee was one of three formed at the behest of the Yale Women’s Center following the Zeta Psi incident of almost three years ago.

Miller seemed to be using the SHAPE report to assure us that work is being done by the administration—completely failing to mention that the report exists thanks to the insistent pressure of the Women’s Center Board right after the Zeta Psi incident. At the time, the WC sent a list of demands of the administration. The administration then sat on the report for an entire year.

Quoting from the report, Miller reminded her audience that Yale observes a policy of “no tolerance for sexual harassment or sexual assault.” But she markedly failed to comment on how the University has ever observed this “no tolerance” approach, or how it plans to observe it now. She probably failed to comment on this because she had no evidence to bring: as the pattern of misogynistic actions on this campus over the past three years alone has shown, the sort of behavior demonstrated by DKE last Wednesday has repeatedly been tolerated by the administration.

And instead of commenting on how the administration plans to deter such behavior in the future, Dean Miller wound up by calling (surprise, surprise) for further “dialogue”—the same dialogue she called for last year, with “the Preseason Scouting Report,” and which this DKE incident has shown to be a pitifully inadequate lesson. Toward the end of her speech, Dean Miller said, “If we don’t seize this moment to learn from one another, then a critical opportunity stands to pass.” She was trying to make us look to the future, but all I could see was a depressing replay.

Adriel Saporta is a senior in Yale College and the Editor-in-Chief of Broad Recognition.

December 2009

In a conversation with a normally nonjudgmental and mothering friend, I alluded to the date rape of someone we both knew; my friend rolled her eyes and asked, “What does that even mean?” Her reaction is not ...]]>

Photo: Streeter Phillips

By ADRIEL SAPORTA

December 2009

In a conversation with a normally nonjudgmental and mothering friend, I alluded to the date rape of someone we both knew; my friend rolled her eyes and asked, “What does that even mean?” Her reaction is not unique for this campus. Many Yale students approach the topic of date rape with a disconcerting blend of hesitancy and cynicism. Neither Yale, nor its students, can be blamed in full for this ambivalence—few issues on American college campuses are as contentious, or as pertinent, as that of date rape.

This summer at Columbia University, I conducted a sociological study to explore how Yale undergraduates understand date rape, and consequently to discern their feelings towards its legitimacy as a felony. I wanted to examine students’ reactions to the term “date rape” and to see whether or not their perceptions of date rape conformed to current legal definitions.

Connecticut law states that “[a] person is guilty of sexual assault in the first degree when such person,” among other possible offenses, “engages in sexual intercourse with another person and such other person is mentally incapacitated to the extent that such other person is unable to consent to such sexual intercourse” (General Statutes of Connecticut, Title 53a, Chapter 952)[1]. The law specifies that “‘mentally incapacitated’ means that a person is rendered temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling such person’s conduct owing to the influence of a drug or intoxicating substance administered to such person without such person’s consent, or owing to any other act committed upon such person without such person’s consent.”[2]

…an intoxicated victim of sexual assault is considered more responsible for putting him or herself in such a state and situation, whereas an intoxicated aggressor is considered less culpable…

Acquaintance rape is the most common type of rape committed in the United States.[3] About a quarter of American women will be the victim of rape at some point in their lives; female college students are in “the highest risk category for date rape.”[4] American college campuses, which witness a high level of binge drinking, face the unsettling statistic that alcohol consumption is twice as likely as force to lead to lack of consent in a sexual encounter.[5]

Much of the controversy about date rape centers on its definition. How do we define “consent”? As we see above, according to Connecticut state law a person is not in a position to consent to sexual intercourse if he or she has been served drugs or alcohol “without such person’s consent.” Does this qualification suggest that if a woman drinks to the point of blacking out—after having bought drinks for herself—and someone has sex with her unconscious body, it is not considered date rape? On the other end of the spectrum: if a man or woman cannot legally give consent while even slightly intoxicated, is all drunken sex deemed date rape?

Many feel that the use of verbal as well as physical force should be regarded as rape. As one cynical sociologist points out, there are problems with this provision: “If verbal coercion constitutes rape, then the word ‘rape’ expands to include any kind of sex a woman experiences as negative.”[6] Must consent always be verbal? After all, different parties in a sexual encounter can interpret non-verbal signs differently. For instance, “a smile in response to being asked ‘do you have a condom?’ could indicate consent giving in an established relationship, but might indicate nervous apprehension on a first date.”[7] Can consent only be established after taking consideration of the context?

I hoped, through this sociological study, to find out where Yalies stood on the matter. I administered a web-based survey with the aid of Facebook. Yalies who were already in my network of “friends” were invited to participate: 72 responded, all between the ages of 18 and 23.[8]

In the survey, respondents were presented with the following hypothetical setting:

“Scenario A. Two college students, a boy and a girl, leave a party at which neither has been drinking. The two return to the boy’s apartment in order to “hang out.” After spending some time talking, they begin heavy petting. All clothing is removed except undergarments. The boy shows interest in sexual intercourse. The girl says “no,” and the boy responds by trying to persuade her verbally. Although the girl continues to show interest in the boy sexually, she explicitly says that she is uninterested in having vaginal intercourse. He continues to initiate vaginal intercourse. The girl remains passive and does not react, positively or negatively. Would you consider this date rape?”

69.4% of respondents considered Scenario A date rape, even without either party’s being intoxicated. Only 9.7% responded that it was not date rape, and 20.8% responded “depends” or “unsure.”

Respondents were then asked if they would consider Scenario A date rape if the boy forces the girl physically to have sexual intercourse, at which point she gives up protesting. As soon as physical force is put forward, 93.1% call the scenario date rape. I was surprised to see that even 2 respondents said it wasn’t date rape, and that 3 responded “depends” or “unsure.” Interestingly, the two who replied “no” and two of the three who replied “depends” or “unsure” were women. It is possible that men are careful not to approve of physical force in any sexual scenario, wary of the associations with violent, or stranger, rape. Perhaps women would rather not admit to being physically defensive in such a scenario.

Must consent always be verbal? After all, different parties in a sexual encounter can interpret non-verbal signs differently.

When asked if they would consider Scenario A to be date rape if the girl has had 3-4 drinks at the party, 84.7% of the respondents replied “yes”—more than when she is sober (as the case should be, given the legal definition of date rape). Reassuringly, when asked if they would consider Scenario A to be date rape if the girl drinks to the point of blacking out, 95.8% responded “yes”. Only one respondent (female) replied “no.” Research has shown that while men were more likely to blame women, and specifically their intoxication, for nonconsensual sexual acts, women were more likely to blame mutual miscommunication, men’s misinterpretation of signals, and general societal and male attitudes towards date rape.[9] My survey respondents’ answers did not reflect this statistic.

Respondents were next asked to “consider the same circumstances as those of Scenario A, but both students have had 3-4 drinks at the party (from now on referred to as “Scenario B”). Would you consider this date rape?”

Now that both the boy and the girl in the scenario are equally intoxicated, the number of respondents who replied “yes” drops significantly (77.8%). This percentage is lower than when only the girl has had 3-4 drinks, suggesting that respondents believe that the boy’s drunkenness excuses his behavior. Prior studies have shown that an intoxicated victim of sexual assault is considered more responsible for putting him or herself in such a state and situation, whereas an intoxicated aggressor is considered less culpable, his or her behavior perceived as a result of the alcohol’s effects.[10] It is interesting to note that this tendency to view alcohol as lessening an assailant’s responsibility is not apparent when research respondents considered other sexual crimes (such as stranger rape or unwanted touching).[11]

Respondents were asked to consider a version of Scenario B wherein the girl never suggests that she is uninterested in sexual intercourse, but has had several drinks. The number of respondents who decided that this scenario is date rape drops to 18.1%. This is the only time that the percentage of respondents who believed the scenario to be date rape is less than the percentage of those who believed it not to be (45.8%). However, 36.1% responded “unsure” or “depends”—significantly higher than the percentage of respondents who answered thus in any previous scenario. As one study has demonstrated—although most of us already know this too well—American college students have appropriated “an all too common assumption … that if nothing is said [before sexual intercourse] then consent must be implicit.”[12] Considering this last scenario date rape would be the equivalent, for many respondents, of concluding that all drunken sex is date rape, which goes against their instincts and practical sexual experiences.

Many of my respondents felt that being in a relationship justified what they would otherwise consider date rape. When told that the girl and boy are in a long-term relationship, the number of respondents who believed Scenario B to be date rape dropped to 48.6% (from 77.8% when the two were not in a relationship). While some admitted to confusion (answering “unsure” or “depends”), it is interesting that anyone would change their answer from the previous scenario.

When asked whether they approved of the term “date rape,” a majority answered that they did not (54.2%) and many replied “unsure.” This general ambivalence towards the term forces us to question its continued use. Should a new phrase be coined to reflect a wider distance between stranger rape and acquaintance rape? The connotations attached to “date rape” could possibly prevent victims from reporting sexual assault for fear of peers’ judgmental and trivializing reactions.

25.4% of my respondents said that they had endured a non-consensual sexual experience, a percentage that includes nearly half (48.5%) of my female respondents (a higher percentage of women than literature on the subject would suggest). This statistic is unsurprising; those who have had personal experiences with date rape are more likely to be interested in taking a survey on the topic.

…American college students have appropriated “an all too common assumption … that if nothing is said [before sexual intercourse] then consent must be implicit.”

Uneasiness about the term “date rape” appeared in the personal narratives shared by my respondents. A number mentioned an unwillingness to classify an experience as “date rape.” Many discussed their own responsibility in the situation. One woman wrote, “I would never call it date rape, but I did feel that a boy intentionally got me very drunk, and we ended up having sex … it is not the type of choice I would normally make, and I don’t even remember making a choice. But, I don’t remember saying no either and he definitely did not force himself [on me].” Another woman wrote, “i was really drunk but i dont think it was rape because i didn’t explicitly say no [sic]”. One of the few male respondents who identified himself as the victim of sexual assault specified, “i was blackout and she was aggressive. I don’t remember saying yes, but it happened.”

From the data, it appeared that most Yale students were relatively informed as to the legal definitions of date rape. It is possible that most respondents understood which answers were “expected” of them (Yalies are usually pretty good at coming up with the “right” answer). I did find, however, that students’ understanding of that definition did not translate to their interpretation of the scenarios. When given concrete examples, their personal instincts prevailed over their intellectual grasp of the concept.

Only through a comprehensive understanding of young adults’ mentality towards date rape and sexual consent can we construct adequate preventative measures. Students’ inability to define sexual coercion or consent will only encourage sexual assault on college campuses.[13] Understanding why date rape carries inappropriately high social acceptance reveals deeper forms of structural sexism.

Whether or not one believes acquaintance rape to be more or less “serious” an affair than stranger rape, date rape has nevertheless become a pervasive problem. Rape, as defined by our judicial system, is most often committed by an acquaintance of the victim. The offense is indeed, as one of my respondents defined it, “the least prosecuted crime in America.”

Adriel Saporta is a junior in Yale College. She is the managing editor of Broad Recognition.

[2] http://www.cga.ct.gov/2009/pub/chap952.htm

[3] Johnson et al.

[4] Loiselle et al., 261

[5] Loiselle et al., 261

[6] Sawyer et al. 1998

[7] Humphreys et al., 307

[8] A full description of the study participants illuminates some of the study’s shortcomings. Approximately equal numbers of men and women completed the survey: 39 and 33, respectively. An overwhelming majority of my respondents were heterosexual; there were only six male homosexual and five bisexual (but no lesbian) respondents. A majority lost their virginity between the ages of 18 and 21 (43.1%) and had been with 7 to 10 sexual partners (18.1%). Prior studies have shown that the more sexual experience an individual has had, the less important he or she believes receiving verbal consent to be[8]. Contrary to popular expectations, the majority of female respondents had had 7+ partners (30.3%), while the majority of male respondents could boast only 3 partners. Only 18.1% of respondents were fraternity or sorority members, and 51.4% consumed alcoholic beverages 1-2 days per week. None of the survey questions were required: participants were allowed to skip any and all questions. Needless to say, these figures reveal more than a few limitations in this study. My sample size was relatively small: 72 students cannot possibly speak on behalf of all Yale students. This was a non-randomized sample of convenience: those who took the survey represented those who are on Facebook, relatively comfortable talking about their sexuality, and interested enough (and likely already well-versed) in the subject of date rape. Not only was my sample overly representative of heterosexual respondents, but my survey also did not inquire as to respondents’ understanding of homosexual scenarios of date rape. In addition, it is possible that respondents were concerned that their identity would be discovered, which would have affected their responses.

[9] Gillen et al.

[10] Castello et al.

[11] Wild et al.

[12] Sawyer et al. 1998

[13] (Sawyer et al. 1998)