I was confronted recently by a not terribly uncommon idea.
There's a film called Secretary which I think is one of the loveliest, sexiest and most comprehensive (though, as most romances are in film, overly romanticized) portrayals of BDSM/Dominant submissive relationships I have seen in 'mainstream' film.
I was perusing shelves for certain items at Passional (which I highly recommend to anyone looking for ANY kind of sexual equipment, toys, educational and enlightening books, workshops, pretties, etc), and the movie came up with a woman who works there. I mentioned that I was glad that a popular film gave allowance for such a dynamic to be 'normal', 'natural' and supportive of true romance, and created such a beautiful and comedic film. She immediately expressed distaste for the fact that they went into the female lead's past. Which I thought strange...most good characters have a past, it helps put you into the personal temperature of a character with whom you are meant to empathize, become intimately attached to.
Her interpretation was that they gave the female lead's history in order to give an 'excuse' for her deviant behavior, and that aside she didnt agree with the female lead's 'reasons' for being a masochistic submissive.
Regardless of whether or not I think it was politically prudent to offer an empathetic look into how this girl grew up, I'm not sure that, if this character was real, I'd have a problem with the life experiences that led her to experiencing emotional and personal catharsis when she put herself into the hands of someone she believed was capable who could lead her to those catharses. Her father was a perpetual fuckup and a nonviolent drunk. The movie never gets into specifics of her family life, I actually found myself confronted by a lot of curiosity about intricate details. But it is clear that her entire context for powerful men in her life is a man who has no handle on himself or his life whatsoever, who cant keep it together, and who always makes her feel alone and uncertain. I dont see what makes the dynamic less genuine to know that this girl finds solace in experiencing a man who can support himself as well as manage her anxieties that are probably rooted in that experience. On top of that, the female lead has a sister who is very white bread and as far as we know doesnt even know such dynamics exist sexually. The insinuation wasnt that anyone who experiences a disorganized family life will turn into a submissive masochist. It seemed to simply be that this girl was given anxieties that manifested in certain ways, and on top of enjoying her unorthodox relationship the relationship helped her deal with those anxieties she was given in her young life.
Leaving that be for now, I thought it was terribly unfair for someone to judge what is a "good" and "bad" reason to feel the way you feel sexually. Nowhere in the movie does it remotely insinuate her sexuality is self destructive...it makes it fairly clear it is the opposite case. But I think it's a typical case of attachment to "divine emotion"...that is to say "I feel this way because I have a soul, and the idea that my emotions are linked to chemicals in my brain devalues those emotions". The idea that this girl's past experience and family life shaped her unorthodox relationship yearnings, to this woman, devalued the fact that she was a 'genuine' and 'healthy' submissive.
Which is a foolish conclusion. All of us, deviant or no, have a method of choosing mates and have dynamics in which we are more comfortable based on our family life, our experiences when we're young, our general relationship experiences, and the conclusions we come to about ourselves and others through those experiences. Everyone. I dont think the movie made the love less than what it was meant to be by chronicling the girl's trials with her father, her stint in a mental ward, her disorganization in her life, and her decision to pull her life together and try to leave those influences behind her through personal growth. Those all seem like things that are fairly common, and are at least partly elements that plenty of people can empathize with and understand.
To be clear, I dont think that things like being gay or straight are things that life just hammers into you. I'm saying that the nuances of a sexuality that is already there are often cultivated through the path of one's life even if it could be summarized by a friend introducing you to the concept of BDSM and you having a natural curiosity. Sometimes the way our past interacts with our sexuality is unhealthy, sure, but the fact that it's there at all doesnt make it so.
Possibly making her family life chaotic would send the wrong message to someone who watched the film and got nothing out of it other than "deviant sexuality is always linked to abuse" (which is absolutely not true). The movie had so much else going for it though...so much else to put the viewer into the position of someone whose passion was expressed through these desires looking out into a world of people who dont understand said desires and has an expectation of "normal experience".
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