Kink is Political – Gossip

Gossip, we are told, is something immensely corrosive. It tears groups apart. It presents a special danger to anyone involved in anything stigmatized or illegal. At the same time, gossip is held up as one of the best ways to keep ourselves safe, a recourse and resource for the marginalized to navigate danger and harm they can’t afford to confront head on. Whether or not gossip is a net good or evil, there is one thing that’s clear: it is a common fixture of BDSM and sex-positive communities. In this session, we’ll talk about how gossip circulates differently in different contexts. How can we think about gossip in a more granular way? What are its different circuits, and how do they interact with different populations differently? What are the affordances of calling and calling out? What does it mean to choose to engage in something other than public, formal complaint? How do we use gossip to shape both our who we are and the communities we belong to?
Kink is Political is an online discussion with Addie Tahl, Georg Barkas, Andrea Rimon, and occasional special guests. Participants are invited to join a discussion during which we unite critique with an emphasis on the practical and day-to-day issues and challenges of kink, intimacy, and relationships.
Focusing on concepts central to BDSM, leather, rope, and sex-positive communities, it interrogates widely adopted approaches and commonly held notions. It aims to understand the politics of kink beyond the language of sexual liberation and politics of sexual liberalism, both frames that have proven insufficient in addressing widespread harm, a rising international tide of sex-negativity and reaction, or in guaranteeing that the most marginalized can sexually flourish.
Kink is Political is an examination of the contexts and consequences of how we talk about and understand gender and sexuality. It is a forum to think about how kink spaces and practices operate, what works, what doesn’t, and what we can use to build something better.