Don’t Kink Up My Politics (Part 1)

Before I go any further, let me say, I’m not here to kink shame anybody. Everybody has their kinks. (I know I do.) Some folks’ kink is no kink. And that’s okay, too.

Now that I have established what we should not be ashamed of, let me say, I only wanted to write one piece here on how kink functions in Black gender politics. But when I started writing, so much came out. So now, this might become a much longer series of essays. We’ll see.

I must start somewhere, however, so here goes.

I have been thinking about BDSM roles for a while, how some Black folks have taken the role play of dominance and submission, and have tried to force these roles into the African American political sphere.

Some of this is personal for me, sure enough. For example, as an older, divorced Black woman of almost 59 years old (in July)—you can call me O.G. but never auntie—I still get attention from Black men (and some Black women, too), in-person and online. I’m not attracted to women (to my utter disappointment), but I still am attracted to men, and I am concerned about the gender politics of those Black men who are trying to date me.

Once, during a lively debate, a brother told me, “See, your problem is, you don’t know how to be obedient.”

“Negro, you sound ridiculous,” I replied. “This is not the late nineteenth century.”

“But that’s what the Bible says.”

“The only place I obey is in the bedroom,” I told him. “And the next morning, as soon as my feet hit the floor, obedience is over.”

I gave a naughty laugh, and there were hoots of laughter: Mr. Sexist had lost the crowd. Clearly, I was in control, though he tried—and failed—to reestablish dominance. We were in a gathering of older Black folks around the ages of 55-70, cisgender, (ostensibly) heterosexual men and women. And this guy, he was a performer: I suspected that he wanted to impress the men, so he was “wolfing up” with me—talking all loud—but then, when the members of our group left and it was only the two of us remaining, he started telling me about his second, failed marriage.

As a deeply sensitive person, I listened to him. I knew he was in pain, despite his bravado. I took that brother’s hand, but after a few minutes, when I tried to let go, he clung to me. I looked in his face, and it was naked with sadness—and I realized, for all his talk of the Bible and obedience and Ephesians and whatnot, this man probably was a Submissive, according to the BDSM definition. And he just needed a nice lady to Domme him. (But it wasn’t going to be me, so get that out your mind right now.)

For months, thinking about that interaction has intrigued me. Sometimes, this happens; I will have a personal encounter, and I will turn it around in my head, wondering, what does this moment mean, in a larger community or national context? Can I learn something important from this? And as a Black feminist, I have been thinking about the roles of Male Doms/Female Subs, and how they relate to traditional gender politics in the African American community.

Let’s start with the Bible, which holds real power in my Black community.

You might assume that, as a Black feminist and an LGBTQIA+ ally/accomplice, I’m not religious. You’d be partially right: I don’t attend church. However, I am a devout Christian and a certified lover of Jesus, whom I believe was a feminist.

Jesus’s feminism, exhibit A: Who were the only followers of Jesus that didn’t desert him, after he was arrested by the Romans? Women.

Jesus’s feminist, exhibit B: Who was Jesus’s first preacher? Mary Magdalene, also a woman. Mary Magdalene was not a sex worker, despite what early theologians argued—although there is nothing wrong with sex work. It is a valid profession and always has been. I’m only saying, some folks criticize sex work, so what would be the easiest way to throw (traditionalist) shade on the female preacher arguably responsible for Christian teachings? You make her a sex worker and vilify her, and then try to shift the founding of Christianity to a man.

This brings us to the New Testament teachings of Paul, also known (to me) as “Paul the Hater.”

The Apostle Paul supposedly wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians of the New Testament. There is a scholarly controversy about this, though. Some theologians say the author was an admirer of Paul, and many assert that Paul never even met Jesus. So we’re already in some problematic territory.

The modern translation of Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 22-24 is widely quoted throughout Black communities: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

I believe that these three verses constitute the BDSM approach to traditional Black gender roles, but there are several problems here.

The first issue should be obvious to any thinking person: the history of Christianity is incredibly problematic to begin with, as biblical teachings of the Bible justified Europeans’ enslavement, settler-colonization, murder, and sexual assault of Indigenous peoples on several continents around the world. And you would be right—that (to me) is not up for debate.

However, what is not up for debate is that the majority of African Americans are Christians, and they aren’t going to change that religious affiliation. Therefore, I think applying critical thinking skills to biblical teachings is better than trying to strip African Americans of a belief system that they have relied on, even if, again, that belief system is deeply problematic.

The second issue is that modern translations of Ephesians get the language wrong, because the original Greek word in these passages was not “submit.” See here a discussion of how this mistranslation from the Greek happened. And here, there is a discussion that the original Greek meant “support” or “do battle for your husband.”

Let’s unpack this a bit further.

All these Black preachers talking about submission of women is in the Bible, either don’t know or fail to inform their congregations the real Greek of this passage from Ephesians—or that Jesus never even spoke on women’s obedience and submission, or that Paul might not have even written the Epistle to the Ephesians, or that Paul never even met Jesus in his lifetime.

That is a lot to contend with.

Yet despite all these complications, African American ministers have been using Ephesians to wag their fingers at Black women for decades (if not centuries) about their inability to submit to Black men, and in part, these preachers have enabled Black men to blame internal community issues on how “The Black Man”—as if there is only one— can’t run his family because he “can’t be a man.” (Also solidified in Politics of Respectability, which is a whole other long conversation.)

These days, all you need to do is fall into the wrong algorithm on social media to hear/see “submit” a hundred times, in some context.

For example, there’s the “hard submit”: Black woman, accept this submissive role, damnit. If you don’t, you unnatural creature, you will be lonely for the rest of your life—you might even become a bitter baby mama, because you didn’t inhabit your prescribed Biblical role.

Then, there’s the “soft submit”: If a Black man knows “how to lead kindly,” a Black woman naturally will want to submit to his leadership. The soft submit is presented as a dual role, one that requires cooperation between men and women, and one that should feel good to a woman. However, like the hard submit, the soft submit still relies on a woman accepting that she’s a second-class citizen in her relationship/marriage.

The third issue here is the contradictory messaging surrounding political/mortal resistance in many Black churches: while Black women should be completely fine with giving control over to a Black man, Black men are supposed to fight the control of White men in the United States. I don’t think this issue needs further exploration: It’s just stupidly sexist, and an example of what I call “illogical logic.”

And the fourth issue leads us back overtly to kink.

With BDSM, the submissive is in control of the bedroom power dynamic, at least initially. She/he/they must voluntarily hand over control, contribute to the making of the rules of any sexual encounter, and can stop at any time without punishment. Above all, there is no violation of consent, and there is no coercion—if there is a consent violation or coercion, that is no longer a BDSM sexual encounter. That is abuse.

And that’s the problem, for if Black women truly wanted to submit to Black men, they’d ask for submission, instead of having it thrust upon them and wielded like a spiritual weapon.

We wouldn’t require church sermons about why we need to submit to our men, how we should be happy with that submission, how God wants us to submit, and if we don’t submit, something’s wrong with us, and God’s displeased with us—because when something feels real, real good to you, you don’t need lectures or sermons. You simply gravitate toward that something. You might even chase it.

In the same way, if Biblically-influenced “leadership” was so natural to men of all races—though right now, I’m only talking about Black men—why would brothers be everywhere whining about how Black women won’t submit to them: from the pulpit, in the barbershop, at the Black men’s leadership conference, on their front porch, on their podcasts, at the cookouts playing spades, eating ribs, and drinking brown liquor?

Because if you are a true Dom, you don’t need to be complaining about why your Sub won’t give you power. If you are a true Dom, your Sub already wants to give you his/her/their power—because that’s y’all’s mutually agreed upon kink. It’s what feels real, real good to both of y’all.

This morning, something occurred to me: Many of these pushy, sexist brothers walking around here trying to tell me that I’m not a “real woman” because I won’t submit or obey or whatever they call the form of abuse to which they want me to surrender are trying to make a BDSM sexual kink into Black community gender politics, but they totally confused that that’s what they are doing.

These traditional brothers don’t even understand that their craving for dominance is not truly about the Bible, because they don’t even know how to interrogate their Word, to begin with. Ironically, most of us in the Black community who are doing this critical biblical study have serious problems with the church or have already left the church.

And these traditional brothers don’t understand how BDSM works, either, because they are looking to patriarchy as a rigid power framework, instead of them seeking healthy pleasure in a consensual BDSM context.

Heck, some of these brothers out here who think they want to dominate might actually be secret Subs who are too embarrassed to give in to a sister’s strong lead. They can’t truly be happy because a mistranslated chapter of the Bible has betrayed them, telling them that men are supposed to be pushing women around. And they have brought this mistranslation into the Black public community square, dragging along chaos and illogic in their wake.

But like I wanted to tell that brother who wouldn’t let go of my hand, months ago, “Don’t be embarrassed, sweet thing. Learn how to be your full self without shame. It’s okay to surrender to a woman who can lead you—because I know a ‘good boy’ when I see one.”

Note: Do not mistake my love of “em” dashes for ChatGPT. Do I use AI to correct typos? Yes, for I’m the Queen of Typos. Do I use AI to compose poems, essays, stories, and novels? Absolutely not, and I rebuke that in the name of Emily Dickinson. If you know you know.