BRC - Dungeon Chat - Interview with Gloria Brame - July 15, 2000

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Dungeon Chat

Interview with GLORIA BRAME

An interview with Gloria Brame on July 15, 2000,
at the Sanctuary of the Dark Angel
in Atlanta, Georgia, from questions sent in.

( ~ continued from previous page ~ )

Dungeon Chat is held Wednesday Evenings 9-11 EST in the Dungeon @ Fantassia's Palace.
All are welcome with the understanding that we all have the right to disagree without being disagreeable.

(following text has been edited ~ foregoing greetings, etc.)

~CC~: For example, there is the attitude that says if you like both sides, you must be a switch. I'm thinking that’s not necessarily true.

Gloria: You know there's something else to consider here. I'm thinking of your questions, "Are people born this way or is it the environment that shapes people's sexuality?"

I think one of the wonderful things about people is that our sexuality continues to evolve as long as people remain sexually involved. If you remain sexually involved until you're 90, your sexuality in my view is going to continually evolve. That's one of the most wonderful things about sex. It's sort of like developing your mind. There's always more to explore. We go through different periods. Periods where we're not that interested in sex, periods where that's all we can think about, periods where we need to be in control at all times or even periods where giving up control is what you need.

When I was first coming out 15 years ago, initially I thought I was submissive. And, then I thought I was 50-50. Now 15 years later, I find that the majority of all of my relationships have been as a Dominant and that my submissive bend has pretty much gone away. Also, the submissive experiences I had were generally really unsatisfying because I could never give up control, not enough to really enjoy myself.

*laughter from Gloria*
~CC~: Do you think that exploring the submissive area however gives you more insight as a Dom/me?

Gloria: It can. I don't believe you need to be on the other side to develop compassion. If you are basically a Dom/me personality or you're basically a sub personality and you switch roles, you are not going to get out of that experience what a person who is naturally in that role feels to begin with. For example, if at the end of class today I were to say that somebody could whip me, it's just not going to do for me what it would do....

~CC~: You would be getting whipped, but you would not get out of it what somebody who is really into it would be getting....

Gloria: Yes, I would not be getting out of it what a submissive would be getting out of it. So how did that better help me understand the submissive experience? Being whipped is just not going to be erotic to me in the way that giving the pain will be erotic. For example, I really don't like pain. Yes, we Dom/mes, we're the wimpy lot.

*huge laughter from the submissive listener*
~CC~: Our lifestyle is very much sexually oriented. What are your thoughts about D/s relationships that are not in and of themselves sexual?

Gloria: There are tons of people who are doing D/s without direct sexual penetration. For example, perhaps the dominant partner never removes his clothes. We see a lot of that.

What about it specifically? Do you find it confusing?

~CC~: No, not confusing. But, I know several people who are heterosexuals in same sex relationships. They are both very straight and there is no sex, it is strictly D/s.

Gloria: Bi-kinky. It's called bi-kinky. You can be kinky in a same sex relationship.

~CC~: *laughing* I haven't heard of that term before. I like it.

Gloria: Well, I can live with it. Although, I don't "go-down" on them or have full-scaled emotional and sexual relationships with same sex partners.

~CC~: What about relationships that are based on a vanilla and lifestyle partner....

Gloria: Do you mean a mixed marriage?

~CC~: Yes, there you go, unequally yoked. I'm going biblical on you!

When one partner does not really understand the other one's sexual needs, do you feel that is a relationship that can actually work? Also, do you find that the kinky partner just puts his or her kinky feelings and desires on hold because they are already involved in a relationship and feel committed to it?

Gloria: I think it can work if they are very clear on who they are, what they need, and they can both accept the other partner's choices. Although we always hear from the frustrated S&Mers who are not getting what they want from their vanilla partners, the other side of the equation is that you have a bunch of vanilla partners who are not getting what they want either.

I actually know a fair number of couples where this works. I see it in a lot of gay relationships too, where one partner says, "Well that’s just not my thing sexually, but I accept that it is your thing and you need to explore it."

I've known conventional marriages in which this type of relationship has worked out too. John M., who I interviewed in "Different Loving", for many years his wife tried to go along with the S&M and tried to "get it". She was a little interested in bondage. You know even the vanilla people can enjoy it unless they are so inhibited and rigid that they are frightened of it. But, it just wasn’t her thing. She and he eventually reached an agreement that he would not have sex with people, but he would go out and explore S&M stuff, attend parties, go to events, and have S&M friends who were welcome in his house. They made an adjustment. He was very fortunate to have an intelligent wife who really loved him. And, he also stood by her. So, it can work. It does take two exceptionally committed people.

~CC~: Who have very good communication skills....

Gloria: ....with super communication skills, with a very good rapport, and with basically good attitudes about sex.

~CC~: You know, our generation, the Baby Boomers, we all remember the '60s. We were fucking everything that moved in the '60s and '70s.

Thank God it was a bit more safe then.

Gloria: Well, yes, thank God, there were no diseases. And, we never let our children do any of the shit that we were doing back then. All of my friends were potheads, or going off to communes, or skinny-dipping with 30 strangers they never had met and then sleeping with a succession of them, etc., etc. Ummm, maybe I just knew more hippies?

~CC~: No. *grinning*

Gloria: I didn't think so. *laughing*

Most baby-boomers, even the Republicans among us, are at least in touch with that. If we can just remember how we were when we were kids, I think we would have more promise of being a little more open-minded in adulthood and giving our partners a little more leeway, as well as not being so terribly threatened by sex. Sex is not usually the chief reason and it's never the only reason people break up relationships.

~CC~: And lastly, I don't know whether it is more lifestyle or just more lifestyle obvious that there are more polymorous relationships. Is that because we are more open sexually or is that something....

*laughing* What can make a polymorous relationship more successful within itself?

Gloria: It is really achingly G-ratedly dull. Again, I think it all comes down to communication, communication, communication, honesty, and commitment. All the same stuff that makes other kinds of relationships successful.

~CC~: These relationships have a bit more dynamics involved obviously.

Gloria: Yes, and they are much more complicated. I'm polyamourous and have two partners. It takes a certain amount of effort, I guess. The important thing is if you are considering a polymory relationship, your involvement should not be a question of "overcoming" reservations or concerns, but rather your involvement should be what you want and desire.

~CC~: What about the darkness or the light? Is there something within us that makes us weird or wired differently or however others see us? Is that something inborn? Does it develop because of the way we have been raised or from our experiences? Is it a combination of both inborn factors and conditioning?

Gloria: Well, you are really asking a few different questions.

At this stage of the game, and not just because I'm an old FemDom who is getting jaded, but also as a researcher, I don't even see us as different anymore.

~CC~: Well, I can't say that I do either, however, the perception is still there.

Gloria: I know. What I do see is that we enjoy different kinds of things in bed. But, I think it's normal for people...

(~non-consensual kick of the tape recorder once again~)
Anyway, I do think that it's normal..

~CC~: Diversity is normal?

Gloria: Well, yes. We don't freak out when we discover that one person would rather have oral sex, or one person would rather have anal sex, or what really turns one person on is making love under a tree outdoors. To me, those things are no darker or no lighter than needing the intense sensation of a whipping or a spanking. I realize a lot of people would disagree with me, but that's how I see it.

Now as to how that forms in us? Nobody knows. It's the great mystery. We may never know because sexuality research is so incredibly under-funded. In sexuality research, the "real" questions that you asked are not even being studied on a scientific basis. Nobody is really doing that research.

~CC~: New book, new book!

Gloria: That would require real money and real doctors. MD-type doctors in laboratories that the government sets up where the doctors could actually do, for example, genetic testing. Doctors are doing a lot of study on homosexuality. They're doing a lot of work on transsexualism and transgenderism. They are not doing that same work on sadism or fetishes. Most of the research that has been done in the areas of fetishes or sadism has been through anecdotal material, in other words, interviewing people. This is the type of research that I do. It's mainly a soft science. There's very little hard science research that has been done.

The theory that I'm most comfortable with is that you're born with a personality that includes certain sexual leanings. I think that our individual sexuality is already in place, even by three. I think children may even be born with their sexual identity already in place. What happens to you environmentally though continually shapes the sexual direction you move in. For example, I think that a person may be born gay. The events in his or her early childhood, however, may influence whether he or she lives as a gay person as an adult. We see so many gay people who live as straight people. Why? I don't think it is just fear that is keeping them in the closet. Negative experiences they had in childhood may also contribute.

One thing though that was easy to figure out a long time ago is the inaccuracy of the old myth about the "pivotal event." There you were an innocent child. Then one day you saw your Mother in a pair of high heels just as you were peeling off your pants or something. And, that's it. Boom! You're a foot fetishist for life.

I've spoken with tons of people who are spanking fetishists, but not necessarily SMers. They all say, "I remember when I was five. I saw this spanking and it changed my life." Well, maybe it did change their life. I'm willing to bet though if 5 other kids witnessed that same identical spanking, the child that developed a spanking fetish is not going to bump into the other 5 at a Shadow Lane party one of these days.

~CC~: One of the mantras, probably the most quoted mantra, "Safe, Sane, and Consensual, and it must be all three", is pretty much out there. Is there a place, where enough is enough, where somebody should say, "No, this is not safe, sane, and consensual"?

Gloria: Safe, sane, and consensual, along with things like safe words, and contracts, and negotiations and all the rest of it, were mechanisms put into place to try to protect submissives who were playing with people that they did not know that well. That was pretty much where it started. These safeguards also to help insure that we don't end up with psycho-Dominants who were really committing violence against their submissives. The safeguards also help submissives understand there is a line that you draw between consensual, positive, pleasurable and ..

~CC~: Healthy?

Gloria: I hate to use the word healthy.

~CC~: But, there's unhealthy as well.

Gloria: Healthy and unhealthy, that view is a whole other issue for me. I get kind of nerdy about that kind of view. It implies a disease that has an etiology and can be cured or treated. People say, "S&M is unhealthy." What does that mean, unhealthy? It's sort of like saying that it's sick which implies that there is a cure for it, etc.

I tend to look at S&M and ask, "Is it moral and immoral?" I'd prefer people to see S&M as moral or immoral, rather than healthy or unhealthy. Moral and immoral are also much more flexible kinds of expressions. So the question is, "Are you an ethical person in your S&M life?"

~CC~: I would sure like to think so.

Gloria: Right. I think striving to be ethical is really the goal, rather than healthy vs. unhealthy. And, I don't see any contradiction in being an ethical sado-masochist or an ethical slut or whatever.

Beyond that, I very much believe this is about the individual pursuit of happiness. Sexual pleasure is personal growth. It's personal experience. And, every individual should have his or her limits. These limits should be respected. That's whether the person is dominant or submissive or identifies as a slave or an absolute master or whatever. And, I don't think it really is or should be open for public debate. If two consenting adults know what they are doing, are happy with it and it's right for them, I don't think anybody should have a right to stop them. And, I don't think anyone should necessarily even criticize them.

That does not mean that when you see people doing dangerous things that you shouldn't speak out against it.

And personally, I don't believe in having sex with animals either. I don't believe you can get informed consent from an animal.

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