CONCLUSION from INTERVIEW - and INTERVIEW:

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Andrea Plaid: Last of my questions (again, we touched on it, but for the record): How can we move the conversation within our communities so we can talk about BDSM and race play as sexual/erotic possibilities?


Mo: Yeah. There is the rub. First off: people who do play this way have to come out of the closet. Until players stand up, there will be continued marginalization. And that there is the easy part.

The harder part is having people within the community put down the "Us vs Them" thing. It can't be all about being apart from our desires because they are scary. There has to be room in the dungeon for everyone's emotional play. Every person who is ashamed of their desires is another person we damage indirectly with our scathing commentary and harsh judgments.


Andrea Plaid: Or the desires may make "those folks" think you're fulfilling stereotypes.


Mo: Whether or not you are fulfilling stereotypes, this is beside the question. I know this is nuanced, but it is critical. All stereotypes are based on facts and observations that have been bred and fed to damage and wound and kill. If you take that snarling dog, that offensive beast, and tame it to your own ends, you win.


Andrea Plaid: Dig it.


Mo: The hardest part is taking yourself out of your comfort zone, thinking differently.


Andrea Plaid: To talk about kink and BDSM and race play, if not do it.


Mo: Yes. And to listen to those who are dumb enough to expose themselves to threats and ostracization and loss of friends and ridicule and psychological dissection.

Who is more racially sound? The person who melts down and freaks out and blows up because someone calls them a nigger? Or the person who, on hearing that epithet, knows that they have been given the gift of information? Knowing that an ugliness has been revealed, and now you can act accordingly? Those words don't control me anymore. I am not immune to racism. But I've been inoculated, and my soul can fight off that spiritual infection. Dig it? I think that is overcoming.


Andrea Plaid: I think I can get to that.


Mo: Roll credits. Heh.


Andrea Plaid: I'm just bummed that my analysis on Ciara as a sub was off. Dang it!


Mo: It isn't off. That is the thing: it can be so many things; people paint onto it what they want. Listen, seriously. I had a woman come up to me after one of my race play classes and tell me a scene I was in years ago was one of the first scenes she ever saw. And of course, being me and one of my Favorite Soulless Sadists, it was very intense. She said to me she hadn't been "prepared to see that." And after so many years as an activist, etc, she was shocked and dismayed to see a white man tying up and beating down a black woman. That this is a "difficult thing to see," yadda. Like she felt she should have been warned or something. (mind, I do talk about alerting bystanders, via the dungeon monitors, if you are planning extreme play.) The thing is this: That dominant doesn't do race play.


Andrea Plaid: Really?


Mo: It was a straightforward fuckin' rope scene with whips and shit. She saw a race play scene. I have no control over that.


Andrea Plaid: Got it!


Mo: I do race play by default in the eyes of most people. *shrug* This was very illustrative of the level of complexity of this issue. David tying and suspending a black woman became a transgressive act in and of itself. Bring in the whip, and boy howdy, it is over. Which is hilarious, frankly.


Andrea Plaid: Much in the same way, I read Ciara as a sub just because she was ostensibly in the leash.


Mo: Dommes can wear collars too. Again, choice.


Andrea Plaid: Even though she had control of the video, and she and JT negotiated the whats – including the kinky scenes – beforehand.


Mo: If you want to get really subtle, watch the video and see if she is ever in a subordinate position and not looking in the camera. The show isn't for him. It is for the viewer.


Andrea Plaid: He's just a prop, as my bro Arturo said.


Mo: Yes, he is.


Andrea Plaid: You're right – when Ciara's in a sub position, she's looking at the camera.


Mo: My, but JT is excellent at drawing down controversy on his pointy little head, isn't he.


Andrea Plaid: LOL


Mo: I ain't been in the biz 35 years for nothing!!! I see that shit!!!!


Andrea Plaid: So, Ciara's a sub for the camera and a domme for Justin...hmm.


Mo: We are the voyeur in their fantasy.


Andrea Plaid: I hear it from several sides: you're not "Black enough," you're not "feminist enough..." blah blah blah.


Mo: Yeah.


Andrea Plaid: I mean people assume, by my handle, that I'm soooo domme. But I'm like, no. I'm not. I like getting spanked and tied up, not spanking and tying.


Mo: Because doing the toughest fucking thing you can possibly do, which is swim against the tide, isn't "enough." People make assumptions. I try to ask.


Andrea Plaid: Exactly.


Mo: I have been skirting posting about race play because I was all, "Ugh, I don't wanna be the goddamned poster child." But hey, look! I'm becoming the goddamned poster child! It also helps that I have three different people I feel comfortable doing these scenes with. It had been feeling very much like a vacuum for a few years now.


Andrea Plaid: I bet.


Mo: So now a bit better.


Andrea Plaid: And I've discovered and come to grips with my wee kink for a while now. And I'm slooooowly incorporating it into my life. I had to admit that I was a sub.


Mo: That is a tough one, huh? I read Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns and the fact that there was one black female sub interviewed in there gave me hope.


Andrea Plaid: I'll check it out.


Mo: Strangely the most recent addition to my stable went ahead and bent one of my cardinal rules about doing those scenes. Slippery fucker.


Andrea Plaid: Oh? What happened?


Mo: Oh! *lol* He asked me if I needed a demo top for my class. And I was all, "Uh. You know this is my race play class, right?" And of course he did.


Andrea Plaid: Errrrmmm...


Mo: And inside I was like, "OMG, hell yeah," because I wanted to play with this guy. And we'd had one of those "Oh, yeah, instant soul family" deep level connections. But it took me by surprise because I wasn't offended upset or shocked. It was like "Oh, of course. Thank you."


Andrea Plaid: And any other time you'd be like, "WTF?"


Mo: Exactly. But he's tuned in enough to know it was okay for him to ask. I hate / love it when they get in your head like that. It took balls on his part.


Andrea Plaid: Now let me get this right: it's wrong to ask because... (I know: totally naive question)


Mo: For me, I feel it is wrong to ask because I now know you want this specific thing, and I have to trust that you don't have creepy ass motives.


Andrea Plaid: Got it.


Mo: And for me, it is important for me to suss the person out without this in their head or my head. I need to just feel them emotionally. Straight neutral. Then if the thought occurs to me, "Hey...they might be kinda good with that..." then I drop the hankie, as it were.


Andrea Plaid: Instead of just assuming you'd be down with their playing with you.


Mo: I don't like that assumption...except when I do. *sigh*


Andrea Plaid: So...what happened?


Mo: What happened was it was off the fucking hook.


Andrea Plaid: I think I'm getting it...it's an assumption about you're not being indiscriminate about who you'd play with.


Mo: Right. If you assume that I'll do that with you, I kind of use that as a litmus test.


Andrea Plaid: It's like, "I'd know you're into it, and I'm into it, so I know you want me (strange person off the streets) to play with you." And your reaction is, "Umm...do I know you like that? Just because I'm into race play doesn't mean I wanna play with you." Got it.


Mo: Exactly. And I stress that really, really hard when I teach.


Andrea Plaid: You need to.


Mo: For the fact is most POC don't wanna go there.


Andrea Plaid: Yep.


Mo: So to my critics I say, "Look, this is the alpha and omega when I present."


Andrea Plaid: You mean the POC that race play?


Mo: No,. to POC who do not think it is okay. Their position is well diagrammed in my presentations. So their position is well represented. Really. Now excuse me while this white guy ties me up and slices my clothes off.


Andrea Plaid: No, you didn't!


Mo: Oh, yes. Yes, he did. rotflmbbao


Andrea Plaid: Got it. It's the same argument folks on the racialicious threads tried to present: "Ciara and JT have declared open season on interracial kink! Those bastards!"


Mo: Good for them. Sex is sexy. It is sometimes fucked up. And that is also sexy.




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Mollena Williams is a writer, performer, actress, pervert, sex educator, kinky plus-size model,Serial Twitter Abuser / Addict, and submissive masochist. She has been performing for 35 years, kinky for 25 years and teaching nationally about kink for 9 years. That's a lot to fit into 40 years, but she is nothing a multi-tasker. Her thoughts on BDSM and Alternative Lifestyle issues appears in Prometheus and ColorLines magazines, ALT.com, Bondage.com, and on her blog The Perverted Negress.


AJ Plaid is a writer and speaker on race, sex, and politics. She writes as the Sexual Correspondent for Racialicious, the award-winning blog on race and popular culture. She also runs her own blog on race and sex,The Cruel Secretary. Her perspective on race, gender, and sex has been featured in Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Bitch.