Reykjavík Grapevine - Aug 2023, Page 13

13 Feature
their meetings and workshops, be-
ing included on a recent placard on
queerness in Iceland, and march-
ing in the annual Pride parade – the
group’s theme this year is “BDSM is
the thread that binds us together.”
Expect a lot of red rope.
KNOWING YOURSELF
Asked how long they’ve known they
were kinky or into BDSM, Margrét,
Nonni and Katrín all express that
they were born aware of their prefer-
ences and their needs and require-
ments for sexual and emotional
fulfilment.
“I was born,” Nonni says of how he
got into the lifestyle. “I actually grew
up, went through puberty really late,
so that was around 17 or 18. But
before that, I knew there was some-
thing special – probably since I was
five-years old.”
Katrin shares that she became
sexually active at a fairly young age,
but it wasn’t doing anything for her.
“I thought for a long time that I was
asexual, because I was like, ‘wow,
this is so fucking boring. What the
fuck is this?’ And then I met a guy
who was a lot older than me, and
he showed me all these different
things. I was like, ‘Whoa! This is me!
This makes sense.’”
“Because I just thought everything I
was doing was bad,” she continues.
“And I was hurting myself for mas-
turbation – you know, self harm and
doing horrible things. I needed this
more experienced person to be like,
‘it’s okay, this is a thing.’ I realised
then there’s nothing wrong with it,
but it took a few years to really settle
in.”
Margrét and Nonni both share the
experience of being intrinsically
drawn to power dynamics and hier-
archies from a young age. Nonni is a
submissive, while Margrét describes
herself as “the greediest type there
is of sadomasochist.” They would
scour libraries when younger, look-
ing for history books that detailed
slavery and other unbalanced power
dynamics, drawn to the domination
detailed in the accounts. It was very
much an exploration done in secret.
“I thought this was something I was
taking to my grave,” says Margrét.
“I was not going to share this; it was
just fucked up. I knew of something
that was called ‘BDSM,’ but that was
just horrible and disgusting. I didn’t
want to go there, so I was really try-
ing to distance myself from all that.
I just envisioned latex and ball gags
and the gimp from Pulp Fiction. I
thought it was depraved, evil – with-
out even knowing anything about it.”
That changed when she found her-
self at an event with some friends of
a friend who were open about being
kinky, discussing the dynamics of
their own relationships. “I was like,
‘Holy shit, they’re just doing that and
they’re still good. She’s not an evil
person? This is working for them
and they’re happy?’” She continues:
“I talked to him privately about it – he
was the first person I basically told.”
ADVOCATING FOR COMMU-
NITY
Now firmly owning their identities
and sexual and romantic orienta-
tions, the board members head up
efforts to advocate Iceland’s larger
BDSM community, leading work-
shops, hosting events and ensuring
a balanced and accurate public
discourse about the community and
their values.
“We are kind of trying to define
BDSM for ourselves,” Margrét says
of the organisation’s public rela-
tions and outreach efforts. “Popular
culture has kind of made one image
and we’ve tried to correct that a little
bit.”
“And then there’s the advocacy for
kinky people that might be facing
discrimination – like a public de-
fender – because people are afraid
to speak up and say something,”
she continues. “It used to be that
you could make fun of kinky people
and nobody did anything about it.
Nobody came and said, ‘Hey, this is
not okay.’ So we’ve kind of been that
entity.”
The BDSM in Iceland board has had
to be particularly active in recent
months with broader conversa-
tions in media and parents’ groups
about sex education in the schools
and the inclusion of conversation
about choking and the young person
exploring what feels good and what
they enjoy.
Nonni says it’s at times like that
when he loses the day on social
media, following the discourse and
dispelling myths about BDSM. “That
has happened a couple of times
when we’ve just had to be every-
where, following everything and just
answering a lot of shit.”
Luckily, for members of the BDSM
community who may find them-
selves discriminated against for
their orientation or lifestyle, the law
is on their side.
“I contacted [Jafnréttisstofa, the
Directorate of Equality] a few years
ago to ask them, theoretically, if a
person would be fired from their job
for being BDSM oriented, would that
be considered on the same grounds
as being fired for being homosexual
or another sexual minority group,”
Margrét shares, “and I got a clear
‘yes’ on that.”
“Well, we are protected by law, but
we don’t necessarily know that we
are protected by law,” Nonni inter-
jects, comparing prejudice against
BDSM to treatment of other queer
groups. “We don’t really face the
same kind of discrimination … There
are groups in society that are really
against this, but no one’s gonna beat
you up for holding hands or whatev-
er. It’s different.”
Still, Nonni shares that he has
seen people’s BDSM orientation or
lifestyle used against them in child
custody negotiations and other
legal matters, either by shaming the
orientation during negotiations or
threatening to expose a person’s
orientation if certain demands aren’t
met.
By advocating for the community
at large and educating the public
about what BDSM actually is – and
isn’t – the organisation takes the
sting out of the accusations that are
sometimes flung to inflict shame
and social damage.
“If you’re not proud and out enough
to kind of step up, people are going
to keep thinking ‘Yeah, so it is dis-
gusting. If it wasn’t disgusting, you
wouldn’t be hiding yourself. So you
must be ashamed,’” Margrét ex-
plains. “So I think it’s, I think it’s vital
that we take control of what is being
written about us … We have to have
a say and a voice – and that doesn’t
happen unless we step up.”
KEEPING THINGS SAFE AND
CONSENSUAL
One defining feature of play parties
Feature Bound By All Things Kinky
Exploring BDSM in Iceland and how it fits into the larger queer community
Some people really burn for it
and have it as a very intrinsic
part of themselves. But it can
also be something you do to
spice up your sex life or what-
ever.
Conservative groups talk about
“slippery slopes,” but respect-
ability politics are a slippery
slope. I think that’s really im-
portant to remember.