Abstract
This paper looks at a number of different elements that make up the experience of torture by lesbians in the contemporary world. I draw together elements of popular culture, along with testimonies by lesbians, concerning torture in diverse countries, as well as citing some historical sources. I examine the justifications and excuses given for torture, including the view that rape is a normal part of heterosexual activity. I argue that domination is exemplified in the punishment of lesbians as outsiders in patriarchal culture, in particular when groups and nations go to war.I also look at the way in which arguments for the legalization of torture share similarities with arguments in favor of prostitution, pornography, and consensual BDSM. I challenge the defenders of these acts and argue that such defense is a case of moral neglect. I conclude with the contention that the freedom of lesbians from torture and violence may be an indicator of the social health of a society.
Highlights
I look at the way in which arguments for the legalization of torture share similarities with arguments in favor of prostitution, pornography, and consensual BDSM
In a society in which torture can be described as “performative” or as “direct communication with Iraqi prisoners”25 and BDSM can be presented as a series of classes to those interested in “healing themselves”26 or interested in the experience of powerfulness, these are central questions of social health
In 2005 I saw feminists and lesbians support the practice of torture because it was called BDSM, because it was categorized as “play” and as “consensual non-consent.”
Summary
No training session prepared me for this intense pain . . . my pain . . . the one I did not choose . . . all this alienation, this empty vacuum . . ., my body, my mind, my pain . . . this is not happening . . . I am a little speck in the universe . . . which universe? . . . the world is not anymore . . . I am . . . disintegrating . . . bit by bit . . . yell by yell . . . electrode by electrode . . . The pain . . . all this pain here and there, down there in my vagina . . . the agony . . . where am I? Where is my I? (Rivera-Fuentes and Birke 2001, 655; italics and ellipses in the original). The scream of the lesbian tortured in families, in prisons, in mental asylums remains unheard She may call out to others in her pain, but she cannot be heard because no one appears to be listening. Beatings, humiliation, forced pregnancy, infliction of physical and mental pain, false diagnoses of mental illness, forcible confinement and detention, and death are clearly all abuses that have immediate and longterm implications for the individual lesbians affected. It is appropriative of people living under totalitarian regimes who do not have the “luxury” of saying “No,” or of saying “Rumsfeld” as a parody This postmodern move to a performative, audience-centered analysis will have dire consequences for all victims of torture, and add a significant twist to the torture of lesbians, who are already abandoned as an invisible and a marginal group not in need of human rights campaigns. Pornography that uses so-called lesbian images represents a lesbian feminized, a lesbian who has moved back into the category of women, as described by Monique Wittig. Through pornography, the lesbian comes back into the control of the patriarchal framework of naturalized women and men
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