Gender Role Reversal and the Violated Lesbian Body

Abstract

SUMMARY The lesbian sadomasochist exists in the feminist community as doubly other. If she is addressed at all in feminist discourses, she is often accused of wielding the weapons of patriarchy (violence, danger, fear) against all that feminism is. In what follows I will construct a theoretical framework which suggests that lesbian sadomasochism is not antithetical to feminism. In fact, lesbian sadomasochism is, on numerous levels, a response to those things deemed damaging to women.