Disclaimer: I haven’t read a word about the Ansari Grace issue, completely unaware of the facts of that case. The following points are in response to your experiment posted on social media.

Kunjila, you are very brave to raise these questions and hold the position that you hold, that some of these fetishes are inherently abusive, though I partly disagree with it.

You are bang on point on a lot of the arguments you made, that each one of us has a different threshold, which is also created by patriarchal ideas. That act of sex itself is a power play. But i would still disagree with your main argument, that feminism doesn’t end in bed. I don’t know whether to agree or disagree, but I have so much to say about this. I have a lifetime full of disappointment in bed, screwed up relationships because I always thought it does, my feminism always ended in bed and my lovers wanted to meet the feminist, and that created a mess.

I have to write my own long piece to explain which I’ll do later, but to quickly respond to your piece here, you are right about sex itself being abuse. Fuck you is a slur because fucking someone itself is establishing one’s power over that person, mostly women. Sexuality has a history, heterosexuality and homosexuality both are contracts. Yet, sex is pleasurable too for both women and men. So how have women and feminists negotiated this inherent power game for their pleasure and equality? They created their own rules as per their own body and mind’s comfort. Pleasurable consensual sex with equal partners is a work in progress. Over the many waves of feminism women groups have created a space to start talking about what pleasure means to women. We encourage women to seek the kind of pleasure they want from their partner. We encourage men to listen to the woman and do his part to give her pleasure. Part of this conversation also includes fetishes. Fetishes that women may have and want to explore with their male partners. So it is wrong to say fetishes are inherently abusive because then what about her fetish?

You are right in saying “fetishes” are also designed by men in a patriarchal worldview because porn industry itself caters to male audience. But then that’s why we now have women centric porn. Women are now coming forward and breaking this news to men that women have fetishes too. World doesn’t know because nobody asked us, and we didn’t tell.

So now if you place yourself in the very latest age of feminism, you will definitely find a very health, equal space between consenting adults where both can explore each other’s body, ask each other what is their threshold, and push their fetishes accordingly. I made my earlier comment in this space. Though I would agree it is a rare space.