Anyone Can Have a Cock!

Dvora Walker begins her fisting how-to. Photo by Ipek Bakir.

“Anyone can have a cock,” chirps Dvora Walker ’11, gesturing with an iridescent strap-on modeled after Edward from Twilight. She’s a small, pretty girl in an oversized sweatshirt. She stands next to a coffee table spread with nipple clamps, dog collars, bondage tape, handcuffs and pretty much every other object one might use to punish, restrain or torture. I, personally, have never wanted to have a cock. I’ve also never found bondage sexy. In fact, it kind of scares me. But when asked to attend a BDSM workshop (an hour-long how-to on bondage, discipline/domination, submission/sadism, and masochism) hosted by a girl who worked at a sex shop in Amsterdam’s red light district, my curiosity got the better of me. Perhaps, I thought, she could even convert me.

I have to say that I’m still not a believer. And after absorbing a 45-minute long PowerPoint, if I were ever going to be one, I would be now. But the point of the workshop was not to convince everyone to run out and buy ball-gags. Walker spoke frankly and casually about issues of safety and consent and encouraged people to laugh about sex, something that most sex-ed talks have taught us is a solemn and dangerous affair. Communication was a theme of the talk, as something that allows consent, improves sex in general, and allows people to deal with the feeling of guilt that can sometimes come from liking or taking part in something that is socially stigmatized.

Because of this stigmatization, BDSM can be a mysterious thing. I was surprised, when I entered the brightly colored LGBTQ center, that the workshop was not being hosted in a candle-lit dungeon. Walker dispelled the mystery, walking us through the proper procedure for nipple clamping, fisting (apparently more complicated than one might think), and tying up your partner (never use silk scarves). She showed a diagram of a vulva and pointed out the location and importance of the clitoris. She also introduced us to the traffic-light code of communication: green means go, yellow means slow down, red means stop. It was everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask, and then some.

What struck me about Walker’s message was the importance of trusting and communicating with your partner. She suggested talking extensively about what you are going to do before you have sex, voicing likes and dislikes during, and talking about it again afterwards. At a time when casual sex seems to be conceived of (or misconceived of) as the norm, this sex is anything but casual. You could argue that communication is more of a necessity when there’s a risk of serious injury, but Walker’s advice applies to sex in general—no matter how you like it.

Walker’s BDSM workshop was educational, entertaining, and maybe even radical. Perhaps I’m making too much of the copious of barely-there Halloween costumes still fresh in my mind, but sex, it seems, has become trivialized. We sometimes forget that it’s a shared experience, not a selfish one. Walker reminded us that thoughtful sex is good sex, with or without paddles and whips.