Categories
Norsk Seksualpolitikk

Karine Haaland: Bryter ned stereotypier

Lærhomser er en del av mangfoldet i tegneseriene til prisbelønte Karine Haaland. Det samme gjelder hetero-SM-ere, fetisjister og sadomasochister i sin alminnelighet. Karine Haalands humor bryter ned stereotyper istedet for å sementere dem.

Denne artikkelen ble først lagt ut på Skeive Nyheter i 1998 og oppdatert i 2003. Kilder for sitatene er lenket opp i høyre kolonne.

Karine Haaland ønsker å bringe til torgs ting som ikke ellers er sett i offentligheten. Hennes striper og helsider behandler noen av de siste 20-25 års viktigste fenomen: Kvinnefrigjøringen, våre nye landsmenn og homofil frigjøring. Stillingen til minoriteter som lærhomser, fetisjister og sadomasochister har også en sentral plass.

Hos Karine Haaland snakker pakistanere sunnmørsdialekt, bergensk og nynorsk, mens SM-jenter snakker trøndersk. Haaland angriper alt og alle, uansett hudfarge, legning, politisk ståsted eller geografisk nedslagsfelt.

Seriene inneholder både politisk parodi og sosial satire, men det er kanskje det siste hun lykkes best med. – Når jeg tråkker på minoritetsgrupper, tar jeg for meg det jeg oppfatter som deres styrke, sier Karine Haaland. Det er kanskje grunnen til at hun får så positiv respons fra flere av gruppene. – Jeg får god tilbakemeldinger fra homofile når jeg hetser dem, sier Haaland. Det samme gjelder nok sadomasochister og fetisjister. Mange føler det nesten som en ære overhodet å bli omhandlet i en slik sammenheng. Eller som vi så på en fanside: “Karine Haalands humor bryter ned stereotyper istedet for å sementere dem.”

– Harselasen med svake grupper er ifølge Haaland nemlig ofte rettet mot de fordommene som majoriteten har mot dem. Menn takler ikke like godt Haalands bitende satire. – Jentene synes stripene mine er kule, men hetero-gutta sender hatbrev. Menn er tydeligvis lite vant til å bli tingliggjort offentlig og av flere enn kjæresten sin, flirer Haaland.

Haalands nære kontakt med homomiljøet har kanskje også sammenheng med at to av mennene hun har vært sammen med, var homofile. – Det var et nederlag, kommenterer Haaland. Om det har noe å gjøre med hennes interesse for SM-miljøet, fetisjister, lærhomser og SM-jenter, skal være usagt.

Haalands prosjekt er å beskrive samtidens kollisjoner mellom kulturer, kjønn, alder og ideologi. For eksempel når den urbane kvinnen som omsider innser at ikke alle homoer har “kultivert smak og interesse for kunst og kultur” da hun møter en hårete lærhomse.

– Det er morsomt å ta utgangspunkt i SM-miljøet, sier Haaland. Jeg liker å fremstille hvordan ting lett kan gå galt. SM må være stilig og flott for å fungere, dermed er fallhøyden stor og den humoristiske kontrasten blir desto sterkere når tings skjærer seg. Samtidig er de jo egentlig ute etter at noe skal gå galt, men ikke på den måten som det gjør i mine serier.

Haalands striper har vært å lese i blant annet Larsons gale verden, Dagbladet, Dagsavisen, Spray nett, Blikk, Ny Tid, Universitas, magasinet Camilla, Det Nye, Bergens Tidende og NRKs internettsider. De to siste har også sensurert to av hennes politiske kommentarer. Bokdebuten «Våre venner menneskene» (1999) er kommet i tre opplag og solgt i 8000 eksemplar. Oppfølgeren “Streng, men urettferdig” kom i 2002. Karine Haaland ble den første vinneren av Dagbladets tegneseriepris i 1998. I 2000 vant hun Sproing-prisen, tegneseriens svar på Amanda-prisen.

egningene er hentet fra Karine Haalands bøker: “Våre venner menneskene” (1999) og “Streng, men urettferdig” (2002). Tegninger gjengitt med tillatelse fra Karine Haaland. Klikk på bildene for fullstendig versjon.


Lærhomser -en del av mangfoldet
– De holdningene og fordommene jeg harselerer med, er også mine egne. Dagsavisen 27.4.2000

– Det er morsomt å ta utgangspunkt i SM-miljøet. Morgenbladet 13.03.1998

Karine Haaland – humor som bryter ned stereotyper istedet for å sementere dem. LINK til stripene i Spray.no

– Jeg bruker av og til den klisjégreia med lærhomser, men det har jeg bare sett én gang her i byen. Dagbladet 27.11.1999

– Jeg får god tilbakemeldinger fra homofile når jeg hetser dem. Poenget er at jeg driver demokratisk hets. Dagbladet 18.9.1998

Karine Haaland synes det er en stor anerkjennelse å bli sensurert. Steffen S. Aagedal i Universitas 9/1998

I Karine Haalands satiriske striper får alt fra politikere til sadomasochister gjennomgå. Ingrid Sande Larsen i Dagbladet15.4.2000

“Karine Haaland viser oss et annet Norge enn det landet vi er blitt vant med gjennom fjernsyn og aviser. Torbjørns tegneserieguide

Hos Haaland snakker pakistanerne bergensk, SM-jenter trøndersk (de tar ikke P-piller, men Paralgin!). Jón Sveinbjørn Jónsson i Dagbladet 22.12.1999

– Dessuten ville jeg bringe til torgs ting jeg ikke har sett ellers i offentligheten. Seriefokus 2001

Tematikken er som i Våre venner menneskene, der Jagland, hverdagsrasister, bygdeidioter og sadomasochister fikk sine pass påskrevet. Tonje T. Larsen i Universitas 18.9.2002

I “Streng, men urettferdig!” er det igjen innvandrerne hun stikker pennen i. Og selvsagt trønderne, sadomasochistene, fjortisene, homsene, vektløfterne, drosjesjåførene, de gamle sure kjerringene og de urbane 30-åringene på jakt etter menn. Hallgeir Opedal i Dagbladet 19.10.2002

Haaland angriper alt og alle, uansett hudfarge, legning, politisk ståsted eller geografisk nedslagsfelt. Mode Steinkjer i Dagsavisen 27.11.1999

I hennes satire får alle gjennomgå, fra arrogante politikere á la Carl I. Hagen til minoritetsgrupper som homofile, innvandrere – og sadomasochister. Kulturkanalen Morgenbladet 13.03.1998

.. den urbane kvinnen som omsider innser at ikke alle homoer har “kultivert smak og interesse for kunst og kultur” da hun møter en hårete lærhomse. Øyvind Holen i Bergens Tidende 12.09.2002

I Karine Haalands verden møter du levende imamer ved høylys dag, trehendte sadomasochister og bramfrie mødre som fôrer sine små med truede dyrearter. www.karinehaaland.com

Og hun byr oss lærhomser, appelsinhudfruer, turbanbøller, RBK-neandertaler, frekke snåttunger, kåte 70-80 år gamle damer, forvirrede singlemennesker og rabiate fyllefolk. Kjetil Wold i
Stavanger Aftenblad 3.12.2002

Alt fra småbarn til fetisjister er tegnet på en måte som er så beskrivende at tekst nesten er overflødig. Morten Abrahamsen i VG 9.10.2002

 

Karine Haaland loves to joke with minority groups, included gay leathermen, fetishists and sadomasochists. She does it in a way that reduces prejudices instead of building them up. Click on the pictures for bigger versions. Karine Haaland has given her permission to publish the pictures on Revise F65.org.

Categories
English Professional work

Support the ICD project SM is healthy Remove SM/fetish diagnoses

Support the ICD project SM is healthy Remove SM/fetish diagnoses

SM and Fetishism are positive and healthful parts of peoples lives. To accept one’s SM orientation, preference, sexuality and love is essential for a healthy life, identity and decisive for the ability to protect oneself against sexually transmitted diseases.


SM is love – not a disease
Europride in Cologne 2002. Photo by Svein Skeid,
Smia-Oslo.

Love and respect are basic parts of SM relationships. Stigmatizing minorities by diagnosing their sexual orientation is on the contrary as disrespectful as discriminating people because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

For many years homosexuality has been abolished as a disease by the World Health Organization (WHO). But did you know that leather men and SM dykes are still not reported off the sick list? SM sex is even now considered an illness by the WHO, despite the fact that US psychiatrists removed it from their DSM manual eight years ago.

In connection with Europride 2002 the ICD project asks for testimony, quoted reference and supporting evidence from psychiatrists, psychologists, sexologists and reseachers of human sexuality in order to remove Fetishism, Sadomasochism and Transvestic Fetishism as paraphilic diagnoses from ICD, The International Classification of Diseases published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The initiative of individuals is always to be welcomed, but even more efficient would be the formation of local and national working groups which are able to approach to the professionals in question.

Women suffer the most harassment
Branding perfectly healthy sexuality is an unacceptable insult to the dignity and integrity of the people who enjoy these safe, sane and consensual practices. Stigmatizing minorities by diagnosing their sexual orientation is as disrespectful as discriminating people because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

Even though the paraphilias in question are very rarely used, the stigma of being diagnosed make harassment of sexual minorities legitimate. The U.S. Leather Leadership Conference documents that between one-third and one-half of the leather/SM population suffer discrimination, violence or persecution because of their sexual orientation and identity. As with other assaults, women suffer the most harassment, losing their job or even their children, because of their SM love, lifestyle and self-expression.

Because lesbians also experience physical attacks – approximately one out of every four SM dykes consider or actually commit suicide because of severe persecution by their fellow-sisters – the U.S. National Organization for Women, NOW in 1999 erased previous censure of sadomasochism from their “Delineation of Lesbian Rights” policy.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2001 became involved in the question of such abuses, and has registered individual cases of violence against SM practitioners worldwide.

Healthy leather people
In recent years as more research has been published, also the mental health and medical communities have begun to accept that SM is a safe and legitimate pursuit.

Sadomasochism is considered to be a healthy form of sexual expression as long as it does not impair the daily functioning of the subject, according to the latest 1994 edition of American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic & Statistic Manual (DSM-IV).

Denmark, as the first European country, totally removed the diagnoses of Sadomasochism from their national version of ICD in 1995 because this non-violent and healthy activity was considered as a private matter by the Health Authority.

In the rest of Europe and the world, fetishists, SM’ers and transvestites are still considered among the mentally ill by the ICD psychiatric authorities.

Categories
Norsk Seksualpolitikk

Årsrapport 2009

Årsrapport for Diagnoseutvalget Revise F65

Det er med stolthet og glede vi presenterer SMias og Diagnoseutvalgets årsrapport for 2009 (og første kvartal 2010) med det høyeste aktivitetsnivået noensinne. Les hvordan det gikk til da Helsedirektoratet fjernet diagnosene på SM og fetisjisme 1. februar 2010. Se mediadekningen i presse, radio og tv landet rundt. Det vi har klart å fange opp. Dette er del av en rapport til Helsedirektoratet, derfor mye fokus på hiv.

Kronologisk fremstilling

1. januar 2009. Etter inspirasjon og mønster av norske Revise F65 fjernet den svenske Socialstyrelsen seks diagnoser på seksuelle preferanser, seksuelle identiteter og kjønnsuttrykk fra den svenske versjonen av diagnoselista ICD. Bortsett fra F64.2 “Kjønnsidentitetsforstyrrelse i barndommen”, er dette de samme diagnosene som Revise F65 anbefaler å fjerne fra den internasjonale sykdomsklassifikasjonen ICD.

”Sadomasochister, fetisjister og transvestitter skal ikke lenger diagnostiseres som syke i Norge”, meldte ABC-nyheter feilaktig 7. januar 2009. Men bortsett fra ingressen, så er brødteksten korrekt: Friskmelding av sm-ere og fetisjister kan dreie seg om mange mennesker her i landet. “I Folkehelsas siste seksualundersøkelse ble det anslått at rundt 10 prosent av befolkningen bruker slike elementer i sitt rollespill. Vår egen nettside har rundt 4000 brukere. Så har homsene sine organisasjoner. I tillegg har vi Scandinavian Leather Man egne foreninger for masse spesielle interessegrupper. Det sier et kvinnelig styremedlem i SMil-Norge til ABC Nyheter. Hun ønsker ikke å stå fram med navn. – Dette er fortsatt relativt tabubelagt, forklarer hun.”

8. januar 2009. Enda verre ble det dagen etter da Klikk.no svært løselig siterte ABC-nyheter og meldte at ”SM-erne er friskmeldte”. Resten av artikkelen er også stort sett velment vås fra ende til annen

I telefonsamtaler med Svein Skeid 9. januar og 16. april 2009 poengterte Seniorrådgiver Arild Johan Myrberg i Helsedirektoratet betydningen av psykolog Odd Reiersøls foredrag i Sidney 2007 i regi av World Association for Sexual health, der Myrberg var tilstede som representant for Helsedirektoratet. Slik jeg oppfattet samtalene, fikk foredraget Myrberg til å se det faglige og menneskerettslige grunnlaget som Diagnoseutvalget Revise F65 bygger på.

Sammen med Diagnoseutvalgets faglige støttespillere og samarbeidspartnere psykolog Elsa Almås og psykolog Paal Rasmussen, avmystifiserte SMias og Diagnoseutvalgets leder Svein Skeid SM over fem sider i Magasinet Dagbladet 10. januar 2009. Etter dette opplevde jeg, som andre SM-ledere før meg har erfart, å bli utstøtt fra deler av familien. Ytringsfriheten har sin pris for seksuelle minoriteter. Link1. Link2. Link3.

”Allerede i 2003 leverte LLHs diagnoseutvalg et brev til helseministeren med anmodning om å fjerne de aktuelle diagnosene. Vi fikk aldri noe svar. Derfor er det gledelig at norske helsemyndigheter nå vil gripe fatt i problematikken. Ikke minst i forhold til hiv-forebyggende arbeid. Det er viktig at gruppene det jobbes mot føler at de er noe verdt, uttalte Svein Skeid i Dagbladets reportasje 10.1.09.”

Blikk nett 19. januar 2009: ”Som leder av Diagnoseutvalget Revise F65 er jeg veldig stolt over å ha hjulpet svenskene til seier. Vi håper den svenske avdiagnostiseringen i neste omgang vil hjelpe Norge til samme resultat. Jeg må innrømme at det føles veldig tilfredsstillende at et over 10 år langt arbeid begynner å bære frukter. Vi har måttet kjempe like mye innad i egne rekker i homobevegelsen som utadrettet arbeid, sier Svein Skeid til Blikk Nett.”

Tv2-nyhetene 19. januar 2009: “LLH vil at sadomasochisme og transvestisme skal avdiagnostiseres. Helsedirektoratet er positive. – Folk kan begynne å puste litt friere og kanskje ikke være fullt så redd for å miste jobb eller omsorg for egne barn. Fjerning av diagnosene vil væreførste skritt i en lang prosess mot menneskeverd og like rettigheter i samfunnet, sier Svein Skeid”.

2. februar 2009 leverte psykolog Odd Reiersøl og Diagnosutvalgets leder Svein Skeid et omfattende notat til Helsedirektoratet med kunnskapsbasert dokumentasjon av det faglige grunnlaget for å fjerne norske fetisj- og sm-diagnoser, inkludert hiv- og helseforebyggende argumenter.

Filmopptak til dokumentaren “Skam og seksualitet” innen homofile miljøer med SMia og Diagnoseutvalgets leder Svein Skeid 18. februar 2009 i SLMs nye lokaler. Prosjektoppgaven til Henrik Lorentzen Gulbrandsen, nestleder i Skeiv Ungdom Oslo og Akershus som er student ved Westerdals School of Communication. Jeg poengterte verdigrunnlaget Sunn, sikker, samtykkende som helseforebyggende motstrategi for å motvirke skam og øke den følelse av selvrespekt som er påkrevet for helseforebyggende arbeid, inkludert kampen mot hiv og soi.

3. februar 2009. Svein Skeid var gjest hos Karita Bekkemellom i tv-programmet Studio Fem der han blant annet forklarte forskjellen på SM og vold, og hvordan sm og fetisjisme for mange er en viktig del av identiteten som verken kan behandles eller velges bort.

14. april 2009. Diagnoseutvalgets ressursgruppe sendte bekymringsmelding til Helse- og omsorgsminister Bjarne Håkon Hanssen over at friskmeldingen er utsatt, samt at vi ba om et møte med Helsedirektoratets avdeling for miljø og helse.

”Revise F65 har såklart betytt mycket som både informationskälla och förebild!!!” “Utan Revise F65 så hade vi kanske aldrig ens blivit uppmärksammade på problemet [med sm- og fetisj-diagnosene].” Foreningssekretær Helene Delilah i RFSU Stockholm i mail til Revise F65, 4. mai 2009.

”Jag vill passa på att tacka för den inspiration Revice-F65 varit för det arbete vi gjort i RFSU i Sverige.” RFSU sekretær Wiktor Södersten i mail til Revise F65, 5. mai 2009.

Revise F65-gruppen hadde møte med Seniorrådgiver Arild Johan Myrberg i Helsedirektoratets lokaler 11. mai 2009. Her fremgikk det blant annet at SMia/Revise F65 er innvilget økonomisk støtte til et engelsk fagnotat med kunnskapsbasert dokumentasjon overfor Verdens Helseorganisasjon. I følge vårt referat, vil Helsedirektoratet, etter en norsk friskmelding, arbeide videre overfor nordisk klassifikasjonssenter med det formål å påvirke WHO sitt kodeverk når det oppdateres til ICD-11.

I mail til Helsedirektoratet 22. juni 2009 skrev psykolog Odd Reiersøl og diagnoseutvalgets leder Svein Skeid at Revise F65 ikke anbefaler å fjerne F64.2 “Kjønnsidentitetsforstyrrelse i barndommen”, slik svenskene har gjort. “Slik vi har forstått, er dette en diagnose som kan brukes til å gi barn rettigheter, for eksempel pubertetsutsettende behandling. Dette ble klart etter diverse informasjon på WPATH konferansen i Oslo 17.-20. juni 2009. Ettersom rettighetene blir ivaretatt av andre diagnoser enn F64.2, er det muligens greit å fjerne den, men det er pr idag reell fare for at hjelpeapparatet ikke har nok oversikt til å kunne forvalte disse barnas rettigheter dersom F64.2 diagnosen blir tatt vekk.” Brevet ble skrevet blant annet etter råd fra psykolog Thore Langfeldt. Anmodningen ble senere tatt til følge av Helsedirektoratet da Norge fjernet sine nasjonale fetisj- og sm-diagnoser 1.2.2010.

I paraden under Skeive dager i Oslo lørdag 27. juni 2009 hadde vi håpet å kunne feire en friskmelding. I stedet bar SMil, SMia og SLM paroler med kravet ”Friskmelding nå!”.

13. september 2009. I en ny tre siders kronologisk fremstilling dokumenteres SMia og Diagnoseutvalgets banebrytende og prisbelønte informasjonsarbeid gjennom 15 år overfor myndigheter og den offentlige opinion med faglig, helsepolitisk og menneskerettslig dokumentasjon. Se også ”15 års kamp overfor norske og internasjonale helsemyndigheter”.

13. september 2009. Ny artikkel på ReviseF65.org om USAs forbedring av sine parafilidiagnoser i 1994. Endringen av daværende DSM-IV var et betydelig fremskritt og ble en inspirasjonskilde for det norske Revise F65-arbeidet gjennom 15 år.

17. september 2009. ”Site map” eller ”full page index” introdusert med fullstendig oversikt over alle artikler som Revise F65 har produsert siden etableringen av nettsidene for syv år siden. Dessuten ble de fleste engelskspråklige artiklene oppdatert, døde linker fjernet og engelsk sammendrag lagt til flere norskspråklige artikler.

ICD Revision White Paper“. Etter invitasjon fra WHO og med økonomisk støtte fra Helsedirektoratet, sendte Revise F65, 24. september 2009 faglig og kunnskapsbasert dokumentasjon til Senior Project Officer Dr. Geoffrey M. Reed i Verdens Helseorganisasjon i forbindelse med den forestående revisjonen fra ICD-10 til ICD-11.

I mail til Revise F65 25. september 2009, skrev Senior Project Officer Dr. Geoffrey M. Reed at vesentlige endringer i ICD er avhengig av bred vitenskapelig og politisk støtte. ”It will be helpful for the recommendations to come from as broad an international coalition as possible, if possible with the formal involvement or endorsement of scientific and professional societies or governments.”

30. september 2009. Revise F65 oppdaterte sin nettside om forskjellen på SM og vold med dokumentasjon fra Luc Granger, Ph.D., leder for Psykologisk fakultet ved Universitetet i Montreal, Canada.

5. oktober 2009: Forespørsel fra redaksjonen i Tidsskrift for psykisk helsearbeid om artikkel fra Revise F65. Diagnoseutvalget svarte positivt og bekreftende at vi kan bidra. Kanskje med en bearbeidet versjon av denne artikkelen:

Fra samfunnsfiende til friskmeldt”. Leder i SMia og Diagnoseutvalget Svein Skeid oppsummerte holdningsendringene som har skjedd fra norske helseautoriteters side i løpet av de femten årene som diagnoseutvalget har drevet informasjonsarbeid. Foredrag ved Universitetet i Agder 13. november 2009.

18. november 2009 hadde psykolog Odd Reiersøl og Diagnoseutvalgets leder Svein Skeid en 40 minutter lang telefonsamtale med WHOs Senior Project Officer Dr. Geoffrey M. Reed. Han stilte flere utdypende spørsmål til det “ICD revision White Paper” som han hadde mottatt fra Revise F65. Han sa seg enig i våre synspunkter. Men det er selvfølgelig en rekke tunge aktører han eventuelt må overbevise i denne saken.

Svein Skeid var gjest i Ragnhild Silkebækkens program ”Pepper og pasjon” på NRK p1 som ble sendt fra Elverum 19. november 2009. Et gjennomgangstema var viktigheten av åpenhet og kjærligheten gjennom 19 år mellom lærhomsene Tore og Svein i Sørskogbygda i Elverum. Programlederen fremhevet dette flere ganger og henviste til reportasjen med Tore og Svein over seks sider i lørdagsVG 24. august 1991. VGs artikkel med flere flotte bilder av kjærestene, kom som et motsvar til Dagbladets beskyldninger samme sommer der SM-homsene i SLM ble gjort til syndebukker for en liten økning i nysmitte av hiv første halvår 1991. HØR LYD:http://www.blekk.org/index.php?p=pepper_og_pasjon

20. november 2009. Brosjyren “SM- og fetisjsex mellom menn” fra mai 2005 ble for første gang linket opp fra Helsedirektoratets nettsider. Dette er etter vår oppfatning et stort fremskritt, et viktig signal til omverdenen og et tiltak som gjør innholdet mer tilgjengelig for folk flest i kampen mot hiv og seksuelt overførbare infeksjoner. Brosjyren er et samarbeid mellom SLM, SMia og Helseutvalget, med økonomisk støtte fra Helsedirektoratet.

30. november 2009. I forbindelse med Verdens Aids Dag, sendte Revise F65 for nok en gang oppfordring til Helse- og omsorgsministeren om å fjerne overflødige, uvitenskapelige, utdaterte og stigmatiserende fetisj- og sm-diagnoser fra den norske ICD-utgaven, undertegnet av ledende fagpersoner og organisasjoner. I brevet påpeker vi at reformen også har en vesentlig hiv-forebyggende effekt. Hiv-viruset diskriminerer ikke! Alt for mange i våre miljøer er hiv-smittet. “Å ta bort stigmatiserende diagnoser er kanskje det enkelttiltak som kan ha størst betydning for sm/fetisj-populasjonens selvfølelse og identitet på kort og lang sikt, med derav følgende mulighet til å ivareta egen helse og beskytte seg mot seksuelt overførbare sykdommer, inklusive hiv.”

Blikk nett 2. desember 2009: ”I anledning Verdens Aidsdag 1. desember har diagnoseutvalget Revise F65 sendt et åpent brev til Helse- og omsorgsminister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen hvor det hevdes at friskmelding av norske transvestitter, fetisjister og sadomasochister er et viktig hivforebyggende tiltak. – Å få diagnosene fjernet vil bety mye for vårt miljø når det gjelder sikrere sex og helseforebygging. Alt for mange i vårt miljø er hivsmittet, noe som rammer mange, også de som ikke er smittet. Helseforebygging er fremhevet i alle strategi- og tiltaksplaner, og da må det gjelde denne gruppen også, sier Svein Skeid.”

Som svar på Diagnoseutvalgets brev, instruerte for første gang Helse- og omsorgsdepartementet 4. desember 2009 Helsedirektoratet konkret om å fjerne de aktuelle fetisj- og sm-diagnosene. Svarfrist: 21. desember 2009.

I svar til Helse- og omsorgsdepartementet 21. desember 2009, gir Helsedirektoratet forhåpninger om at diagnosesaken skal være sluttført innen 1. februar 2010, og at beslutningen om å fjerne de aktuelle diagnosene ”eventuelt umiddelbart kan implementeres i den elektroniske versjonen av ICD-10 i Norge”.

 

 

Leder i papirutgaven av tidsskriftet Cupido ved redaktør Hanne Grasmo januar 2010: ICD-10 revideres til våren og det haster med at Norge fjerner sine nasjonale sm- og fetisj-diagnoser. “Fremdeles ligger forståelsen av dette som “sykt” underliggende i for eksempel barnefordelingssaker og i behandlingen av funksjonshemmede.”

Aftenposten 12. januar 2010: ”Snart kommer friskmeldingen: Allerede i 1997 begynte det norske arbeidet med å fjerne fetisj, sm- og transvestittdiagnoser fra sykdoms- og diagnoseregisteret, ICD-10, som forvaltes av Verdens Helseorganisasjon (WHO). Det var Landsforeningen for lesbiske, homofile, bifile og transpersoner (LLH) som gikk i bresjen. Direktoratet tar sikte på at arbeidet skal være sluttført innen 1. februar, sier Arild Johan Myrberg, seniorrådgiver i Helsedirektoratet til Blikk Nett.”

Vårt Land 13. januar 2010. “Disse diagnosene har vært svært lite brukt over svært lang tid, og jeg kjenner ikke til noen behandlingsformer som er knyttet til dette, sier Arild Johan Myrberg, seniorrådgiver i Helsedirektoratet.” “Det har gjennom flere år vært pressgrupper som mener at dette ikke er relevante diagnoser. Men at det er naturlige variasjoner av menneskers liv og at det føles stigmatiserende å ha en diagnose henger over seg, fortsetter Myrberg.”

21. januar 2010. I VG ble Høyres justispolitiske talsmann André Oktay Dahl kritisert for å bidra til at ”SM” og ”sadomasochisme” etableres som skjellsord i det norske samfunnet.

21. januar 2010: ”Oktay Dahl stigmatiserer SM-ere”. Leserinnlegg i Dagbladets papirutgave av Svein Skeid og Andrès Lekanger.

André Oktay Dahl beklaget sine uttalelser på Gaysir 29. januar 2010: “Det er god grunn til å stille spørsmålet om hvor solidariske LHBT-mennesker ville være mot hverandre hvis det en dag begynte å røyne litt på, også her i Norge. Jeg tviler på at den sitter sterkt – og jeg kom for eksempel nylig selv i skade for indirekte å rakke ned på enkelte i S/M-miljøet.”

Fra samfunnsfiende til friskmeldt”. Oppdatert versjon av foredraget fra 13.11.09 ble trykket i februarutgaven av månedsavisa Blikk side 22: ”I følge myndighetenes hiv-forebyggende planer, så kan en gruppes levekår påvirke evnen til å beskytte seg mot seksuelt overførbare infeksjoner. Diagnoseutvalget har lenge argumentert for at fjerning av stigmatiserende diagnoser kanskje er det viktigste og rimeligste hiv-forebyggende enkelttiltak overfor vår gruppe.”

29. januar 2010. Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad og Svein Skeid ble intervjuet på Radio Norge-nyhetene om den forestående friskmeldingen i tillegg til en lengre reportasje kl 18.40 med reporter Torkil Torsvik. ”Homofili ble fjernet fra diagnoselista på 70-tallet. Sexolog og transvestitt Esben Esther Benestad mener det er på høy tid at også transvestitter, sadomasochister og fetisjister friskmeldes.”

Bildereportasje med Diagnoseutvalget på Gaysir nett 30. januar 2010: – [Sadomasochisme/SM] dreier seg om den menneskelige seksualitetens kreativitet og friheten til å utfolde denne, mener Hanne Grasmo og får støtte av psykolog Odd Reiersøl: – Fetisjer må ansees som ressurser for din egen og andres tenning. Når man nå fjerner diagnosestempelet, betyr det at det blir lettere for folk å bruke disse ressursene til egen og felles glede. – Det er nemlig ikke uvanlig at folk stigmatiserer seg selv fordi de vet at det de tenner på er definert inn under en diagnose, mener han.

Mandag 1. februar 2010. Helsedirektoratet offentliggjorde på sine nettsider at norske helsemyndigheter fjerner fem diagnoser på seksuelle preferanser, seksuelle identiteter og kjønnsuttrykk fra den norske versjonen av diagnoselista ICD. Dette er de samme kodene som SMia og Diagnoseutvalget Revise F65 har anbefalt fjernet. Spesielt hyggelig er det at direktoratet blant annet benytter begrepet “seksuelle identiteter” for å beskrive fetisj- og sm-diagnosene. Myndighetene følger derved opp det mangeårige identitetsskapende og helseforebyggende arbeidet som SMia og Diagnoseutvalget driver for å bremse hiv-epidemien i vår målgruppe.

Helsedirektoratets friskmelding ble dekket i en rekke medier landet rundt tirsdag 2. februar 2010.

“Vedtaket [fra Helsedirektoratet] er etter vår vurdering en naturlig oppfølging av myndighetenes mangeårige folkehelsearbeid for å bedre levekårene for seksuelle minoriteter. Helsedirektoratet tar konsekvensen av sine egne strategi- og handlingsplaner om identitetsbyggende arbeid og økt selvrespekt som et viktig helseforebyggende virkemiddel, sier Svein Skeid til Blikk Nett 2.2.2010.”

Lege Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad diskuterte saken med psykiater Hans Olav Tungesvik på p4-programmet ”Sytten Tretti” ved siden av at p4 brakte saken i sine nyhetsoppslag. Benestad og Tungesvik var enige om at behandlingstrengende mennesker fortsatt skal få hjelp, men begrunnelsene deres var jo litt ulike. ”Ulykkelige mennesker skal fortsatt få hjelp”, poengterte Benestad; ”fordi omgivelsene fordømmer. Skammen og tabuene skaper 95% av de problemene vi ser.” ”Man blir syk av å bli fortalt at man er syk”, avsluttet han.

På p4-nyhetene samme dag uttalte Helsedirektør Bjørn-Inge Larsen:

”Det er sikkert mange som mener at [fetisj/sm] er uvanlig, og det er det sikkert. Men det er altså ikke noen sykdom og det skal ikke behandles i helsetjenesten! Larsen forteller at verken samfunnet eller helsetjenesten ser på dette som en sykdom og at det derfor ikke hører hjemme i diagnosenes verden. – Vi pleier jo å si at samfunnet setter grenser hvis man gjør ting mot andre som andre ikke ønsker. Dette handler jo om frivillig deltagelse i seksuelle aktiviteter. Og vi kan ikke se bort fra at også andre tilstander kan komme til å bli endret i framtiden”, avsluttet Helsedirektøren.

Intervju med Svein Skeid ble sendt tre ganger på formiddagsnyhetene til Radio Norge 2. februar, samt et lengre innslag i 1715-sendingen på NRK Østlandssendingen med Kalle Tuskerud.

”Det har vært en skamplett på det norske lovverket at 100 år gamle diagnoser, basert på fordommer, har fått lov å bli stående”, skrev LLH sentralt på sine hjemmesider, i følge NRK.

Ellers ble saken omtalt blant annet i tv2-nyhetene, NRK, VG, Dagbladet, Dagens Medisin, Forskning.no, Dagsavisen, Stavanger Aftenblad, Sandefjord blad, Fædrelandsvennen,Adresseavisa, ABC Nyheter, Troms Folkeblad, Tønsbergs Blad, Hallingdølen, kk.no og Helse Medisin Teknikk.no. Da er papirutgavene av aviser landet rundt ikke regnet med.

4. februar 2010. Psykolog Odd Reiersøl oversatte nyhetssaken med den norske friskmeldingen til engelsk og vi sendte den deretter blant annet til Senior Project Officer Dr. Geoffrey M. Reed i Verdens Helseorganisasjon til orientering.

Den amerikanske interesseorganisasjonen National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) viderebrakte nyheten 4. Februar 2010: The Norwegian Directorate of Health takes sexual minorities off the sick list.

Anne Emilie Korilstad, nestleder FTPN, 8. februar 2010: “Foreningen for Transpersoner i Norge (FTPN) støtter selvfølgelig denne endringen og ser det som en modernisering av samfunnet. FTPN er en forening for alle typer transpersoner eller kjønnoverskridere og vi er selvfølgelig glade for å ha blitt “friske”. Man skal i denne sammenhengen allikevel ikke se bort fra de psykiske utfordringene som møter de som har denne legningen. Det er meget viktig å gå ut med informasjon til barn og unge om denne legningen slik at de ikke fordømmer seg selv eller andre.”

KITH 24. februar 2010: Etter vedtak av Helsedirektøren 1.2.2010, fjernet kompetansesenteret KITH de fem transvestisme, fetisjisme og sm-diagnosene fra den elektroniske versjonen av sykdomslista ICD-10 i Norge.

Dobbeltsidig reportasje i tidsskriftet Cupido mars 2010. “Den 1. februar 2010 ble en jublende merkedag for alle fetisjister, transvestitter og SM-ere i Norge. Denne dagen fjernet helsemyndighetene disse seksuelle identitetene som sykdomsdiagnoser.” “Lederen i Diagnoseutvalget Revise F65 Svein Skeid har kjempet for denne endringen i mange år og strålte i alle medier.”

19. mars 2010. Fem siders bildereportasje i papirutgaven av Blikk mars 2010 s. 56-61. Friskmeldingen av fetisjister og sm-ere åpner for nye typer menneskerettighetsarbeid: Friskmeldingen vil etter hvert gjøre det lettere å være åpen for dem som ønsker det. ”Når du er ung og finner ut at du tenner på sm eller fetisj, så skal du slippe å lese i en lærebok at dette er en sykelig tilstand. Det er mange som har opplevd det, som blir veldig fortvilet og tror at det er noe galt med dem. De skal slippe å ha dette første møtet med sin egen seksualitet.” Samme reportasje i nettutgaven av Blikk 19.3.10.

Drammens Tidende 20. mars 2010. Friskmeldte lyster: ”Men Tone og Arild er helt friske. Det har myndighetene slått fast. 1. februar i år friskmeldte nemlig Helsedirektoratet folk som dem. Da ble det besluttet å fjerne sadomasochisme som psykiatrisk diagnose fra den norske diagnoselisten. I BDSM- miljøet og i fagmiljøer har det lenge foregått en intern lobbyvirksomhet for å få dette gjennom. For Arild er dette strålende nyheter. – Det har ikke så mye å si for meg personlig. Men for den som verken er i miljøet eller har et nettverk rundt seg, så er det et særlig viktig signal om at man ikke trenger å gå rundt og føle seg unormal eller gal.”


På årsmøtet i SMia Oslo 13. juni 2009 ble Svein Skeid gjenvalgt som leder. Peder N ble gjenvalgt som kasserer. Styremedlem Finn CH. Revisor: Vidar N. Foreningen er nå registert med organisasjonsnummer i Brønnøysundregisteret. SMia har også fått tid til å arrangere noen lekestuer i året som gikk: 6. mars, 21. mai og 2. oktober. SMia har søkt og fått innvilget skjenkebevilling til disse arrangementene som skjer i samarbeid med SLM. Diagnoseutvalget har avholdt møter 17.1.09, 21.2.09, 4.4.09, 25.4.09, 27.10.09, 19.12.09 og 6.2.2010.

 

 

 

Categories
Norsk Seksualpolitikk

Penger, porno og Kvinnefront

En seksuell minoritet ble trakassert i antipornokampens navn.

“Når vi studerer ordlyden i loven mot diskriminering på grunnlag av seksuell legning, finner vi at denne seksuelle minoriteten er falt utenfor ordlyden. Jeg vil ikke hevde at [den ekstremradikale kvinnebevegelsen] bevisst går løs på akkurat den gruppen man antar ikke har noen lovbeskyttelse mot trakassering på seksuelt grunnlag, men jeg må ærlig si at det kan se slik ut.”

Kronikk i Dagbladet 29.9.2003

Det er umulig å godta heftet «Porno, kvinneforakt og løgn» som et seriøst forskningsarbeide, skriver forfatteren Willy Ustad i Dagbladet 29.9.2003.


I DAGBLADET
16.9.03 beklager Ragna Birkemo og Bjørg Bjørsvik at Kvinnefronten måtte betale tilbake kr 66 307, etter at John Alvheim stilte spørsmål ved Kvinnefrontens hefte «Porno, kvinneforakt og løgn». Jeg mener helseministeren gjorde rett i å kreve pengene tilbake.

For det første var pengene bevilget som «tilskudd til abortforebyggende tiltak – studiesirkel og selvforsvarskurs». Hvor et anti- pornohefte kommer inn i denne sammenhengen, kreves det nok litt spesielle briller for å se.

For det andre er det umulig å godta heftet «Porno, kvinneforakt og løgn» som et seriøst forskningsarbeide. Fordi jeg selv jobbet med research om pornobransjen i anledning av et bokprosjekt, studerte jeg heftet, og fant grunn til å se nærmere på de omtalte bladene. Min konklusjon er at man har plukket løse deler, for å bevise det man mente før «forskningen».

«FORSKNINGSARBEIDET» har bestått i å kjøpe en bunke pornoblader i en Narvesenkiosk. I en undersøkelse av norsk kioskporno ville jeg forventet en oppstilling av den prosentvise fordelingen mellom typer innhold så som bildestoff, kontaktannonser, telesexannonser, noveller, leserbrev etc. Jeg ville også ventet en redegjørelse for eierforhold, opplag og så videre, samt en vurdering av innholdet i henhold til norsk lov, ved en jurist. Spesielt ville jeg ventet at man hadde undersøkt flere nummer av hvert blad, for å påvise en helhet. Uten fakta kan man jo vanskelig trekke konklusjoner? At jeg også forventet edruelighet og sannferdighet i det som foregir å være en forskningsrapport, er en selvfølge.

Den såkalte rapporten oppfyller ikke noen av disse enkle kravene til selv den mest elementære forskermetode. Derimot fremmes det uriktige påstander om innholdet i de to bladene som utpekes særskilt; LEK og nå henfarne DUO.

I en artikkel om sprukne kondomer i Sør-Afrika skriver LEKs redaktør uttrykkelig at dette er alvorlig i et land der 9 prosent av befolkningen er HIVsmittet. Kvinnefronten fortier denne klargjøringen, siterer bare det som passer egne hensikter av artikkelen, og skriver at «de dårlige kondomene burde heller fått tankene over på Sør-Afrikas store og økende antall aids-smittede». Dette er fusk, og sverting av redaktøren i LEK.

I samme nummer av LEK hevder heftet at det finnes en artikkel på mange sider om «hvordan man kjøper kvinner» på et sted i Syden. I realiteten var dette en foto-reportasje der teksten neppe utgjorde mer enn en side tilsammen, og avsnittet om de prostituerte var kanskje en sjettedels side. Dette er en tvilsom tallmagi.

OM BLADET DUO skrives det i heftet at «novellene handler om uskikkelige skolebarn som får ris og innføring i samleie av overordnede på skolen». Dette er en klar påstand om at DUO var et blad for pedofile. Angivelig skulle det undersøkte nummeret være DUO Special nr 1-1999. Annet stoff fra DUO som nevnes i heftet finnes imidlertid i nr 4-2000, som ikke er listet opp som «undersøkt». Fordi påstanden var så sterk, sjekket jeg fire hele årganger av DUO uten å finne en eneste slik novelle. En novelleserie av psevdonymet Bad Girl handler om hvordan hun selv brukes som modell i seksualundervisning, men elevene er uttrykkelig seksten (dvs over den seksuelle lavalder), ingen samleier eller «innføring» i sådant forekommer, og den eneste som får rapp i enden er jeg-personen selv – som beskriver seg som noenogtretti. Dette er klart innenfor lovene ramme. Langt tilbake i årgangene fant jeg et leserbrev der en mann fortalte at han fikk ris av en kvinnelig kateket under konfirmasjonsforberedelsen – trolig en gang på femtitallet. Men noen «innføring i samleie» fikk han såvisst ikke. Her prøver man urettmessig å henge ut DUO som et blad for pedofile. Heftet gir seg ut på en privat tolkning av straffelovens uttrykk angående porno om «barn eller noen som framstilles som barn». Her later Kvinnefronten til å mene at en engelsk skoleuniform godtgjør at en pornoaktør er framstilt som barn.

Så enkel er ikke verden: I de fleste land må en pornoaktør minst være atten år. Men hun eller han kan framstille en rollefigur som er – juridisk talt – én dag over den seksuelle lavalder i det landet filmen vises. Hun/han kan altså lovlig framstille en sekstenåring, på en norsk TVskjerm.

Med Kvinnefrontens måte å vurdere dette på, ville faktisk et bilde av en femtiårig infantilist i bleie også være en person som er «framstilt som barn».

I HEFTET brukes det mye energi på å få trafficking, prostitusjon, barneporno, vold mot kvinner og pomografi til å bli en enhet – et slags over-onde. Dette er en tvilsom sak: Trafficking forsyner prostitusjonsmarkedet, og i noen grad et illegalt, slaverilignende arbeidsmarked uten papirer eller rettigheter.

Barneporno er en forbrytersk virksomhet som opererer via private nettverk, og den vanlige pornobransjen i USA har faktisk både utlovt og utbetalt dusører for tips som fører til pågripelse av distributører av barneporno.

På syttitallet hendte det at prostituerte spilte inn pornofilmer, men dette tok en brå slutt da AIDS ble en faktor. I dag kreves det ferske hivtester, og den som har et utsvevende sexliv utenfor jobben risikerer at ingen vil jobbe med dem.

Og ennå har ingen seriøs forskning sagt at porno avler voldtekter. Lederen av Dixie – landsforeningen for voldtatte – opplyste tvert i mot til sosiolog Kjetil Rolness at gjennom de 12-15 år hun har arbeidet med å hjelpe voldtatte, har ikke en eneste av dem nevnt pornobruk som noen faktor i sammenheng med voldtekten.

Sveriges Brottsförebyggande Råd (BRÅ) advarte i år 2000 mot «en volds- og pornodebatt der likt log ulikt sauses sammen til en eneste stor grøt». Jeg vil til min dødsdag hevde Kvinnefrontens rett til å mene at virkeligheten er en slik grøt, men jeg kan ikke se at slike konklusjoner kan komme ut av – eller ha den minste sammenheng med – en ytterst lettvint gjennomgang av en tynn bunke norske pomoblader.

DET KLEBER en del ubehagelige ting ved heftet «Porno, kvinneforakt og løgn»: De to heftene LEK og DUO får gjennomgå mest, men er det tilfeldig?

LEK er det norske pornobladet som antas å ha den største andelen av kvinnelige lesere, og er dermed en ubehagelig påminnelse for Kvinnefronten om at et stadig økende antall kvinner faktisk leser porno.

DUO var sadomasochistenes blad, og den ekstremradikale kvinnebevegelsen har brukt nettopp sadomasochistenes filmer og seksuelle praksis som skremmebilder i antiporno-korstogene siden slutten av syttitallet. For å beholde dette skremmebildet intakt, ble faktisk tre kvinnelige medlemmer av S/M-foreningen SMil i Danmark kastet ut fra et antipornoseminar i Danmark i 1984, da de gikk i rette med den framstillingen som ble gitt. Og nettopp DUO var bladet med artikler der blant annet denne saken ble dratt fram. Bladet hevdet – ikke uten rett – at en seksuell minoritet ble trakassert i antipornokampens navn. Når vi studerer ordlyden i loven mot diskriminering på grunnlag av seksuell legning, finner vi at denne seksuelle minoriteten er falt utenfor ordlyden. Jeg vil ikke hevde at man bevisst går løs på akkurat den gruppen man antar ikke har noen lovbeskyttelse mot trakassering på seksuelt grunnlag, men jeg må ærlig si at det kan se slik ut.

USANNHETENE og de langsøkte konklusjonene i heftet gjør at det ikke kan kalles forskning. Det er en pamflett, beregnet på å samle tilhengere blant dem som ikke hadde sett disse bladene, eller ikke orket å kontrollere.

Det er bra at Staten støtter forskning. Men da har også Staten krav på at det virkelig gjøres forskning som fortjener betegnelsen. Heftet «Porno, kvinneforakt og løgn», var bare et ikke altfor saklig eller velfundert debattinnlegg. Og slike er det god folkeskikk å betale selv.

Categories
Norsk Seksualpolitikk

Sm-kvinner trakasseres av kvinner

Trashing: Sm-kvinner trakasseres av kvinner

Som ved andre typer overgrep, kan det se ut som om kvinner er spesielt utsatt. I følge Jad Keres-rapporten fra 1994, har 56 prosent av lesbiske/biseksuelle kvinner opplevd diskriminering og vold fra andre kvinner i det lesbiske miljøet på grunn av sin sm-tilhørighet.

https://ncsfreedom.org/component/k2/item/453-violence-against-s/m-women-within-the-lesbian-community-a-nation-wide-survey.html

One quarter of the sm women surveyed were physically assaulted by members of the lesbian community.

Discrimination within the lesbian community affects 30% of the women surveyed because of their sm orientation, including being ejected or refused admittance from a public accommodation, denied housing, and/or refused membership in a social, recreational, political, educational or spiritual lesbian group.

Den lesbiske forfatteren Pat Califia (Patrick Califa-Rice) beskriver i et intervju i den svenske avisa Homoplaneten forfølgelsen (trashing) av amerikanske sm-aktivister:

“Sm-lesber bankes opp og utestenges fra kvinners sosiale treffpunkter. Vår litteratur brennes, de ringer våre arbeidsgivere og sier vi er perverse slik at vi mister våre jobber.”
Kilde: “Samtal med Pat Califia”. Del 1: Feminismen. RFSL: Homoplaneten 12.10.1998.http://www.rfsl.se/?p=3815&aid=4757

Ting tyder på at trashing der radikalfeminister forfølger kvinner, forekommer også i Norge. Og SM-lesber nektes også i her i landet adgang til kvinners sosiale treffpunkter.

EKSEMPEL 1
“Paroler som uttrykker støtte til sm strider imot parolegrunnlaget og 8. mars-dagens intensjon og er derfor uakseptable i toget”.
Vedtak i 8. mars-komiteen i Oslo 20.2.1997. Kilde: Brev og telefon fra 8. mars-komiteen 1997.

EKSEMPEL 2
En 32 år gammel lesbisk kvinne ble i 1997 outet og hengt ut som sm-er på sin arbeidsplass av en kjent norsk radikalfeminist. 32-åringen hadde deltatt i en avis-debatt om sm og arrangerte et møte med temaet. Feministen deltok på en undervisningssamling på offerets arbeidsplass. 32-åringen var ikke tilstede på samlingen, men figurerte som terapeut på en video som ble brukt i undervisningen. Feministen kjente igjen den lesbiske kvinnen på videoen, og uttalte overfor offerets kolleger, fagsjef og representanter for andre institusjoner at “det er sjokkerende at kvinnen jobbet som terapeut når hun er sm-er”. Da den lesbiske kvinnen kom på jobb over helgen fortalte sjokkerte kolleger hva som hadde blitt sagt. Offeret følte at hun måtte stille opp på et møte med alle ansatte og gjøre rede for seg for at det skulle være mulig fortsatt å jobbe der. Etter dette roet situasjonen seg, og kvinnen arbeider ikke lenger der nå. Kilde: Personlig dokumentasjon.

EKSEMPEL 3
Det kan virke som om enkelte radikalfeminister systematisk lærer kvinner opp til frykt overfor sm-kvinner og sm-lesber. Den samme 32 åringen opplevde i 1995 at en kollega ved en institusjon for oppsøkende ungdsomsarbeid nektet å arbeide sammen med sm-kvinnen “fordi hun ikke kunne føle seg trygg på kvinnens holdninger til vold”. Kvinnen ble innkalt til sjefen i sakens anledning, men han hadde ingen problemer med sm-lesbens seksuelle orientering. Heller ikke tredjemann i teamet; en muslimsk amerikaner, hadde problemer med dette. Kvinnen var på den tiden leder i en sm-rettighetsgruppe. Kilde: Personlig dokumentasjon.

Categories
English Seksualpolitikk Sexual politics

Sexual Freedom NOW (published 1996/98)

Testimony from Physicians and Psychiatrists
for the NOW S/M Policy Reform Statement

Physicians and psychiatrists about SM as a valid expression of adult consensual sexuality and an important part of people’s sexual orientation.


Psychiatrist Susan D. Wagenheim, M.D.

As a board-certified psychiatrist and supporter of the National Organization for Women, I write in support of amending the policy statement on consensual S/M. It is my understanding that S/M practice is a valid expression of adult consensual sexuality. In my private practice, I hear patients tell me frequently that they were “born this way”; ie submissive or dominant in sexual nature. Their experience is that S/M is their sexual ORIENTATION, and they “come out” to themselves much as homosexual and lesbian people do. With that understanding, there is no place in NOW for discrimination against a woman’s right to choose; her right to choose how, when and with whom to express her sexual self.
Charles Moser, Ph.D., M.D.

S/M practitioners have been victimized by society as a whole and by many groups that should know better. There is no credible evidence that S/M practitioners have any more problems or issues than other sexual orientations. There is no data to suggest that S/M leads to violence. All research so far, indicates that S/M practitioners are indistinguishable from individuals with other sexual orientations, except by their sexual behavior. The revision of the NOW policy is long overdue.
June M. Reinisch, Ph.D., with Ruth Beasley, MLS. The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex

St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1990.

“Researchers estimate that 5 percent to 10 percent of the U.S. population engages in sadomasochism for sexual pleasure on at least an occasional basis, with most incidents being either mild or staged activities involving no real pain or violence. It appears that many more individuals prefer to play the masochist’s role than the sadist’s. It also appears that males are more likely to prefer sadomasochistic activities than females. This means that male sadists may have difficulty in finding willing masochistic females to be sexual partners.

“If partners are located, an agreement is reached about what will occur. The giving and receiving of actual or pretended physical pain or psychological humiliation occurs in most cares only within a carefully prearranged script. Any change from the expected scenario generally reduces sexual pleasure.

“Most often it is the receiver (the masochist), not the giver (the sadist), who sets and controls the exact type and extent of the couple’s activities. It might also interest you to know that in many such heterosexual relationships, the so-called traditional sex roles are reversed — with men playing the submissive or masochistic role. Sadomasochistic activities can also occur between homosexual couples.”
Havelock Ellis Studies of the Psychology of Sex (early 20th cent)

“The essence of sadomasochism is not so much “pain” as the overwhelming of one’s senses – emotionally more than physically. Active sexual masochism has little to do with pain and everything to do with the search for emotional pleasure.” Ellis believed that culture tries to stifle our “natural impulses, which become expressed through various emotional/physical representations of the heirarchal structure of society.”
Iwan Bloch 
Strange Sexual Practices (1933)

“Sexual abnormalities” were common in ordinary people, and that aberrations and deviations were as essential to life as the “sex impulse” itself. Masochism exists among socially powerful men for whom it was a “liberation from conventional pressure and the professional mask.”
Theodore Reik’s 
Masochism in Modern Man (1941)

“Pleasure is the aim, never to be abolished and the masochistic staging is but a circuitous way to reach that aim. The urge for pleasure is so powerful that anxiety and the idea of punishment themselves are drawn into its sphere.”
Bill Thompson 
Sadomasochism (1994)

“As SM devotees carefully refine these simple acts, by dressing them up in role-play, it is easy to see how they are deliberately manipulating various forms of stimulation in the service of sexual arousal; and how this consenting scene where the submissive’s pleasure is carefully planned is obviously very different from a truly coercive act like rape, which involves aggressive action designed to inflict acute pain on a non-aroused victim.”
Dolf Zillmann (1984) [D. Zillmann along with Park Elliot Dietz are two of the world’s leading authorities on the relationship between sex and aggression.]

“As the arousing capacity of novel partners is likely to fade and acute emotional reactions such as fear and guilt are improbable accompaniments of sexual activity, what can be done to combat the drabness of routine sexual engagements that is expected to result from excitatory habituation? Rough housing, pinching, biting and beating emerge as viable answers. In terms of a theory it is the controlled engagement of pain that holds promise of reliably producing excitatory reaction for transfer into sexual behavior and experience…. Pain then always can be counted on to stir up excitement, however, pain must be secondary to sexual excitedness. It must be dominated by sexual stimulation. Only when thus dominated can it be expected to enhance sexual excitedness.”
Park Elliot Dietz (1990) [P.E. Dietz is a forensic psychologist who consistently tries to point out the absurdity of the link between s/m devotees and psychotic criminals.]

According to Dietz, the five main differences between psychotic sadistic serial murderers and SM devotees:

1. Psychotics search for unwilling partners. S/M devotees use a “safeword” that the submissive can say at any time to end the scene, thus the submissive retains real control throughout the encounter.

2. Psychotics force their acts on the victim rather than aiming at pleasing the submissive (as in s/m). The psychotic sadistic acts are quite different from s/m practices, and usually include: forced anal penetration, forced fellatio, or violent vagina-penetration with various foreign objects -rather than the penis.

3. The sadistic offenders’ demeanor is diametrically opposed to s/m devotees: usually the psychotic is detached and unemotional throughout the torture, while the s/m dominant appears to achieve a “high” or pleasure equivalent during the scene.

4. Psychotic criminals torture their victims, inflicting serious and permanent injury, trying to arouse terror in their victims. S/M devotees skillfully enhance the sexual arousal of their partner, following the rules and guidelines that were established before the scene, thus creating only the illusion that the submissive is not in control.

5. Psychotics usually have a past history of sexual crimes such as rape or incest. S/M devotees are average people who typically don’t have criminal pasts.
The sociologists took their lead from the anthropologist Paul Gebhard, whose 1968 essay “Fetishism and Sadomasochism” undermined the idea of individual pathology by pointing to sadomasochism’s cultural roots, and the futility of defining a widespread and diffuse sexual practice by reference to a few “extreme” examples. He stated that S/M practices were “only prevalent in its organized form in literate societies full of symbolic meanings.” This means that far from being a manifestation of a base instinct, sadomasochism required a considerable amount of intelligence and organization.
1929 Hamilton survey on marriage habits: 28% males and 29% females admitted that they derived “pleasant thrills” from having some form of “pain” inflicted on them.
William A. Henkin, PhD.; November 1992 letter to the committee that advocated changes to the entries on sexual sadism and masochism in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“In conclusion: consensual sadomasochism offers its adherants an opportunity to explore paraphilic urges and fantasies, not in a dangerous or debilitating fashion, but in a safe and supportive manner, where those urges and fantasies can be pleasurably satisfied, and where their values in a person’s psychic life can be revealed.

“Within the past decade prominent clinicians and scholars in the fields of psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, and clinical sexology, eschewing the received wisdom of past masters who south to fit clinical observations to their theories, rather than the other way around, have instead made serious attempts to understand the activities of consensual sadomasochism as well as the dynamic processes that underlie them, and to devise theories that fit the evidence they found in the lab, in the consulting room, and in the field. They have proposed that consensual erotic power play is not a psychiatric disorder: that instead, it can simply be a form of sexual pleasure, and that as a path of psychological and spiritual development it can even be the evidence and experience of triumph over childhood adversity.

“Absent distress, harm, or functional impairment, to define such activity as a mental disorder is to place chains on the human spirit, and to produce a chilling effect on the very processes we as psychotherapists are trained and charged to abet: the healing and liberation of damaged and imprisoned personalities, and their integration in the full creative expression of human beings.”
Dr. William A. Henkin, 1989 presentation to the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex (now Sexuality) with Sybil Holiday, published in 1991 as “Erotic Power Play,” Sandmutopia Guardian.

A Clinical Introduction:

“Everyone accomplishes some degree of self-identification in the normal course of growing up. But the process of growing up is one of acculturation as well as one of maturation, so that as we are in the midst of discovering all those special attributes that make us who we are, we are simultaneously being trained to subdue, suppress, or otherwise disown important facets of ourselves. In the ensuing confusion, few people grow up whole. Instead we are to one degree or another dis-integrated, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as being separated into component parts or particles; reduced to fragments; having had our cohesion or integrity broken up. Disintegration is the condition that as adults we either accept or try to alter.

“One of the most direct ways I know for a person to gain access to hidden facets of his self, and hence to move toward integration, is to explore his sexual personas ; and one of the most direct ways I know for a person to explore his sexual personas is to examine the attitudes he brings to sexual activity. But to examine sexual attitudes usually requires more than intellectual assessment: it first needs exposure, practice, and hands-on experience. It also requires a perspective concerning the variety of people’s experiences that is not influenced by cultural norms.”

On negotiation:

“Negotiation includes both initial and ongoing, verbal and non-verbal communications. In erotic power play, negotiation is the underpinning for consensuality: you cannot agree, or consent, to give something if you do not know it has been requested, or to accept something if you do not know it has been offered. In addition, the more completely and openly people negotiate about what they want or have to offer, the more they establish their parity, as it is difficult for unequals to negotiate truly: all parties know that ultimately the person with more inherent power can pull rank.”

On Ritual:

“A major function of ritual is to let us know who we are beyond the confines of our small, individual selves. Baptisms, confirmations, bar and bas mitzvahs, long pants, graduations, marriages – all ceremonies tell us, even as they announce it, who we are to ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, and our world.

“Anthropologists, ethnologists, mythologists, and other psychologists of culture note that where a heritage of meaningful rites of passage does not exist, people will feel enough of a spiritual imbalance to make up rituals of their own. It’s become a cliché that our society offers us a paucity of rituals that touch the spirit, and that those that exist are for the most part competitive or not negotiated: football games, invasions of small islands, and the episodic opportunity to vote for more of the same.

“In erotic power play, rituals of substance can be conceived, developed, and executed in ways that can touch their participants on numerous levels at once: they can be physical, emotional, cognitive, or spiritual; sexual, political, and religious; they are simultaneously as sophisticated and creative as the human imagination can make them, and as basic and primitive as the psyche’s drives for power and sexual fulfillment.”

Categories
English Seksualpolitikk Sexual politics

Discrimination and violence towards the SM/fetish population (Revise F65, 2004; NCSF, 1999)

(Some more discrimination cases are included under “Discrimination and stigmatization” on the full index page: Site map!)
Discrimination and violence towards the SM/fetish population (Revise F65, 2004; NCSF, 1999)

 

A lot indicates that the instances of violence, harassment and discrimination in connection with work, home and custody of children that we are aware of are just the tip of the iceberg. As the situation stands today, it is often spokespeople for SM interest organisations etc. that by the power of their visibility experience discrimination. The pathologising and diagnosis of the World Health Organisation (WHO) are often the direct or indirect cause of these attacks.

As a person interested in SM/fetish, you risk losing your job, custody of your children, problems with neighbours, your innermost circle of friends and your closest family members. This then means that we might not have so many sources of support left in our lives. Many people therefore choose to keep their orientation hidden because of the fear of what could happen if they disclosed this.

As a consequence, many individuals do not report being attacked because of the fear of being further harassed by the police. Even if 36 percent of respondents in the American study described below experience violence and harassment, 96 percent of these didn’t report this. As a taboo minority, SM ers and fetishists also experience a significant degree of suppression and invisibility in society, including in the press. When we are referred to, this is usually in connection with “scandals” where the people in question’s sexual orientation is used as a piquant detail to spice up the story for readers.

Violence and harassment

A study (n=1017) undertaken by the SM rights organisation The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), shows that belonging to the SM community and SM sexual orientation generally speaking means that an individual exposes themselves for being socially stigmatised.

Thirty-six percent of subjects had been subjected to violence or harassment because of their SM/fetish orientation. This included verbal insults (reported by 87%), physical violence (25%), stalking (19%), damage to property (19%), blackmail (17%), sexual harassment (13%), rape (10%) and other types or violence or harassment (7%).
https://ncsfreedom.org/component/k2/item/452-ncsfs-violence-and-discrimination-survey.html

The swedish police department Säpo point our that lesbians and gay men are the group that is exposed to most violence and persecution in Sweden. The worst attacks have happened at events with a theme of SM and fetish. See:www.revisef65.org/fefestninger.html [Norwegian text only]

EXAMPLE 1
In Norway, the newspaper Klassekampen (27th July 1990) and the monthly publication Blikk have documented how in 1992 a van with nazi symbols drove round the centre of Oslo threatened and shot at gay leather/SM men.

EXAMPLE 2
Nazi attack against RFSL
Nazist violence and murder of homosexuals is a large problem in Sweden. Leather- and SM- gay men are hardest hit.
Source: Qmagazine October 13, 1998
http://www.revisef65.org/linkoping2.html [Swedish text only]

EXAMPLE 3
Neo-nazis screamed, “bögjävlar” (“fucking buggers”) and made Nazi salutes to SM/fetish gay men. Nazi vandalism to the offices of the gay organisation RFSL has set off a debate about the risk level, with RFSL demanding that homosexuals should be covered by the law on hate crimes towards minority populations.
Source: Qmagazine October 19, 1997.
http://www.revisef65.org/linkoping.html [Swedish text only]

Discrimination

Thirty percent of individuals in NCSF’s study had experienced discrimination because of their SM orientation, preference or method of expression. Forty percent had experienced harassment, 25% loss of job or contract, 17% loss of promotion, loss of custody of children 3%, denial of membership to an organisation 11%, unauthorised arrest 5%, or other forms of discrimination.
https://ncsfreedom.org/component/k2/item/452-ncsfs-violence-and-discrimination-survey.html


Discrimination by official bodies

EXAMPLE 4
Lack of legal security for SM-ers
Denmark: Attacker escapes prosecution. By Ole Martin Larsen. Police in Copenhagen have refused to prosecute a man for rape because the victim is a masochist. The woman herself raised the alarm to police from the man’s home. She was found there by a police patrol, dissolved in tears, chained with both foot- and handcuffs and with blood streaming from cuts in her thighs. Despite this, the police consider that there is not sufficient evidence to convict the man.
“Even if I am a masochist, no still means no, and that should be respected. And I said this clearly, amongst other ways by calling the police. What is my legal security worth if this cannot lead to a conviction”, said the woman, a female doctor, to Berlingske Tidende. She has appealed to the public prosecutor about the police’s decision. According to the sadomasochist’s organization SMil, the case is unique, and raises a fundamental question of whether a no from a masochist has the same value as a no from others. Because of this, SMil considers the matter to be concerned with the legal security o f sexual minorities.

Source: Berlingske Tidende/Arbeiderbladet 22th October 1994.

EXAMPLE 5
Murderer goes free because victim was a sadomasochist
In August 1993, an American court of appeal let a brutal murderer free because the victim had written a sadomasochistic fantasy in their diary. In this way, people’s right to consent is placed outside the law because of their sexual orientation, even to the extent that their death has been involved.
Leitner v. State (1983) 631 So. 2d 278-9.
www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/PoliceFreeGaySlaves.html

The “sadomasochist” is often seen as having given up h/er rights to protection from violence or abuse. It is clear that homosexual men as prosecution witnesses face similar difficulties in credibility as heterosexual women. In August of 1993, an appellate court released a man convicted of murder because the murder victim had written a long sadomasochistic sexual fantasy in his journal and the trial court had refused this journal entry as evidence at trial. The fantasy is reproduced for the delight of the court in its entirety in the published case. The unspoken implication here is that a man who fantasizes about homosexual sadomasochism has somehow consented to a brutal murder: “The journal excerpt was essential to the appellant’s defense. It suggested Craven may have desired to be involved, and may have been involved in voluntary sadomasochist sex when he was killed. If he suffered from these desires, then he might have sought out an amenable partner”[20] who eventually killed him. (That wasn’t very “amenable” of the partner if you ask me). Again, the law has constituted the sadomasochist as an always-already willing victim, even to the point of death.[21] This opinion also highlights the idea of “voluntary sadomasochistic sex” as a “desire” that one “suffers from,” a common thread in much of this discourse. The official status of “perverse” desire is thus situated as a medical and psychiatric condition that places those “afflicted” beyond the protection of the law and unworthy of inclusion in “civilized” society.


EXAMPLE 6
English rapist freed because of victim’s SM orientation
In a rape case heard at Leicester Crown Court in England on 29th November 1994, the defendant was freed even though rapist Ben Emerson had admitted the attack. The discovery of SM toys in the woman’s flat, together with her sexual leaning, led to the rapist being freed. Do we see any similarities here to the general debate concerning rape about “loose” and scantily clad women who are not taken seriously when they say “no”. It is actually the woman’s sexual leaning that stands in the dock, not the perpetrator’s acknowledge attack.
Source: Press Association Newsfile 30th November 1994; “Student Cleared in Body-Piercing Rape Case”.

1994: The “crime” of being a pervert: Despite of a self identified rapists confession, on 29 November 1994, a man was found “not guilty” of rape at Leicester Crown Court, because SM-toys was found in the female victim’s apartment. “There can be no doubt from the evidence that what was really on trial during this event was the prosecution witness’s sexuality — the mere existence of an interest in kinky sex made her charge of rape untenable”, writes Ben Attias at the California State University of Northridge, USA. “A woman’s privilege to say “no” to sex is here circumscribed by the discursive apparatus invoked by her sexuality — a woman with an interest in sadomasochism, rubber skirts, and body piercing, judge and jury seem to have reasoned, cannot be raped. Her sexuality implicitly predisposes her to consent to sex — she is inscribed as always already willing.” [Ben Attias http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/PoliceFreeGaySlaves.html] [“Student Cleared in Body-Piercing Rape Case,” Press Association Newsfile, 30 November 1994].

Rape Defendant Ben Emerson

Despite this frank confession, Ben Emerson was awarded a verdict of “not guilty” of rape on 29 November 1994, after a two-minute jury deliberation at Leicester Crown Court. The judge commented to the jury, “I wholeheartedly agree with your verdict.” The judge had actually recommended to the jury that it render a quick decision before even hearing the defense’s case: “At the end of the prosecution case the judge summarized the alleged victim’s evidence and reminded the jury how she and Emerson had oral sex without her objecting at her home….the judge told the jury: ‘When he went to get some baby oil to massage her body, what is this young man to think when he finds in the drawer artificial penises, magazines designed to excite sexually? He finds a riding crop near her bed and chains on the bed,” (ibid). After the trial, a friend of Emerson stated, “Justice was served in the end.”

“Justice,” in this case, meant the release of a self-identified rapist because the “alleged” victim had committed the prior crime of being a pervert. There can be no doubt from the evidence that what was really on trial during this event was the prosecution witness’s sexuality — the mere existence of an interest in kinky sex made her charge of rape untenable. A woman’s privilege to say “no” to sex is here circumscribed by the discursive apparatus invoked by her sexuality — a woman with an interest in sadomasochism, rubber skirts, and body-piercing, judge and jury seem to have reasoned, cannot be raped. Her sexuality implicitly predisposes her to consent to sex — she is inscribed as always-already willing. Ben Emerson, quoted in “Student Cleared in Body-Piercing Rape Case,” Press Association Newsfile (30 November 1994). www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/PoliceFreeGaySlaves.html

EXAMPLE 7
USA: Released after multiple rapes
Donald Kekich, Bruce Battista, Harold Phillips and Daniel Phillips were found not guilty by Ohio’s court of appeal of having carried out rape and mistreatment throughout the night of 14th July 1977. The victim Jane Lucas had been careless enough to write a birthday card to Kekich from which her masochistic interest was clear. By the force of her sexual leaning she was seen as “always willing” and prepared for sex and in practice declared to without the legal capacity to oppose the attack.
Source: [17] State v. Battista, Case Nos. CA 4815 & CA 4816, Court of Appeals of Ohio, Fifth Appellate District, Stark County, Ohio, Slip Opinion 8th November 1978.

On 8 November 1978, an Ohio appellate court handed down a similar verdict to two men accused of rape, felonious assault, and felonious sexual penetration. The court included a detailed description of the events of 14 July 1977 in the court transcript, providing an account of victim Jane Lucas’ testimony “[a]t the risk of memorializing the conduct of the Defendants for the future delight of the sexually perverse.”[17] This invocation of a notion of potential prurient interest in the testimony of the victim is characteristic of the Court’s treatment of the issues involved — outright violence is sexualized and treated as potentially “nonserious” in the serious context of the courtroom.[18]

According to Lucas’ testimony, she drove to Donald Kekich’s apartment with the intention of having sex with him. When they got there, Kekich told her to undress and asked if she needed to use the bathroom. In the bathroom, she was grabbed by a naked man (Howard Phillips, another of the defendants), raped, and severely beaten. Kekich and Phillips continued to rape and beat her for hours, later taking her to the apartment of other friends who joined in her torture, which lasted all night and included being threatened with a shotgun, which was then shoved inside of her while pictures were taken.

The defendants were convicted of “felonious sexual penetration,” but were acquitted of rape and assault on the basis of the discursive apparatus mobilized by the following testimony: “She asked for everything. She asked to blow you, she asked to go to bed with you. I mean, every sex act that happened was through her. I mean came out of her mouth and with each and every guy,” (Bruce Battista). The appellate court vacated convictions on rape and assault charges based on testimony from a friend of Lucas’ that she had overheard Lucas express masochistic fantasies, and the following birthday card sent by Lucas to Kekich, with whom she had a sexual relationship prior to the assault:

“I think you’re a brute, an animal and a Sex Fiend! — And I want you to know I appreciate it! Happy Birthday! To a man who won’t stand anything he doesn’t like, do without anything he desires, or even be polite to people unless they please him. As mean as you are – you will live a century & then some – Happy Birthday, Turkey!

…Love, Janie Lucas”

According to the appellate court, “It is evident in the instant case that Jane Lucas who accompanied Donald Kekich, Bruce Battista, Harold Phillips and Daniel Phillips initially by invitation got much more than she bargained for. However, it is equally obvious from evidence of record and especially from the birthday card admitted as Defendants’ exhibit, supra, that had acts which followed been limited to sexual conduct it would not have been necessary to compel Jane Lucas to submit by force or threat of force and that no charges would have been filed with nothing further being heard of such occurrences.”

Here the mere suggestion that Ms. Lucas might have consented without force to a sado-masochistic sexual relationship is taken as a priori evidence that she cannot legally be raped. Again, her sexuality inscribes her as always-already willing. The appellate court’s conviction of the defendants on charges of “felonious sexual penetration” further indicates that what went wrong on July, 14, 1977, was not so much the violence and terror to which Ms. Lucas was subjected, but rather the introduction of a foreign object into one of her orifices — the defendants, in other words, were convicted of violating a dildo law. (The relevant portion of the law states as follows: “No person without privilege to do so [it is unclear who has this privilege] shall insert any instrument, apparatus, or object into the vaginal or anal cavity of another, not the spouse of the offender, when any of the following apply: (1) The offender purposely compels the other person to submit by force or threat of force…”)

 

EXAMPLE 8
The Spanner case
A hundred years after the case against Oscar Wilde, England has been the only land in Europe to criminalise safe, sane and consenting SM-sex between equal gay partners. Heterosexual sadomasochists have been found not guilty for similar activities. In the European Commission of Human Rights, seven lands voted to free the Spanner gay men, while 11 wanted to convict them. Subsequently the court unanimously followed the majority vote in 1997. The tragedy here is that the Nordic lands would have counted in the balance of votes. If they had supported the Spanner gay men, then the opposite outcome would have been achieved. The Norwegian representative didn’t even turn up to vote. In the English highest court of appeal (1993), the Spanner men were sentenced by three votes to one. The convicted men have received moral and economic support from a collective Norwegian and international gay movement and a range of Norwegian political organisations with many hundreds of thousands of members from both the political left and right. This was a broad mobilisation of people for important principles such as freedom from harassment and not being allowed to work in the public sector, the right to free expression and adult individuals’ right to take their own decisions regarding their bodies and sexuality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner

An official appointed British Law Commission in 1995 came to the conclusion that SM or sadomasochism, short of causing serious or permanently disabling injury, should be no crime between consenting adults. – Under the Law Commission’s new proposals, the Spanner men would never have been prosecuted, according to the director of the civil rights group Liberty, John Wadham (Pink Paper December 22, 1995).
http://www.revisef65.org/lawcomm1.html

Discrimination on the internet

EXAMPLE 9
AOL discriminates against gay SM people
Gay rights organisations threatened to boycott internet service provider AOL because America OnLine discriminated against SMers, whilst racists’ and homophobes’ expressions are tolerated. On Monday, NationalGayLobby.org demonstrated outside the town hall in San Francisco because AOL had removed the user profile of a SM gay man which included the words “submissive” and “bottom”. Activists warned that this would be just the first in a series of protests if AOL didn’t stop the censorship or throw out the homophobes.
Source: Wired News 25.10.1999.
www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32106,00.html

EXAMPLE 10
SM-censorship on Geocities
The Swedish website Robin1 for lesbians and gay men was censored by Geocities after Robin1 posted up theme pages on fetishism. There was no pornography on the pages. Here, you can read Robins story about the censorship and about his own coming out process as a leatherman. Skeive nyheter December 1997. www.revisef65.org/fesmsensurgeocities.html[Sorry, only in Swedish]

Scandalisation in the press

“Sado-murder” and “sado-rape” are usual headlines when the tabloid press want to bring out the spicy details that are supposed to send a shiver down reader’s spines and sell more papers. Despite modern research having shown that SMers are no more likely to commit crimes, the person’s “sadomasochistic” learning is used as an obvious explanation for why the attack took place. The media do the same as they used to with homosexuals in terms of how they build up stereotypes. It is exactly this kind of media blunder that was in our time the reason that in 1981 an anti-discrimination law was passed in Norway relating to gay men and lesbians (Else Bugge Fougner and Berthold Grünfeld in Norway’s Offentlige Utredninger (NOU) om strafferettslig vern for homofile, 1979).

One of many possible examples, the case described here is the witch hunt against the SM-er and weapons inspector Harvey McGeorge.

EXAMPLE 11
Witch hunt against human rights activist
The American weapons inspector Harvey McGeorge (53) was scandalised and ridiculed in the press throughout the world because he had worked to inform people about safe, sane and consenting SM sex. The weapons inspector’s Swedish boss, Hans Blix, stated however that McGeorge’s private life was not relevant to his position as a weapons inspector. Source: Smia-info 30th November 2002. www.revisef65.org/fefnsm.html [mostly Norwegian. One English link]
http://www.londonfetishscene.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2207:qsaddamasochistq-revealed-as-weapons-inspector&catid=30&Itemid=76

Loss of job

There are many examples where fetishists and SM-ers lose their jobs because of their SM interest and orientation. Others are threatened with dismissal if they continue to inform people publicly about the group’s human rights.

A survey among readers of “The Leather Journal” in 2001 could indicate that one in four fetishists experiences discrimination at work.
http://www.theleatherjournal.com/?q=politics

A study undertaken by the SM rights organisation The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, NCSF, shows that one in 13 SM-ers had lost their job because of their orientation.
https://ncsfreedom.org/component/k2/item/452-ncsfs-violence-and-discrimination-survey.html

EXAMPLE 12
Threatened with dismissal
”Lasse”. In 1996, Oslo local authority threatened to dismiss a 22 year-old Norwegian bisexual male musician from his job in a free theatre group for children if he did not stop giving out information about fetishism in the media. The man was at this point a committee member in the Norwegian fetish organization Colorful People and had taken part in a debate on fetishism on ZTV. The man chose to sacrifice his freedom of expression in order to keep his job.
Source: Personal documentation.

EXAMPLE 13
Dismissal of temporary worker
”Kjersti”. In December 2000, a 26 year-old Norwegian heterosexual woman lost her temporary job as a salesperson in an insurance company in Eastern Norway because of her openness about her SM-orientation. This occurred despite the fact that she had completed internal training with the best results of the entire new intake of temporary staff. At a teambuilding seminar, participants were invited to tell their colleagues something about themselves that the others didn’t know about. The woman wondered whether to tell them about her interest in SM, but felt that this would not be quite right and therefore chose to contribute something else. Later the same evening, after dinner had been eaten and the atmosphere was more relaxed, she opened up to two or three of her colleagues and told them a bit about her interest in SM. This was met with good humour and taken as something “cool” by the colleagues, and in the first couple of weeks back at the office, this was joked about with “kinky” jokes in breaks, especially between the woman and these colleagues. The team leader heard the jokes, but did not share in the humour. Two weeks later, the woman was dismissed. The boss blamed this on the firm’s financial situation and said that he had taken on too many new employee s. However, the consultant in the deputy agency that had sent her to the firm in the first place afterwards gave her a friendly hint not to be so open about private matters in her next job. Two months later, the insurance company advertised again for new temporary staff for its sales team – temporary work with the possibility of permanent employment. The woman chose not to fight for her job, in the belief that she was only a temporary worker and therefore did not have the same rights as a permanent employee. Additionally, she would have been labeled as a troublemaker and would perhaps have missed out on the possibility of getting work through the temping agency in the future.
Source: Personal documentation

EXAMPLE 14
Dismissal of teacher at primary school
“Eros”. Norway, place unknown, 2003. A person of unknown sex, aged between 20 and 40 years. The person worked as a teacher in a primary school and is active in the Norwegian SM scene. In the course of the first few months in 2003, members of the local community around the school worked became aware of the person in question’s SM preferences. The person in question had not “come out” by themselves; this knowledge being made public was due to gossip behind their back. The gossip reached the school’s administration and the person received a sharp reaction from the school’s leadership: they were dismissed from their position at the school. It is hopeless to take up the fight again a dismissal like this. Such dismissals are clearly against the law, but should a person win a case against their employer, it would be just about impossible for the person to return to their workplace. The possibilities are all too great that the remaining employees would be in possession of misinformation and prejudices which would mean that they would not look upon that person as unsuitable to work with children, and as a result would “freeze” them out within the workplace.

EXAMPLE 15
Lost children because of SM diagnosis
“Hilde”. In 1997, a 42–year-old Norwegian woman in Eastern Norway let herself be pressured by her own lawyer to give up her custody of her two daughters after her divorce. The lawyer considered that the woman had a poor legal case because SM is defined as a psychiatric illness in Norway. This happened after her ex-husband got hold of the woman’s holiday photographs which showed her interest in SM – sado-masochism. He passed the photographs on to his lawyer. The children were also informed about the woman’s orientation. Today, the woman lives almost 40 Norwegian miles (400 kilometres/248 English miles) away from her children, but has partially regained contact with them after many years without contact.
Source: SMil-bladet, no. 2, 2002.

EXAMPLE 16
Children lost their father for 10 years
“Severin”. In 1983, a 39-year-old Norwegian man, who had been open with his wife of 12 years about his homosexual SM-orientation, lost shared custody rights of his three children (6, 10 and 12 years) because of his fetish- and SM-orientation. The smallest details of the man’s private sexual life was described by his ex-wife and her new husband in the court case (with jury). After this, he did not see his children for 10 years, until them became old enough to themselves make contact with him. Today, the man has a good relationship to them. An important element of the case is that the man was granted visitation rights to the children, something that was sabotaged by his ex-wife throughout the years of separation from his children.
Source: Personal documentation.

EXAMPLE 17
SM-preference does not affect caring ability
“Janne”. A 28-year-old Norwegian heterosexual woman had her parental rights to her two small boys under the age of six withdrawn in 2000 after she had asked the Child Protection department for help after the break-up of her partnership with the children’s father. Her ex-partner later became aware of her new interest in SM via an unknown source and informed the Child Protection department of this. SM-orientation was taken as a sign of illness and that the woman was not fit to be a parent. She was also reported for inadequate parenting of her children. The ”judgment” on the loss of parental rights including the woman’s SM-orientation, was announced by the Child Protection department in the presence of the children. After this, the woman was only allowed to have the children for between one and a half to two hours, one or two times a month, under supervision. She was not allowed to see the children in her own home. It became clear in the time following the judgment that the children had not received inadequate parenting from the woman, but instead one or both were born with a mild learning difficulty, which made him/them somewhat more demanding than unaffected children. The woman has employed a lawyer who is pursuing the case. The woman also wishes that something good should come out of the whole affair; namely that experts used in comparative cases in the future should intuitively know that the sexual preferences of adults – what one enjoys together with one’s partner – has nothing to do with a person’s qualities as a parent.
Source: Personal documentation.

Trashing: SM women harassed by other women

As with other types of attack, it looks as if women are especially vulnerable. According to the Jad Keres report from 1994, 56% of lesbian or bisexual women have experienced discrimination and violence from other women in the lesbian scene because of their interest in SM

https://ncsfreedom.org/component/k2/item/453-violence-against-s/m-women-within-the-lesbian-community-a-nation-wide-survey.html

One quarter of the sm women surveyed were physically assaulted by members of the lesbian community.

Discrimination within the lesbian community affects 30% of the women surveyed because of their sm orientation, including being ejected or refused admittance from a public accommodation, denied housing, and/or refused membership in a social, recreational, political, educational or spiritual lesbian group.

The lesbian author Pat Califia (Patrick Califa-Rice) in an interview with the Swedish paper Homoplaneten describes the harassment “trashing” of American SM activists:

“SM lesbians are beaten up and closed out from women’s social meeting places. Our literature is burned, they call our employers and say that we are perverts so that we lose our jobs”.
Source: “Samtaler med Pat Califia” [Talks with Pat Califia]. RFSL 12.10.1998.
http://www.rfsl.se/?p=3815&aid=4757

Things show that trashing where the most radical feminists harass women also happens in Norway. SM lesbians here too are denied entry to women’s social meeting places.

EXAMPLE 18
“Banners that express support of SM go against the basis guidelines for
having banners and the “8th of March”- days intentions and are therefore unacceptable in the parade.
Decision of the 8th of March committee in Oslo on 20th February 1997.
Source: Letter and telephone call from 8. mars-komiteen 1997.

EXAMPLE 19
A 32-year old lesbian woman was in 1997 outed and publicly exhibited as an SM‘er at her place of work by a Norwegian extreme radical feminist. The 32-year-old had taken part in a newspaper debate on SM and arranged a meeting on this theme. The feminist participated in a educational gathering at the woman’s workplace. The 32-year-old was not at the gathering, but figured as a therapist on a video used in the session. The feminist recognised the lesbian women on the video and said in front of the victim’s colleagues, head of department and representatives from other institutions “It is shocking that this woman works as a therapist when she is an SM-er”.
When the lesbian woman came back to work after the weekend, shocked colleagues told her what had been said. The victim felt that she had to turn up at a meeting of all the employees and prepared herself for the fact that she might no longer be able to work there. After this, the situation calmed down and the woman no longer works there.
Source: personal documentation

EXAMPLE 20
It can seem as if certain feminists systematically teach women to fear SM women and SM lesbians. The same 32-year-old mentioned above also experienced in 1995 that a colleague at an institute for outreach work with young people refused to work with the SM woman “because she couldn’t feel safe with the woman’s attitude towards violence”. The woman was called in by her boss in connection with the matter, but he didn’t have any problems with the SM lesbian’s sexual orientation. Neither did the third person in the team, a muslim American, have problems with this. The woman was at that time the leader of an SM rights organisation.
Source: personal documentation.

Categories
English Professional work

Psychological Surrender

Is Sadomasochism a mental pathology?
From Kraft-Ebing to Carl Jung, through years of research on the ground, Dorothy Hayden express her conclusion about masochism. The proposal for a new Psychological approach to BDSM.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF MASOCHISTIC SURRENDER

By Dorothy C. Hayden, CSW

“Proud to be a perv”. Picture from SM Pride 2003 in London by Svein Skeid.62AkselProudPerv7

A number of years ago, in connection with my work with sexual addiction, a number of lifestyle submissives started coming to me for treatment. Some of these people were extremely hesitant to discuss their reasons for seeking therapy; they were so ashamed of their fantasies and behaviors that it took years of working with them until I knew their real names or their telephone numbers. Patients who able to be forthcoming about their masochistic behaviors and fantasies were as confused as I was. One of my patients, giving me a written masochistic fantasy after months of resistance, said, “Here it is. This is what I came to therapy for. It’s terrible. It’s sick. It’s wonderful. I hate it; it’s my favorite fantasy. I can’t stand it, I love it. It’s disgusting. I don’t want to stop it.”

Learning about the world of S&M has been an invaluable experience to me. I had to admit to myself that, viewed from the perspective of what I knew about the nature of the individual self, masochism puzzled me by flying in the face of everything that was rational about the nature of the human personality. People want to be happy and to avoid pain and suffering. They seek to maintain and increase their control over themselves and their surroundings. And they desire to maintain and increase their prestige, respect, and esteem. Viewed from the perspective of these three principles about the self, masochism is a startling paradox. The self is developed to avoid pain, but masochists seek pain. The self strives for control, but masochists seek to relinquish control. The self aims to maximize its esteem, but masochists deliberately seek out humiliation.

UNCOVERING A WORLD

I heard stories of whips, canes, racks, cock-and-ball torture, dripping wax on naked skin, electronic devices designed to deliver just the right amount of pain, the difficulty of finding the right mistress, and the surprising number of “dungeons” that existed within a few block radius of my mid-town office. Time and again, men would talk of the frustration of being unable to entice their wives or partners, who found these sexual activities to be perverse, into engaging in the sexual behaviors that they most longed for. I suspected that there was a vast number of people who felt tremendous shame and isolation about masochistic submissive longings. I decided to check the clinical literature on masochism to better arm myself with some psychodynamic understanding of why these men, who so often felt shame-bound, were so keen to be dominated, hurt, tortured and humiliated by strong, dominate women.

This is what my research revealed: According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, (the shrink’s bible), anyone who engages regularly in masochistic sex is mentally ill by definition. There is a long tradition of regarding masochism as the activity of mentally ill sick individuals. Freud described masochism as a perversion. One of his followers linked masochism to cannibalism, criminality, necrophilia and vampirism. Another analyst said that all neurotics are masochistics. In short, clinical perspectives have regarded masochists as seriously disturbed.

THE THERAPEUTIC APPROACH

Krafft-Ebing, the nineteenth-century psychiatrist who coined the term, subsumed masochism under the broad heading of “General Pathology” in this famous volume, Psychopath Sexualize, in 1876. Masochism became a pathological, sexual and psychopathic phenomenon all at once.

“By masochism I understand a particular perversion of the psychical sexual life in which the individual affected, in sexual feeling and thought, is controlled by the idea of being completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex; of being treated by this person as a master — humiliated and abused. This idea is colored by lustful feeling; the masochist lives in fantasies, in which he creates situations of this kind and often attempts to realize them. By this perversion his sexual instinct is often made more or less insensible to the normal charms of the opposite sex – incapable of a normal sexual life – psychically impotent.”

It has become practically a dogma of psychoanalytic thought that masochism is a sexual condition in which punishment is required before satisfaction can be reached. Freud understood the phenomenon as resulting from an “unconscious feeling of guilt” as “a need for punishment by some parental authority. Writing in 1919, Freud found the genesis and reference point for masochism in the Oedipus-complex. Masochism, he said, actually begins in infantile sexuality, when the wish for the incestuous connection with mother or father must be repressed. Guilt enters at this point, in connection with incestuous wishes. The parent figure then becomes the dispenser of punishment instead of love and appears in desires for beating, spanking, etc. The fantasy of being beaten becomes the meeting place between the sense of guilt and sexual love. Whether it involves literal pain or not, the punishment desired by the masochist is enjoyed in and of itself. Punishment and satisfaction both give pleasure – and humiliation. Freud, in referring to masochism as a “perversion”, cemented it forever in the ghetto of the aberrant and deviant.

My research, however, did not jibe with my clinical reality. The people who presented to me were not immature or inferior. In fact, the reverse seemed to be the case. Masochists are more likely to be successful by social standards: professionally, sexually, emotionally, culturally, in marriages or out. They are frequently individuals of inner strength of character, possessed of strong coping skills with an ethical sense of individual responsibility. A famous study of the “sexual profile of men in power” found to the researchers’ surprise, a high quantity of masochistic sexual activity among successful politicians, judges and other important and influential men.

FROM PATHOLOGY TO LIFESTYLE

It became obvious to me that psychology’s theories of masochism were obsolete. In the 1960’s, homosexuality was deleted from the DSMIV and was recognized not as a pathology, but as a lifestyle choice.

It is my contention that the same should be done with masochism and that, like homosexuality, it needs to be removed from the rubric of “psychopathology” and be seen for what it is: a sexual lifestyle choice. It is the intention of this paper to suggest ways of understanding masochism without invoking theories of mental illness.

The questions, however, remained. I puzzled as to why so many men, raised in a culture that valued masculine initiative, assertiveness, and dominance, want to be relieved of these qualities and surrender their will to a strong, dominant woman who might torture, control and humiliate them. What was the basis of this compelling urge to surrender and serve, to relinquish control, to accept physical pain and emotional humiliation?

As I listened to my patients over the years, I began to see masochism less as a sexual aberration and more as a metaphor through which psyche speaks of its suffering and passion.

There was a definite connection between suffering and pleasure the intrigued me.

Clients spoke of the rapturous delight in submission, the worship, in wild abandon and the deliverance from the confining bondage of “normalcy”.

Ritualized suffering seemed to be a way of giving meaning and value to human infirmities. After all, there is no paucity of suffering in human life. None of us need go looking for pain. The suffering of helplessness, disappointment, loss, powerlessness and limitation, is a part of the human condition. It is my hunch that there is something like a universal need, wish or longing for surrender completely to certain aspects of human life and that it assumes many forms. This passionate longing to surrender comes into play in at least some instances of masochism. Submission, losing oneself to the power of the other, becoming enslaved to the master is the ever-available lookalike to surrender.

THE SUBSPACE

Submissives speak of a quality of liberation, freedom and expansion of the self in a scene as a situation similar to the letting down of defensive barriers. They speak of the experience of complete vulnerability. I believe that buried or frozen, is a longing for something in the environment to make possible surrender, a sense of yielding of the false self. The false self is an idea developed by a famous psychoanalyst who posited that most parents need their children to behave in circumscribed ways in order for the child to receive their love. For a child, parental love is a matter of survival, and so the child forges a “self” that they think will ensure parental love and approval. The false self is usually a “caretaker” self. A Scene sometimes allows for years of defensive barriers that support the false self to be broken through. It carries with it a longing for the birth of the true self. Deep down we long to give up, to “come clean”, as part of a general longing to be known or recognized. The prospect of surrender may be accompanied by a feeling of dread and or relief or even ecstasy. It is an experience of being “in the moment”, totally in the present. Its ultimate direction is the discovery of one’s identity, one’s sense of self, of one’s sense of wholeness, even one’s sense of unity with other living beings. Joyous in spirit, it transcends the pain that evokes it. One’s exquisite pain is sometimes akin to mystical ecstasy. Within the context of that surrender, a self-negating submissive experience occurs in which the person is enthralled by the dominant partner. The intensity of the masochism is a living testimonial of the urgency with which some buried part of the personality is screaming to be released. The surrender is nothing less than a controlled dissolution of self-boundaries.

The deeper yearning is the longing to be reached, known and accepted in a safe environment which narcissistic, dysfunctional or preoccupied parents were unable to provide the child at a young age.

Fantasies of being raped, which are very common, can have all manners of meanings. Among them, one will almost always find, sometimes deeply buried, a yearning for deep surrender. The submissive longs for and wishes to be found, recognized, penetrated to the core, so as to become real, or, as one analyst says it “to come into being.”

RITUALS AND CREATIVITY

In addition to the longing to surrender into a truer sense of self, masochistic behaviors have another meaning. People need and take delight in fantasy production. Ask the Disneyland folk who cater to adults as much as to children. Scenes have tremendous potential for potentiating fantasy. Costumes, rituals, scenarios, an endless variety of sex props, and elaborate sets reveal of the richness the creative inner life and speak to the very real human need for fantasy play. The fantasies are the carriers of a full spectrum of human feelings: to control, to be controlled, to tease, to be teased, to play, to please, and to achieve solace from the confines of the mundaness of ordinary life. They represent the suspension of normal reality that is an occasional necessity for all healthy people.

Probably the last thing masochism appears aimed at is balance. In keeping with its paradoxical nature, masochism provides not so much a state of weakness, but a sense of surrender, receptivity and sensitivity. Masochism is the condition of submitting fully to an experience, which counters lives that, in our Western society, are ego-centered, constrained, rational, and competitive. Strength can be a terrible burden. It is a constraint, which can be relieved in moments of abandonment, of letting down and letting go. So it is hardly surprising that the pull of masochistic experiences should be so strong in a culture the overvalues ego strength at the expense of a fuller experience of all dimensions of psychic life.

In conclusion, I believe that therapists need to radically alter their approach to doing psychotherapy with masochistic patients. My colleagues complain that masochists are difficult to “cure”. Perhaps because the paradigm from which these therapists operate are faulty. The recognition of value and meaning in the desire to suffer humiliation runs counter to the prevailing attitude in psychology. The main thrust of modern theory and practice has been toward ego psychology. The values of psychotherapy have been aimed, for the most part, at building strong, coping, rational problem-solving egos. Ego-values are certainly worthy ones, yet it costs something to gain strength, to cope, to be rational and to solve problems. This may account for the dissatisfaction many people feel after years of psychotherapy. Building a strong ego is only one side of the story; it neglects other, crucial parts of the human psyche. Modern psychology has been in large measure dominated by helping people develop independence, strength, achievement decisive action, coping and planning. What’s missing is attention to the more subtle dimensions of soul.

THE CHARM OF SHADOWS

The psychoanalyst most in tuned with the missing element in psychotherapeutic work with masochism is Carl Jung. Masochism may be imagined as cultivation of what Jung called the “shadow” – the darker, mostly unconscious part of the psyche which he regarded not as a sickness, but as an essential part of the human psyche. The shadow is the tunnel, channel, or connector through which one reaches the deepest, most elemental layers of psyche. Going through the tunnel, or breaking the ego defenses down, one feels reduced and degraded. Usually, we try to bring the shadow under the ego’s domination. Embracing the shadow, on the other hand, provides a fuller sense of self-knowledge, self-acceptance and a fuller sense of being alive. Jung’s idea of the shadow involves force and passivity, horror and beauty, power and impotence, straightness and perversion, infantilism, wisdom and foolishness. The experience of the shadow is humiliating and occasionally frightening, but it is a reduction to life&Mac220;to essential life, which includes suffering, pain, powerlessness and humiliation. Submission to masochistic pain, loss of control and humiliation serves to embrace our shadow rather than deny it. The result is the achievement of an inner life that accepts and embraces all aspects of our selves and allows us to live with a deeper sense of our true selves.

In conclusion, the psychotherapeutic community needs to re-examine masochistic submissions to see it not as a pathology but as a healthy vehicle for surrendering fixed defense mechanisms, for relinquishing control to something or someone greater than themselves, for achieving freedom from the pervasive and relentless need to cultivate, promote and assert the self, for gaining some relief from having to make innumerable choices and decisions, for engaging in healthy fantasy enactments, and for the exploration, acknowledge and acceptance the “darker” or “shadow” side of their personalities. In addition, many patients speak of achieving a loss of self-awareness that they describe as ecstasy or bliss in which the individual transcends his normal limits and ceases to be aware of self in ordinary terms.

A travesty of our profession is that we continue to try to “cure” a systems of beliefs and behaviors that enrich and enlivens the lives of so many people. The continuing pathologizing of masochism by keeping it in the DSMIV as a psychopathology and by most therapists’ efforts to “cure” masochists is in part responsible for the continued , shame, isolation and low self-esteem of these creative, spontaneous and courage people who want to be afforded the dignity of choosing their own form of non-exploitative sexuality.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dorothy Hayden, MBA, CSW, received her masters degree in clinical social work from New York University and has received advanced clinical training at the Post Graduate Center for Mental Health. She is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City.

You can contact her with the E-mail: dhayden@nyc.rr.com.
Dorothy Hayden, CSW
209 East 10th Street #14
New York, NY

Web site: www.sextreatment.com/

Categories
Forside Norsk Seksualpolitikk

Finland slutter seg til nordisk seksualreform

Fjerde land som fullstendig fjerner fetisj- og SM-diagnoser:
“Verken behandling, statistikk eller forskning tar skade av at diagnosene forsvinner”

 

Finland slutter seg til nordisk seksualreform

En nordisk modell for sexualreform utfordrer nå Verdens Helseorganisasjon etter at Finland fjernet fem diagnoser på seksuelle preferanser, seksuelle identiteter og kjønnsuttrykk som relaterer seg til seksuell orientering fra landets nasjonale ICD-versjon. WHO reviderer for tiden den internasjonale sykdomsklassifiseringen til en ny oppdatert ICD-11-utgave som skal være klar i 2015.

Av Svein Skeid og Odd Reiersøl

Basert på den norske modellen og det banebrytende arbeidet til Revise F65-gruppen, kunngjorde det finske nasjonale institutet för hälsa och välfärd (THL) 12. mai 2011, at landet avskaffer sykdomskodene transvestisme, fetisjisme, fetisjistisk transvestisme, sadomasochisme og multiple forstyrrelser i seksuelle objektvalg. Dette er de samme diagnosene som Revise F65 arbeider for å fjerne fra WHOs internasjonale sykdomsliste. Revise F65 er et utvalg i LLH, Landsforeningen for lesbiske, homofile, bifile og transpersoner.

Finland er det fjerde landet som foretar en slik revisjon etter at det norske Helsedirektoratet gjorde de samme diagnosekodene ugyldige 1. februar 2010. Sverige gjennomførte en lignende reform i 2009, mens Danmark fullstendig avskaffet transvestisme og sadomasochisme som diagnoser i henholdsvis 1994 og 1995.

– At fire nordiske land nå har fjernet de aktuelle diagnosene for nasjonalt bruk er et viktig faglig og helsepolitisk signal til WHO i arbeidet med utarbeidelsen av ICD-11, sier leder i LLHs Diagnoseutvalg, Svein Skeid. Den finske seksualreformen er jobbet fram av homoorganisasjonen SETA i samarbeid med eksperter fra Sexpo Foundation-gruppen. I helsemyndighetenes faglige begrunnelse fremheves det blant annet at de overnevnte diagnosene ikke er i praktisk bruk og at de fungerer stigmatiserende overfor gruppen som rammes av den.

Nordisk modell

– Vi regner med at mellom én og to millioner mennesker tilhører grupper som nå er direkte berørt av de nordiske landenes friskmeldinger basert på den veldokumenterte norske Revise F65-modellen, sier Svein Skeid. Oppdatert forskning viser at sykeliggjøring fører til vold og diskriminering mot seksuelle minoriteter og hindrer folk å søke adekvat helsehjelp. De siste to årenes utvikling viser at de nordiske landene tar seksuelle minoriteters helse på alvor. – Det ligger nå et stort ansvar på Verdens helseorganisasjon om å følge “den nordiske modellen” og fullstendig fjerne de fem fetisj, SM og trans-diagnosene i den nye ICD 11-utgaven, sier Skeid.

ICD-11 Alpha Draft

I følge ICD-11 Alpha Draft (bilde til venstre), besøkt 20. mai 2011, så er fetisjisme, fetisjistisk transvestisme, sadomasochisme og transvestisme ennå ikke fjernet fra listen over sykdommer på WHOs liste. I følge seniorrådgiver i Helsedirektoratet, Arild Johan Myrberg, ligger WHOs arbeid med å oppdatere den internasjonale diagnosemanualen ett år etter planen.

 

Seksuell orientering

I pressemeldingen på THLs offisielle nettsider, heter det at finske helsemyndigheter “har mottatt forslag om endringer i kategorier relatert til seksuell orientering.”

“Etter å ha vurdert informasjon om kategoriene terapeutisk, deres medisinske bakgrunn, synspunkter fra eksperter på diagnosenes riktighet og nødvendighet, og de nordiske landenes praksis på området, har THL, etter instruks fra generaldirektøren, besluttet at følgende kategorier skal fjernes fra den finske versjonen av ICD-10:

F64.1 Transvestisme
F65.0 Fetisjisme
F65.1 Fetisjistisk transvestisme
F65.5 Sadomasochisme
F65.6 Multiple forstyrrelser i seksuelle objektvalg”

I følge overlege ved THL, Jorma Komulainen, er disse fem diagnosene uklare og benyttes så sjelden at verken behandling, statistikk eller forskning tar skade av at de forsvinner. De siste ti årene har diagnosene blitt oppgitt som årsak til behandling mindre enn én gang i året. Det kan tolkes som at heller ikke leger anser fetisjisme, transvestisme og SM som sykdommer og at man helst ikke benytter diagnosene.

 

Referanser:

THL (2011). ICD-10-tautiluokitusta päivitetään 2011. Kunngjøring 12.5.2011 fra Det finske nasjonale institutet för hälsa och välfärd (THL). Hentet 12. mai 2011 fra http://www.thl.fi/doc/fi/25489

Revise F65 (2010). SM, fetisjisme og transvestisme ikke lenger sykt i Norge. Hentet 12. mai 2011 frahttp://www.revisef65.org/friskmelding.html

Socialstyrelsen (2008). Pressemelding fra den svenske Socialstyrelsen 17.11.2008. Hentet 12. mai 2011 fra http://www.revisef65.org/socialstyrelsen.html

Revise F65 (1995). Danmark fjerner SM som diagnose. Hentet 12. mai 2011 frahttp://www.revisef65.org/danmark.html

Revise F65 (2009). Faglig grunnlag for å fjerne norske fetisj- og SM-diagnoser. Hentet 12. mai 2011 fra http://www.revisef65.org/notat.html

Wright, S. (2008). Second National Survey of Violence & Discrimination Against Sexual Minorities. NCSF. Hentet 12. mai 2011 frahttp://www.ncsfreedom.org/images/stories/pdfs/BDSM_Survey/2008_bdsm_survey_analysis_final.pdf

Wright S. (2010). Depathologizing Consensual Sexual Sadism, Sexual Masochism, Transvestic Fetishism, and Fetishism. Archives of sexual behavior. Volume 39, Number 6, 1229-1230.

Categories
Forside Norsk Seksualpolitikk

Danmark fjerner SM som diagnose

Danmark har som første europeiske land etter en politisk beslutning fjernet SM som diagnose.

I 1995 fjernet Danmark som første EU-land, sadomasochisme fullstendig som diagnose ved et politisk vedtak i regjeringen. Beslutningen bygger på forskning som viser at SM eller sadomasochisme ikke er noen sykdom. F64.1 Transvestisme ble fjernet som diagnose fra den danske ICD-versjonen 19. august 1994.

– Ingen sykdom

I et brev til formannen i SM-foreningen Det Sorte Selskap, Anders Sørensen, skrev den daværende danske sundhedsminister Yvonne Herløv Andersen (bildet), at hun finner det beklagelig at sadomasochisme inngår i sykdomsklassifikasjonen ICD, International Classification of Diseases. “Jeg mener det er god grunn til å fravike den internasjonale sykdomsklassifikasjonen på dette punkt”, skrev Andersen, som var dansk sundhedsminister fra 1994 til 1996, og før det sosialminister. Ministeren var enig i at seksuell preferanse er et helt privat anliggende: “Toleransen overfor mennesker med en annerledes seksualitet er blitt større, og på dette punkt er Danmark et foregangsland”, skriver hun til slutt.

Det Sorte Selskaps formann Anders Sørensen mottok beslutningen med begeistring. “Denne holdning ville mange sadomasochister verden over ønske var gjeldende i deres land, også i naboland som Sverige, Norge og England, som ellers går for å være opplyste og siviliserte stater med en humanistisk rettspolitikk”, uttalte sm-formannen til den danske avisen Politiken.

På bildet til høyre kan du se en faksimile av brevet fra den danske Sundhedsstyrelsen (Statens Helsetilsyn), der beslutningen om å ikke å benytte diagnosen F65.5 Sadomasochisme, bekjentgjøres. Klikk på bildet for å få en større versjon av brevet, som naturlig nok er skevet på dansk.

Vold og SM i samme diagnose

I dagens ICD-klassifikasjon skilles det overhodet ikke mellom frivillig og gjensidig SM-sex på den ene side, og vold, overgrep og konemishandling på den annen side.

Overstående dokumenterer hvordan Danmark i 1995 fjernet sm som diagnose, nettopp fordi forskning viser at sm-ere ikke er mer sykelige enn andre mennesker.
http://www.revisef65.org/psykopatologi.html

På nettstedet
http://members.aol.com/NOWSM/Psychiatrists.html/#Psychiatrists;
dokumenter Park Elliot Dietz – en av verdens ledende autoriteter på sammenhengen mellom aggresjon og sex – den helt grunnleggende forskjellen på voldelig sadisme og sm-sadisme!

På samme webside er også referert Kinsey-instituttets forskningsrapport fra 1990 som viser at 5-10 prosent av befolkningen praktiserer SM eller sadomasochisme.

Fraviking

Også i Norge har vi i forhold til homofili sett at enkeltland kan fravike enkeltdiagnoser i ICD, som er bestemt av Verdens Helseorganisasjon, WHO. Desto flere land som klarer å fravike sykdomsklassifiseringen F65 på fetisjisme og sadomasochisme, jo større er sjansen for at den blir fjernet av WHO.

Kink Aware Professionals
Endringer i diagnose-klassifiseringen ICD skjer nå omtrent fortløpende. Historien viser at DSM-lista til Den amerikanske psykiaterforeningen APA, svært ofte påvirker den internasjonale ICD.
Liste over “Kink aware professionals” eller fetisj/sm-vennlige fagfolk, finner du påhttp://www.ncsfreedom.org/index.php?option=com_keyword&id=270

Denne opprinnelige amerikanske KAP-lista omfatter nå hele verden, Europa inkludert. Det har allerede begynt å dukke opp en del europeiske ressurser.
Se også: Kink aware professionals Berlin http://www.bdsm-berlin.de/kap.html

Kink aware professionals Canada http://www.vancouverleather.com/kap

Brevet fra Sundhedsstyrelsen

Fra Sundhedsstyrelsen (Statens Helsetilsyn)

Til overleger ved psykiatriske avdelinger
Det Psykiatriske Centralregister
sykehusenes EDB-sentre
Kommunedata
Sundhetsministeriet

Den 24. april 1995

J.nr. 6702-15 1994
Lokalnr. 6201

 

Fra sundhedsministeren har Sundhedsstyrelsen mottatt anmodning om, at sykdomsklassifikasjonens kode for sadomasochisme ikke lenger anvendes i sykdomsregistreringen.

Man skal derfor anmode om, at bruken av koden

DF65.5 Sadomasochisme

blokkeres for anvendelse med virkning fra 1.5.95

Med vennlig hilsen

overlege G. Schiøler (sign.)

Sundhedsstyrelsen, Amaliegade 13, Postboks 2020, 1012 København K. Telefon 33 91 16 01.