BlogWatch: Whips and Chains

With Maureen Dowd talking dirty, it’s fair to wonder how far her BDSM metaphor can stretch. Nearly everybody picked up on her very unsubtly calling Obama a wuss, but Molly Ivors of Whiskey Fire put it best:

Dood, MoDo says, you are so whipped!

In MoDo's world, where strong women must be balanced out by weak men, the idea of a mutually strong relationship is unthinkable (which may be why Hill and Bill confuse her so much).

Dohiyi Mir thinks that maybe there is even a subtext below the sexual one:

The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi.

Brilliant opening frame! Sexualize Hillary, but in a way that's sure to intimidate a lot of men, plus it gives you a chance to bring up whips and use the title "Mistress" when talking about a NEGRO!

See, the Democrats' House Negro feels a need for obeisance in front of The Bitch. Rudy, being a strong man, a real man, a WHITE man (we'll ignore the fact that he's a WOP), would never be dominated by a lady. At least not one without a tiara.

Dependable Renagade puts it even more bluntly (if that's possible):

Maureen. Get off the plantation already. The racist Mandingo fantasies belong on your nightstand, not in an internationally distributed "newspaper of record".

On the other hand, Lady Chatterley who writes The Feminist Surrenders thinks that all the bondage talk reveals a part of Maureen we haven’t seen.

Dowd seems pretty obsessed with this stuff. If I were to do to Dowd what she does to everyone else, I would guess she's pretty obsessed with the BDSM stuff, but hasn't acted on it and still keeps it at the 'eww' factor in order to avoid coming to terms with her own desires.

She goes on to be offended by Maureen using the dominance and submission metaphor incorrectly.

It is part of the marginalization of kinky folk and has a voyeuristic, tittering, smirking quality. Maybe most of the "of course, I'm not into that" are really wishing to submit to whatever their desires are. "Can you believe, oh my God! No one should do that." It enforces social norms by shame and humiliation.

So even the leather corset set can find common ground with the wider world in their disgust with Maureen Dowd’s shallow stereotypes.