“Vanilla Privilege”

Because yes, it is now time.

It exists, you know. And no, it is not as pressing or obvious as male privilege, het privilege, white privilege, class privilege, or other privileges out there, but it is there. And you may have not ever noticed it if you are a Vanilla Person, because well, it doesn’t affect you. And this is not a knock on Vanilla People, Vanilla People are okay in my book, but, if we’re examining and all, especially examining privilege, well, Vanilla’s time has come.

There have been some very interesting posts and threads here as of late which have caused me to come back to something I once mentioned half jokingly, the whole idea of Vanilla Privilege, but the tone of those posts as threads have me looking at it far more seriously now. I do, in fact, think it’s a very real thing, and like most other “privileges”, I think, while it can and does impact men, it impacts women to a more negative degree. After all, we still live in a society where many people honestly think that women cannot or should not enjoy sex, and if they dare to, they better only do it in certain contexts, for certain reasons, and with their husbands. Ah yes, the old virgin/whore dichotomy, alive and well and at work…and at lending it’s efforts to V.P.

So what is V.P. anyway? Well, simply put, it is the thought or assumption that those who engage in vanilla sex are somehow better than those who do not. And if you think that people who are not vanilla are not treated differently, please, do look at some of the links I’ve provided, and then, why yes, examine. What do you think of a woman sitting next to you on the subway at night if she is wearing a collar? What do you think of the guy in the locker room with heavily pierced genitals? What do you think of the woman who does gangbangs on the weekend? What do you think of the man who pays a dominatrix? What do you think of people who get off on pain, giving or receiving? The woman who likes to be choked, the man who likes to be flogged? The kinky people and the rough sex people and the non-vanilla people? If you are a vanilla person…don’t you other them, just a little bit? Well, if you don’t, good for you. You are among the few.

In a less seriously impacting way, V.P. rears its head in life, in discussion, in assumption. Vanilla is the default setting for sex in our society. Two straight people, various positions, maybe a little light bondage, a little rough play, a little slap and tickle…no one really bats an eye at that. But if you’re into knife play, forced fantasy, speculums, use and or be used, serious power dynamic, hardcore heavy duty anal/bondage/humiliation- degradation/ sensory dep/ 24-7 lifestyle/throat fucking/multiple simultaneous penetration/large objects/ extreme acts/swinging/fisting, ect…well then…you’re weird. Off. Different and alien and strange…and V.P. opens the door for anyone and everyone who isn’t odd like you to ask you all sorts of personal questions with no respect for boundaries, make all kinds of assumptions about you, your past, “what made you that way”, your relationships out of the bedroom, your sanity, and why yes, even your criminal status or potential to earn such a thing!

And that’s the less malicious aspects! You want concrete examples of V.P.?

Look at rape trials. If it is learned that the victim was into BDSM, rough sex, or was “overly promiscuous” or dressed "slutty" there is the assumption that she/he consented, or, in some cases, due to her/his proclivities, cannot be raped.

Look at employment. People have been fired/ passed over for being kinky even if it had no bearing on their jobs or ability to do them. They also face strife in places of higher education.

Look at parenthood. People have lost custody of their children or fear that for being not vanilla, even when there is no evidence whatsoever that anything the parents might do impacted their children at all.

People have been dragged into court for obscene conduct in their own homes.

“Safe Spaces” for kinky people, such as BDSM clubs, private residences, and swinger clubs are often subject to harassment from legal authorities and civil groups.

Very rarely do Vanilla People have to deal with this sort of thing due to their sex lives. Hell, a great deal of non-vanilla hetero sex is still considered both a sin & mental illness by a whole lot of folk.

And non-vanilla people can point this out, over and over, and still get told to examine, that they are the bad for other people people, that they are wrong, are oppressive, are “normalized”…

Yeah, right.

So go forth, and examine your privilege….