Post by linda on Apr 3, 2019 22:41:26 GMT -5
This is a very sensitive topic, so I'm a little worried I'll be misunderstood... But I'll try to share my thoughts anyway, because I find the discussion so interesting.
So, these thoughts are based purely on my own personal experience and anecdotale experience reading posts on here, reading dev fiction and the comments on stories and what the readers found to be "devvy" parts:
While I think devness is a very complicated thing and comparing it to BDSM (or the desire to be a caretaker) is probably a mischaracterization, I don't think it's entirely absurd to suggest that there might be an overlap or some similarities.
To me, the important thing to remember is the distinction between purely sexual attraction and all the other aspects that play a part in attraction and romantic relationships. It's always been mind-boggling to me how ridiculously mainstream all my non-dev attractions are. I like men, who are emotionally strong, highly intelligent and physically able. In AB guys, I love muscular bodies and physical prowess - in PWDs as well, for that matter, to the extent that it's possible.
At the same time, when I read dev fiction, I often feel my buttons pushed at moments of vulnerability. And every now and again I feel my buttons pushed at things I'm a little uncomfortable with.
My perception is that this paradox of liking both strength and vulnerability is pretty common among devs. And I think a possible explanation would be that there is some kind of slight divergence/disconnect between what triggers us in a purely sexual way and what we find attractive in a more holistic way.
This disconnect wouldn't be something that's unique to devs, either. Quite on the contrary, actually. How often have you heard guys comment that a particular woman has "a hot body, but an ugly face"? Which to me seems to suggest that what they find sexually attractive and what they find aesthetically attractive are not necessarily the same and don't always overlap.
For a more extreme example, take rape fantasies. It's pretty well researched that a very large minority of women (30% to 50%) have fantasies of being raped. Yet, obviously none of these women would actually want to be raped. But there's something about the idea of physical force that triggers them sexually and which might be explored in a safe setting in a conscious and consensual way (the same way I'm assuming BDSM works).
I'm not trying to say that devness is like BDSM (I don't even know enough about BDSM to speak on that). But I guess I do see parallels in the sense that there might be this divergence between sexual triggers and what we want in actual relationships. Just because devs find a certain physical weakness attractive, doesn't mean at all that they find weak people attractive or that they want a partner to be weaker in a relationship dynamic (quite the contrary in my experience). Or that they desire to be a caretaker. Just because some devs have their buttons pushed by what you might call "struggle" (or overcoming difficulties in a more positive sense), doesn't mean at all that they like it when their partners (or strangers) actually suffer or have a hard time.
And in that sense, I guess I wouldn't be all that surprised if there were some similarities in how devness and an interest in BDSM work on a psychological level.
I don't know... I might be completely off here. I just wonder if sometimes we get too reflexively defensive about these things, because we're so used to being called sick and creepy on the Internet.
But I'm more than happy to hear counter-arguments to my thoughts or be corrected if I got something wrong.
Even though I am most surprised about this fantasy of being raped among women. Where is that number from? I never heard about something like that nor could I myself ever imagine to have any fantasy of that kind.