SM in Feminist Science Fiction (WisCon 31 panel)

77 SM in Feminist Science Fiction

Feminism, Sex, and Gender•629• Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.

Although some feminists in the 1970s stated with great assurance that "no woman would ever want to be dominated and no woman would ever want to dominate another," the experience of most SM practitioners is quite different, with some women quite enjoying all sides of power exchange. There have been a lot of unequal relationships in feminist fiction, from nonconsensual relationships such as those in Suzy McKee Charnas' "Holdfast" series and Candas Jane Dorsey's novel Black Wine to more ambiguous relationships such as in Samuel Delany's Neveryona series and Susan Matthews' Andrej the Torturer series, to clearly consensual relationships in some slash fiction and other erotica such as Cecilia Tan's "Telepaths Don't Need Safewords." This panel will talk a bit about what SM is and isn't, what consensuality is and isn't, and then go into an overview of the literature including what has literary value, what has political merit, and what's hot and sexy enough that one might need to turn the pages with one hand. There will also probably be some time to talk about more traditional plots which have a lot of SM elements in them even if those elements aren't necessarily identifiable to non-kinky people.

M: Lori Selke, Ian K. Hagemann, Catherine Lundoff, Sarah Monette