Reply #47: Methinks your personal issues are clouding your judgement.

[chefgirl]

There are plenty of other forms of power besides economic power, and I'm NOT only talking about sexual power.

You said:

To me that movie was telling women that everything in your life can make you powerless, but if you're willing to subject yourself to degreadation by a man who really gets turned on by degrading women, you have power over that man.

(What if the woman in question is not only willing to, but PREFERS to? There are women who derive GREAT power and fulfillment from exactly that. Perhaps you're unaware of that, which is why I suggested that this movie might have gone over your head)

That's bullshit. You may have power over that man, but that sure is the most useless kind of power there is. You're better off having a economic power and your dignity.

(To YOU, maybe it is bullshit, but I assure you, to many women, economic power is NOT the be all and end all of their lives. It might also surprise you to know that those very same women DO derive dignity from submission.)

A liberal movie about S&M would be a movie about a women whose career is selling S&M to customers with whom she has no personal relationship, where she can easily draw the line between her professional life and her private live, and where she is clearly the one with the economic power in her client relationships.

(There is far more to S&M, for many people, (actually the relationship in that movie was D/s) than a business transaction, and it would seem to me that the truly liberal position would be to respect THAT womans choices as much as a woman who decides to walk the path of the 'economically empowered')

If thats not your cup of tea, thats all well and good, you are entitled to you opinion, just as the women who related to the character in Secretary are entitled to theirs.

I dont care to threadjack any further, and apologies to the OP, so if you REALLY feel you have more to say about this, feel free to IM me.

-chef-