ABSTRACT
The perception of some intimate connection between feminism and lesbian sadomasochism persists, posed in terms of their successive historical emergence, unacknowledged ideological complicity, or in the psychodynamics of feminism as a family romance. In the case of lesbian s/m, one interesting question is how feminism has read this opposition — how it has read itself into it. In her own contribution to the s/m debate in the early 1980s, Judith Butler noted a strong resemblance between lesbian s/m argument and the 'moral feminism' it purported to oppose. Lesbian s/m is often described by its proponents in similar terms — as a theatricalization of ordinary lesbian relations, particularly their unacknowledged power plays. The introduction to Coming to Power describes the collection as a call for a re-evaluation of existing lesbian-feminist ethics. The Sex Wars have taught us the error of attempting to fuse our political and sexual imaginaries, but they have also demonstrated the futility of trying to keep them apart.
