Bondage In The Real World, Ugh
I try — nay, I work relentlessly — to keep the bondage on this blog focused on the erotic. But none of us who enjoy the trappings of BDSM can afford to forget that whips and chains and ropes and handcuffs are not just sex toys — they are, in the real world, too often tools of oppression.
I had that less nastily reinforced for me during one of those “I’d like to un-Google that, and un-see it too” moments yesterday.
I was doing Google image searches and clicked on a promising thumbnail. Cute young Asian woman, defiant expression on her face, arms roped behind her back and pulled up by a rope around the front of her neck, nipples showing through her shirt, flanked on either side by uniformed men. Like I said, promising thumbnail.
Then the page loaded.
Photoset. In a language I do not read. The picture itself was as described. Absent its context, you might be looking at it now.
Next picture in photo-set: same woman, lying on ground. Dead. Bloody bullet wound in forehead.
The rest of the photoset was more dead people. The page, it turns out, was documenting the execution of Chinese political prisoners.
I’d like to un-Google that, and un-see it, too. But this is the twenty first century. You can’t un-Google anything. All you can do is hope (and work, if you have the energy) for the day when the things you wish you could un-see aren’t there to be seen any more.
Me, I’m reminded that it’s time to send off a few more bucks to Amnesty International.
