Serena Williams: How Commerce Sustains Discrimination

Hard work and real dominance are underappreciated.  Stereotypes are overrated. What can BDSM learn from the ordeal of one of the world's best athletes ever?

Real world dominance only comes in one flavour: Hard work.

Some dommes drooled over Furiosa in the latest Mad Max movie. Well, get a load of this: Serena Williams. This woman impresses men the right way: feminine, accomplished, forceful and (not sorry to say) sexy! Who wants a sniper rifle, when all you need is a tennis racket and determination? BTW, I love her smile. Don't you?

It must be hard to duel it out with your sister. The Williams girls' talents did not leave them a choice in the US Open. Then again, if you love someone, you don't let them win. You make 'm earn it. When Serena Williams beat her sister and went on to the semi-finales. We all know she deserved it and everybody rooted for her. Unfortunately for her and her fans: full stop when Roberta Vinci unexpectedly beat her. Loosing means Serena Williams will not complete the calendar slam, I so wanted her to. The last woman to do so was Steffi Graf in 1988.

Look Deeper
In the background, meanwhile there is a discussion going on about the difference in endorsements between tennis players. Men make more than women. Definitely not fair and it doesn't make business sense either. Same old, same old, so most people are not surprised. Yes that is a bad thing.

This year the women's final was sold out long before the men's final, a huge endorsement for Serena Williams. After she lost the semi finals ticket prices for the women's final plummeted. "Male athletes are more marketable." Now, really? I'm surprised and take it from me as a guy, that makes no sense at all. Sometimes the marketing department doesn't know what it's talking about. Just remember: opinions do not equal facts.

Roger Federer has a little more than four wins per loss. Serena William has six wins per loss. She beats him in most other statistics as well, but it is not reflected in the value of her sponsor contracts. Federer is estimated to make $58 million from endorsements this year, Williams only $13 million. Money talks, and its language is sexism.

If you just look at the women, Maria Shaparova , not Serena Williams, will make the most money from endorsements, some $23 million this year. According to Quartz: "it’s likely because she’s willowy, white, and blonde.", which is journalist speak for racism. What is the colour of money again?

Discrimination and BDSM
Few will admit it but on top of the sexism and racism it also emphasizes there are strict rules about when we are allowed to think of a woman as attractive. Nonsense of course, but without realizing it, we are being drip-fed such ideas. Its very mechanism not only creates inequality, it serves as a perpetuum mobile for their reinforcement as well. It impresses the very idea some are superior to others, based on nothing more than what they are born with. Those traits includes visual characteristics such as sex or skin colour, and characteristics that cannot be observed from the outside such as sexual preferences. I hate it and even though the kink community considers itself enlightened, we are no better. Our discrimination is of a different kind however.

BDSM play is hierarchical but people are not. Some conveniently forget that and apply its rules outside the game. They come up with the usual lists: lifestyle tops bedroom play, female subs are more valuable than male subs or my favourite one: I'm not a pro-domme, but riel lifestyle. If you wanna talk to me its gonna cost you. Cause I'm dominant and stuff, u know.

Just like commerce corrupts the fabric of society by imposing its narrow view of who is attractive and relevant - measured in pecunia of course - BDSM in a way does the same. I wasn't joking when I wrote about the BDSM pyramid. Perhaps power exchange, which after all is the nature of the game, is to blame for it. Maybe it has to do with the imbalance between dommes and subs. Power corrupts and absolute power... Well if you don't know, just google it.

Some do get it. Serena Williams' cameo appearance in the 2015 movie Pixels.

Sustaining the Bias
Lets assume you are a proponent of Female Superiority. If the shoe was on the other foot and men claimed to believe in Male Superiority those misogynist pigs would be shot on sight. For their own good of course, don't you agree? Perhaps it is the privilege of the oppressed to use one sort of discrimination to fight another, but it mostly sounds like a recipe for disaster and prolonged suffering. Life is full of irony.

BDSM will probably never achieve mainstream acceptance but whenever people stress their superiority or inferiority based upon nothing more than what they were born with, rather than use whatever talents and skills they have, to achieve their goals, BDSM in its own way helps to perpetuate discrimination, sexism and racism, even if if it is just a little bit.

Yeah right, like Serena Williams demands to win. Whatever you want in life, you have to fight for it. Learn from the best and stop being pretentious. If that is too hard, at least shed your bias.