We recently reported that a University of Illinois at Chicago student leader was arrested and charged with raping a fellow student, saying that he used “50 Shades of Grey” as inspiration.

For another take on “50 Shades of Grey” and its impact on campus/feminist lifestyles, here is the perspective from University of California Berkeley student Jennifer Wong.

…Driving home in her car, she asked how I felt about BDSM as a feminist. This was not long after showing me her lower back tattoo: “Property of My Husband’s Full Ass Scottish Name,” a permanent devotion to her role as a submissive. Earlier during our scene on the exam table, before she pulled her panties down for the big ink reveal, she had prefaced, “This is a little embarrassing.”

Her lower back is not my jurisdiction, but sitting as her passenger on the other end of her question, I felt the sting of the hot seat against my already-bruised bottom. So there we were, side by side in her Prius, reeling from the joys of consensual, negotiated Dominance and submission and feeling like shitty Asian American feminists for doing so.

She stalled at a fork off the I-80, unsure whether to go left or right. I stalled, too, at her question. I quickly checked Google Maps for the right direction, and it pointed me to your standard argument: submissives have equal power because it’s a two-way street. When a sub says no, the Dom can’t go. But that wasn’t enough. Yes, subs have equal power in any sex act we consent to, but we’re also burdened with defending that power to those outside of Dom-sub relationships — and that burden is one I never agreed to navigate.

What does it mean to be 1) a submissive, 2) an Asian and 3) a woman? It means my vagina wears three different types of oppressed, inferior identities. It means I have to work thrice as hard against stereotypical assumptions I had no say in creating. It means threefold forces working against a people who constantly need to justify their empowerment — a weight those with Dominant identities hardly ever need to carry.

Women already have to combat the anatomical notion that our vaginas simply “take it” — that the penetrative force of the phallus always wins, always gains something we don’t.

As socially conscious Asian Americans, we bear a rickshaw with the docile China doll type in tow. The Asian-female fetish assumes an attractively petite, delicate personage. We’re a natural submissive delicacy, wok-tossed just for the Western plate. And they feed on us endlessly.

… I know how I feel about BDSM as a feminist. Safety, sanity and consent permitting, I feel everyone should identify however he or she pleases, and anyone distracted by how those identities come across should ask for directions.

OK, then!