> It's clearly criticism [...]

I'm having trouble seeing where you see criticism in that post. Could you help me understand?

> BDSM has no preference about which gender is submitting or which is dominant.

Where does OP suggest otherwise?

> I don't see how it's a joke.

I'll expound below, but in short: I see the original comment as being a joke at heterosexual men's expense, in particular those who wish to dominate their wives.

For posterity, here's the whole quote:

> That reminds me of repackaging a traditional historical male dominated marriage, including occasional corporal punishment, as a BDSM kink to make it normal again. You think you’re seeing a woman in a dress, but actually it’s fetish gear showing her submission.

And this is how I understand it:

> [...] traditional historical male dominated marriage, including occasional corporal punishment

So what we're talking about here is marriage, and one premise is that, historically speaking, men are in a dominant role. I don't read this suggesting any judgement (good or bad), only that it has, historically, been the case.

Also, corporal punishment was not uncommon (and, sadly, domestic violence is still a serious issue). If if we find (as we will in the proceeding text) a suggestion that corporal punishment, or some facsimile thereof, should be preserved, we have two interpretations that we can proceed with: 1) the poster is a flagrant asshat and is being serious, or 2) comedic irony is about to be employed. To each their own choice, but I'm going with option 2, as I suspect most people would have enough sense to keep assholery to themselves: Occam's Razor suggests the second option.

Zooming out a bit:

> That reminds me of repackaging [...] marriage, [...] as a BDSM kink to make it normal again.

The use of repackaging here means, roughly, "same essence internally, different outward appearance". So we're talking about "repackaging" traditional marriage -- that is, preserving the "traditional" role of men dominating their partner, but under new pretenses.

> [...] as a BDSM kink to make it normal again.

I see that this could be taken as a slight. If we're making it "normal again", that implies its not normal now, which could be taken as a negative judgement toward BDSM. While I can anticipate this interpretation, I think its a stretch, and an uncharitable interpretation.

Regrettably, just about all kinks (and often, sadly, sex itself) is considered taboo. That's the reality of our modern (and historical) views on sex. So a proposal, whether in seriousness or in jest, to make BDSM "normal again" doesn't imply any positive nor negative sentiment towards BDSM.

> You think you’re seeing a woman in a dress, but actually it’s fetish gear showing her submission.

This is the "repackaging" referred to earlier, and the punchline of the joke. The butt of the joke is heterosexual men who would like to dominate their wives.

In the interest of diversity, I suppose OP could have picked any other pair of genders -- for instance, they could have spoken of a woman dominating her husband or wife in the same manner... but the joke wasn't about BDSM in the first place, the joke was about a subset of heterosexual married men, and their penchant for being dicks to their spouses. It's not like there aren't any abusive women, but rather that it would make for a bizarre joke if structured that way: men are usually the aggressors. Humor is essentially the combination of a banal setup with an absurd, unexpected conclusion.

Anyway, that's how I read the original comment, and, aside from the interpretations I rejected as unlikely, I can't think of any other way to read it. If I'm missing something, or you have a different perspective, I would legitimately be interested in hearing it. Thanks in advance!