Content Warning: This piece contains descriptions of bodily fluids (such as blood) used in performance art and consensual encounters between adults.
BDSM stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission and sadomasochism.
A few months before writing and submitting the most difficult and comprehensive grant application I’ve ever written, my therapist asked me why I wanted to research BDSM for my Master of Social Work thesis.
“Forget the jury,” they said, noticing that all my arguments were tailored to what sounded best for an unsure and hesitant academic committee. They pressed on, asking “Why is this important to you?”
My interest in sexuality began around the same time my interest in the taboo began.
After all, while growing up in the church, these categories were essentially the same. This period in my life also exposed me to unfair, and often unethical, power dynamics.
Power dynamics are at the heart of BDSM; but crucially, the proper practice of the latter relies on the consensual and negotiated subversion of the former. In this way, BDSM can serve as a practice to find release or even catharsis (Lindemann, Playing Make-Believe: Fantasy and the Boundaries of Commercial Intimacy 105-126).
During the thesis year of my first degree, a Bachelor of Fine Arts, I was creating sculptures and performing with them for the majority of my work. I wanted to create interactive spaces where performers could play, harness intimacy with co-performers and experience vulnerability.
One performance looked like transferring honey from one glass jar to another via someone spitting it into my mouth; another involved me ripping apart bulbous gelatinous moulds with my teeth and rubbing it over myself as I rolled in it.
What struck me about performance art is the real, ritualistic process. In performance art, a real ritual is happening. The blood is real, not Hershey’s strawberry syrup. BDSM practice, while performative, is also a real ritual.
BDSM has been practiced for well over a century (and likely much longer under different names), all around the world.
Yet, as Kleinplatz and Moser note, it has been deeply misrepresented and misunderstood, both “sanitize[d]” and “sensationalize[d]” by popular media (Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures 8).
BDSM has been pathologized as a disorder in most existing versions of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual. It has been labelled as inherently violent and degrading by some second-wave feminists who argue that BDSM always, in every circumstance, perpetuates gendered violence (Khan, Vicarious Kinks).
The language of this subculture is appropriated by abusers who seek to defend their sexual assaults in court as “rough sex.” BDSM community members may feel a lack of comfort in accessing therapy, lest they be stigmatized and judged for what they do as consenting adults (Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures 281-300).
The above paragraph is in essence a summary of my academic argument for why further research is needed on BDSM. Just because something makes some people uncomfortable, doesn’t mean it is wrong. Choosing to ignore it or deny its existence will certainly not make it disappear.
Though some game-changing and powerful BDSM research already exist, more is sorely needed. Social work, with its combination of community advocacy, clinical settings, academic research and policy work, is the lens through which I want to do it.
The fire I feel deep in my belly around BDSM doesn’t end with addressing the obvious gaps in existing literature. There is also a personal connection.
Growing up as a queer woman in the Christian church was traumatizing for me.
I was deeply sexually repressed, convinced I needed to be a “good girl” (and a straight girl) for my teachers, for God and for my future husband. I was taught that my body didn’t belong to me and never would.
Incorporating BDSM play into my sex life as a young adult has been an essential part of my sensual and sexual reclamation. It has taught me many things: how to communicate what I want and need (and what I don’t), how to honour my own pleasure and desires, how to stop apologizing for my body with all its lines, scars and textures, how to set clear and firm boundaries and how to thrive in my autonomous, powerful, human body.
I’ve dabbled in BDSM gently and slowly with lovers and partners. I’ve also hired professionals who have dominated me in the most loving, tender and wholly accepting ways. I’ve read countless books, and have piles I’ve yet to get to.
I’ve taken BDSM courses led by community members and mental health professionals. My belief in the catharsis and community healing that BDSM can offer is only growing.
More and more discourse and empirical scholarship is developing around the therapeutic potentials of BDSM. With better understanding comes less fear, and more acceptance.
My participation in, and research of this taboo subculture and practice is absolutely intertwined with my rejection of the homophobic, transphobic, hateful moral panic happening across North America. It is also a gift of love to my younger self; a healing offering.
There’s so much more to write. But for now, these are the reasons I practice, write about, advocate for, and research BDSM. I actually enjoy being a “good girl” nowadays—but the context is entirely different. And I know without a doubt now that my body is mine.
It always was.
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