Sexualities

Few studies have systematically examined the relationship between kink behaviors and sexual behaviors, yet even these preliminary studies indicate that the relationship is complex and that there is a notable diversity in how people construct the boundaries of sex and kink and the relationship between them. As part of a grounded theory study of kink identity, the current study examined how 70 kink-identified participants from Northern California discussed their experience and understanding of the relationship between kink and sex in interviews conducted in 2014 and 2015. Findings indicated seven themes: kink flowing into sex, kink as spice for sexual interactions, kink and sex as connection and intimacy, kink and sex as an expression of erotic energy, kink and sex as an expression of power exchange, kink as spiritual, and kink as freedom. Findings indicated that sexual orientation and gender identity may influence how people understand and experience the relationship between kink and sex.

Ahmed’s (2007) theory of the phenomenology of whiteness serves as a theoretical tool for assessing how whiteness presents itself within bondage, discipline, dominance/submission, and sadomasochism (BDSM) play. Given the “overwhelming whiteness” of BDSM in both research and practice, this study serves as a theory-building exercise for analyzing the relationship between what researchers have described as inclusive BDSM communities that continue to naturalize the whiteness of BDSM spaces. Through critical discourse analysis of interviews and blog submissions from BDSM participants, this study reflects on the whiteness of BDSM. Analyses suggest that the differences between white and racialized BDSM participants in their explanations for the whiteness of BDSM continue to support and privilege the white experience in white BDSM spaces.

This article is based on a five-year qualitative ethnographic study of bondage and discipline/dominance and submission/sadism and masochism (BDSM) in Sweden. In-depth interviews were completed with 29 self-defined BDSM practitioners. In the article, I investigate spirituality in two different contexts, namely within BDSM practice and in the charismatic Christianity. With a focus on power dynamics, pain rituals, and altered states of consciousness, I discuss the questions: What meaning is given to the concept of spirituality in a BDSM context, and how does this spirituality resemble spirituality in Christianity? Which common denominators between BDSM practice and Christian belief can be found, and how should we interpret the parallels that the informants emphasize between practicing BDSM and having a Christian affiliation? The article aims to broaden our understanding for spirituality in different contexts, and thus contribute to both the research field of BDSM as well as to religion studies. And as such, I hope this study can bring some clarity to the different spiritual experiences individuals may encounter, whether it happens in a BDSM context or in a religious context.

In BDSM community discourse as well as research on BDSM, consent has been treated as an uncomplicated given, often relying on liberal or post-feminist notions of consent as a rational contract between equals until recently. The results of a qualitative study on the les-bi-trans-queer BDSM communities in contrast highlight that on the one hand, queer BDSM technologies of negotiating consent are valuable tools in moving away from heteronormative and liberal notions of consent towards a culture of sexual consent as communicative. On the other hand, limits to BDSM consent technologies are discussed and it is argued that consent needs to be critical and developed collectively.

Drawing from extensive insider ethnographic work and an internet survey with a convenience sample of 1642 BDSM practitioners, I show that the social context of the BDSM subculture has a profound impact on pansexual BDSM practitioners’ interpretation of the relationship between BDSM and sex. Greater involvement in the public BDSM subculture and participation in feminine Dominance/masculine submission are both strongly associated with less preference for and experience of sexual BDSM. Greater involvement in the BDSM subculture increases participants’ likelihood of viewing their sexuality in terms of BDSM but decreases their likelihood of viewing BDSM in sexual terms. BDSM practitioners who meet new BDSM partners in BDSM subcultural contexts, even ones where sex is allowed, are much less likely to have sex with their partners than practitioners who met anywhere else. I argue that research should focus more on the social factors that influence participants’ experience and interpretation of BDSM, particularly on the influence of the BDSM subculture, and that theorists should think more broadly about the social determinants of “sex” and “sexual experience.”

In this short piece, we explore some areas of consent within BDSM in relation to our roles as a practitioner and as an academic researcher. Beverly Yuen Thompson is a sociology professor who specializes in ethnographies of deviant subcultures with an emphasis on an intersectional approach. In this short piece, she uses her experience of conducting a long-term ethnography in a BDSM community. Miss Couple (2018) is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Bondage: Creating Intimacy through the Art of Restraint and a relationship and intimacy coach. Miss Couple was previously a manager of a BDSM establishment, from which she draws on her experience for this piece.

This piece reflects on the contemporary scholarly juncture of bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM) and race. After a period largely marked by the invisibility and marginalization of racialized sexuality in the study of kink, scholars have recently taken up race, specifically blackness, as central not periphery to the study of BDSM. Intervening in and building upon a black feminist tradition that has historically exhibited an ambivalent relationship to topics of BDSM, pornography, and sex work in the context of black female sexuality specifically as well as an investment in politics of respectability, this work illuminates the racialized erotics of pleasure and power at the core of sexuality.

This paper discusses the beginnings of sociological research in BDSM and the author’s role in the development of the field.