Kink

This article reviews and compares competing depictions of sadomasochism (SM) sexuality, examining portrayals that range from sick to healthy, from normal to abnormal, and from dangerous to healing. The body of this article proceeds in four parts. The first section considers the treatment of SM in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). The second section addresses debates about the costs, benefits, and scientific validity of the inclusion and definition of SM in the DSM-5. It further highlights how quantitative and qualitative empirical studies of SM practitioners indicate that they fall within normal ranges in psychological and social functioning. The third section examines research on one negative consequence of the inclusion of SM in the DSM: It may interfere with the therapeutic relationship with clients who practice SM or have SM desires by reinforcing broader societal stigma and encouraging diagnostic misuse. The fourth section reviews an emerging body of research that reverses the “SM as pathology” discourse by showing the therapeutic and healing potential of bondage-discipline-dominance-submission-sadism-masochism (BDSM) practice and ethos. Based on this review, the conclusion argues that there is no valid reason to continue identifying SM as a potential mental disorder, and furthermore, there are detrimental effects of its association with pathology in the DSM-5.

If we set aside the idea of religion being synonymous with belief in deity and view it instead as embodied and embedded practice, which helps people to live well within the world that we have made, we can raise new questions about religion and the part it plays in individual lives. The question with which my work is concerned is whether human activities which fall outside the orthodoxies of recognised institutions or established religious traditions can be said to be religious practices. Using the lens of lived religion I am exploring the practices of Bondage, Domination Submission/Sadism and Masochism (BDSM). Through BDSM of all kinds individuals can explore and challenge cultural norms, expectations and concepts and come to new understandings about themselves and their place in and relationship to the world. Some people explicitly connect their BDSM practice with spirituality or religion, most often in relation to some form of paganism; I am interested not only in investigating this overt ‘spiritual BDSM’ but also in the experiences of individuals who do not describe their BDSM this way. By exploring how people incorporate their experience of BDSM practice into their understanding of their lives, world, self and body it is possible to consider whether it has the potential to be a personalised form of religion, a practice which serves religious or spiritual purpose for the individual regardless of their position with relation to organised or institutional religion.

My work uses the concept of lived religion focussing on personal forms of practice outside institutions or recognised religious groups. I am exploring the lived experiences of individuals engaging in the physical practice of Bondage, Domination, Submission and Masochism (BDSM), considering the ways in which profound BDSM experiences are used and understood. BDSM may be engaged in with overt spiritual aims, but even when this is absent the practice can still result in profound or transformative experiences. A successful BDSM encounter combines well-practiced physical skills with knowledge both about the body in general and of the specific bodies to create extremes of emotion and/or sensation. Participants work together to construct, challenge and transgress boundaries, creating intense experiences of ‘the edge’ between order and chaos, form and formlessness. Moments of transcendence are created through shared body knowledge, which is itself changed and extended by the experience.

This article reviews and compares competing depictions of sadomasochism (SM) sexuality, examining portrayals that range from sick to healthy, from normal to abnormal, and from dangerous to healing. The body of this article proceeds in four parts. The first section considers the treatment of SM in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). The second section addresses debates about the costs, benefits, and scientific validity of the inclusion and definition of SM in the DSM-5. It further highlights how quantitative and qualitative empirical studies of SM practitioners indicate that they fall within normal ranges in psychological and social functioning. The third section examines research on one negative consequence of the inclusion of SM in the DSM: It may interfere with the therapeutic relationship with clients who practice SM or have SM desires by reinforcing broader societal stigma and encouraging diagnostic misuse. The fourth section reviews an emerging body of...

Abstract: The objective of this ethnographic research is to offer an introductory summary of a Subculture Within A Subculture... This research will endeavor to offer powerful social and historical content for the subject’s social emergence, seek to demystify Fetish/Kink/Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, Masochism (BDSM), to challenge the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) Paraphilic and Paraphilic Disorder, reframe the A & B diagnostic criteria classifications, to explore the subject’s underground lifestyle from a psychosocial point of view, to offer sixteen (N=16) personal interview findings from sexually variant women of color in the fetish/BDSM lifestyle, and to advocate for inclusive sex-positive awareness acceptance.