Good clean fun: power and play in Wet and Messy (WAM) pornography

ABSTRACT

Wet and Messy (WAM) is a sexual fetish that involves the use of food, water or other messy items and has a number of elements in common with bondage-discipline, domination-submission, sadomasochism (BDSM). WAM pornography contains elements associated with slapstick comedy as well. In this article I illustrate how Williams’ work on pornography, Peacock’s work on slapstick comedy and Hills’ work on affective play can be used to analyse power and play in WAM videos. I argue that awareness of consent, safety, participant enjoyment and the oscillation of subject positions by the viewer are key to understanding audience engagement, and that WAM pornography - like other forms of pornography - is capable of interrogating or subverting sociocultural norms around bodies and pleasure.

KEYWORDS:

• Slapstick
• pornography
• affective play
• WAM
• BDSM

Acknowledgments

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a member of the WAM or BDSM communities. As such, I lack lived experience of either subculture and my interpretations therefore are purely the result of academic study. Any errors or misinterpretations about either subculture are completely my own and I apologize unreservedly in advance should any be found to have occurred.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.