A “Different Economy of Bodies and Pleasures”?: Differentiating and Evaluating Sex and Sexual BDSM Experiences

ABSTRACT

This study examines how BDSM participants understand sexual experiences. Data are drawn from 32 in-depth, semistructured interviews and discussion-board threads from a large BDSM community Web site. The analysis suggests that many BDSM participants perceive sexual BDSM experiences as not only significantly different from but also better than mainstream or “vanilla” sex. Three primary differentiation mechanisms are identified. First, BDSM participants constructed sex as requiring genital contact, while framing sexual BDSM as creating sexual fulfillment not requiring normative indicators of sexual experiences (e.g., orgasm). Second, participants constructed sexual BDSM as centered on emotional and mental experiences, while perceiving sex as being centered on physical experiences. Third, participants perceived sexual BDSM experiences as facilitating deeper interpersonal connections than those available in sex. Importantly, these mechanisms serve not only a differentiating but also an evaluative function. Most participants in this study reported a strong preference for sexual BDSM over sex.

KEYWORDS:

• BDSM
• sadomasochism
• kink
• Foucault
• qualitative methodology
• social construction
• orgasm
• sexual meaning

Notes

1. Lesbian participants are extremely underrepresented in pansexual and gay BDSM communities, both physical and virtual, and despite specific outreach to specifically lesbian-oriented groups, I was unable to recruit lesbian-identified interviewees, which is a significant limitation of this study. See Bauer’s (2014) recent ethnography of the women’s and trans+ BDSM community, the first full-length ethnography to include significant representation of lesbian-identified participants.

2. Mindfuck is a term used by BDSM participants to refer to particularly intense and/or extreme power exchange and/or edgeplay. Mindfucks are experiences where the bottom/submissive is led to believe that something more extreme is happening than is actually the case.

3. Headspace is usually used as a synonym for subspace, but it can also refer to topspace. Subspace refers to a mental state achieved by bottoms/submissives, which participants described as an experience similar to an out-of-body experience, using adjectives such as floating, flying, and freedom to describe the mental/emotional feelings that accompany subspace. Topspace is a term used much less frequently in my data, and it refers to a sense of “flow” or a “mental buzz” tops or dominants may experience during a scene, described as the experience of finding one’s rhythm, feeling an unusually clear sense of focus, and/or feeling an extraordinary sense of connection between one’s body and one’s mind.