Psychological Functioning of Bondage/Domination/Sado-Masochism (BDSM) Practitioners

Abstract

A demographic questionnaire and 7 psychometric tests were administered to 32 self-identified Bondage/Domination/SadoMasochism (BDSM) practitioners. Although psychoanalytic literature suggests that high levels of certain types of psychopathology should be prevalent among BDSM practitioners, this sample failed to produce widespread, high levels of psychopathology on psychometric measures of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsion, psychological sadism, psychological masochism, or PTSD. In fact, on measures of clinical psychopathology and severe personality pathology, this sample appeared to be comparable to both published test norms and to DSM-IV-TR estimates for the general population. There were, however, some exceptions to this general pattern, most notably the higher-than-average levels of narcissism and nonspecific dissociative symptoms found in the sample. This study also raises significant concern about the appropriateness of the diagnosis of sexual masochism and sadism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association or, minimally, the diagnostic criteria of these disorders.

Key Words:

• Bondage
• domination
• sado-masochism
• paraphilia
• psychopathology