BDSMs Transgression and Subsequent Punishment by Mainstream Culture The nonnormative sexual practices of BDSM subculture are punished

for their public display of taboo sexualities by the mainstream culture, by demonizing and pathologizing sadomasochists and appropriating BDSM themes and characters for vanilla consumption and practices. This weakens the resistive potentialities of BDSM power play and sexuality by reinstating them within a heteronormative, patriarchal context. BDSM, which stands for, variously Bondage and discipline, Dominance and submission, and sadomasochism, is a sexual subculture which places pain and unequal power dynamics within an erotic and sometimes, but not always, sexual context. Implicit within these rules is the theme of consent between two adults with full knowledge of the activities they are about to participate in. But the perceived violence of the acts disturbs mainstream, or, in sexual terms, vanilla, views about what sex should be. Thus, BDSM, like many subcultures, is labeled differing, dissenting deviant1 by the mainstream, which seeks to police nonnormative sexualities. Writing an essay about BDSM necessitates the use of certain terms stemming from that subculture and its practices. Some of the secondary works I refer to use S&M, s/m or SM, and while all those terms have different connotations and reasoning behind them, they will be equal to BDSM for the purpose of this essay. Top refers to the person in control of a scene, or BDSM encounter. Bottom is the person they are controlling. Although these words parallel the terms Dominant Gelder, Ken, Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice, (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 5.
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and submissive, they are not quite the same. Top/bottom does not carry the mental power exchange that Dom/sub does; they refer more to physical levels within a scene. I will only use Dom/sub, then, to indicate a scene in which servitude and/or humiliation is part of the power play. Finally, vanilla simply refers to non-kinky sexual discourse, generally with connotations of heterosexuality and monogamy. BDSMs embracing of performance and theatricality in sexual activities breaches the public/private divide of mainstream mores and also questions ideas of authenticity in sex. The terminology of BDSM is full of theatrical terms: role, play, scene, and character, among others. These words and the idea behind them place sexual activities outside of the heteronormative discourse, where the only roles are man and woman, and they have specific activities and power dynamics attached to them. It dislocates sex from the traditional frames of instinct and natural drive, placing it into a new space of performance. Lynda Hart makes a comparison between vanilla sex and BDSM scenes, saying, having sex signifies at once that sex is something one can own and that it was there prior to the performance. The s/m sensualist, quite contrarily, in doing a scene makes sex in the performance.2 (emphasis in the original). To have sex, then, can be seen as repossessing a thing which is already there, engaging in a series of actions which are inherent to the being. Sex is often called primal or base, connected with original sin. These words all create sex as a naturally coded set of actions, with a predetermined order of foreplay, coitus, climax. In comparison, a BDSM scene takes place within a Hart, Lynda, Between the Body and the Flesh, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 148.
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constructed set of rules and roles, where power dynamics shift and one person may not take the same role all the time. Foreplay is almost always emphasized, but climax may or may not be reached (or, if reached, does not signal an end) and genital contact may not even occur. Thus, the very nature of BDSM disrupts the hegemony of heterosexual vanilla sex. Of course, a performance implies an audience. Exhibitionism and voyeurism are generally negative terms in mainstream sex discourses, bringing up images of flashers or peeping Toms, but the BDSM community rotates around various forms of public acts, ranging from regular clubs with fully-equipped dungeons to converted art gallery nights. However, being in public is a privilege that requires filtering or repressing something that is seen as private.3 What should or should not be kept private is a decision made by the overarching culture, and in this case, it firmly relegates BDSM to the private sphere. While vanilla sexual acts are also generally kept within the private sphere, no one will accuse a heterosexual couple of flaunting their sexuality if they display affection on the street. The same could not be said of a Dom leading a collared sub. But it goes beyond a simple expression of affection; BDSM puts sex on stage, in graphic and uncomfortable ways. Unlike, for instance, a vanilla strip club, a public BDSM scene is an actual show of intimacy, rather than pure titillation. The most intimate moments of the body, pain and orgasm, are made public for a willing audience, often with the option of audience participation in the scene. This abrades the vanilla hegemony, which prefers sex to be a private and personal act between two people. Warner, Michael,Public and Private, in Publics and Counterpublics, (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 202), 23.
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Amelia Jones draws a parallel between BDSM practices and body-oriented performance art, particularly in the self-harming vein of Chris Burden or Bob Flanagen.4 However, while Burden and Flanagen (who openly identifies as sexually submissive) are celebrated as artists who particularize5 their bodies and injuries in order to make a statement, this acceptance does not cross over to BDSMers. Allowing oneself to be erotically pierced in a ritualized scene apparently does not connote the same potential meaning as nailing oneself to a car. Only one of these acts has entered the public sphere as art, while the other languishes under the term perversion. These artists exist within a narrative of suffering for their art, a narrative that precludes the kind of hedonistic pleasure often associated with BDSM. The erotic context of BDSM, as opposed to the artistic context of Burdens Transfixed, makes it unacceptable for mass public consumption, and while Burden has stirred up a fair amount of controversy for his works, he still enjoys a place of privilege within the art world. Pain play, while it is not included in all BDSM activities, certainly has a central role, both in actuality and in vanilla perception of BDSM. Karmen MacKendrie writes that, sadomasochistic pleasure plays with control, movement, sensations and possibilities of the body to turn carnality to its full, postsubjective power. 6 Whipping, clamping, piercing, and other methods of causing pain to the submissive body are used with the intention to overwhelm and then release. Pain Jones, Amelia, Body Art/Performing the Subject, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 130-131. 5 Ibid., 5. 6 MacKendrick, Karmen, Introduction, in Counterpleasures, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 20.
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and pleasure are quite closely linked, physiologically speaking. They both release potent endorphins into the body, creating the flying sensation that is often spoken of by submissives. But vanilla sex isnt meant to be about pain, and sex between equals certainly shouldnt contain any. Lovemaking should be beautiful, romantic, soft, nice, and devoid of any impulses to power or indeed aggression of any sort.7 This commentary on feminisms utopic sexual ideal is a quite eloquent list of many adjectives that BDSM activities do not fulfill, at least in the mainstream sense of the words. Nice is a very subjective term, but it does not generally include an image of whipping somebody. These sensations and actions, of feeling pain and giving it, constitute identities within the BDSM subculture. But these identities, even as they are reified through BDSM practices, remain fluid. Foucault writes, it is in negotiation and play that identities are formed.8 Negotiation is a term often given to the pre-scene discussion between participants in a BDSM scene. During the negotiation, various limits, boundaries, and possibilities of the scene are discussed. It is here that the allimportant safeword is established, as the final border for what will and will not happen: upon the bottom uttering the safeword, all activity stops. With identity so closely bound up with physical desires, these negotiations in fact do form the identities of the participants. However, these identities may change completely for the next scene. BDSM negotiations disrupt the heteronormative ideas of sexual identity, moving between genders and top/bottom roles as desired. Switching is Willis, Ellen, Feminism, Moralism, and Pornography, in Powers of Desire, ed. Ann Snitow and co., (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), 464. 8 Mills, Sara, Michel Foucault, (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 91.
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the term for a person who is comfortable in either a Dominant or submissive role. While there is usually a power exchange of some kind in a BDSM scene, it does not follow an established pattern throughout the subculture. It is here that the clash of mainstream sexuality and BDSM is centered: [The Western worldview] does not tolerate the simultaneous experience of contradictory impulses.9 We can have pain or pleasure, not both. Plenty of Western cultural traditions involve consenting adults inflicting pain and injury on each other boxing, rugby, American football, just to name a few. But none of these sports posits a sexual goal or erotic context for these beatings; ergo, they are legal and public, while BDSM is pathologized and legislated against. Pain and injury are not something to be desired by those who participate in these sports, but are rather a side effect, something to be taken and dealt with as need be. To eroticize pain, to gain sexual desire from it, is perverse, wrong and must be punished or at least marginalized. A relatively new tradition at Yale University is Sex Week, an event which has garnered much attention and controversy for its explicit, frank approach to the sex lives of its students. Nathan Harden covered the event in 2010, in an article titled Bawd and Man at Yale, in which he focused on a presentation by a female BDSM porn actress, Madision Young. Before writing directly about her lecture, Harden contextualizes BDSM at Sex Week thus: In 2008, a screening of pornography was shut down after organizers became alarmed by the films depictions of violence against women. This year, however, sadomasochistic pornography was back on the Benjamin, Jessica, Master and Slave: The Fantasy of Erotic Domination, in Powers of Desire, ed. Ann Snitow and co., (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), 295.
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program.10 He does not distinguish between sexual violence against women and BDSM pornography in any way, and his skittishness continues through Youngs presentation. Harden finds himself forced to turn away from a film clip in which Young is whipped and humiliated in a BDSM scene, and leaves the room when she begins applying pinching devices (nipple clamps, presumably, or clothespins) to her breasts. He concludes his article by calling Sex Week the pornification of Yale. It is significant, here, that he focuses his article on Youngs BDSM 101 presentation, demonstrating his vanilla prejudices against BDSM practitioners. At no point does he attempt to engage with Young, or ask questions about her sexuality. Instead, he quotes from a neighboring lecturers opinion on modern ideas of consent: Can we move from saying what is permissible to saying what is right and what is good? It is fairly plan that BDSM does not fall into those last two categories. While BDSM is not, in most places, technically illegal, the mainstream culture has created ways of repressing it through similarly squeamish and disengaged discourses, or through misrepresentation in the media. Different Loving, a reader on BDSM practices and theory, says that the mainstream media has simultaneously degraded and exotified BDSMers, so that sadomasochists have become both the butt of lewd jokes and delectably dark figures of forbidden sensuality.11 Through a consistent discourse of pathologizing sadomasochistic desires and appropriating BDSM paraphernalia for mainstream consumption, the dominant culture is attempting to erase the potential disruptive qualities of BDSM, as discussed above.
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Harden, Nathan, Bawd and Man at Yale, in National Review, April 5, 2010, 26. Brame, Gloria G. and co., eds. Different Loving, (London: Arrow Books, 1996), 5.

RDK Herman writes, The BDSM community has become defined, if not empowered, through the proliferation of indicators and identifiers.12 Whips and chains, goes the classic catch-all catchphrase of the entire BDSM subculture, as demonstrated recently by Rihannas SnM song, and it is a similar reduction of BDSM to a few ideas and tropes that allows the mainstream media to assert hegemony over BDSM. Sadomasochism is still categorized as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.13 While it is not necessarily treated as such in day-to-day life, the idea behind the category lingers. Even cultural critics like Ken Geldeon are seduced by it; he describes the activities of a leatherdyke bar as perverse, even as he notices the emphasis on intimacy, self-discipline and safety.14 Primarily, it manifests itself in the idea that people in BDSM are incapable of forming and maintaining healthy relationships. Sadomasochistic activities are seen as a temporary outlet for more dangerous impulses (i.e. murderous ones, an idea encouraged by sexual murderers like Ted Bundy, who attested to watching BDSM pornography) or as a barrier to true emotional connection. The heteronormative media, of course, has jumped on this, and continuous tropes of BDSMers/fetishists as murderers, abuse victims, and emotionally unavailable people fill television and film. It is certainly possible that some BDSMers have these Herman, Playing with Restraints: Space, Citizenship, and BDSM, in Geographies of Sexualities, ed. Kath Brown and co, (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 91. 13 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth edition, text revision, (Washington D.C.: The American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 572-573. 14 Gelder, Ken, Anachronistic Self-Fashioning: Dandyism, Tattoo Communities and Leatherfolk, in Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice, (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 139.
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qualities, but so do some vanilla people. But vanilla lifestyles are not so easy to sensationalize in the media; mainstream entertainment turns to fringes for its freaks. In her article Death Wore Black Chiffon, Carlen Lavigne discusses the portrayal of sexual Others in the popular crime drama CSI, noting the repeated use of queer, trans, and fetish characters as murder suspects and sexually motivated serial killers. While she takes into account the shows inherently conservative format,15 she goes on to assert that the producers of the show have failed to use it to promote positive images of sexual subcultures. CSI has been taken to task for this by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation and did make some attempts to rectify the situation, but the portrayal of fetish lifestyles remains largely the same.16 The episode Swap Meet involves a murder within a group of swingers; one of the main cops, Sara Sidle, says of swinging, I know Im supposed to be objective, but I think I have a problem with the lifestyle.17 The main characters (all of whom are vanilla and heterosexual) pass personal judgment on fetish participants, even when said participants are the victims of murder and not the perpetrators. Over and over, the freakishness of sexual outsiders is emphasized, with the continual idea that by engaging in kinky activities, they are asking for trouble.18 By reiterating the sexually conservative mores of the general population and Othering people in sexual subcultures, the mainstream media delegitimizes and villainizes kinksters. The Lavigne, Carlen, Death Wore Black Chiffon: Sex and Gender in CSI, in The Canadian Review of American Studies, 39 no. 4, 2009, 3. 16 Ibid., p.3. 17 Ibid., p. 3-4 18 Ibid., p.4
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supposedly objective cops are a representation of mainstream society, i.e. the shows viewers, whose similarly objective opinion of BDSM lifestyle is driven by the representations they are provided with. The supposed emotional failures of BDSM and kink lifestyles get a fair amount of screentime, especially in an episode of another crime drama, Bones. Centering on a community of pony players (a subculture within BDSM, in which bottoms are attired in a manner similar to horses and treated as such by the Top), the episode follows a fairly predictable kinky people are freaks and murderers19 plot, concluding with a Top being convicted of the murder. To polish off the stereotype, one of the (again, heterosexual and vanilla) main characters offers these lines: But making love? Making. Love. Thats when two people become one Yeah, Bones. A miracle. Those peoplerole-playing and their fetishes and their little sex games. Its crappy sex. Well, at least compared to the real thing.20 Monogamous, love-oriented, vanilla sex is framed as real, even divine: A miracle. Its made clear that a person can have one or the otherthey can play little sex games or they can have a real, honest relationship. The possibility of love and commitment within fetishism is simply not considered. This theme is not restricted to crime dramas; Ummni Kahn analyzes the construction of female Dominants in several fairly recent films and finds similar tropes. all of the dominatrix characters are represented as emotionally hardened in some way, she writes, and as needing the assistance of a

Weston, Lucy J., http://lucyjweston.blogspot.com/2010/05/so.html?zx=66d275a163ed571a, accessed March 29, 2010. 20 Ibid.

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man to help them cede control and get in touch with their femininity.21 Not only is participation in BDSM represented as indicative of emotional difficulties, these films also reify vanilla gender norms of the passive woman and sexually dominant man being two halves of a loving, healthy relationship. The dominatrix is the most easily recognized of BDSM participantsa friend of mine refers to fetish shops simply as dominatrix shops, a reductivism that is quite telling. The sexually dominant woman is contra to the heteronormative ideal as BDSM is contra-vanilla. By using the former as a symbol for the latter, the mainstream can paint the entire subculture as emotionally damaged and in need of good, honest, straight, vanilla loving. However, BDSM themes and ideas are not limited to strictly negative portrayals by the dominant discourses. Various BDSM items and aesthetics have been incorporated into mainstream culture, from leather-clad models on haute couture runways to Rihannas latex-filled music videos. Michel Foucault, writing about sex in general, but it is applicable here, says, If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, non-existence, and silence, then the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgression.22 Key here are the words the appearance of. Is a shallow, surface-driven engagement with BDSM better than no engagement at all? Or does it serve to hide a deeper sense of Othering? Todays Western world is, in some ways, much more sexually open than it ever has been. Witness the large Anne Summers on OConnell Street, which seems never to be without an ad for their newest vibrator plastered in the window. The Kahn, Ummni, Putting a Dominatrix in Her Place: The Representation and Regulation of Female Dom/ Male Sub Sexuality, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, vol. 29, 2009, 147. 22 Mills, Sara, Michel Foucault, (London and New York: Routledge, 2003) 84-5.
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back corner boasts a small selection of bondage paraphernalia, from the nowstandard fuzzy handcuffs to ball gags and clamps. But this pseudo-kinky space is surrounded by the accoutrements of vanilla and largely heterosexual sex, and it exists within a connotation of spicing things up, rather than any kind of lifestyle statement. In comparison, the fetish shop Miss Fantasia, on New South William Street, has a relatively discreet window display and a semi-hidden entrance. Another fetish store in Temple Bar requires potential customers to ring a buzzer to gain entrance. Rihannas video for SnM was censored for its content, even though it arguably has less in the way of overt sexual action than most of the work of her contemporaries. The practices of BDSM are deeply troubling to the mainstream, and so, to avoid any potential shifts in the dominant sexual narrative, the mainstream appropriates and misrepresents that subculture.

Bibliography Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth edition, text revision. Washington D.C.: The American Psychiatric Association, 2000. Benjamin, Jessica. Master and Slave: The Fantasy of Erotic Domination. In Powers of Desire. Eds. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983. Brame, Gloria G. and William D., and Jon Jacobs. Eds. Different Loving. London: Arrow Books, 1996. Gelder, Ken. Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Harden, Nathan. Bawd and Man at Yale. In National Review. April 5, 2010. Hart, Lynda. Between the Body and the Flesh. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Herman, RDK. Playing with Restraints: Space, Citizenship, and BDSM. In Geographies of Sexualities. Eds. Kath Brown, Jason Lim, and Gavin Brown. Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007. Jones, Amelia. Body Art/Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998. Kahn, Ummni. Putting a Dominatrix in Her Place: The Representation and Regulation of Female Dom/ Male Sub Sexuality. In Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, vol. 29, 2009. Lavigne, Carlen. Death Wore Black Chiffon: Sex and Gender in CSI. In The Canadian Review of American Studies, 39 no. 4, 2009. MacKendrick, Karmen. Introduction. In Counterpleasures. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Mills, Sara. Michel Foucault. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Warner, Michael. Public and Private. In Publics and Counterpublics. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002. Weston, Lucy J., http://lucyjweston.blogspot.com/2010/05/so.html?zx=66d275a163ed571a, accessed March 29, 2010. Willis, Ellen. Feminism, Moralism, and Pornography. In Powers of Desire. Eds. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983.