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Copyright Desautels 2009

The Psychology of BDSM

18 December 2009

The Psychology of BDSM: Part One

Defining BDSM

And

The History of BDSM

BDSM is a sexual practice that, although it continues to gain visibility and popularity

today, remains a largely misunderstood, negatively perceived, and taboo expression of sexuality.

In this series of papers, I hope to give the reader a more honest and thorough understanding of

what, exactly, constitutes BDSM, and the psychology of this play: I will assist the “vanilla”

reader in understanding why BDSM participants are able to eroticize pain, how they do so, and

to what end. I believe that psychology is perhaps the most important facet from which both the

mainstream and BDSM participants can understand the practice, especially since psychology has

both failed to produce a mainstream description of healthy BDSM practice, and often provided

confusing descriptions of BDSM as a pathology (DSM 572-573.) This perspective is, in the

majority of cases, far from the truth. In these papers, I will explain BDSM as experienced by

healthy, consensual, adult participants. In this first paper, I will both define BDSM as a practice,

and describe the history of the practice we today identify as BDSM.

There are many definitions of BDSM, and many interpretations of those definitions

within the BDSM community, and it is important to remember that while the term BDSM

encompasses many diverse experiences, very few of these are inherent to the definition of
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BDSM. BDSM is a flexible term and culture, representing different things to different

participants and therefore difficult to satisfactorily define by non-participants.

BDSM is an acronym for bondage and discipline (BD); domination and submission (DS);

and sadism and masochism (SM). The meanings of even these terms are debated within BDSM

communities (Easton and Hardy iv.) Sado-masochism is a part of BDSM, but is most often

isolated by psychologists who ignore or have no agenda for studying bondage and discipline.

This is understandable, since bondage and discipline describe actions more than psychological

phenomena (like sado-masochism), and are behaviors that can be plausibly absorbed into the

definition of sado-masochism. Weinberg defines sadomasochism as “a combined term that has

traditionally been used for the giving and receiving of pain for erotic gratification” (Weinberg

15.) However, since bondage and discipline share similarities with but are not mutually exclusive

to sadomasochism, I will focus on a full inclusion of all BDSM elements.

BDSM is a cooperative construction by participants of both a scenario (“fantasy” or other

context) and psychological openness for self-exploratory or recreational manipulation of

physical, mental, or emotional pain, restraint, or power imbalance, most often in an erotic

context. It may or may not include any form of sex. Like sex, and as a form of sex, BDSM has

immense potential for healing and positive reinforcement as well as for harm. Some

psychologists, including Richard von Krafft-Ebing, have theorized that BDSM sex is a result or

symptom of psychological unhealthiness (Krafft-Ebind 25.) Unfortunately, there are doubtlessly

cases where this is true, and BDSM is used unsafely, self-destructively, or maliciously. However,

it is vital to note that these same phenomena exist even in relationships as conventional as

heterosexual marriage. And like more conventional sex, BDSM in the correct context is a

positive, enriching aspect of the lives of many healthy persons. It can be argued that BDSM not
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only can, but should be considered a healthy and positive component (or entirety of) a

consensual adult sex life, and because of this, BDSM will be discussed from a sex-positive

perspective. BDSM in relation to psychological unhealthiness is an important area of study that

will be addressed later in this paper, and discussed in-depth in my next stage of research.

Another defining component of BDSM is the multifaceted complexity of created,

imagined, latent, and simulated experiences. One of the primary oppositions to BDSM sex is

how distasteful it appears on the surface. The context vital to BDSM is far less visible than the

motions of play, so to the inexperienced eye, BDSM may easily be perceived as a physical

manifestation of psychological malady: a simple transfer of internal illness to surface level. It is

easy to view taking pleasure from pain as sickness of perversion, and to confuse desire for

violent BDSM play with desire for real world abuses, or to view the desire for BDSM play as

genuine cruelty or self-destruction. While these can be found in incorrect use of BDSM. healthy

BDSM play is far more rich, complex, and nuanced, and it is impossible to fully interpret the

emotional workings or desires of any persons in a BDSM scene, relationship, or lifestyle from

observing visible rituals. That BDSM is complex and multi-layered, carrying internal

significance that is not always an active element of play, is fundamental to BDSM play.

This complexity is, first and foremost, contextual. In their book The New Bottoming

Book, Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy describe a masochist as “someone who has the ability to

eroticize or otherwise enjoy some sensations or emotions—such as pain, helplessness,

powerlessness and humiliation—that would be unpleasant in another context” (Eastman 3.) The

authors cite the example that any given BDSM participant does not enjoy accidental pain, such

as stubbing a toe; or emotions that are painful in the real world. The relationships, rules,

understandings, and contexts of BDSM are what make otherwise painful stimuli erotic and
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fulfilling sensations.

Any given BDSM scene is strongly grounded in preexisting relationships; the personae

evoked during play1; previously agreed-upon boundaries and communications such as

“safewords” and “consent to nonconsent”; and the needs and emotions of all persons involved, as

well as their individual histories, limits, curiosities, and expectations, to name a few factors. All

of these factors combine to create a scene where the participants are able to safely enact fantasies

or express certain aspects of themselves, or experience sensation and emotion to mutual benefit

and enjoyment.

Context is what makes BDSM possible. Real emotions and responses are elicited within

controlled and constructed situations. As Eastman points out, a good way to view BDSM play is

as a psychodrama—what happens during play is fantasy, not reality, and being able to make this

distinction is essential to BDSM’s function as a healthy component of life. This distinction has

less to do with persona than with state of mind. Some individuals, for instance, consider their

BDSM persona as their primary identity and, often in a relationship, attempt to extend this

persona to every possible aspect of their lives—for instance, “24-7” relationships, such as full-

time master/slave relationships. The distinction of state of mind in distinguishing fantasy from

reality is, as Eastman puts it,

The power to bypass our customary psychological defenses, giving us access to amazing

experiences and awarenesses…Normally, you have a ‘bubble’ of protectiveness you put

around yourself to prevent yourself from being physically or emotionally hurt. When you

agree to [BDSM play], you’ve just agreed to put that bubble around you and your partner

for the duration of the scene. (Eastman 31)

1
Easton defines “persona” as “borrowed from Jungian psychology…a character, personality, or
archetype…that might be a role that you put on like a costume, or might be an expression of a
particular part of yourself that doesn’t always show on the surface” (Easton 8.)
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Combining psychological openness and vulnerability with other players within the strict

confines of a scene underscores the concept of BDSM as non-pathological: participants do not

want to be harmed, they want to experience harm in a controlled setting where exploration,

growth, and pleasure can occur. This lowering of psychological defenses is what makes BDSM

such a powerful sexual force: heightened emotional awareness is often essential for fulfillment in

a scene, and within the constructed, ritualized safety of a scene, participants are able to

experience such powerful emotions, realizations, and transformations that lead some to

interpreting the SM of BDSM as “sex magic” (Easton and Hardy 32.)

With BDSM identified, I will now explore the roots of this practice:

where, in history, was BDSM born? It is difficult to pinpoint the time and

place where BDSM was first practiced, as instances of striking, biting, and

other “horseplay” are clear if mild elements of BDSM evidenced globally, and

throughout history. The Kama Sutra, for instance, cites eight types of bites

and four types of strikes suitable during intercourse (2005 59-60, 67-70.)

However, these instances give us little information as to where today’s

complex, scripted, symbolic BDSM scenes were developed. The first time we

see evidence of these complex constructions is, perhaps unsurprisingly,

Victorian era England and United States. From flagellation manuals for

prostitutes (Tannahill 386) to sadomasochistic fiction such as Leopold von

Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Furs, the erotica Victorian era represents

the ancestor to today’s perception of BDSM: highly creative, symbolic,

fantasy-enactments clearly designed to utilize eroticized pain and

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humiliation.

The Victorian Era is perhaps most infamous for its attitudes of sexual

prohibition, evidenced in all imaginable domains, from biology and medicine

to psychology and morality. During the nineteenth century, many of these

biases centered on the idea of procreative, marital sex as the only

acceptable form of intercourse. However, as Foucault describes in A History

of Sexuality, these repressions necessitated an increased discourse on

sexuality: sex had to be identified in order to be revealed, defined, and dealt

with. This personal scrutiny was demanded of all persons and in all

aforementioned domains. The result of the intensely negative associations

with sex paired with heightened sexual awareness created a need to release

and interpret these emotions related to sex through sex. The result was the

birth of what is today’s BDSM: a practice that often goes beyond

incorporation of mild violence into intercourse, but that can eroticize

emotional, mental, and physical “violence” outside of intercourse, and within

controlled, preconceived, symbolically driven psychodramas. Although biting

and hitting during sex has been seen throughout history, the psychological

toils of the Victorian era created a need for creative, symbolic scenes

through which to interpret a complex, symbolic sexual culture.

One of the most prominent prohibitions evidenced in the Victorian era

was that of female sexuality: quite literally, a healthy, morally upright

woman was understood to be one who had no sexual thoughts, sexual

enjoyment, no sexuality at all. In Sex in History, Reay Tannahill states that

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“[The Victorian wife’s] repressed upbringing, the refinement and ‘spirituality’ that were forced

upon her, and her ignorance of physiology all helped make her [undersexed]” (Tannahill 354-

355.) This purity was created, not only by cleansing the woman’s mind of sexual desires, but by

cultivating an environmental purity. The idea of a woman too delicate to be in contact with the

“real” world was made desirable by the emergence of a middle class following the Industrial

Revolution—the frail upper-class lady, whose protection was largely the result of her class’

wealth and ability to shelter women from the “real” world, became a class symbol mimicked by

an aspiring middle class (Tannahill 351.) However, since female nobility had the luxury of

travel, women without such means were confined to languishment in the home in order to imitate

their higher-class counterparts. Tannahill also quotes Mrs. Ellis of The Women of England

describing the phenomenon as “languid, listless, and inert young ladies who recline upon our

sofas, murmuring and repining at every claim upon their personal exertions” (Tannahill 351.) If

women did not choose this lifestyle, a London court of law permitted husbands to enforce it via

kidnapping within their own homes in 1840 in order to “’protect her from the danger of

unrestrained intercourse with the world’” (Tannahill 351.)

Considering this enforced idleness, coupled with the promotion of female frailty as

feminine virtue (an idea complementary to revived concepts of chivalry (Tannahill 349)), it

comes as little surprise that physicians turned their attention to female disorders such as

nervousness and hysteria. The lifestyle of these wilting ladies was considered normal, to the end

that normal human functioning, especially in response to forced idleness, was often perceived as

a host of maladies and disorders for medicine to explore, to say nothing of ill health created by

idleness itself. Namely, since normal female sexuality was absence of sexuality, the sexual

woman was pathological. Whether her sexual expression was considered a symptom or cause of
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illness, medicine was dedicated to eradicating female sexuality. Any signs of arousal or sexual

desire were considered pathology under such dubious names as hysteria, chlorosis, and

neurasthenia. All of these shared similar symptoms that, according to Maines’ The Technology

of Orgasm, “included many elements consistent with the normal functioning of female sexuality

under social conditions that interpreted it as pathological” (Maines 35) and then some truly

mysterious symptoms, including. “weeping, irritability, depression, mental and physical

weariness, morbid fears, forgetfulness, palpitations of the heart, headaches, writing cramps,

mental confusion, fear of impending insanity” (Maines 35.) The very nature of these illnesses

was dubious. Lack of sex or unsatisfying sex (which was recommended for all copulation) were

considered a cause of these diverse symptoms, along with “overindulgence” in sex, and

masturbation, which were seen as both a cause and a symptom (Maines 34.) Conveniently, the

treatment for all these disorders was essentially masturbation to orgasm (or “paroxysm”) by a

physician, which led to the development of hydriatic massage and the vibrator (Maines 36.)

This paradox of treating forbidden female sexuality with orgasm seems best explained by

abounding medical practice: under the guise of science (a male-dominated field), women’s

sexuality was rendered sterile and could be “treated”—by male doctors. Maines notes that

“Certainly the characteristic orgasmic contractions of the uterus and vagina provide relief from

the ‘symptoms’ of arousal, and no doubt the patients of these physicians reported feeling much

better for the experience” (Maines 33.) Since treatment produced the desired effects, and was

carried out under the neutral gaze of science and knowledge, it stood no contest.

Masturbation, while much discussed in terms of female sexual disorder, was considered

downright dangerous for men. In his book Sexualities in Victorian England, Andrew Miller

states that, for both men and women, “Masturbation in particular became a subject of almost
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obsessive concern, the masturbator taking on almost sinister connotations as the archetypal sex

deviant” (Miller 60) to the point when intercourse, even with prostitutes, was recommended to

men as an alternative to “self-pollution.” In his treatise On Onania: or a Treatise Upon the

Disorders Produced by Masturbation, Tissot cited “general debility, consumption, deterioration

of eyesight, disturbance of the nervous system, and so on” (Miller 63) as harmful effects of male

masturbation.

To curb dangerous masturbation in both males and females (particularly children),

circumcision rose to intense popularity in England and the United States during the Victorian

era. Male circumcision began in the eighteenth century with surgeons “treating serious venereal

infections of the penis by amputation of the diseased tissue. Since the venereal sores were

usually on the foreskin, this was analogous to circumcision” (“Circumcision in Britain”). It

gained more popularity when it was claimed to protect against syphilis, “the AIDS of that era”

(“Circumcision in Britain”), and furthermore as a cure for masturbation, especially in children.

The natural motion of male masturbation is pulling the foreskin, a nerve-rich erogenous tissue,

over the head of the penis, so amputating the foreskin diminished the possibility of young boys

discovering masturbation. One justification used for circumcising healthy male infants was

“phimosis”—the condition of an overly tight foreskin restricting blood flow to the penis.

Victorian doctors appeared undeterred by the fact that the healthy foreskin is immobile and does

not separate from the penis during the first few years of life (Dewan 285), and diagnosed normal

foreskin attachment as “phimosis”, cured by amputation of the foreskin.

An American doctor, John Harvey Kellogg, described his recommendation for

circumcision in both young boys and girls:

A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small

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boys is circumcision. The operation should be performed by a surgeon

without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the

operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be

connected with the idea of punishment. In females, the author has

found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent

means of allaying the abnormal excitement. (Kellogg 295.)

In both England and the United States, fears of masturbation, venereal

disease, and phimosis inspired routine circumcision in children—a

development inspired by moralism and medical advancement, since, as

Miller states, “circumcision had for centuries been unthinkable in Christian countries” (Miller

61.) Furthermore, however, circumcision fit into Victorian ideals of elitism and purity:

“circumcision was central to the late Victorian redefinition of manliness in terms of sexual

restraint and ‘cleanness’…widely believed to dampen sexual desire, circumcision was seen

positively as a means of promoting both the chastity and the physical health of the custodians of

the empire” (Miller 65.)

In spite of circumcision’s (and society’s) best efforts, however, sexual intercourse was

bountiful in the Victorian era. And, since as Tannahill notes “the ban on intercourse during

pregnancy and menstruation…imposed celibacy on the average husband and wife for roughly six

years out of the first twelve of their married life” (Tannahill 355), the intercourse demanded a

thriving population of prostitutes, produced by both female desire for entrepreneurship when

their post-Industrial Revolution wages were roughly half of men’s, and female desperation when

Victorian standards for feminine purity dictated that a single sexual transgression produced a

“fallen woman” (Tannahill 354-356.)

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Having observed a culture that viewed most forms of sexuality or sexual expression as

related to disease or immorality, requiring a medical cure or moral reform, it comes as little

surprise that Victoriana’s first discovery of BDSM, or “sadomasochistic” behavior, was instantly

interpreted as pathological. Richard von Krafft-Ebing figures prominently as one of the first

medical opinions on “sadomasochism”, as expressed in his text Psychopathia Sexualis in 1885

(Weiss 15.) Most relevant in this document are his writings on sadism and masochism, both of

which he diagnoses as sexual disorders. Sadism, which he defines as “the experience of

pleasurable sensations (including orgasm) produced by acts of cruelty [or] bodily punishment”

(Krafft-Ebing 25), is, interestingly enough, only separated from normal sexuality in Krafft-

Ebing’s mind by matter of degree. He describes sadism as merely a pathological hyperbole of a

“normal” male sexuality: one that is aggressive and even predatory. He also distinguishes

between playful biting and striking during intercourse and “menaces and other violence”

(Krafft-Ebing 26), the former of which will later be described as a more mild manifestation of

popular conceptions of sadism, and the latter of which defines rape, or gratification from real

violence rather than BDSM sadism, which is characterized by eroticization of violence

contextualized within a controlled scene. Krafft-Ebing’s definition of sadism clearly

characterizes alternative sexual practices as pathology. Furthermore, Krafft-Ebing clearly

considers sadism to be at least partially dependent on moral failure: “In these cases the impulse

to cruelty which may accompany the emotion of lust, becomes unbounded in the psychopathic

individual; and, at the same time, owing to defect of moral feeling, all normal inhibitory ideas

are absent or weakened” (Krafft-Ebing 27.) Not only is sadism a deviation from the norm in

Krafft-Ebing’s mind, it is evidence of personal deficit if not clinical disorder.

Krafft-Ebing seems to have an even more cynical view of masochism (which, like
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sadism, he only discusses as a male phenomenon), since a man’s desire to receive pain is not

merely an “aggressive character” that is “excessively developed” (Krafft-Ebing 28)—it is a

phenomenon in direct contrast to Krafft-Ebing’s perception of “normal” male sexuality. As with

sadism, Krafft-Ebing’s moral prejudice against masochism is clear. He claims that an

individual’s degree of masochism is dependent “upon the strength of the opposing ethical and

aesthetic motives, and the relative power of the physical and mental organization of the affected

individual” (Krafft-Ebing 30.) Finally, he makes note of the author Sacher-Masoch, who

expressed his own masochistic fantasies in his novel Venus in Furs, and from whose name the

term “masochism” is derived. Krafft-Ebing declares that Sacher-Masoch’s talent in writing

should not be ignored, but his writing’s content should be judged according to the author’s

sexuality. In that Sacher-Masoch is a practicing masochist, “he is a remarkable example of the

powerful influence exercised by the sexual life—be it in the good or evil sense—over the

formation and direction of man’s mind” (Krafft-Ebing 30.) Krafft-Ebing is clear in his

definitions of sadism and masochism as “evil”, and reflects the Victorian belief that socially

sanctioned sexuality is inextricably bound with moral character; as well as the combination of

morality and medicine used in identifying and judging the correctness of any given sexual

practice.

These examples provide only a small sketch of Victorian sexual attitudes; a complete

study could fill many books. However, I feel that they give a sketch of Victorian sexual ideas

and attitudes sufficient to support my exploration of BDSM’s roots in Victorian culture.

Next, we must consider how today’s perception of BDSM could have been born in a

culture that, considering its plethora of prohibitory attitudes towards sex, would appear to be a

time of sexual repression. It is important to realize that although sexual practices were forbidden,
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this prohibition necessitated increased discourse on sex in order to identify and confront its

innumerable evil manifestations. As Michel Foucault observes in A History of Sexuality: An

Introduction, an outgrowth of sexual discourse occurred as the result of prohibition: “There was

a steady proliferation of discourses concerned with sex…a determination on the part of the

agencies of power to hear it spoken about, and to cause it to speak through explicit articulation

and endlessly accumulated detail” (Foucault 18.) This juxtaposition of prohibitory attitudes

giving birth to proportionally increased discourse is what Foucualt describes as his repressive

hypothesis. This hypothesis essentially states that the sexual “prohibitions” of the Victorian era

did not produce a generation of sexless or even sexually repressed individuals, but rather resulted

in a heretofore unseen outburst of sexual discourse because increased discourse was the means

by which all traces of forbidden sexuality could be rooted out and then banished, punished, or

cured. Furthermore, explicit discourse allowed control of sanctioned (marital, procreative) sex:

““[Sex was] to be not simply condemned or tolerated but managed, inserted into the system of

utility, regulated for the greater good of all” (Foucault 24.) Discourse recognized the power of

sex and had to control all forms of sex through speech, including those it sanctioned.

One may wonder why the Victorian era is marked as producing this discourse when

numerous cultures before the eighteenth century have practiced sexual prohibition and required

discourse on it. On this point, Foucault focuses on the tight relationship of Christianity, sex, sin,

and penance present in the Middle Ages, and addresses the issue in explaining that this discourse

limited the exploration of sex to the realm of morality. During the Victorian era, however, “this

relative uniformity was broken apart, scattered, and multiplied in an explosion of distinct

discursivities which took form in demography, biology, medicine, psychiatry, psychology,

ethics, pedagogy, and political criticism” (Foucault 33.) The Victorian era marked not only new
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prohibitions on sex, but a wealth of new knowledge including the technological advances of the

Industrial Revolution and more science-based understandings of medicine and psychology. Prior

to these advancements, there was relatively little knowledge about the physical nature of sex;

discourse focused on religion and morality. The introduction of new knowledge, particularly in

biology, medicine, and psychology, provided new and relevant ways to study and identify sex, to

explore it (as demanded by prohibition-centered discourse) to the peak of their understanding—

which, in turn, produced an understanding of sex that Foucault describes as scientia sexualis.

Scientia sexualis is one out of two different approaches Foucault proposes for discovering

the “truth” about sex. The first he notes is ars erotica, a sexual attitude evidenced in such

societies as Japan, India, and Rome, in which sexual truth is discovered through pleasure and

explored in terms of physical, mental, and emotional pleasure rather than external prohibition-

inspired scaffolding; the transfer of this knowledge is an initiation of a “disciple” under a

rigorous master, to the reward of access to powerful sexual pleasure (Focault 57-58.) Foucault

also claims that our civilization is the only one to practice scientia sexualis and no ars erotica;

“to have developed over the centuries procedures for telling the truth of sex which are geared to

a form of knowledge-power strictly opposed to the art of initiations and that masterful secret: I

have in mind the confession” (Foucault 58.) Scientia sexualis evades the dangerous truths about

sex using the neutrality of science as justification and proof of veracity, to the result of studying

the perversions and pathologies of sex rather than this “truth”, while demanding confession of

these deviances within a power-over relationship (Foucault 53.) With this is mind, it is no

surprise that the roots of the scientia sexualis perspective are found in the ritual-sacrament of

Christian confession.

Foucault claims that “since the Middle Ages at least, Western societies have established
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the confession as one of the main rituals we rely on for the production of truth” (Foucault 58.)

Certainly, the confession fits the power-over structure of Christianity: the confessor as inherently

sinful due to original sin, and the priest as superior in his contact with God and career dedication

to holiness. Demanding that followers recount every single sinful transgression to a priest for

penance and forgiveness also removes the individual’s power to perform penance and seek

forgiveness independently of clergy. Foucault confirms that confession is “a ritual that unfolds

within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence)

of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession”

(Foucault 61.) This religious obligation to confess has lasted into even the present and has

permeated our collective psyche: “we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that

constrains us; on the contrary, it seems to us that truth, lodged in out most secret nature,

‘demands’ only to surface; that if it fails to do so, this is because a constraint holds it in place”

(Foucault 60.) By demanding confession in the powerful, personal realm of religion, Christianity

has created a culture of compulsory confession that lasts even today, but which was particularly

effective to producing sexual discourse during the Victorian era. During this time, the confession

was adapted to less religious forms of truth extraction. Foucault notes that confession became a

lens through which to explore existing domains (such as medicine and psychology), creating

necessity for all individuals to self-examine for sexual transgressions, and to place these

transgressions in the hands of a higher power, be it doctor or priest or psychologist. Foucault

explains that sex “escaped the ecclesiastical institution without being truly independent of the

thematics of sin. Through pedagogy, medicine, and economics, it made sex not only a secular

concern but a concern of the state as well; to be exact, sex became a matter that required the

social body as a whole, and virtually all of its individuals, to place themselves under
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surveillance” (Foucault 116.) Scientia sexualis is the description of this phenomenon: the placing

of sex into a hierarchical relationship in domains including and beyond religion, with the active

cooperation of the population as a whole.

For a person living in the Victorian era, the heightened awareness of

sex (and all its perceived evils), as well an intense awareness of their own

sexuality as largely sinful, unhealthy, and socially repulsive, was most likely

distressing to the extreme. We have noted how flatly unacceptable any

female sexuality was considered, and Tannahill notes that although men

were not expected even to curb their sexual desire for intercourse, neither

were they protected from the psychological harm done by repressing their

wives: “making love to the ‘angel of the house’ in the awareness that she

was concealing a gently-bred disgust was scarcely conducive to a

satisfactory performance” (Tannahill 355.) It becomes clear that, through a

sexual lens, the Victorian era was marked by personal senses of confusion,

shame, and preoccupation with one’s own sexuality, varying by degree in

each individual.

How were these emotions interpreted into complex and symbolic BDSM

scenes? In The New Bottoming Book, Eastman tells us that “bottoming gives

us a chance to explore feelings, roles, and interactions that may not be a

good fit for us in the real world. So when you bottom, you may want to

experience emotions like…anger, helplessness, martyrdom…” (Eastman 21)

(of course, The New Topping Book, also by Eastman and Hardy, describes

BDSM tops in the same exploratory role.) Since BDSM is a psychodrama

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through which participants explore “unacceptable” or hurtful emotions in a

safe context, it seems that the innumerable “forbiddens” of the Victorian era

would be unlikely not to create a need for outlet, particularly a sexual outlet

for emotions such as fear, shame, and guilt associated with sex—Tannahill

even remarks that sex carried, for Victorians, “a sense of vulnerability and a

nervous guilt that infused even simple heterosexual recourse to prostitutes

with an element of intellectual and moral masochism” (Tannahill 387), all

creating a scenario so psychologically grueling that the development of

BDSM appears as a logical coping mechanism rather than a shocking

phenomenon.

In addition, as Eastman remarks in The New Topping Book, “[BDSM]

play is to a very real degree about symbolism…But we need form and

structure to clarify the distinction between the symbol and the thing itself”

(Eastman 18-19.) Participants in BDSM use objects, costume, and setting as

more than just sexual props: these items act as contextual symbols that

indicate the beginning and end of BDSM play. A common example is a top

putting a collar on a bottom to signify the beginning of play, and removing it

at the conclusion of the scene. The object is a tool to assist the participants

in adjusting their perceptions from the context of reality to the fantastical

context of the scene. Since the Victorian culture was already highly symbolic

and dense in taboo, symbolism would have served a vital purpose to the

Victorian BDSM players. As Eastman describes, symbols would have been

highly necessary to distinguish between, for instance, the exploration of guilt

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within play and the very real guilt that was likely a part of many lives. The

heretofore unseen creativity of these scenes was likely inspired, not only by

a need for symbols to help distinguish psychological boundaries, but by the

combination of repression and increased sexual discourse itself. A person

needs to be aware of an imaginative sexual thought or practice to know

whether he or she is guilty of it; the encouragement to self-scrutiny may

have flexed the muscle of sexual imagination to assist in producing these

inventive scenes.

It is true that today’s perception and practice of BDSM is very different

from that of our Victorian predecessors. Not only have today’s BDSM

participants developed more complex archetypes, communities, and props,

but they are able to approach BDSM from a psychological angle that was not

so accessible to the Victorians: one of adult playfulness and exploration.

While many individuals doubtlessly use BDSM as did the Victorians—to cope

with or interpret overwhelming social pressures and negativity—this is by no

means the rule, or even the norm. Where BDSM was born from intense

pressure as an outlet for Victorians, today’s participants enjoy the fruits of

this outlet from whichever psychological approach works for them: be it one

of coping or play, exploration or bonding. They can eroticize the still-taboo

nature of BDSM play within Foucault’s scientia sexualis, power-over culture

while enjoying social and legal freedoms seen only in recent decades. It is

true that more complete and unbiased understanding of BDSM has not yet

been achieved in our society, and neither has full acceptance of BDSM.
 Desautels 19

Nonetheless, today’s BDSM has evolved into a flourishing, multifaceted,

accessible practice and community for which we must thank the founders:

our Victorian ancestors, and their singular role in shaping today’s kink.
 Desautels 20

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