Abstract:In this article, I argue that BDSM sexuality should be conceptualized as a form of "working at play." Considering two dominant models of sexuality, identity and lifestyle, I argue that BDSM is more fluid and less binary than identity Moreover, while lifestyle focusses attention on BDSM as consumptive labour, this model does not adequately address the pleasure or sociality BDSM practitioners themselves emphasize. Instead, I argue that "working at play" recognizes the ways that practitioners move between registers of work (productive labour) and play (creative recombination). This analysis situates BDSM (and other sexualities) within the shifting cultural geography of U.S. late-modernity, drawing attention to the ways sexuality blurs boundaries between individual-social, real-pretend and leisure-labour.Keywords: sexuality, BDSM, pleasure, San l?rancisco Bay Area, play, work Msume': Cet article soutient que la pratique sexuelle du BDSM bondage, dominatio~soumission, sadomasochisme] devrait 6tre conye comme une fqon de travailler en jouant. En prenant en compte d e w interpretations dominantes de la sexualitk, l'identit6 et le mode de vie, je soutiens que la pratique du BDSM est plus changeante et moins binaire que ne le suppose une conception identitaire de la sexualitk. De plus, si le fait de concevoir la sexualitk comrne un mode de vie focalise l'attention sur le BDSM en tant que travail de consommation, ce modsle n'aborde cependant pas adequatement les questions du plaisir et de la sociabilitk auxquelles les adeptes du BDSM accordent eux-m6mes de Vimportance. J e soutiens quepenser le BDSM comme une manisre de travailler en jouant tient compte des fa~ons dont les adeptes naviguent entre les registres du travail (travail de production) et du jeu (recombinaison creative), travaillant ainsi B l'interface aes carkgories suvantes : mdividuel-social, reel-simulk et loisir-travail. Cette analyse situe le BDSM (et d'autres types de sexualit6 millenaire) dans le cadre de la gkographie culturelle changeante des ~t a t s -~n i s en pkriode de modernit4 avancke.

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This article explores nonpractitioners' understandings of and responses to the increasingly mainstream representation of BDSM in U.S. media, focusing on the film Secretary (Shainberg, 2002). Survey, focus group, and interview data indicate that popular images of SM promote the acceptance and understanding of sexual minorities through two mechanisms: acceptance via normalization, and understanding via pathologizing. Rather than challenging the privileged status of normative sexuality, these mechanisms reinforce boundaries between protected/privileged and policed/pathological sexualities. Instead of celebrating increased representation, this article argues that political energy might be directed toward the desire that the popularity of BDSM representations signifies: the desire to encounter authentic, undisciplined, and noncommodified representations that would transgress the sexual norms of American postmodern consumer culture.

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