BDSM as therapy?

Lindemann, Danielle J.

doi:10.1177/1363460711399038

Cited by 75 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…I just play out of a place of love. (Mistress Natasha) Our findings are consistent with Lindemann's (2011a) in that many pro-dommes in our sample see themselves as providing a therapeutic service. They assert acceptance of 'deviant' sexuality as a central motivation for their work.…”

Section: Empathy Nurturance and Interpersonal Connectionssupporting

confidence: 94%

‘A world turned upside down’: Emotional labour and the professional dominatrix

Pinsky

Levey

2015

Sexualities

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The professional dominatrix, who has been underrepresented in the literature on sex work, complicates our understanding of the emotional labour of sex work. The professional dominatrix is paid by clients to perform the role of the dominant in scenarios involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadomasochism, and 'fetishism.' Unlike other sex workers, who must often feign interest and act flirtatiously in order to make clients feel desired, the dominatrix is asked, at times, to express emotional displays such as indifference or displeasure. At the same time, our analysis of in-depth interviews, published memoirs, and blogs reveals multifaceted and dynamic constructions of emotional labour that would typically be considered contradictory and unpredictable from the point of view of normative emotional displays in work. While her job is defined by dominance and can at times involve aggression, compassionate and care-taking traits are perhaps just as important in defining her emotional labour. In contrast to research that poses dichotomous models of gender and emotional labour, we present a more fluid paradigm that resists simplistic connections between gender, emotions, and work.

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Section: Empathy Nurturance and Interpersonal Connectionssupporting

confidence: 94%

‘A world turned upside down’: Emotional labour and the professional dominatrix

Pinsky

Levey

2015

Sexualities

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“…Participants in the current study also commonly reported that great sex was a benefit (subsumed under pleasure and arousal), which is congruent with Kleinplatz et al's (2009) finding that sadomasochism practitioners report that they are in a particularly good position to experience optimal sex due to skills learned from BDSM play. The benefit of psychological release was also found by Lindemann (2011) in her study of professional dominatrices and Moser and Levitt's (1987) finding that a majority of BDSM practitioners enjoy BDSM as much as or more than vanilla sexual activity was supported. What Nichols (2006) called exploration and excitement roughly map onto the benefit of fun, variety, and going beyond vanilla, as well as pleasure and arousal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

“…Nichols (2006), based on her extensive background of more than 20 years providing therapy for kinky clients, proposed numerous advantages of BDSM, such as personal empowerment, improved communication between partners, excitement because of the diversity and taboo nature, and spiritual benefits. It has also been argued to be cathartic, allowing for both physical and mental release; indeed, some professional dominatrices consider their role to be similar to that of a therapist (Lindemann, 2011). Moreover, Kleinplatz (2006) and colleagues (2009) suggests that 'vanilla' couples can learn a great deal from BDSM practitioners, from the importance of communication to the potential for optimal sexual experiences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Perks, problems, and the people who play: A qualitative exploration of dominant and submissive BDSM roles

Hébert

Weaver

2015

The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality

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Many bondage-discipline, domination-submission, sadomasochism (BDSM) practitioners identify as primarily dominant or primarily submissive. In the current study, BDSM practitioners with self-identified preferences for dominance or for submission described the traits that they feel make them well suited for their preferred BDSM role, their perceptions of benefits and challenges of BDSM generally, and the benefits and challenges of their preferred role. Semi-structured interviews were completed with 9 dominants and 12 submissives and explored using thematic analysis. Participants described dominants as empathic and nurturing, desiring and able to take control, and attentive and responsible, while submissives were characterized as willing to give up control and having a desire to please. Interviewees described ways in which their BDSM role fit with their overall personality, as well as incongruities between their role in BDSM play and their day-to-day personas. The general benefits of BDSM mentioned by the participants for both roles were pleasure from pleasuring others, physical pleasure and arousal, fun, variety, and going beyond vanilla, personal growth, improved romantic relationships, community, psychological release, freedom from day-to-day roles, and being yourself. Participants also discussed the dominant-specific benefits of control or power, rewards, and confidence, and the submissive-specific benefit of giving up control. In addition to the shared challenges and risks of stigma, relationship problems, and accepting desires reported, dominant-specific issues of more work and responsibility and possessive submissives, and submissive-specific issues of vulnerability, bad dominants, and following orders and accepting decisions were addressed by participants. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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“…Recent criminological, ethnographic and anthropological work on sadomasochistic communities provides a basis for a closer and more grounded analysis of how sadomasochistic activities actually function within subcultural spaces (Beckmann, 2009;Lindemann, 2011Lindemann, , 2012Newmahr, 2008Newmahr, , 2010Newmahr, , 2011Weiss, 2006bWeiss, , 2011. There is a tendency within this body of work to eschew broad generalizing claims about the meaning of sadomasochistic activities tout court and to be more responsive to the specifics of context.…”

Section: Sadomasochism As Context Dependentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persecution or Play? Law and the Ethical Significance of Sadomasochism

Bennett

2014

Social & Legal Studies

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Long-standing debates about the ethical significance of sadomasochism have been raised by two recent legal cases, Pay v. United Kingdom and Mosley v. News Group Newspapers Limited. The judgements in these cases rely on the unexplained assumption that a person's participation in sadomasochistic activities can call into question their suitability for certain social or public roles. The article evaluates this assumption by referring to developments within feminist and general academic thinking about the normative nature of sadomasochism, focusing in particular on key issues such as whether sadomasochism is sexist or racist and whether participating in sadomasochistic activities reflects negatively on a person's character. After working through the various theoretical models of sadomasochism as replication, simulation, game playing and context dependent, the article contends that this assumption lacks both a compelling theoretical basis and a practical rationale. Instead, this article argues that law should more fully recognize the critical distinctions that exist between the ethical significance of sadomasochistic activities and the ethical significance of the frameworks of power inequality and narratives of oppression that sadomasochistic activities explicitly invoke or implicitly negotiate.

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BDSM as therapy?

Cited by 75 publications

References 19 publications

‘A world turned upside down’: Emotional labour and the professional dominatrix

‘A world turned upside down’: Emotional labour and the professional dominatrix

Perks, problems, and the people who play: A qualitative exploration of dominant and submissive BDSM roles

Persecution or Play? Law and the Ethical Significance of Sadomasochism

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