Bois and grrrls meet their daddies and mommies on gender playgrounds: Gendered age play in the les-bi-trans-queer BDSM communities

Abstract

Based on a qualitative empirical study of les-bi-trans-queer BDSM in the USA and Europe, this article discusses sexual practices that explore the significance of age, gender and sexuality and their simultaneous workings to produce desires, embodiments, identities, intimacies and kinships that transgress and partially transform heteronormative social concepts. Queer 'age play' and 'intergenerational play' practices involved processes of becoming-child in the Deleuzian sense, renegotiating masculinity and femininity in relation to age, power and sexist stereotypes, as well as compensation for queer-and gender-related limitations experienced in one's own childhood.

BDSM as trauma play: An autoethnographic investigation

“…Third, although for me physical pain is key to trauma play (see Ortmann and Sprott, 2013), it needs to be understood that, for many persons, trauma play does not require physical pain at all. Indeed, consistent with research on rape play (Hammers, 2014), incest play (Bauer, 2017), and humiliation play (Carlström, 2018; Thomas and Williams, 2018), it seems likely that other elements are just as, or even more important. In particular, the overarching dynamics of power exchange, as often expressed in domination and submission, are probably key for most persons.…”

“…In other words, the defining feature here is that persons are intentionally doing these activities because in their minds there is a connection to the past. Hence, while activities such as rape play (Hammers, 2014), incest play (Bauer, 2017), and humiliation play (Carlstro¨m, 2018;Thomas and Williams, 2018) might appear to be obvious forms of trauma play-and can certainly be categorized as forms of ''edge play'' (Newmahr, 2011)-it is important to realize that persons engage in these activities for many reasons, including that some participants simply find them fun, exciting, or novel, and thus not necessarily forms of trauma play. Alternatively, seemingly more innocuous activities such as mild spankings and bondage might come across as light-hearted and fun, but for a given individual these activities may indeed be linked to past trauma or abuse.…”

Affirmation, compartmentalization, and isolation: narratives of identity sentiment among kinky people

“…Kinky individuals often describe the meaning of their sexual experiences as consensual 'games' with specific rules, often in relation to social categories such as gender, race, or age (e.g. Bauer, 2008Bauer, , 2018Faccio et al, 2014;Ortmann & Sprott, 2013). Kinky sex involves 'serious leisure' that is largely described by practitioners as empowering (e.g.…”

Grieving those Who Still Live: Loss Experienced by Parents of Transgender Children

“…In fact, in traditionalist Italy (ISTAT 2012), 0.1% of the sample describe themselves as transgender persons, whereas in Spain, the proportion is even lower and oscillates between 0.01% and 0.1% (Chrysallis 2014). In the more liberal U.S.A., the rate is higher and goes up to 0.6% (Flores, Brown & Herman 2016), maybe because of the wide and open social debate about GLBT and queer issues and because of GLBT associations' activities for social communities (Bauer 2018, Stewart 2018, Wootton et al 2018. However, it is difficult to determine whether the different percentages, which, furthermore, could not be compared because of the different methodologies of the surveys, are the effect of greater freedom of choice when coming out or not.…”