Unperverting the perverse: Sacrificing transgression for normalised acceptance in the BDSM subculture

Abstract

Despite increased media exposure, bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism (BDSM) is a stigmatised subculture and this stigmatisation can have serious social and legal implications for practitioners even when the participation is consensual. Psycho-medical narratives have constructed practitioners of BDSM as perverse and pathological, and in opposition to heteronormative sexual expression. To reduce stigma, it appears that a process of normalisation is occurring with the aim of increasing broader acceptance and therefore reducing the transgressive nature of BDSM. This, however, is not unproblematic and may privilege certain types of BDSM while further marginalising others. Nine practitioners of consensual BDSM participated in in-depth, face to face interviews in the UK. Interviews were conducted within an interpretive phenomenological framework that focused on the lived experience of participating in consensual BDSM. The findings presented in this article relate specifically to lived experiences of transgression as a key element of BDSM and will be discussed with reference to the ways transgression can challenge narratives of acceptance via normalisation.