BDSM players are as sexually and emotionally healthy as the general population. Italian researchers recently surveyed the sexuality of 266 Italian men and women who enjoy bondage, discipline, and sado-masochism (BDSM). The study population ranged in age from 18 to 74 and averaged 41. The researchers also surveyed 200 demographically similar men and women not involved in BDSM. The two groups reported similar feelings about their sexuality, but the BDSM players reported less sexual distress and greater erotic satisfaction. The researchers said they hoped their study would “reduce the stigma associated with BDSM.”
How Popular is BDSM?
In 2015, Indiana University researchers surveyed a representative sample of 2,021 American adults. Many said they’d tried some elements of BDSM: spanking (30 percent), dominant/submissive role-playing (22 percent), restraint (20 percent), and flogging (13 percent).
In 2017, Belgian scientists surveyed a representative sample of 1,027 Belgian adults. Those who admitted experimenting with BDSM—almost half (47 percent). Thirteen percent said they played that way “regularly.” Eight percent said they felt “committed” to BDSM sexuality.
What 50 Shades of Grey Got Right—and Wrong
In fantasy, BDSM is even more popular. In the Belgian study just mentioned,
69 percent of participants admitted having BDSM fantasies, some quite extreme.
In 2011, a unique window into the popularity of BDSM fantasies and play opened with the publications of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by English author E.L. James. The three novels follow Christian Grey, a brash young billionaire dominant (dom, top) and his initially naïve lover, Anastasia Steele, as she becomes his submissive (sub, bottom), at first hesitantly, then willingly, and finally enthusiastically. By 2019, Fifty Shades had sold 150 million copies worldwide in 50 languages, the only book to ever to sell that many copies that quickly. The Fifty Shades film series has grossed more than $1 billion. And when the trilogy hit the best-seller list, hardware stores reported an unusual surge in sales of rope.
Fifty Shades got one aspect of BDSM horribly wrong. It depicts Christian Grey as the product of horrendous child abuse and implies that his years of suffering propelled him into kink. Actually, BDSM players are no more likely than anyone else to have suffered child abuse or sexual trauma.
Otherwise, James depicted BDSM quite realistically:
- Communication. Before Grey lays a hand on Steele, they discuss their play in great detail.
- Contracts. Grey hands Steele an extensive contract proposal and they discuss it point by point. Steel agrees to some clauses, modifies others, and nixes a few. Not all BDSM players use written contracts, but many do.
- Limits. Grey quizzes Steele on the hard boundaries she can’t conceive of crossing and the soft limits she might cross under the right circumstances. Both players declare their limits and pledge to honor the other’s.
- Safe word. Grey tells Steele she is always free to invoke their safe word, the “stop” signal that immediately suspends play. No matter how anything looks or feels, subs always retain total control over BDSM play. That’s the great irony of BDSM. It looks like the doms control the subs. Actually it’s the other way around.
- Intimacy. Steele is astonished by the depth of self-revelation involved in BDSM, and how emotionally close it brings her to Grey. Committed BDSM players often say that kinky intimacy goes “way beyond sex.”
Is BDSM Mentally Healthy?
A substantial research literature shows that BDSM players are no more likely than the general population to suffer psychiatric problems, and they have no psychological disorders unique to their kinky proclivities:
- A Los Angeles investigator administered standard psychological tests to several hundred BDSM aficionados and concluded they were mentally healthy.
- Australian researchers surveyed 19,370 Aussies age 16 to 59. Among the 2.2 percent of men and 1.3 percent of women who called themselves committed to BDSM, all tested psychologically healthy and reported no disproportionate history of childhood sex abuse or any sexual trauma.
- University of Illinois scientists took before and after saliva samples from 58 BDSM players, measuring their levels of the stress hormone cortisol. After BDSM scenes, their cortisol levels decreased significantly, showing that their BDSM play had reduced their stress.
- Dutch researchers gave standard personality tests to 902 BDSM players and 434 controls. The same proportions of both groups tested psychologically healthy, but the kinksters were “less neurotic, more conscientious, more extraverted, more open to new experiences, less sensitive to rejection, and showed greater subjective well-being.” Those who scored most mentally healthy were the doms, followed by the subs, and in last place, the conventionally sexual (vanilla) controls.
- Finally, researchers at Idaho State University asked 935 kinksters what BDSM meant to them: personal freedom (90 percent), adventure (91 percent), self-expression (91 percent), stress relief (91 percent), positive emotions (97 percent), and above all, pleasure (99 percent).
BDSM players are a cross-section of the population, the people next door, mentally healthy and typical in every respect—except that they find vanilla sex unfulfilling and want something more exciting and intimate.
Officially Mentally Healthy
No one knows when humanity discovered BDSM, but ancient Greek art depicts what looks like it. In 1905, Sigmund Freud declared that “sado-masochism” signaled severe neurosis. For more than a century, mental-health professionals agreed. The first edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I, 1952), classified sexual sadism as a “deviation.” DSM- II (1968) pathologized masochism. And DSM-IV (1994) listed BDSM as a psychiatric disorder.
But in 2013, based on hundreds of 21st-century studies, DSM-V removed BDSM from its list of mental illnesses, calling it just another way for psychologically normal, healthy people to play.
What do you think? Is BDSM mentally healthy? Have you ever played that way? And if so, how committed do you feel to kinky sex?
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Most of us are familiar with the stereotype of someone who is neurotic and inhibited about sex, typically a female, sometimes from a religious upbringing, who thinks sex is dirty or shameful, who’s had little to no sex education, who may have extreme misconceptions about sexual things, and is ignorant and inexperienced with sexual realities. Well, I used to be a bit like that—but not with sex in general, only with bdsm. I’ve always had a natural inclination towards bdsm but I was brought up in the days when it was still considered a mental disorder and something very “perverted” or taboo in popular media and culture.
But it’s always been my favorite fantasy, and gradually the stigma of bdsm began to fade in the culture and mental health community. But for me personally it was still something I was ashamed of and embarrassed about revealing, although I still had a strong need for it. Then I became friends with a girl who was a bit unusual but nice; who others saw as maybe somewhat directionless in life and floundering. We had no mutual social friends so we were able to talk about a lot of private things together. It became clear that she had strong, but highly private sexual desires, which she usually didn’t handle well in her relationships. So I took a chance and revealed my bdsm desires to her. To be honest, I saw her as a “throwaway” relationship, so her any refusal to act out bdsm with me was a “rejection” I could take. But she didn’t outright reject it, although it took some convincing for her to do it. To my amazement, she seemed to know just what to do. It was wonderful. I remember the first time she peed on me, I could feel that sun coming through the window, I could really be myself and engage in a private, “kinky” fantasy with another, willing person. We didn’t see each other often over the next few months. She was willing but reluctant, if that makes sense, and I finally figured out she had a prostitution fantasy, so sometimes paying her a small amount of money to do these things made her eager to do them. But she came to enjoy our activities and would even initiate it! And she did the ‘domination’ role so well that I wondered if she had bdsm fantasies of her own, which I learned she did: masochistic ones.
But I still detested this desire of mine, and kept it hidden from any potential romantic relationships. I still saw it as perverted and wrong and that I should enjoy conventional sex, which, embarrassingly, didn’t always keep me aroused enough to do well. I eventually found a girlfriend and we developed a good, although vanilla, sex life for both of us, although I saw the bdsm girl on the side every few months in secret. It was just a need that I kept having and she was an available source. My girlfriend did talk about bdsm eventually however; and I’m not sure who brought it up first. She very cautiously revealed that she had submissive fantasies. I had earlier hinted, during sexual activity, that I had some too, but her reaction seemed to be one of rejection. I was still ashamed of my own masochism and didn’t want her to know about it, so I avoided revealing anything further. But we did, after discussion, agree to act out some bdsm where she would be the submissive/masochist (I think she was ashamed of her desires, too). We did several sessions over the next few months, in addition to our usual vanilla. I learned later that what I was doing during our bdsm sessions was “switching” , becoming the dominant one , in my case to avoid the shame, rejection and humiliation of trying to be the submissive one with her. “Better her than me,” I thought, although it was a personal compromise. At one time she said that I was very, very good at the dominant role, a compliment I was privately very thrilled to receive.
Long story short, after moving and some years passed, no longer in that relationship, I met another girl who, quite frankly, was a little weird and on the outside socially, so to speak, although she was smart and had her self together behaviorally in many other ways. We flirted and hit it off right away. Our relationship was rapidly approaching the sexual stage, and I forget her exact words but she asked me what I like sexually. Still basically ashamed of and detesting my private desires, but taking a chance, I said “mild bdsm.” I remember her smiling at that. The next time we met (when sex was expected to proceed), she was dressed in sexy lingerie and had a few belts wrapped around her and at hand as whips. She said she had read about bdsm, the safety practices, safe words, how to do the roles, etc.. I think she had some prior knowledge but clearly some of this was just for me and our relationship. I went into the submissive role, her into the dominant role, and she “made” me give her oral sex (something which I never really liked doing and even found repulsive), and, in the process, she was the Dominant and used the whips on me!. Believe it or not I had never fantasized about being whipped, but I thought “why not, I’ll go along with what SHE wants, too”. To my surprise I found that I LOVED it. Something just changed in me during those sessions. I completely surrendered to giving her oral sex, with no revulsion to it whatsoever. I could, once again, “let go” and just submit to what she wanted. I could be in my own mental space and not have to share every emotion I was having ,or “perform” and worry about doing vanilla in the “right way” or feel monitored. It felt SO GOOD. I think she was one of those women who just wanted oral sex, the way she wanted it, and for as LONG as she wanted it, without having to explain or read minds. So she made me do it, and I did. She’d whip me occasionally during the process; I didn’t know when and couldn’t see it coming, and as she said from reading up on it, “whipping you sometimes without a ‘reason’ is to give you the feeling of knowing who’s boss.” It was so true and just enabled me to submit even more. When my tongue and jaw were exhausted, she’d have me come up and suck her breast for a minute to rest, then put me back down there. It didn’t take us long to perfect this fantasy and we would do this for HOURS. It’s hard to describe, but it gave me a feeling of humiliation and eroticism fused together, and I LOVED it. It was the best, most fulfilling sex I’ve ever had, to this day. We’d take breaks, and do it some more. I don’t want to gross out the readers here, but to give an example of how much of an aphrodesiac this was to me, during one six-hour period where we had several sessions, I ejaculated four separate times, with each one powerfully shooting semen several feet.
I must add that we tried to add regular intercourse to our sexual activity sometimes, but I could not successfully complete the act, which was frustrating to her. She was also very slow to come in that department; actually anorgasmic in retrospect, but strangely I didn’t care. The BDSM was a special gift of an opportunity, and we focused on that. She loved getting oral and being dominant about it. We both got what we wanted. I sometimes mentioned to her my self-loathing at being a masochist, but she just laughed it off and said “it’s just part of who you are.” I thought that was very understanding of her, and it turned out to be something I came to accept.
That was 20+ years ago now. Since then I was in therapy and did, in fact, come to realize that bdsm is a normal variant of human sexuality, and I do accept it in myself. But’s not something I automatically advertise. Although I’ve learned that when cultivating relationships with women, it works best to bring up my interest (or “need”) in this area early on. And amazingly, MOST of the women I’ve dated not only accepted it but admit they have similar desires of their own! And I’ve very carefully brought up the subject in a way that let’s them reveal their interest before I reveal mine, so they weren’t just saying that to please me. They’ve been willing to do it, but often seem to have a reluctance or perhaps shame about it too, maybe like it’s something they “should” not be doing, the way I used to feel; and I think this is common. But just talking about these desires with a potential partner can be satisfying for both of us and something of a turn-on by itself. Crossing that invisible boundary and actually engaging in bdsm seems to imply “identifying” with that lifestyle which perhaps explains the reluctance. It is still potentially socially embarrassing, maybe not unlike being gay used to be and still is for many people. Sometimes it’s best left secret, and in fact doing bdsm in secret is part of the thrill of it for me.
In recent years I’ve noticed that bdsm is more freely mentioned in the media, (every single day on TV in during a typical few hours of viewing), and I’ve noticed a change. I got married a few years ago. My wife knows about my bdsm and we’ve done it a few times (with hugely successful intercourse at the end of it). Before our marriage she even mentioned my bdsm to most of her friends, and somehow, it made me feel proud. I sense that it is now perceived as an enlightened, “honest” form of one’s sexuality, a sign of sexual prowess even, and other people are now intimidated about making fun of it or criticizing it. Not unlike the result of the gay movement in some ways perhaps. Or they feel like THEY are the ones missing out on sexual enjoyment by not having bdsm in their lives! None of her friends have joked about it to me, or hinted or said one disparaging word about it. Wow. How the tables have turned. I feel like my social standing has actually gone up a notch or two and I have something other people privately admire or are envious of. It was an unexpected, surprising, big relief to have that part of me quitely known about and, for whatever reasons, accepted or at least not rejected. And by the way, some of my wife’s friends are gay or have other sexual things going on, so maybe bdsm is not such a strange or daring thing after all, in the eyes of many. But after most of my lifetime being ashamed of it, thinking there was something mentally wrong with me, and keeping it hidden—and missing out on relationships I could have had—this is a relief. Still, it’s not something I want to advertise or socially “identify” with, although I guess I do now to some degree. I understand how gays must have felt.
Today, bdsm is mostly in my fantasy life with masturbation. My wife does not reject it but has gone off sex altogether because of menopause. But I can imagine being more open about in a place or time where things are sexually looser. I don’t know, maybe an island or resort or some other country where people can go and visit and just express the different sexualities that are inside of them; find a partner there, or go there with one, and enjoy it as a sex vacation once a year or so. There probably are places like that. I would love it.
I would also like to note that having strong bdsm desires can be confusing. If you don’t understand it, you can really wonder about yourself especially when you’re young. You can end up pursuing relationships that are doomed to fail because you’re not being who you are. Vanilla sex can sometimes be difficult and your partner can misinterpret your failures. It’s easy to mis-label some of your bdsm fantasies as unwanted homosexual ones, or some kind of kinkiness that you don’t want to have. And bringing it up in relationships can be a gamble. But that’s just human nature, it is what it is, and we are what we are. In the past I’ve wished that I was pure vanilla—it would have been easier to find partners and enjoy lots of sex they way they do; and to talk about your fun times at work on monday mornings (I HATED when people did that). But bdsm is a huge aphrodesiac, and as I get older, I’m aware that many people have sexual difficulties and their wonderful vanilla sex lives aren’t so great anymore. Boo-hoo. Resentful I suppose, but I have suffered socially because of my bdsm orientation, and it’s still not easy for me to find a partner to do it with.
Anyway that’s my experience. Thank you for letting me tell my story. I’d like to hear what others have to say!