Ever wondered if BDSM is abnormal? Science, Lady Friday finds, thinks it’s not at all….
Bondage/Discipline/Domination/Submission/Sadism/Masochism – known by the catch-all acronym of BDSM – has a difficult reputation. It’s whispered that it’s dirty, subversive, wrong, abnormal and the product of warped sexualities.
However, science is trying to clear the name of BDSM practises – by pointing out that there isn’t anything abnormal about them at all.
The idea of introducing pain, power play, humiliation and other BDSM activities into the bedroom has been part of human relationships for a very long time. The Marquis de Sade’s infamous erotic books are the foundation of how we think about BDSM, and they’re centuries old. In fact, BDSM culture has been found in much earlier erotic texts all over the world.
However, it’s still viewed as odd and occasionally as dangerous – largely, scientists and sociologists believe, because we appear to think that pain and pleasure are very distinct sensations without much relation. If you’re after pleasure but think you require pain, you must have something twisted in your brain – right?
Wrong. Neurologists and studies of sexuality show that this neat pain-pleasure divide is total rubbish – and that not only do pain and pleasure have a relationship, it differs radically from person to person. There is no ‘normal’ when it comes to the bedroom, scientists insist – just because we’re all the same species doesn’t mean we’re all stimulated by the same things.
BDSM suffers stigma in many ways. One is that it’s viewed as a warped product of some kind of ‘issue’ – attempting to regain the control you can’t feel in your daily life, for example, or indulging in fantasies from an unacceptable part of your psyche which normally don’t see the light of day.
There’s a prevailing belief – even among psychologists – that practitioners of BDSM are in fact acting out on a history of abuse, otherwise they’d be able to have a ‘normal’ sex life. However, science has stepped into the breach here, too.
Surveys of 19,000 people in Australia recently showed that there was no visible correlation between abuse, unhappiness and BDSM – it’s just the way some people are wired. It’s only a minority – less than 5% of the sexually active, by most calculations – but it’s still a significant part of the human population.
There’s an increasing movement in psychology training to improve psychologists’ understandings of BDSM and its myths, so that they don’t ‘pathologise’ it (look at it as some kind of disease or abnormality). If the medical community is changing based on scientific findings, the populace can’t be far behind.
As for whether or not it’s a way to express ‘issues’ – the most telling surveys of BDSM couples are the ones which explore happiness, and it’s been a frequent surprise to scientists that couples who regularly indulge in kinky practises (of any kind) often profess themselves happier and more fulfilled than their ‘vanilla’ counterparts.
Getting satisfaction from expressing yourself in bed – a safe space with your partner – is a far cry from the idea that all BDSM practitioners are projecting psychological problems onto their sex lives.
BDSM also doesn’t take the place of ‘real’ emotion or connection with partners. Kink in the bedroom, if consensual and enjoyed by both partners, is just as much a part of building a relationship as is any other intimate activity. The science bears that out, with no evidence found of any damage or interruption to emotion receptors in the brains of people who like BDSM.
So there you have it: scientists have debunked the idea of ‘deviant’ behaviour in bed, at least as far as BDSM is concerned. If you’d like to know more about the huge landscape of kink and what it can bring to the bedroom, look through the Lady Friday archives for ideas.
Lady Friday xx
Taking the pillow talk out the bedroom, every Friday…
