Utter fallacies about BDSM. The world is full of them. Considering how many people have written about, studied, analyzed, attended classes, and interviewed us, you’d think by now there would be highly accurate depictions of us — in media and in our own forums. Yet in trying to explain who we are and “what it is that we do” (WIITWD), BDSM remains widely misunderstood.
Here are five major glitches in the kink matrix that bug me. To be sure I hit the important points, I turned to friends and fellow activists for input on the fallacies that bug them.
Fallacy – One Voice Speaks for All
We are a wildly diverse Community. So diverse that no two relationships are identical. We are racially integrated, we come from all economic classes, ethnic traditions, genders, religions, and political biases. We literally come from all demographics except one: you must be of legal adult age.
Aside from collective agreement on SSC/RACK/PRICK and other consent models, we are one of the most individualistic communities you’ll ever find (or contentious, to be dark about it). Instead, people get the idea that there is one monolithic BDSM community and anyone can address anything with authority, as long as they are a BDSMer. The problem is that they don’t and can’t speak to everyone’s experience of BDSM. No one person can speak for us all.
Meet the bigger community –
White BDSMers speak from a white point of view. Cis-men speak from a cis-male experience. Professional dominants speak to their professional experience. And so on. Also, within those categories, the variations are innumerable. Some educators do a great job with inclusiveness, but, again, unless we have walked in their shoes, we cannot authentically speak to experiences outside of our personal, lived experience. At best, we can ally and advocate but we can’t replace the authentic voices.
Meanwhile, a whole lot of people get left out. If you’re an elder or a young person, a trans person, a neuro-divergent person or a disabled person, chances are that many kink “experts” don’t even acknowledge your mores, needs, and differences.
“I’ve been involved in kink for nearly 20 years but because I’m young the information and lived experience I have is generally passed over for Generic Over 50s Man who has been around less than 5 years and doesn’t know their way around a pair of safety scissors,” says Vancouver-native Carrie Hill, a creative art director and photographer.
According to Erin Dowling-Kennedy, a writer, teacher, and advocate, “It’s only recently that I’ve heard any sexuality educators paying attention to accommodations for different learning styles and neurotypes.”
These days, we understand that our Community’s diversity requires a diversity of voices, each of which can speak to the unique challenges that different communities within the BDSM community face, in the world at large and in our world as well. When social media pronounces “this is what the BDSM Community thinks,” who the hell are they referring to? Certainly not all of us. Ever.
Fallacy – We’re Apologizing for Being Kinky
Overall, we have a lot to be happy about: BDSM/Leather/Fetish is finally being openly explored by mainstream media. The insights we’ve gained through our off-the-beaten-path experience are something they see as worth sharing with their audience. But more often than not, the coverage is marred by a negative opening narrative.
According to Marc Garnaut, of Deviance and Desire, “A lot of articles open with ‘BDSM is still heavily stigmatized but…’ which is a bit like ‘whatever you do, don’t think of the pink elephant’. That happens even in articles semi-aimed at professionals, such as Psychology Today. There is something of the “you may think it is pervy but you shouldn’t” about it, and I think drawing attention to that immediately puts it in the reader’s mind and damages everything that follows.“
To hell with the disclaimers. Just because we’re doing something that makes the uptight types squeamish doesn’t mean that the media have to pander to prudes.
We have knowledge worth sharing. Any community that devotes this much time and attention to a subject is bound to come up with useful insights. Outsiders get to enjoy ours. We’re not apologizing — and they need to stop apologizing for us.
Fallacy – Everyone in the Community is Safe
There’s an idea that the Community is filled with wonderful, honest people. People who know all there is to know about BDSM. People who will help and mentor you on your journey. And that idea is wrong.
Newbies tend to form their understanding of BDSM from little but fantasies and porn. That’s why it’s important that the welcome we give them is not all hype about how great we are. We owe them a heads-up that while most of us are trying to be honorable, responsible people, that only describes “most” and encompasses the possibility that even the best of us may fail or fuck up at times. As with every other human collective, you have to watch out for yourself in BDSM and be vigilant about how far you let people in until you have good reason to trust them.
Not everyone in the community is safe, sane, or requires informed consent. Not everyone has good intentions. And certainly, not everyone is nice. There are some people who can claim 30 years+ of experience yet seem to have ignored or defied our common ethos on mutual respect, tolerance, informed consent, and other golden rules. As in real life, some BDSM influencers are con artists and creeps hiding behind their public personae.
This is magical thinking — that any human community is made of perfect saints who would never do anyone wrong. Many newcomers buy into it. Many get hurt as a result. Recognizing this fallacy would spare many newcomers the shock and disappointment they feel when their fantasy is shattered.
This is why it’s important for you to get to know — really know — the people around you. Don’t count on the hype – sometimes the most visible members of the community are the most damaged and the most damaging. Don’t glorify them for their gear or their sashes. Get to know them as human beings and assess them by their character.
Fallacy – You’re Not a Real BDSMer Unless You Belong to the BDSM Community
I often run into this in therapy. People who play privately seem to feel that by not belonging to a club or organization, they don’t fit the label of BDSM. However, they’re practicing BDSM. In other words, they play by the same SSC/RACK rules (knowingly or unknowingly), and they engage in many of the same things we do.
They’re certainly kinky, but, for their own reasons, do not wish to be associated with a group. Sometimes it’s the fear of being outed; sometimes it’s shame that confines them to limit their partners and maintain secrecy about their predilections; sometimes it’s just a dislike of being labeled, and specifically being labeled as “a pervert,” which may be how they perceive their inclinations. Still, if you are an adult who enjoys nonconformist eroticism of the BDSM kind, practiced in some sort of safe, sane, and consensual manner, you fall under the BDSM umbrella.
BDSM refers to the type of erotic energy and roleplaying we enjoy. It’s who you are. Belonging to a club or community is a personal choice, but it doesn’t alter your sexual nature.
Fallacy – Labels Tell you Everything
It should be expected that the diversity of our Community plays out in the labels they use to identify themselves.
The best example is when someone identifies as submissive. What does that really mean? While people seem to have set images of what kind of people subs area, in reality, the only real criterion for being submissive means enjoying the bottom/controlled role in a BDSM/fetish scene. That’s all it tells you.
Doms can take a bottom/submissive role or switch. They may choose to sub for the length of an experience or may decide to explore it more. They might establish poly-style power relationships where they are sub to a specific person and dom to others. Some people don’t even define their role until they start canoodling and realize they feel more sub or dom that day.
Even lifestyle subs don’t all act the same way. My girl is extremely independent, doesn’t get micromanaged, doesn’t live by complex rules and rituals. We keep it simple. No one who meets her in her daily life could guess she’s sub because she has a managerial position in the real world and is comfortable giving orders. Sure, there are lifestyle subs who get close 24/7 management from their doms; but there are also subs who are only sub when they play and require equality outside of their BDSM interactions.
Bottom line: MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS about what a sub, dom, master, slave, bottom, top, or any of the labels mean. Our labels are terms of art, a matter of how we perceive ourselves. But how we actually live our kink/fetish needs is as individual as we are.
Moving beyond fallacies
I came out in the 1980s. Back then, the general opinion was that kinky people were rare as hen’s teeth. Then I founded a BDSM support group in 1987. Soon I discovered that almost 100K people were dipping into our data libraries and lurking on our message boards. I realized there was a real need for a book about BDSM — thus Different Loving was born.
Since then I’ve seen BDSM trends spiral wildly. They’ve gone from a subject everyone was once embarrassed to discuss to mainstream magazines now eager to catch up on our points of view and our ways of playing. These days we know there are likely tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of us who enjoy creative, non-conformist, non-heteronormative eroticism, whether or not we identify as BDSM. Vanilla assumptions, worn-out tropes, nit-picking over labels, and fallacies parading as facts are all tired old constructs we need to dismantle.
5 Truths About BDSM We Should Stress
- It would take many voices to represent us. No one voice does or can
- We’re not apologizing, we’re sharing what we’ve learned.
- Our community is neither safer nor more dangerous than any other
- You don’t have to join the community to be a BDSMer/fetishist
- Labels are not identities. Don’t assume you know a person because you know their label.
