Psychology of BDSM

BDSM gets a bad rap by most vanilla folks, which is probably why we stay sequestered in our own comfortable world surrounded by fellow kinksters. Who wants to be negatively judged all the time, for something many of us feel are a part of who and what we are, and do it as safely and sanely as possible with extensive negotiation and consent? Even the most fervent humiliation whore that I know doesn't want that. Just like any group that's deemed socially unacceptable, we simply want to do our thing in peace. 


The societal opinion of BDSM plummets even further when we delve into the psychological profession. Seriously, these people think and work to quantify everything that's bad about kinksters. 


Let's start with Sexual Sadism. Honestly, you'd think any Dominant was a molester, rapist and murderer all wrapped up in one after reading this stuff. "Sexual sadism refers to the derivation of sexual pleasure from the infliction of pain, suffering and/or humiliation upon another person. The pain and suffering of the victim, which may be both physical and psychological, is pivotal to the sexual arousal and pleasure."  The ICD-10 (World Health Organization, 1992) defines sadism as "preference for sexual activity that involves bondage or infliction of pain or humiliation." - Stephen J. Hucker, MB, BS, FRCP(C), FRCPsych 


It's interesting how psych (I accidentally misspelled that "psycho") professionals parsec things for their benefit and to support their preexisting theorems about things. Did you notice in that definition that there was no mention of consent? That's because the consent component is for Sexual Sadism Disorder. "A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent and intense sexual arousal from the physical or psychological suffering of another individual, as manifested by fantasies, urges or behaviors. B. The individual has acted on these sexual urges with a NONCONSENTING (caps by me for emphasis) individual, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning." So one can be a sexual sadist (which they still categorize as a paraphilia, so bad), but that doesn't necessarily mean one suffers from the associated disorder. The disorder has several components that make it difficult to quantify, such as "intense sexual arousal" and "marked distress or impairment," which make it completely subjective. (How psychology is considered a science is beyond me, it lacks reliability, as one can hunt for their conclusion based on prejudices and often there is no quantifiable repeatability. Please note I LOVE psychology, I just view it as a nonscience science.) The point being that I personally don't get an "intense sexual arousal" from my play in BDSM, nor has it had a "marked distress or impairment" in my life. There are certain kinds of play that naturally illicit sexual arousal, but no means can you take something as vast and varied as BDSM and make blanket statements such a this. Additionally, the mere thought/fantasy of these acts can result in a diagnosis of Sexual Sadism Disorder. This makes me think of various religious overtones, original sin, inherited sin, etc... If one doesn't act on the thought, it's merely a thought. How many of us have actually thought about hurting someone? You know, that boss you can't stand, the coworker that drives you crazy, your spouse? Let's be honest, the thought is real, but we resist it so for all intensive purposes we're still "good" according to many societal standards.


I stumbled upon a fantastic study. "Psychological Functioning of BDSM Practitioners" by Pamela H. Connolly, PhD. It's by no means an exhaustive study, as the participant numbers are low, but there are several items that caught my attention, debunking many of the current psychological beliefs. To summarize (as best as someone as verbose as me can), the current beliefs from sources such as Freud, Kinsey, and others that have less famous names are that people that participate in BDSM have a higher rate of: depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, pathology, narcissism, and paranoia. Whoa. Lock us all up. Now. Clearly we're batshit fucking crazy. No wonder there's such a fear about being affiliated with BDSM amongst psychological professionals. The Connolly study debunked much of the previous assertions; however, it highlighted several other components that seem logical to me as a BDSM practitioner and observer of human nature.


First off, there's no significant difference in levels of depression, anxiety, OCD, PTDS, pathology or paranoia. Those that identified themselves as mostly submissive ranked higher on the Beck Anxiety Inventory, though when asking these questions telling participants to not focus on their BDSM activities, these individuals were no more anxious than preexisting norms. The difference is that submissive's behaviors can appear to be anxiety, e.g. when a submissive (in the BDSM world, not specifically a submissive personality type) is "playing" their actions come off as anxiety because their behavior exhibits components of fear. In my opinion, this is a conditioned response to play where the bottom (or submissive) gets to safely enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear within the safe confines of pre-negotiated play, where they know they'll be safe from actual harm. It's a rather intelligent way to have your cake and eat it too; social Darwinism. Additionally, this reactive, cultivated behavior can enable a bit of trauma therapy, thus limiting the actual psychological impact the false anxiety produces (which is controversial at best). The overall point being, these individuals don't suffer from anxiety at the rate any greater than the larger populace. 


Another area where there was a statistically significant difference was histrionicism and narcissism in Dominants. So... well yeah those might be applicable. I do believe that this is also cultivated and sometimes Pavlovian, as the specific areas of histrionicism are highly appealing in a Dominant. Histrionic specifically means "of or pertaining to actors," whereas Histrionic Personality Disorder specifies that this kind of flamboyant public exhibitionism extends to the use of seduction for dramatic effect, manipulation and/or attention. So basically, twitter. These behaviors are highly regarded by Dominants, submissives, celebrities, politicians, and most anyone in a position of power. Though attaching it to a preconceived negative idea that BDSM naturally equates to sexual sadism means that when a Dominant exhibits histrionic behavior they're bad. The reality of the situation is that most A Type personalities have a load of histrionic behaviors, this doesn't make them innately bad nor evil. 


It's the judgement that's affiliated with those four little letters: BDSM that create all this unnecessary negativity and angst for some. There is more communication, negotiation and awareness in BDSM than there is in the vanilla world, the "normal" world. This increased communication can only be psychologically positive, so it's trite and an overgeneralized simplification to categorize all kinksters with a negative brush. 


We, the kinksters (in my opinion, which since it's my fucking blog it's all my opinion) are as sane as anyone else is in this crazy, messed up world. Our actions are over-scrutinized, which naturally will lead to a discovery of identifying behaviors that prove or disprove any given theory. Left to our own devices we'd continue our kinky paths continuing our subculture's evolution. We're not crazy, we're evolved, more deeply connected dually to the animalism and intellectualism that make up human beings. Our expanded understanding grants many kinksters a greater ability to become psychologically whole.




I am not a psychologist, nor in the field of psychology. These opinions are my own based on research I've read and my own personal observation. It's definitively non clinical, except for studies cited.