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"Bondage lovers normal, maybe even happier"

Tsukasa Buddha

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Tsukasa Buddha
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Sep 10, 2006
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"Our findings support the idea that bondage and discipline and sadomasochism (BDSM) is simply a sexual interest or subculture attractive to a minority," Associate Professor Juliet Richters and her colleagues wrote in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The findings showed that it was more common among gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and that participants were more likely to have been more sexually adventurous in other ways.

"However, they were no more likely to have been coerced into sexual activity and were not significantly more likely to be unhappy or anxious," said Prof Richters, author of the book Doing It Down Under.

In fact, men who take part may be happier, with results showing they score significantly lower on a scale of psychological distress than other men.
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Linky.

:D

It's science!

Unfortunately, because I recall the previous threads about this, it does not say whether it makes men rapists.

But here's my thought. It is well known that gay men have more psychological problems than straight men. But if we just found out that gay men are more likely to engage in BDSM, and statistically that means they have a lower chance of having psychological problems, then shouldn't we conclude that the psychological problems of gay men are actually under-stated?
 
Don't you mean over-stated?

And it's 2% of Australia that's into BDSM, apparently. 10% is the oft cited statistic for homosexuality, so anything above .2% of the total population being gay and into BDSM will be a greater than normal ratio.

That's... not very indicitive of anything tbqh.
 
I talked to a gay guy who was into S/M because I wanted to know about it. He was an artist from Sweden, and a bouncer at a leather bar. We were both at Headlands Center for the Arts near San Francisco at the same time. I was there on a Literary Fellowship, he was there on a Art Fellowship.

He was openly gay, openly SM, and hung out in SF at a leather bar, so he said. He said the Bondage person is the one in charge of the situation. He also said dominant males were hard to find in the gay community because they had to earn trust of the bondage person, and were subject to much more decision making...how far to go, etc. I got the impression that the dominant male was not having as much fun as the submissive, because of all the restrictions imposed on him. I don't know if the guy told me this or I inferred it from what he said.

He also said many of the accouterments of bondage look like they hurt, but they don't. He mentioned electric shock toys (what the hell that is?) that make a spark, but have low voltage...it's all part of the show of pain without the feeling of pain, or severe pain, anyway.

I don't know if his story was true, but I believed him because he didn't seem to want to hide any facts. Weird guy, but a pretty nice human, and more fun than the straight male artists also in residence there. He claimed to be dominant, but I think the roles change a bit from what he said. At least in an experimental way.
 
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Gene L said:
He was openly gay, openly SM, and hung out in SF at a leather bar, so he said. He said the Bondage person is the one in charge of the situation. He also said dominant males were hard to find in the gay community because they had to earn trust of the bondage person, and were subject to much more decision making...how far to go, etc. I got the impression that the dominant male was not having as much fun as the submissive, because of all the restrictions imposed on him. I don't know if the guy told me this or I inferred it from what he said.

He also said many of the accouterments of bondage look like they hurt, but they don't. He mentioned electric shock toys (what the hell that is?) that make a spark, but have low voltage...it's all part of the show of pain without the feeling of pain, or severe pain, anyway.

I don't know if his story was true, but I believed him because he didn't seem to want to hide any facts. Weird guy, but a pretty nice human, and more fun than the straight male artists also in residence there. He claimed to be dominant, but I think the roles change a bit from what he said. At least in an experimental way.
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He is talking about this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_wand

These are reasonably safe, but as with anything, there can be more extreme outcomes. Car batteries, jumper cables and body parts. Extremely dangerous stuff, there was a famous case a few years ago in Sydney in which a chap visited a professional service and was accidently killed.

It is hard to quantify the dominant role in these relationships simply because there are a suprising number of variation and themes. Each with its own desired outcome. A dominant can range from not much more than a bully all the way to a mentor.
 
BenBurch said:
Actually, there is ZERO chance that a Violet Wand can ever harm you. Its just static electricity. Has no amperage to it.
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Agreed - However car batteries will, espcially when used to extreme
 
Say for example if you drop one (a car battery) on someone :p

But yay for BDSM people being happier. Always had anecdotal "proof" of this. It's nice to see it confirmed.

Now... whose up for some Gay Furry BDSM sex? :p
 
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If you have any qualms, you can always confine your BDSM activities to Second Life, where one can find groups devoted to just about....Everything....

BTW, my "scholarly" reading in the area reinforces the above; most consider S/M (or D/S) play to be essentially elaborate foreplay.
 
"He was in to S&M and Bible Studies -- not everyones cup of tea"

cj x
 
That they may be happier makes sense to me. It seems likely to me that within the set of people who don't do BDSM there's going to be a subset of people who would like to but for whatever reason - guilt, shame etc - don't. I'd expect the group who act on their desires to be happier than the ones that don't.

Anecdotally, it tallies with my experiences too. Most people I know who are upfront and honest about being into that sort of thing are very balanced, normal folk.

That said, I'd distinguish the "upfront and honest" group from those who define themselves by an interest an BDSM; the latter seems to have a lot more damaged people in it.

Also, I wonder how they define BDSM. In the days when you can buy handcuffs, spanking paddles and blindfolds from Anne Summer's shops, and mags like Cosmo tell you how to tie your lover up with scarves etc, you have to wonder how much of a minority interest it really is. Or where a bit of kinky fun ends and a fetish begins.
 
'Tis an interesting question. From the clinical standpoint, a "fetish" (more properly, a paraphilia) dominates the sex life of the individual, often to the extent that without the trappings of whatever the fetish is, he/she can't perform.

(There are, according to the late John Money, some 50-or-so catalogued paraphilias.)

Many people can find all sorts of kinky activities to be turn-ons without rising to the level of paraphilia.
All these things would seem to be rooted in very deep sexual response mechanisms that are hard-wired into human beings. Some sort of submissive behavior seems nearly universal. Some sort of involvement of pain in sex likewise. (even if it's just a bit of ear-nibbling )

BDSM (or D/S or whatever you want to call it) activity spans the gamut from the near-mainstream play with some silk scarves to the construction of elaborate dungeons with thousands of dollars worth of "furniture" and similar amounts spent on costume and restraints.
As with any activity, things can be taken to excess.
"Real" sadists are more likely to be classified as serial killers....
 
....can we BDSM'ers please NOW be removed from the DSM-V list when it comes out??????
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Linky.

:D

It's science!

Unfortunately, because I recall the previous threads about this, it does not say whether it makes men rapists.

But here's my thought. It is well known that gay men have more psychological problems than straight men. But if we just found out that gay men are more likely to engage in BDSM, and statistically that means they have a lower chance of having psychological problems, then shouldn't we conclude that the psychological problems of gay men are actually under-stated?
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The word "normal" is an issue. Obviously it is not normal since most people are not bondage lovers. It may be normal for a certain percentage of people to like bondage, but that doesn't make it any more normal than it is normal for that small percentage of the population who like beastiality to love farm animals. Unless once argues that everything that fits under the curve is normal in which case the term becomes meaningless.
 
billydkid said:
The word "normal" is an issue. Obviously it is not normal since most people are not bondage lovers. It may be normal for a certain percentage of people to like bondage, but that doesn't make it any more normal than it is normal for that small percentage of the population who like beastiality to love farm animals. Unless once argues that everything that fits under the curve is normal in which case the term becomes meaningless.
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It depends entirely whether you're using the term "normal" as a value judgement, based on a perceived difference between "proper" and "improper" behaviour defined by a specific value system; or as a purely statistical term referring to a particular section of the population bell curve. The former is far more common, particularly with regard to sexuality.
 
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Being a hetrosexual Dom, it just seems to me that there is a basic predjudice towards people who are into BDSM, or even swinging. I keep reading that we're damaged in some way without any real proof.

In fact, my gf told me of one article where a psychologist was interviewed about her opinion of BDSMer's. She said something to the effect of all male Doms are that way to hide their depression and all female subs are that way to hide their self-hatred. When asked why, her reply was simply "Isn't it obvious?"

-.-
 
Ysidro said:
No. That's all part of humiliation kink. :p
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lol

Yeah, I use that one on my gf all the time: I tie her up and tell her "You are mentally deranged according to the DSM-V list!!!!!!!"

Then I show her the list.

Guarenteed instant orgasm...


:D
 
In my limited firsthand experience as a dom, being a sub tends to coincide with being sexually lazy.

Almost every time I've had a BDSM experience, I've felt that she was just making me take all the responsibility and do all the work.
 
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