Desautels 1 Copyright Desautels 2009 The Psychology of BDSM 18 December 2009 The Psychology of BDSM: Part One DefiningBDSM And The History of BDSM BDSM is a sexual practice that, although it continues to gain visibility and popularity today, remains a largely misunderstood, negatively perceived, and taboo expression of sexuality. In this series of papers, I hope to give the reader a more honest and thorough understanding of what, exactly, constitutes BDSM, and the psychology of this play: I will assist the “vanilla” reader in understanding why BDSM participants are able to eroticize pain, how they do so, and to what end. I believe that psychology is perhaps the most important facet from which both the mainstream and BDSM participants can understand the practice, especially since psychology has both failed to produce a mainstream description of healthy BDSM practice, and often provided confusing descriptions of BDSM as a pathology (DSM 572-573.) This perspective is, in the majority of cases, far from the truth. In these papers, I will explain BDSM as experienced by healthy, consensual, adult participants. In this first paper, I will both define BDSM as a practice, and describe the history of the practice we today identify as BDSM. There are many definitions of BDSM, and many interpretations of those definitions within the BDSM community, and it is important to remember that while the term BDSM encompasses many diverse experiences, very few of these are inherent to the definition of Desautels 2 BDSM. BDSM is a flexible term and culture, representing different things to different participants and therefore difficult to satisfactorily define by non-participants. BDSM is an acronym for bondage and discipline (BD); domination and submission (DS); and sadism and masochism (SM). The meanings of even these terms are debated within BDSM communities (Easton and Hardy iv.) Sado-masochism is a part of BDSM, but is most often isolated by psychologists who ignore or have no agenda for studying bondage and discipline. This is understandable, since bondage and discipline describe actions more than psychological phenomena (like sado-masochism), and are behaviors that can be plausibly absorbed into the definition of sado-masochism. Weinberg defines sadomasochism as “a combined term that has traditionally been used for the giving and receiving of pain for erotic gratification” (Weinberg 15.) However, since bondage and discipline share similarities with but are not mutually exclusive to sadomasochism, I will focus on a full inclusion of all BDSM elements. BDSM is a cooperative construction by participants of both a scenario (“fantasy” or other context) and psychological openness for self-exploratory or recreational manipulation of physical, mental, or emotional pain, restraint, or power imbalance, most often in an erotic context. It may or may not include any form of sex. Like sex, and as a form of sex, BDSM has immense potential for healing and positive reinforcement as well as for harm. Some psychologists, including Richard von Krafft-Ebing, have theorized that BDSM sex is a result or symptom of psychological unhealthiness (Krafft-Ebind 25.) Unfortunately, there are doubtlessly cases where this is true, and BDSM is used unsafely, self-destructively, or maliciously. However, it is vital to note that these same phenomena exist even in relationships as conventional as heterosexual marriage. And like more conventional sex, BDSM in the correct context is a positive, enriching aspect of the lives of many healthy persons. It can be argued that BDSM not Desautels 3 only can, but should be considered a healthy and positive component (or entirety of) a consensual adult sex life, and because of this, BDSM will be discussed from a sex-positive perspective. BDSM in relation to psychological unhealthiness is an important area of study that will be addressed later in this paper, and discussed in-depth in my next stage of research. Another defining component of BDSM is the multifaceted complexity of created, imagined, latent, and simulated experiences. One of the primary oppositions to BDSM sex is how distasteful it appears on the surface. The context vital to BDSM is far less visible than the motions of play, so to the inexperienced eye, BDSM may easily be perceived as a physical manifestation of psychological malady: a simple transfer of internal illness to surface level. It is easy to view taking pleasure from pain as sickness of perversion, and to confuse desire for violent BDSM play with desire for real world abuses, or to view the desire for BDSM play as genuine cruelty or self-destruction. While these can be found in incorrect use of BDSM. healthy BDSM play is far more rich, complex, and nuanced, and it is impossible to fully interpret the emotional workings or desires of any persons in a BDSM scene, relationship, or lifestyle from observing visible rituals. That BDSM is complex and multi-layered, carrying internal significance that is not always an active element of play, is fundamental to BDSM play. This complexity is, first and foremost, contextual. In their book The New Bottoming Book, Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy describe a masochist as “someone who has the ability to eroticize or otherwise enjoy some sensations or emotions—such as pain, helplessness, powerlessness and humiliation—that would be unpleasant in another context” (Eastman 3.) The authors cite the example that any given BDSM participant does not enjoy accidental pain, such as stubbing a toe; or emotions that are painful in the real world. The relationships, rules, understandings, and contexts of BDSM are what make otherwise painful stimuli erotic and Desautels 4 fulfilling sensations. Any given BDSM scene is strongly grounded in preexisting relationships; the personae evoked during play1; previously agreed-upon boundaries and communications such as “safewords” and “consent to nonconsent”; and the needs and emotions of all persons involved, as well as their individual histories, limits, curiosities, and expectations, to name a few factors. All of these factors combine to create a scene where the participants are able to safely enact fantasies or express certain aspects of themselves, or experience sensation and emotion to mutual benefit and enjoyment. Context is what makes BDSM possible. Real emotions and responses are elicited within controlled and constructed situations. As Eastman points out, a good way to view BDSM play is as a psychodrama—what happens during play is fantasy, not reality, and being able to make this distinction is essential to BDSM’s function as a healthy component of life. This distinction has less to do with persona than with state of mind. Some individuals, for instance, consider their BDSM persona as their primary identity and, often in a relationship, attempt to extend this persona to every possible aspect of their lives—for instance, “24-7” relationships, such as fulltime master/slave relationships. The distinction of state of mind in distinguishing fantasy from reality is, as Eastman puts it, The power to bypass our customary psychological defenses, giving us access to amazing experiences and awarenesses…Normally, you have a ‘bubble’ of protectiveness you put around yourself to prevent yourself from being physically or emotionally hurt. When you agree to [BDSM play], you’ve just agreed to put that bubble around you and your partner for the duration of the scene. (Eastman 31) 1 Easton defines “persona” as “borrowed from Jungian psychology…a character, personality, or archetype…that might be a role that you put on like a costume, or might be an expression of a particular part of yourself that doesn’t always show on the surface” (Easton 8.) Desautels 5 Combining psychological openness and vulnerability with other players within the strict confines of a scene underscores the concept of BDSM as non-pathological: participants do not want to be harmed, they want to experience harm in a controlled setting where exploration, growth, and pleasure can occur. This lowering of psychological defenses is what makes BDSM such a powerful sexual force: heightened emotional awareness is often essential for fulfillment in a scene, and within the constructed, ritualized safety of a scene, participants are able to experience such powerful emotions, realizations, and transformations that lead some to interpreting the SM of BDSM as “sex magic” (Easton and Hardy 32.) With BDSM identified, I will now explore the roots of this practice: where, in history, was BDSM born? It is difficult to pinpoint the time and place where BDSM was first practiced, as instances of striking, biting, and other “horseplay” are clear if mild elements of BDSM evidenced globally, and throughout history. The Kama Sutra, for instance, cites eight types of bites and four types of strikes suitable during intercourse (2005 59-60, 67-70.) However, these instances give us little information as to where today’s complex, scripted, symbolic BDSM scenes were developed. The first time we see evidence of these complex constructions is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Victorian era England and United States. From flagellation manuals for prostitutes (Tannahill 386) to sadomasochistic fiction such as Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Furs, the erotica Victorian era represents the ancestor to today’s perception of BDSM: highly creative, symbolic, fantasy-enactments clearly designed to utilize eroticized pain and Desautels 6 humiliation. The Victorian Era is perhaps most infamous for its attitudes of sexual prohibition, evidenced in all imaginable domains, from biology and medicine to psychology and morality. During the nineteenth century, many of these biases centered on the idea of procreative, marital sex as the only acceptable form of intercourse. However, as Foucault describes in A History of Sexuality, these repressions necessitated an increased discourse on sexuality: sex had to be identified in order to be revealed, defined, and dealt with. This personal scrutiny was demanded of all persons and in all aforementioned domains. The result of the intensely negative associations with sex paired with heightened sexual awareness created a need to release and interpret these emotions related to sex through sex. The result was the birth of what is today’s BDSM: a practice that often goes beyond incorporation of mild violence into intercourse, but that can eroticize emotional, mental, and physical “violence” outside of intercourse, and within controlled, preconceived, symbolically driven psychodramas. Although biting and hitting during sex has been seen throughout history, the psychological toils of the Victorian era created a need for creative, symbolic scenes through which to interpret a complex, symbolic sexual culture. One of the most prominent prohibitions evidenced in the Victorian era was that of female sexuality: quite literally, a healthy, morally upright woman was understood to be one who had no sexual thoughts, sexual enjoyment, no sexuality at all. In Sex in History, Reay Tannahill states that Desautels 7 “[The Victorian wife’s] repressed upbringing, the refinement and ‘spirituality’ that were forced upon her, and her ignorance of physiology all helped make her [undersexed]” (Tannahill 354355.) This purity was created, not only by cleansing the woman’s mind of sexual desires, but by cultivating an environmental purity. The idea of a woman too delicate to be in contact with the “real” world was made desirable by the emergence of a middle class following the Industrial Revolution—the frail upper-class lady, whose protection was largely the result of her class’ wealth and ability to shelter women from the “real” world, became a class symbol mimicked by an aspiring middle class (Tannahill 351.) However, since female nobility had the luxury of travel, women without such means were confined to languishment in the home in order to imitate their higher-class counterparts. Tannahill also quotes Mrs. Ellis of The Women of England describing the phenomenon as “languid, listless, and inert young ladies who recline upon our sofas, murmuring and repining at every claim upon their personal exertions” (Tannahill 351.) If women did not choose this lifestyle, a London court of law permitted husbands to enforce it via kidnapping within their own homes in 1840 in order to “’protect her from the danger of unrestrained intercourse with the world’” (Tannahill 351.) Considering this enforced idleness, coupled with the promotion of female frailty as feminine virtue (an idea complementary to revived concepts of chivalry (Tannahill 349)), it comes as little surprise that physicians turned their attention to female disorders such as nervousness and hysteria. The lifestyle of these wilting ladies was considered normal, to the end that normal human functioning, especially in response to forced idleness, was often perceived as a host of maladies and disorders for medicine to explore, to say nothing of ill health created by idleness itself. Namely, since normal female sexuality was absence of sexuality, the sexual woman was pathological. Whether her sexual expression was considered a symptom or cause of Desautels 8 illness, medicine was dedicated to eradicating female sexuality. Any signs of arousal or sexual desire were considered pathology under such dubious names as hysteria, chlorosis, and neurasthenia. All of these shared similar symptoms that, according to Maines’ The Technology of Orgasm, “included many elements consistent with the normal functioning of female sexuality under social conditions that interpreted it as pathological” (Maines 35) and then some truly mysterious symptoms, including. “weeping, irritability, depression, mental and physical weariness, morbid fears, forgetfulness, palpitations of the heart, headaches, writing cramps, mental confusion, fear of impending insanity” (Maines 35.) The very nature of these illnesses was dubious. Lack of sex or unsatisfying sex (which was recommended for all copulation) were considered a cause of these diverse symptoms, along with “overindulgence” in sex, and masturbation, which were seen as both a cause and a symptom (Maines 34.) Conveniently, the treatment for all these disorders was essentially masturbation to orgasm (or “paroxysm”) by a physician, which led to the development of hydriatic massage and the vibrator (Maines 36.) This paradox of treating forbidden female sexuality with orgasm seems best explained by abounding medical practice: under the guise of science (a male-dominated field), women’s sexuality was rendered sterile and could be “treated”—by male doctors. Maines notes that “Certainly the characteristic orgasmic contractions of the uterus and vagina provide relief from the ‘symptoms’ of arousal, and no doubt the patients of these physicians reported feeling much better for the experience” (Maines 33.) Since treatment produced the desired effects, and was carried out under the neutral gaze of science and knowledge, it stood no contest. Masturbation, while much discussed in terms of female sexual disorder, was considered downright dangerous for men. In his book Sexualities in Victorian England, Andrew Miller states that, for both men and women, “Masturbation in particular became a subject of almost Desautels 9 obsessive concern, the masturbator taking on almost sinister connotations as the archetypal sex deviant” (Miller 60) to the point when intercourse, even with prostitutes, was recommended to men as an alternative to “self-pollution.” In his treatise On Onania: or a Treatise Upon the Disorders Produced by Masturbation, Tissot cited “general debility, consumption, deterioration of eyesight, disturbance of the nervous system, and so on” (Miller 63) as harmful effects of male masturbation. To curb dangerous masturbation in both males and females (particularly children), circumcision rose to intense popularity in England and the United States during the Victorian era. Male circumcision began in the eighteenth century with surgeons “treating serious venereal infections of the penis by amputation of the diseased tissue. Since the venereal sores were usually on the foreskin, this was analogous to circumcision” (“Circumcision in Britain”). It gained more popularity when it was claimed to protect against syphilis, “the AIDS of that era” (“Circumcision in Britain”), and furthermore as a cure for masturbation, especially in children. The natural motion of male masturbation is pulling the foreskin, a nerve-rich erogenous tissue, over the head of the penis, so amputating the foreskin diminished the possibility of young boys discovering masturbation. One justification used for circumcising healthy male infants was “phimosis”—the condition of an overly tight foreskin restricting blood flow to the penis. Victorian doctors appeared undeterred by the fact that the healthy foreskin is immobile and does not separate from the penis during the first few years of life (Dewan 285), and diagnosed normal foreskin attachment as “phimosis”, cured by amputation of the foreskin. An American doctor, John Harvey Kellogg, described his recommendation for circumcision in both young boys and girls: A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small Desautels 10 boys is circumcision. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment. In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement. (Kellogg 295.) In both England and the United States, fears of masturbation, venereal disease, and phimosis inspired routine circumcision in children—a development inspired by moralism and medical advancement, since, as Miller states, “circumcision had for centuries been unthinkable in Christian countries” (Miller 61.) Furthermore, however, circumcision fit into Victorian ideals of elitism and purity: “circumcision was central to the late Victorian redefinition of manliness in terms of sexual restraint and ‘cleanness’…widely believed to dampen sexual desire, circumcision was seen positively as a means of promoting both the chastity and the physical health of the custodians of the empire” (Miller 65.) In spite of circumcision’s (and society’s) best efforts, however, sexual intercourse was bountiful in the Victorian era. And, since as Tannahill notes “the ban on intercourse during pregnancy and menstruation…imposed celibacy on the average husband and wife for roughly six years out of the first twelve of their married life” (Tannahill 355), the intercourse demanded a thriving population of prostitutes, produced by both female desire for entrepreneurship when their post-Industrial Revolution wages were roughly half of men’s, and female desperation when Victorian standards for feminine purity dictated that a single sexual transgression produced a “fallen woman” (Tannahill 354-356.) Desautels 11 Having observed a culture that viewed most forms of sexuality or sexual expression as related to disease or immorality, requiring a medical cure or moral reform, it comes as little surprise that Victoriana’s first discovery of BDSM, or “sadomasochistic” behavior, was instantly interpreted as pathological. Richard von Krafft-Ebing figures prominently as one of the first medical opinions on “sadomasochism”, as expressed in his text Psychopathia Sexualis in 1885 (Weiss 15.) Most relevant in this document are his writings on sadism and masochism, both of which he diagnoses as sexual disorders. Sadism, which he defines as “the experience of pleasurable sensations (including orgasm) produced by acts of cruelty [or] bodily punishment” (Krafft-Ebing 25), is, interestingly enough, only separated from normal sexuality in KrafftEbing’s mind by matter of degree. He describes sadism as merely a pathological hyperbole of a “normal” male sexuality: one that is aggressive and even predatory. He also distinguishes between playful biting and striking during intercourse and “menaces and other violence” (Krafft-Ebing 26), the former of which will later be described as a more mild manifestation of popular conceptions of sadism, and the latter of which defines rape, or gratification from real violence rather than BDSM sadism, which is characterized by eroticization of violence contextualized within a controlled scene. Krafft-Ebing’s definition of sadism clearly characterizes alternative sexual practices as pathology. Furthermore, Krafft-Ebing clearly considers sadism to be at least partially dependent on moral failure: “In these cases the impulse to cruelty which may accompany the emotion of lust, becomes unbounded in the psychopathic individual; and, at the same time, owing to defect of moral feeling, all normal inhibitory ideas are absent or weakened” (Krafft-Ebing 27.) Not only is sadism a deviation from the norm in Krafft-Ebing’s mind, it is evidence of personal deficit if not clinical disorder. Krafft-Ebing seems to have an even more cynical view of masochism (which, like Desautels 12 sadism, he only discusses as a male phenomenon), since a man’s desire to receive pain is not merely an “aggressive character” that is “excessively developed” (Krafft-Ebing 28)—it is a phenomenon in direct contrast to Krafft-Ebing’s perception of “normal” male sexuality. As with sadism, Krafft-Ebing’s moral prejudice against masochism is clear. He claims that an individual’s degree of masochism is dependent “upon the strength of the opposing ethical and aesthetic motives, and the relative power of the physical and mental organization of the affected individual” (Krafft-Ebing 30.) Finally, he makes note of the author Sacher-Masoch, who expressed his own masochistic fantasies in his novel Venus in Furs, and from whose name the term “masochism” is derived. Krafft-Ebing declares that Sacher-Masoch’s talent in writing should not be ignored, but his writing’s content should be judged according to the author’s sexuality. In that Sacher-Masoch is a practicing masochist, “he is a remarkable example of the powerful influence exercised by the sexual life—be it in the good or evil sense—over the formation and direction of man’s mind” (Krafft-Ebing 30.) Krafft-Ebing is clear in his definitions of sadism and masochism as “evil”, and reflects the Victorian belief that socially sanctioned sexuality is inextricably bound with moral character; as well as the combination of morality and medicine used in identifying and judging the correctness of any given sexual practice. These examples provide only a small sketch of Victorian sexual attitudes; a complete study could fill many books. However, I feel that they give a sketch of Victorian sexual ideas and attitudes sufficient to support my exploration of BDSM’s roots in Victorian culture. Next, we must consider how today’s perception of BDSM could have been born in a culture that, considering its plethora of prohibitory attitudes towards sex, would appear to be a time of sexual repression. It is important to realize that although sexual practices were forbidden, Desautels 13 this prohibition necessitated increased discourse on sex in order to identify and confront its innumerable evil manifestations. As Michel Foucault observes in A History of Sexuality: An Introduction, an outgrowth of sexual discourse occurred as the result of prohibition: “There was a steady proliferation of discourses concerned with sex…a determination on the part of the agencies of power to hear it spoken about, and to cause it to speak through explicit articulation and endlessly accumulated detail” (Foucault 18.) This juxtaposition of prohibitory attitudes giving birth to proportionally increased discourse is what Foucualt describes as his repressive hypothesis. This hypothesis essentially states that the sexual “prohibitions” of the Victorian era did not produce a generation of sexless or even sexually repressed individuals, but rather resulted in a heretofore unseen outburst of sexual discourse because increased discourse was the means by which all traces of forbidden sexuality could be rooted out and then banished, punished, or cured. Furthermore, explicit discourse allowed control of sanctioned (marital, procreative) sex: ““[Sex was] to be not simply condemned or tolerated but managed, inserted into the system of utility, regulated for the greater good of all” (Foucault 24.) Discourse recognized the power of sex and had to control all forms of sex through speech, including those it sanctioned. One may wonder why the Victorian era is marked as producing this discourse when numerous cultures before the eighteenth century have practiced sexual prohibition and required discourse on it. On this point, Foucault focuses on the tight relationship of Christianity, sex, sin, and penance present in the Middle Ages, and addresses the issue in explaining that this discourse limited the exploration of sex to the realm of morality. During the Victorian era, however, “this relative uniformity was broken apart, scattered, and multiplied in an explosion of distinct discursivities which took form in demography, biology, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, ethics, pedagogy, and political criticism” (Foucault 33.) The Victorian era marked not only new Desautels 14 prohibitions on sex, but a wealth of new knowledge including the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution and more science-based understandings of medicine and psychology. Prior to these advancements, there was relatively little knowledge about the physical nature of sex; discourse focused on religion and morality. The introduction of new knowledge, particularly in biology, medicine, and psychology, provided new and relevant ways to study and identify sex, to explore it (as demanded by prohibition-centered discourse) to the peak of their understanding— which, in turn, produced an understanding of sex that Foucault describes as scientia sexualis. Scientia sexualis is one out of two different approaches Foucault proposes for discovering the “truth” about sex. The first he notes is ars erotica, a sexual attitude evidenced in such societies as Japan, India, and Rome, in which sexual truth is discovered through pleasure and explored in terms of physical, mental, and emotional pleasure rather than external prohibitioninspired scaffolding; the transfer of this knowledge is an initiation of a “disciple” under a rigorous master, to the reward of access to powerful sexual pleasure (Focault 57-58.) Foucault also claims that our civilization is the only one to practice scientia sexualis and no ars erotica; “to have developed over the centuries procedures for telling the truth of sex which are geared to a form of knowledge-power strictly opposed to the art of initiations and that masterful secret: I have in mind the confession” (Foucault 58.) Scientia sexualis evades the dangerous truths about sex using the neutrality of science as justification and proof of veracity, to the result of studying the perversions and pathologies of sex rather than this “truth”, while demanding confession of these deviances within a power-over relationship (Foucault 53.) With this is mind, it is no surprise that the roots of the scientia sexualis perspective are found in the ritual-sacrament of Christian confession. Foucault claims that “since the Middle Ages at least, Western societies have established Desautels 15 the confession as one of the main rituals we rely on for the production of truth” (Foucault 58.) Certainly, the confession fits the power-over structure of Christianity: the confessor as inherently sinful due to original sin, and the priest as superior in his contact with God and career dedication to holiness. Demanding that followers recount every single sinful transgression to a priest for penance and forgiveness also removes the individual’s power to perform penance and seek forgiveness independently of clergy. Foucault confirms that confession is “a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession” (Foucault 61.) This religious obligation to confess has lasted into even the present and has permeated our collective psyche: “we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that constrains us; on the contrary, it seems to us that truth, lodged in out most secret nature, ‘demands’ only to surface; that if it fails to do so, this is because a constraint holds it in place” (Foucault 60.) By demanding confession in the powerful, personal realm of religion, Christianity has created a culture of compulsory confession that lasts even today, but which was particularly effective to producing sexual discourse during the Victorian era. During this time, the confession was adapted to less religious forms of truth extraction. Foucault notes that confession became a lens through which to explore existing domains (such as medicine and psychology), creating necessity for all individuals to self-examine for sexual transgressions, and to place these transgressions in the hands of a higher power, be it doctor or priest or psychologist. Foucault explains that sex “escaped the ecclesiastical institution without being truly independent of the thematics of sin. Through pedagogy, medicine, and economics, it made sex not only a secular concern but a concern of the state as well; to be exact, sex became a matter that required the social body as a whole, and virtually all of its individuals, to place themselves under Desautels 16 surveillance” (Foucault 116.) Scientia sexualis is the description of this phenomenon: the placing of sex into a hierarchical relationship in domains including and beyond religion, with the active cooperation of the population as a whole. For a person living in the Victorian era, the heightened awareness of sex (and all its perceived evils), as well an intense awareness of their own sexuality as largely sinful, unhealthy, and socially repulsive, was most likely distressing to the extreme. We have noted how flatly unacceptable any female sexuality was considered, and Tannahill notes that although men were not expected even to curb their sexual desire for intercourse, neither were they protected from the psychological harm done by repressing their wives: “making love to the ‘angel of the house’ in the awareness that she was concealing a gently-bred disgust was scarcely conducive to a satisfactory performance” (Tannahill 355.) It becomes clear that, through a sexual lens, the Victorian era was marked by personal senses of confusion, shame, and preoccupation with one’s own sexuality, varying by degree in each individual. How were these emotions interpreted into complex and symbolic BDSM scenes? In The New Bottoming Book, Eastman tells us that “bottoming gives us a chance to explore feelings, roles, and interactions that may not be a good fit for us in the real world. So when you bottom, you may want to experience emotions like…anger, helplessness, martyrdom…” (Eastman 21) (of course, The New Topping Book, also by Eastman and Hardy, describes BDSM tops in the same exploratory role.) Since BDSM is a psychodrama Desautels 17 through which participants explore “unacceptable” or hurtful emotions in a safe context, it seems that the innumerable “forbiddens” of the Victorian era would be unlikely not to create a need for outlet, particularly a sexual outlet for emotions such as fear, shame, and guilt associated with sex—Tannahill even remarks that sex carried, for Victorians, “a sense of vulnerability and a nervous guilt that infused even simple heterosexual recourse to prostitutes with an element of intellectual and moral masochism” (Tannahill 387), all creating a scenario so psychologically grueling that the development of BDSM appears as a logical coping mechanism rather than a shocking phenomenon. In addition, as Eastman remarks in The New Topping Book, “[BDSM] play is to a very real degree about symbolism…But we need form and structure to clarify the distinction between the symbol and the thing itself” (Eastman 18-19.) Participants in BDSM use objects, costume, and setting as more than just sexual props: these items act as contextual symbols that indicate the beginning and end of BDSM play. A common example is a top putting a collar on a bottom to signify the beginning of play, and removing it at the conclusion of the scene. The object is a tool to assist the participants in adjusting their perceptions from the context of reality to the fantastical context of the scene. Since the Victorian culture was already highly symbolic and dense in taboo, symbolism would have served a vital purpose to the Victorian BDSM players. As Eastman describes, symbols would have been highly necessary to distinguish between, for instance, the exploration of guilt Desautels 18 within play and the very real guilt that was likely a part of many lives. The heretofore unseen creativity of these scenes was likely inspired, not only by a need for symbols to help distinguish psychological boundaries, but by the combination of repression and increased sexual discourse itself. A person needs to be aware of an imaginative sexual thought or practice to know whether he or she is guilty of it; the encouragement to self-scrutiny may have flexed the muscle of sexual imagination to assist in producing these inventive scenes. It is true that today’s perception and practice of BDSM is very different from that of our Victorian predecessors. Not only have today’s BDSM participants developed more complex archetypes, communities, and props, but they are able to approach BDSM from a psychological angle that was not so accessible to the Victorians: one of adult playfulness and exploration. While many individuals doubtlessly use BDSM as did the Victorians—to cope with or interpret overwhelming social pressures and negativity—this is by no means the rule, or even the norm. Where BDSM was born from intense pressure as an outlet for Victorians, today’s participants enjoy the fruits of this outlet from whichever psychological approach works for them: be it one of coping or play, exploration or bonding. They can eroticize the still-taboo nature of BDSM play within Foucault’s scientia sexualis, power-over culture while enjoying social and legal freedoms seen only in recent decades. It is true that more complete and unbiased understanding of BDSM has not yet been achieved in our society, and neither has full acceptance of BDSM. Desautels 19 Nonetheless, today’s BDSM has evolved into a flourishing, multifaceted, accessible practice and community for which we must thank the founders: our Victorian ancestors, and their singular role in shaping today’s kink. Desautels 20 Bibliography Burton, Sir Richard, and F. F. Arbuthonot. The Kama Sutra: the Classic Hindu Treatise on Love and Social Conduct. London: Elibron Classics, 2005. Darby, Robert. "Circumcision in Britain." History of Circumcision . Web. 13 Oct 2009. <http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/index.php? option=com_content&task=category§ionid=7&id=72&Itemid=51> Dewan, Pa, HC Tieu, and BS Chieng. "Phimosis: is Circumcision Necessary?." Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 32.4 (1996): 285. Web. 12 Oct 2009. http://www.cirp.org/library/treatment/phimosis/dewan/ Easton, Dossie, and Janet W. Hardy. The New Bottoming Book . Oakland CA: Greenery Press, 2001. Print. Easton, Dossie, and Janet W. Hardy. The New Topping Book . Oakland CA: Greenery Press, 2003. Print. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction . Vintage Books Edition. Volume 1. New York: Random House Inc., 1990. Print. Maines, Rachel P. The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria", the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1999 Miller, Andrew, and James Eli Adams. Sexualities in Victorian Britain. United States of America: Indiana University Press, 1996. Tannahill, Reay. Sex in History. Rev. ed. United States of America: Scarborough House, 1992. Print.