In article <camillaCqyIBt.6Mw@netcom.com> camilla@netcom.com (Camilla Cracchiolo) writes:
>
> A few months back, in the midst of the heavy discussions about BDSM
> (bondage and sado-masochism) and porn on soc.feminism, I made a
> statement that no one knows why anyone has any sexual orientation,
> including BDSM. A couple of people in e-mail asked me for references,
> and this sparked me to search the literature to see what I could find.
> A number of people asked me to post what I found, and so this is being
> posted to soc.feminism, alt.sex.bondage and sci.psychology. While I have
> conducted a fairly thorough review of the literature, there may be
> references that I'm not aware of. I welcome any further
> information on the subject, particularly of any studies that have
> been conducted.
>
> I have read in many places that no one knows why anyone has any
> particular sexual orientation, but I had no idea that the research
> on BDSM was as bad as it is. I was unable to uncover anything that
> remotely resembles even a study on BDSM.

Damn! I wish this hadn't come up here. I held my tongue all through the sex abuse/false memories/stolen spotlight thread (well, mostly anyway). There are enough people in sci.psychology mad at me for posting articles on NLP without my offering even greater provocation by giving my views on sexuality.

And yet I guess I can't remain silent at this point.

I don't know of any studies, except that Charles Moser wrote his dissertation at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (1523 Franklin St, San Francisco) on the topic of SM/BD/DS (somewhere around 1982). Presumably one could obtain a copy from the Institute. I could also send you by email the address of a licensed therapist (MFCC) in the San Francisco area who works a lot with the SM community. He might have some references.

You might look for Michael Rosen's book Sexual Magic. It's a book of photographs, but the participants also make brief statements about the nature of their interest in SM.

[Added in March, 1996: There are a whole lot more books now, although still, as far as I know, no serious academic investigation of the psychology of SM/BD/DS. Dr. Milton Diamond in the Med School here and a noted sexologist, confirms that nobody much understands the reason for interest in SM. ]

It is shocking how little study has been done on the psychology of sex, and especially on those issues related to sexual arousal.

I have been through a number of courses at the Institute (IASHS, see above) and have also gone through the training for San Francisco Sex Information. I have also been involved for a number of years in a seminar on human sexuality run in the medical school here in Hawaii by Dr. Milton Diamond. In none of these courses was there much scientifically gathered information. But I've heard lots and lots of people talk about their attitudes, interests, and experiences. I've seen educational films showing people involved in just about every conceivable form of sexual activity and have seen quite a bit of SM first hand, as well as having some experiences of my own.

I belong to the Society of Janus, the main heterosexual SM organization in San Francisco. (Gay males and lesbians are also more than welcome, but they have their own organizations.) One of the types of events that Janus holds is the Orientation for new members. At an Orientation (NOT initiation), prospective members and whatever old members show up (maybe about a dozen of each) talk about their interests and experiences. One of the things that is very frequently discussed is how people initially became interested in SM (or perhaps I should say realized they were interested in it).

I have also attended a number of classes at QSM, which I guess one might refer to as an SM school in San Francisco. Some of these classes covered techniques in bondage and the like, some were on psychological aspects of domination and submission, and some were on what one might call "social" issues.

I remember, for instance, a class whose title was "Are Submissives Second Class Citizens?" (The presenter, a well known and fairly imposing biker dyke, who has a submissive orientation, certainly didn't think so.) (The term "Top's Disease" has been coined to refer to dominants who believe they have the right to act arrogantly in everyday life.)

I know a number of professional woman dominants and am a fairly close friend of a few of them. I am also friends with Lady Green, author of The Sexually Dominant Woman: A Workbook for Nervous Beginners.

Such as they are, those are my credentials.

> I found only two references on Medline, both of which were by
> Freudians, and like most of what Freudians write, was full of
> statements with no supporting evidence at all.

Yeah, well if you look at those old books by Stekel and Kraft-Ebbing and the other Freudians carefully, after a while you realize that their whole book is based on one or two patients.

> The general concensus of the psychiatric profession seems to be that
> BDSM is a 'paraphilia', and that it is laid down in early childhood.

"Paraphilia" is not a term most of the people I know care for. Many of them would instead use the term "fetish." Although the dictionary defines "fetish" as sexual fascination with an object or (not overtly sexual) body part, psychologically there doesn't seem to be much difference between this and fascination with such activities as whipping or humiliation, or fascination with archetypical roles such as the teacher, nurse, police officer, nun, etc. (One sees lots of costumes of this sort at Janus parties.)

> ... I have heard it
> suggested that our primary orientations may have biological roots,
> while early childhood experiences may tell us 'how' those roots get
> expressed. However, there doesn't seem to be any more information
> supporting this position than any other. The one thing that *does*
> seem to be supported by the literature is that, regardless of
> orientation, it appears to be laid down very early in life and not
> amenable to change once this occurs. I have also heard it suggested
> that a mechanism similar to that regulating imprinting in birds
> is involved: that is, that our early childhoods determine what gets
> imprinted, but that once this occurs, it's a biologic condition, set
> for life. Again, this is a theory only.

This is my belief and more than anything else in your article, this is what I want to address. However let me comment on some more small points first and come back to this in a later article.

> "Gay, Straight and In-between" by Dr. John Money, a noted
> sexologist was also recommended to me. I read this book, and while
> it has some very interesting things to say about the possible
> origins of homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality and cross
> dressing, it has very little to say concerning BDSM.

A better book by John Money would be Love Maps. I know his books only second hand, from hearing others discuss them, but what I've heard made a lot of sense to me. However none of his theories are backed up with actual evidence.

> In other words, we have not even the beginning of a scientific
> inquiry into this matter. The most elementary kind of information,
> such as the incidence of BDSM in the general population, what kinds
> of people practice it (in other words, race, gender, age and
> income), the age at which people first began having fantasies or
> feelings that they describe as BDSM: none of this appears to have
> been studied!

I think you really ought to look at Charles Moser's dissertation. Although I don't know exactly what sort of information he gives.

It seems clear to me that there is widespread interest in SM themes in the male population. One can see such themes widely used (although usually in a muted fashion) in advertising and popular culture. In the days before Playboy, when there were no sexually explicit magazines openly sold, there were a lot of "men's magazines" with titles like Male Adventures and True Detective Fiction, etc. The cover artwork for the magazines almost always had an SM theme --- women riding on men's shoulders sometimes carrying riding crops were very popular, as was the image of a woman with ripped clothing tied to a straight-backed chair. The publishers apparently found that covers with SM themes sold magazines.

If one reads alt.sex.bondage (or belongs to organization such as the Society of Janus) one finds that there are also a lot of women who find SM arousing. A woman friend of mine who was involved in talking to a lot of novices in SM on the phone said that at first, it would be typical to get calls from men who would say "I don't want my wife to find out I'm interested in this." But gradually she started also getting a lot of calls from women saying "I can't let my husband find out I'm interested in this."

Most of the people I know in the SM community are moderately well off finacially. (The professional dominants, however, are not. They are not getting rich off what they do.) They are mostly fairly well educated, some of them extremely well educated. I am far from the only college professor involved in the Scene.

This is not to say that only well educated middle-class people are interested in SM. But these seem to be for the most part the sorts of people who join organizations like Janus.

Most of the people I know don't seem especially compulsive or driven about their interest in SM. Mostly they seem to have a lot of fun with it. Most of the participants' stories at Janus orientations go something like this: "I first discovered that I was interested in SM/BD/DS when I was 6/13/20 years old. For a long time I felt really guilty about it and I thought there must be something wrong with me. But then I discovered that there were other people in the world who seemed perfectly normal and were interested in the same things I was. Once I found a partner and started actually doing SM, I realized that there was nothing to be guilty about."

> I did receive some interesting e-mail from people into BDSM on this
> topic however. Several people stated that they had perfectly
> 'normal' non-abusive familes, that they have no recollection of any
> sexual abuse, and, interestingly, that they recalled having
> fantasies of bondage well before puberty. One gentleman stated
> that he remembers these feelings as early as three years of age.
> Given the absence of any research to the contrary, these anecdotal
> accounts are the best information available at this point. Unless
> any studies are done contradicting these people, I believe we have
> to accept their statements at face value.

My experience is that women, especially, usually trace their interest back to pre-school years. Some men also do, but a number of men seem to first discover their interest in SM during puberty, and I've heard a few say they discovered it while they were in college.

Some people become interested because of a partner. Some women, in particular, are only midly excited by SM (although other women are very much excited by it!) but are involved primarily to please their partner or because they've discovered that it's a good way to keep their partner interested in sex.

Some people also seem to find a non-sexual psychological comfort in being dominant or submissive some of the time, often as a welcome change from the role they play in their professional life. In other words, a person who at times finds being submissive extremely erotic, at other times may come home from the office and just want to be submissive as a break from giving orders all day at work.

A number of professional dominants are actually much more turned on themselves by being submissive and usually prefer to take the submissive role in their private "play." This was a theme, for instance, in the autobiography Whips and Kisses by Mistress Jacqueline.

> Certainly, there is no evidence supporting the idea
> that people who are into BDSM are 'acting out' previous sexual
> abuse. In order to determine this, we would have to compare people
> who practice BDSM with people who do not, and see if there is a
> higher rate of particular kinds of abuse in their childhood
> histories. This idea is in direct conflict with the statements of
> many people who practice BDSM.

Right. There doesn't seem to be any correlation one way or the other.

> The only thing I have found that remotely approaches an objective
> inquiry is Robert Stoller's book Pain and Passion. In the book,
> he actually goes out into the West Hollywood community and
> interviews some people who are into BDSM and offer it for money.
> He is very careful to note that his book is not a scientific study,
> and in order to be as objective as possible, he not only gives the
> reader his conclusions, but he also makes the unedited transcripts
> of the conversation available as well.
>
> Stoller makes one interesting observation that is worthy of follow-up:
> of the 8 people he interviewed, 3 had serious childhood illness, which
> necessitated long and painful medical interventions. He suggests that,
> at least for some people in to BDSM, that pain may have
> become eroticized in the child's attempt to control it. This
> is certainly an interesting idea.

> From what I know, I'd say these would be exceptional cases.

> Another very interesting thing about Stoller's book is that he
> actually lists the different things people into BDSM do, and
> suggests that it is incorrect to speak of BDSM as though it were one
> thing; instead he suggests there are as many as 50 separate sexual
> preferences or practices that are getting lumped together as BDSM.

Right. This is one of the very conspicuous features of the SM community. People are quite diverse in their fetishes, much more so than the range of sexual tastes in the "vanilla" world. A lot like leather, some like rubber or latex. A few are into infantilism and like to be dressed and treated as young children or even babies. (The Diaper Pail Fraternity caters to this interest. Last I knew it was located in Sausalito.) Some are only interested in the physical sensations of whipping or paddling (I've known some women who referred to themselves as "pain sluts"), others are primarily interested in psychological domination and submission. (I was at a class taught by a woman whose primary interest was in verbal manipulation of people. She cited Jane Austen as one of the sources where she learned her tricks.) A lot of people in the SM scene have lots of piercings, a few don't even have pierced ears.

> I think anyone interested in this topic should read Stoller's book.
> He is something of a maverick in the psychiatric profession, and
> suggests that, far from being harmful to people who were sexually
> abused as children, BDSM may be a healing experience for these
> folks.

I know of a few cases like this, not very many.

> However, we need to be careful in drawing conclusions from
> Stoller's work: I think interviewing prostitutes about sexual
> practices is very valuable and information from prostitutes should
> not be discounted merely because they charge for sexual services.
> On the other hand, I don't think the experiences of prostitutes can
> be regarded as complete; there are many people who practice BDSM
> only in the context of a monogamous relationship. I don't think
> that the experiences of prostitutes necessarily reflect the
> practices of these people.

Ouch! Calling a professional dominant a prostitute is probably as big a faux pas as referring to an interest in SM as a disorder. For one thing, professional dominants are very emphatic about the fact that they do not have explicit sex with their clients. Many, perhaps most, will allow a client to masturbate at the end of a session, some won't even do that.

But beyond that, there's a difference in attitude. Typically, a prostitute does not enjoy having sex with most of her clientele. She gets paid for doing something that she would otherwise prefer not to do. (There are exceptions, but I think they're rare.)

On the other hand, at least in the San Francisco scene, most professional dominants who are any good genuinely enjoy SM. They enjoy many of the sessions they do with clients and they also play a lot for fun with friends. I was just talking to a friend of mine on the phone last week who said "What I do in my sessions is what I like. Fortunately, a lot of my clients also seem to like it. What I'm really into is having fun. That's the main thing I want out of being a dominant. The money is also great."

> .... An analogy would be drawing conclusions
> about all heterosexual women by interviewing only women who are
> prostitutes. (although some very interesting information about what
> heterosexual men do can be gained this way.)
>
> Anyway, this is my attempt to bring some facts into the Internet
> discussions on BDSM and porn. I hope it is helpful.