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Key points
- Many people misunderstand BDSM and the people who practice it.
- Incorrect assumptions are often made based on constructed gender and racial beliefs.
- Mental-health professionals need to become kink-aware in order to reduce stigma for clients.
BDSM is an acronym that represents a few different power exchange play practices including:
- Bondage and Discipline: the use of restraints and power and control to experience a high state of eroticism and pleasure
- Dominance and Submission: the use of roles involving consensual power exchange which may or may not also involve high-sensation activities like flogging, whips, or wax play.
- Sadism and Masochism: the use of pain or high sensation, humiliation, consensual master/slave enactments, and/or creating alternative experiences of consciousness like ‘subspace’ or ‘top-space’ that feels like floating.
BDSM has long been misunderstood and at times vilified by the general public and by mental-health professionals as a form of perversion or as abuse or assault. This post aims to dispel 5 of the most common myths surrounding BDSM and kink in genral.
Myth 1: BDSM and kink activities are the same
The terms kink and BDSM are frequently used interchangeably; if one is seen as being kinky or into kink, they are also assumed to be into the practice of BDSM. However, for some people who identify as kinky, their particular erotic/sexual interest might not have anything to do with power exchange, humiliation, or strong sensation/pain. When someone identifies as being into BDSM, however, there clearly is a power exchange, some form of humiliation, and a taking on of the dom, sub, or what’s called a ‘switch’ type role in their sexual practices.
For some kinky folx, their erotic trigger has more to do with consensual fantasies and behaviors like:
- getting aroused by stilleto-heeled shoes or other objects like leather or latex
- urinating without humiliation (aka golden showers or water sports)
- enjoyment of semi-public sex
- the desire for a third or more (group sex)
- eroticizing intense sensations like spanking, or being spanked
- consensual voyeurism
- cuckolding, in which a partner gets turned on watching their primary partner have sex with someone else.
So one can think of kink as a larger umbrella category and BDSM as just one of the experiences within it.
How many people actually participate in BDSM experiences? A 2008 survey by Richters et al found that 2.2% of men and 1.3% of women had been involved in BDSM in the past year. In the same survey, BDSM engagement was also found to be higher among people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
In 2015, Herbenick et al published a representative survey using a sample of 2,021 American adults. Many respondents said they had tried elements of BDSM including:
- spanking (30 percent)
- dominant/submissive role-playing (22 percent)
- restraint (20 percent)
- flogging (13 percent)
Kink, BDSM, and fetishes are sexual interests and/or behaviors that are atypical, meaning that the people who are into it represent a smaller proportion of the general public. Sex therapists tend to explain these terms using similar language to researchers and discuss sexual behaviors as being on a bell curve. By discussing the range of less-common behaviors plotted out on the legs of a bell curve with the most-frequent groups of behaviors positioned across the top, these behaviors are presented in a more scientific, neutral, and non-shaming way. Because there is longstanding negative stigma, taboo, and explicit shame expressed in the mainstream culture around less-common sexual practices like BDSM/kink, many sex therapists receive additional post-graduate training to offer clients a kink-informed and experienced therapeutic place to share what their authentic desires and practices are.
It’s important to note that for some kinky people who seek relationship counseling or individual therapy, the presenting problems have nothing to do with the kink or BDSM activity which gives them the utmost pleasure and enjoyment. It may have to do with a mood disorder, communication challenges, or work-related issues. Mental health professionals need to become more trained in order not to blame clients’ kink lifestyle as the reason underlying their presenting problem.
Myth 2: Submissives or bottoms have little to no power
Often, views on sexual positions are constructed within a heteronormative and racialized framework. People often assume someone’s position (i.e. top, bottom, power bottom, etc.) based on their gender, race, appearance, etc. It’s significant to understand that the position one takes in a sexual experience is not associated with who is leading or has power in that moment and may or may not include aggression. People can even lead from the bottom—colloquially called being a 'power bottom,' which holds elements of both tops and bottoms. Lastly, some folx identifying as LGBTQ+ also identify as kinky or belonging to a BDSM community.
Contrary to popular belief, the submissive partner in any BDSM scene is actually the person who holds the majority of the power because they have the power to stop any scene through the use of their safe word. The bottom, or sub, submits and gives their initial power to the top, or person in charge, after consensually agreeing to what the ‘scene’ will include, and then they also have power throughout by ending the BDSM scene at any moment they want. It was noted by researcher Eva Jozifkova that people who are not aware of their sexual interests or are beginners in the BDSM practice and not yet part of any kink community may not have enough information about how to practice BDSM safely. Therefore, they may be more at risk of failing to establish and signal the agreed-upon safe word or gesture which could result in an experience that is or is experienced as non-consensual.
Myth 3: People who enjoy BDSM are victims of childhood sexual abuse or sexual violence
A 2008 survey (that didn’t include folks who have non-binary gender identities) found that neither men's nor women’s engagement in BDSM practices was associated with having been coerced in the past (Richters et al., 2008). A 2016 survey on National Kink Health found that 9.6% of participants had high ACE scores (adverse childhood events). However, in a 2018 study, 15.8% of all Americans were found to have high ACE scores, a much higher percentage than within the kink community. Other studies have confirmed that there’s very little evidence to support the belief held by many in the general public and in the mental-health field that kink/BDSM interests are related to or in response to past trauma or sexual violence.
Myth 4: BDSM is non-consensual and abusive
The main mantras of the BDSM/kink community are: Safe, Sane, and Consensual, and in fact folx discuss the scene they're going to play in before, during, and after it (this is referred to as debriefing). Many practices have been adopted to keep BDSM interactions safe and consensual, including:
- safewords
- negotiation and discussion of limits
- aftercare by any means necessary.
In BDSM, consent is an ongoing and evolving process between partners. Similarly, there is sometimes an identification of soft and hard limits, and agreements which outline what someone is and is not willing to do as well as what they might be open to under certain circumstances. In fact, according to both 2008 and 2019 studies, most people report that any violence they experienced in a relationship occurred outside of the kink community, not within it.
Myth 5: BDSM is about dominating women
A 2015 survey found that 38% of a female sample reported that they were generally a sub, which, as already stated, gives them the most power in any engagement. Francesca Tripodi, in her 2017 study, reported that women are empowered and encouraged to embrace their desires in the BDSM community (Tripodi, 2017; Yates & Neuer-Colburn, 2019). Tripodi also found that submissives and bottoms felt that “the act of submission increases sexual agency and empowerment through intimacy” (Tripodi, 2017; Yates & Neuer-Colburn, 2019).
Many kink and BDSM players experience high rates of intimacy, trust, and sexual and erotic pleasure. They are wary of sharing their experiences with mental-health professionals who are not kink-aware for fear that their sexual practices will be misunderstood, pathologized, and potentially reported as a crime. It is, therefore, critically important that more mental-health and medical professionals become kink-aware or refer their clients to sex therapists who are.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
