BDSM under security

Radical resistance via contingent subjectivities

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2393565
AutoresOfer Parchev (0000-0003-4644-6799, University of Haifa), D Langdridge (0000-0001-9319-9802, The Open University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen21
Número1-2
Páginas194-211
Fecha de publicación2018-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSexualities (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-4607 • E-ISSN: 1461-7382
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363460716688684
OpenAlexW2586865882
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas32

In recent decades, BDSM communities have engaged in a political struggle for rights by separating their practices from the oppressive gaze of legal and medical praxis, seeking to legitimize BDSM discourse and actions under the slogan of 'safe, sane and consensual'. The espousal of principles governed primarily by health and safety nonetheless carries a normalizing overtone, apparently trapping the community within the epistemic codes against which they struggle. This article suggests that the security mechanism Foucault identifies as forming part of biopower can serve as a critical analytic capable of arbitrating between BDSM as a form of political resistance to hegemonic sexual norms and the restraints imposed by the 'safe, sane and consensual' code itself. We argue that communities using health and safety codes shift the political struggle from direct resistance to sovereign power to the transgression of hegemonic regimes of truth through contingent sexual identification and practice

Acquiescence · Biopower · Criminology · Hegemony · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Praxis · Resistance (ecology · Slogan · Sociology · Sovereignty · Gender Studies · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Sex work and related issues · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology