Adventures of pleasure

Conceptualising Consensual Bondage, Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism as a Form of Adult Play

Bibliographic Data

ID4485880
AuthorsE L Turley (0000-0003-2563-6622, Manchester Metropolitan University, corresponding author), Monro (0000-0003-4148-6089, University of Huddersfield), Surya Monro, Noemia King (0000-0003-0585-7364, University of Huddersfield), Nigel King
Year2017
Volume6
Issue3
Pages324-334
Publication date2017-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Play (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2159-4937 • E-ISSN: 2159-4953
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21594937.2017.1382984
OpenAlexW2605804388
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited25

This paper will illustrate how the consensual sexual practice of bondage, discipline, dominance & submission, and sadism & masochism (BDSM) can be interpreted as a form of adult play. Terminology and language used by BDSM practitioners frequently draws upon imagery of play, fun and games, and narratives around BDSM related activities are reflective of this. \n \n \nDrawing upon empirical data along with various psychological and sociological theoretical perspectives, this paper will explore the conceptualisation of consensual BDSM as a form of adult erotic play. Vygotsky proposed that fantasy play is a tool used by children for the purpose of liberating themselves from situational constraints, thus enabling them to explore thoughts, behaviours and emotions that would not otherwise be possible. The current paper argues that this function of fantasy can be applied to adult practitioners of BDSM, and advances this argument by theorising that consensual BDSM is a form of socio-dramatic play for adults, which serves an erotic and/or pleasurable purpose. Play enables experimentation with creativity, language, physical nuances and social roles and conventions; this paper argues that engaging in BDSM allows similar experimentation with gender, social non-conventions and physical and psychological sensations, and proposes that this kind of adult play is signified by an erotic element. Taken from a wider study into the lived experience of consensual BDSM, data were collected via nine in-depth, semi-structured interviews with self-identified BDSM practitioners in the United Kingdom recruited using a snowball sample, and analysed using the template approach within an interpretive phenomenological framework, as described by Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962). The participant experiences elicited in the research reveal commonalities between their engagement as adults in BDSM and typical features of socio-dramatic play in children, such as the role of imagination, the creation and maintenance of a separate reality and a sense of fun

Aesthetics · Dominance (genetics · Pleasure · Psychotherapist · Situational ethics · Sociology · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

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