Overwhelming whiteness of BDSM: A critical discourse analysis of racialization in BDSM

Abstract

Ahmed’s (2007) theory of the phenomenology of whiteness serves as a theoretical tool for assessing how whiteness presents itself within bondage, discipline, dominance/submission, and sadomasochism (BDSM) play. Given the “overwhelming whiteness” of BDSM in both research and practice, this study serves as a theory-building exercise for analyzing the relationship between what researchers have described as inclusive BDSM communities that continue to naturalize the whiteness of BDSM spaces. Through critical discourse analysis of interviews and blog submissions from BDSM participants, this study reflects on the whiteness of BDSM. Analyses suggest that the differences between white and racialized BDSM participants in their explanations for the whiteness of BDSM continue to support and privilege the white experience in white BDSM spaces.

Keywords

Critical discourse analysis racialization sadomasochism whiteness

Introduction

In her work on whiteness, Ahmed (2007) described the lived experience of whiteness as “an ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions, affecting how they ‘take up’ space.” Further, she explained that “whiteness is an effect of racialization, which in turn shapes what it is that bodies ‘can do’” (2007: 150). Ahmed clarified that due to colonialism, much of the world is oriented toward whiteness, thus white bodies experience the privilege of living as a “body-at-home” in the world, whereas racialized bodies experience discomfort from (the fear of) being stopped and diminished in the world. In other words, racialization has the effect of privileging white individuals with access to valuable resources and being granted access to certain styles, capacities, aspirations, techniques, and habits—all of which appear and feel natural to the white individuals who may extend their bodies into a world that does not threaten to stop them. Consequently, a white person may go their entire life never questioning their privilege to occupy space, because for them it feels inherent. However, Ahmed noted that the privilege to take up space (i.e. the act) is an effect of colonialism and the habit of whiteness, or the repetition of the act. Also, it is through repetition that certain spaces take on the characterization of the people occupying these spaces, thus naturalizing the whiteness of a space.

Ahmed’s theory of the habit of whiteness presents a valuable framework for investigating how the phenomenology of whiteness works within various spaces and among various groups—she provided the whiteness of academia as one example of this process. This article is a theory-building exercise, in which I utilize Ahmed’s theory as a genesis for exploring a phenomenon described as the “whiteness of BDSM.” In its simplest terms, bondage, discipline, dominance/submission, sadism and masochism (BDSM) is a consensual practice involving any number of erotic activities often defined as non-normative and/or kinky, such as power-exchange, role-play, fetishes, and other practices. More complexly, BDSM covers a wide range of subcultures, communities (e.g., leather, fetishist, voyeurs, etc.), and identities that practice kink under the philosophy that anybody is welcome as long as they are safe, sane and consensual (SSC), risk-aware, personally responsible, and informed. Despite the welcoming philosophy, though, Weiss (2011) reported that a majority of the BDSM practitioners during the early 2000s identified as white, whereas Newmahr claimed, “people of color are so rare” in the community she studied for four years that she would have liked a more inclusive sample (2008: 628). Langdridge and Barker further noted that the “whiteness of BDSM” trend extends into other realms: “the overwhelming whiteness of writing on S/M is something that deeply troubles us” (2007: 6).

With Ahmed’s work on the phenomenology of whiteness as a theoretical tool, I present here a critical analysis of the “overwhelming whiteness” of BDSM, with focus toward a singular component of being a “body-at-home” in the world as a white racialized individual—the styles and habits of language, or discursive practices. Specifically, I employ a critical discourse analysis to assess the discursive practices of 25 BDSM participant interviewees and 32 BDSM online forum participants. A critical discourse analysis recognizes that there is a “relationship between language and power” (Weiss and Wodak, 2003: 12). As such, I regard the discursive practices utilized by BDSM participants as mediated social action which serves to establish and/or reinforce racialized power relations that already exist within larger social systems and institutions. I argue here that the discursive practices of white racialized individuals work to reproduce the conditions that make the whiteness of BDSM possible.

Whiteness of BDSM

White racialization within the context of this article, refers to the process through which meanings are attached to individuals who have biological features (i.e., skin tone, nose shape and size, hair texture, etc.) associated with whiteness (Miles, 1989). These meanings, further, are essential in the creation of structures and institutions. For instance, Ahmed (2007) explained that the positive meanings attached to white racialized individuals are related to social normativity, which gives these individuals the privilege of moving through the world in comfort. Alternatively, non-white racialized—referred throughout this article simply as “racialized”—individuals have negative meanings attached to their bodies, which results in them being “othered” and therefore not granted the privilege of comfort. Whereas some racialized individuals may also self-identify as “people of color,” referencing their non-white identities, I primarily refer to participants in this study as “white racialized” or “racialized” in an effort to highlight the processes through which the racialization and thus the privileging of individuals and spaces occurs, especially as a theory-building practice on the whiteness of BDSM.

The whiteness of BDSM is evident in the extant literature dating from the 1970s on, in which most of the authors discussing BDSM appear to identify not only as white, but also westerners. In addition, regardless of study methods, the studies’ sample participants largely identify as white (see Bauer, 2007, 2018 ; Dancer et al., 2006; Kolmes et al., 2006; Martinez, 2016; Moser and Levitt, 1987; Mosher et al., 2006; Taylor and Ussher, 2001; Yost, 2007), indicating that BDSM is either a phenomenon practiced and researched mostly by white individuals, or at the very least centers their experiences. Importantly, Simula (2019) argued that BDSM research must center racialized individuals’ experiences so as to identify whether and how dominant systems of oppression and control persist within these environments, specifically because academics and practitioners have historically claimed that BDSM spaces do not assign “privileges based on race, gender, and social class” (Califia, 1994: 169).

Fortunately, BDSM research has diversified over the last few years. For example, Cruz (2015) offered one of the most important contemporary contributions to BDSM research, highlighting black women’s experiences in her analysis of how these women “facilitate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power” through online race play (2015: 410). Cruz explained that black women utilize race play to challenge the history of racial subordination and violence in the USA, and that race play offers the limited potential for black women to transgress black/white power differentials and racial sexual alterity, or the “racial and sexual otherness that characterizes the lived experience of Black womanhood” (2015: 411). Interestingly, Cruz also clarified that race play “imports” racism and racial scripts into simulated experiences of dominance and submission—the simulation is both performed by the racialized body and performed on the racialized body. In other words, racialized individuals do race play whether they desire or not, because they present as such. Consequently, several participants refused to engage in race play simply because it remains imbedded within a “white heteropatriarchal foundation of racism” in the USA (Cruz, 2015: 433). In their study of race play in porn, Smith and Luykx (2017) also explained that the foundation of racism means BDSM power exchanges can never truly be equal. Further, Sheff and Hammers (2011) noted that white privilege shapes BDSM communities and interactions, but remains invisible, which is why Weiss (2011) claimed that BDSM play cannot escape “real-world” inequality.

The few studies that address racial inequalities in BDSM described here, while important for explaining how racism impacts racialized individuals within various BDSM contexts, do not adequately explain the whiteness of BDSM as an act of taking up (i.e., occupying) space and an act of the space taking up (i.e., engaging in) whiteness, understandably so, given this was not their specific aim. Utilizing Ahmed’s theory of the phenomenology of whiteness and a critical discourse analysis technique, I describe in this article how white BDSM practitioners’ discursive practices serve the whiteness of BDSM. Specifically, I critically analyze the discursive practices of 25 BDSM interviewees and 32 BDSM online forum participants and explain how racialization grants white BDSM practitioners access to habits of discourse which serve to reproduce the conditions that make their white privilege in BDSM spaces possible and which make white BDSM spaces possible.

Method

As a mixed-methods study, participants recruited from BDSM social networking websites Fetlife and Wasteland, and two local dungeons,¹ completed a 54-question anonymous, online survey and were subsequently asked to submit their contact information if they wished to engage in face-to-face (n = 11), telephone (n = 11) or Skype (n = 3) interviews. Beyond revealing the whiteness of BDSM, with 86.8% of the 220 survey participants identifying as white, the survey did not prove fruitful for exploring racialization within BDSM, primarily because the tool did not allow participants to elaborate upon their racialized BDSM experiences. However, the semi-structured interviews allowed participants to engage in dialogue about their racialized experiences, since they were asked to elaborate upon their BDSM experiences and racial/ethnic representation in various BDSM spaces. Further, as a third method for assessing the racialized dynamics of BDSM, I created a Fetlife forum post within the “BDSM Theory” group, from which survey and thus interview participants were recruited, and I asked those involved in the group to reflect upon the absence of racialized participants in the original survey sample. Only interview and forum responses are presented in this study, since these data reveal important nuances of racialization in BDSM.

During interviews, participants identified their demographics (i.e., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual identity, and education), described their first encounters with BDSM and detailed their preferred types of play and play scenarios. They also explained their BDSM identities and roles, differentiating between the two based on how they understood core aspects of their selves (i.e., BDSM identity) at the time, versus their performances within various BDSM scenarios (i.e., BDSM role), which could differ according to space, time, and persons present. Finally, interviewees discussed racial/ethnic representation in the various (i.e., online, private/public dungeons, clubs, etc.) environments in which they participated. Most interviewees (n = 22) identified as white (n = 7 women, n = 15 men), although one identified as a Chicana, one an Asian Australian woman, and one as a biracial black and white man. These participants’ ages ranged from 22 to 62 with a mean age of 29.5 for racialized people and 37.7 for whites—the average ages for men were 6–7 years older for both groups. Education levels were not asked of interviewees, although a majority discussed having learned about BDSM in college. No women identified as heterosexual, instead primarily identifying as queer (n = 4), pansexual (n = 3), and bisexual (n = 2). The Chicana and Asian Australian women identified as pansexual and queer. All but one bisexual man identified as heterosexual.²

Forum respondents’ demographics beyond race/ethnicity could not be ascertained, since they did not engage in the formal interview process. However, of the 32 people who posted responses to the forum, 12 identified as racialized individuals (5 African Americans, 2 “people of color,” 1 American Indian, 1 Chinese Australian, 1 “minority,” and 1 “dark” individual), 9 identified as white racialized individuals, and 11 did not explicitly identify their racial/ethnic identities, although several alluded to a white racialized (n = 5) or “person of color” (n = 2) identity through their commentary regarding whether (1) they have ever seen racialized individuals in their own BDSM environments (coded as white racialized) or (2) personally participated in events/spaces geared toward racialized individuals (coded as racialized). The post I created in the “BDSM Theory” open-forum on Fetlife was accessible to all individuals with a Fetlife profile (or any person 18 years of age and older) for one month, although those interested in responding to the forum would need to be accepted as a member of the theory group upon agreeing to forum rules of engagement. The original forum post and all responses were what Hookway (2008: 105) described as “publicly-private and privately-public”—publicly accessible, but written with the expectation of privacy within the group. To preserve anonymity, I deactivated my Fetlife account after copying and analyzing the forum responses, which consequently erased the original post and all responses on Fetlife. Further, no names or pseudonyms are presented in this study, given that these identifiers may still be linked to existing Fetlife profiles.

Findings

The following themes emerged within interviews: resource differences, racial biases, and relatedly cultural survival. Forum participants primarily focused on racial stigma and oppression, although several also mentioned resource differences. The dissimilarities between interview and forum responses possibly reflect a difference in demographics and thus experiences with BDSM. For instance, most interviewees identified as white, and although demographics could not be verified for all forum participants, more than half indicated a racialized identity, which would impact their BDSM experiences and thus result in a different focus. Further, it is probable that the two group’s themes differed based on sampling; whereas interviewees responded to a call for participation in a survey on BDSM experience and body-image and subsequently volunteered for an interview, forum participants responded to a forum post titled “BDSMers of Color” which was geared toward an online audience interested in theorizing about the absence of racial/ethnic representation in the original survey sample. Comparing the themes between mostly white interviewees and online forum participants is helpful for elucidating the nuances of a racialized experience in BDSM, especially given that online and racialized individuals may feel more comfortable volunteering in a privately-public forum than in an interview.

Interviewees

Resource differences

For white interviewees, some of the most prevalent explanations for being involved in BDSM practices were related to the participants’ access to economic and educational resources. For instance, one participant explained how she had become involved in a working-class BDSM community:

The way I got into it was through my friend’s partner who is also very working class, so these were working-class dykes. And, so, I think they felt comfortable, and I came from a working-class background, so I was fine. They were an exception; by and large it is white, by and large it is educated, by and large it is middle class. (White woman)

Although working-class communities such as the one described by this participant do exist, they are few and far between. And, even when they are available, they may not be apparent to individuals who are not specifically seeking a community within a community, or a space for those with multiple marginalized identities.

Many white participants also reported that the first time they had encountered consensual sadomasochism was when they had gone to college and either took a sexualities-based course or met others in college who were already involved in BDSM and subsequently introduced them to the practice or community. Several explained that the simple knowledge of BDSM is a privilege afforded those with adequate funds and access to higher education resources. Interestingly, these participants did not make the connection between access to higher education resources and racial/ethnic identity, reflecting the invisibility of white privilege (Sheff and Hammers, 2011). Others noted that they had learned about BDSM from books and websites, which do not require many additional resources, although participation in public dungeons and events can require significant resources like money and time.

When asked specifically about the lack of racial/ethnic representation in BDSM, some participants suggested economic—related to the expense of maintaining a BDSM habit—and time factors, also not considering the connection between these factors and racial/ethnic identity. For instance, two participants, one in his early 20s and the other in his mid-50s, reported:

I don’t see a whole lot of [racial] minorities at the clubs. I do, I see a few but, yeah, I would say the majority are middle- and upper-class. I know people who are not—hovering just above the poverty line—who do it too, you know. It tends to be, it is kind of an expensive habit, almost. The clothes are very expensive, paying fifteen dollars to get in a club every week can get pricey, so it does require some sort of financial stability. (White man)

I don’t know what the percentage is, but I could very easily understand where it would be a much higher percentage of upper-middle class, because it is costly. It is costly to do, especially if you are playing with leathers, and you are playing with wrist restraints, and all those kinds [of] things. That stuff gets expensive really quick. A[n] electric wand, three hundred dollars. Excuse me, you can’t do that on minimum wage jobs. So, you can go down [to] Home Depot, and you can make all kinds of toys. But some of them you can’t, you know. (White man)

Not only did white participants explain financial resources as an essential aspect of BDSM play, but they also suggested that their own play took quite a bit of time out of their schedules, as did their practice training for the play. For example, one of the youngest interviewees mentioned that he had been practicing Shibari (an intricate form of Japanese art bondage) for several years, which took up much of his time. And, one of the oldest and most practiced interviewees described the complexities of master/slave relationships, suggesting that they involve time and effort beyond the single play scene:

To get to that level of Master/slave interaction, it takes a while. You’ve gotta have been around for a while, and be exposed to it and really know what it is, and really, in fact, this is your life, this is who you are inside. When someone identifies with the Master/slave community they are a Master all the time; whatever they are doing they are doing as a Master, whether they have a slave at that time or not. (White man)

Participants like this one, thus, suggested that some BDSM practices become primary identities that require continuous attention and maintenance; even if financial resources are not required, the participant must have time and energy, which presumably have little to do with one’s racial/ethnic identity. In each of these accounts posed by white racialized individuals, whiteness orients the participants toward explaining the lack of racial/ethnic minority BDSM representation as rooted in resource-based deficiencies, rather than race-based experiences. This orientation reveals how “racial and historical dimensions are beneath the surface of the body,” allowing for white racialized individuals to both experience and describe BDSM without reference to race/ethnicity (Ahmed, 2007: 153).

Racial biases and cultural survival

Alternatively, the three racialized BDSM participants each explained their participation and/or lack of participation in relation to their experiences of racial bias, both explicit and implicit, and their need for survival in a white-dominant society. Although she did not identify a specific instance in which she had experienced racial bias in a BDSM scene or community—perhaps related to her “involvement in queer, women of color networks”—one interviewee explained that she was cautious about her BDSM play: “Being a woman of color (and a feminist) has maybe given me some different barriers in terms of being more cautious about maintaining my autonomy outside of play” (Asian Australian woman). Here she noted that being racialized and a woman impacts her decision-making around BDSM play, largely because specific assumptions are made about gendered and racialized individuals and their level of autonomy both inside and outside BDSM play and relationships. In worlds not oriented toward queer of color individuals, racialization “shapes what it is [these] bodies ‘can do’,” including what they feel comfortable doing (Ahmed, 2007: 150).

Another racialized interviewee (black and white) described engaging in BDSM exclusively in his home. He explained that he had no interest in attending public dungeons largely because he imagined that they were full of “old white guys,” which did not sound like an attractive option. He also noted that as a racialized person he had experienced being exoticized, both implicitly and explicitly, due to his skin color. Specifically, he had lighter-complected play partners who would make comments about the contrast between his skin color and theirs. Although this participant indicated that he had not experienced any unpleasantness in his BDSM play, he did suggest that underrepresentation of racialized people in BDSM may be due to white prejudice and/or the conservativism of racialized communities.

The third racialized individual described her identity early in the interview by reflecting on colorism. She noted that while she was perceived as a racialized person in her small hometown in the western USA, she was not read as such in larger cities where people took her lighter skin color as a sign of her whiteness. Despite this, she stated that she noticed there were fewer non-white people who practice BDSM and explained, “minorities tend to be more traditional because they are holding on to something that is being taken away from them.” She further elaborated:

If I were Native American, maybe I would not be doing this, because I would be fighting to keep my culture. And you see this as sort of flying in the face of all culture. In BDSM, they are doing this even though no culture approves of it. Whereas when you are fighting every day to keep stories alive, to keep your culture alive, you are not going to throw that away. (Chicana woman)

This interviewee also described racialized groups as being more conservative than white racialized groups, but was careful to clarify that conservativism often results as a protective reaction to being “othered” on the streets and in other realms. One final insight this interviewee provided was that perhaps racialized groups already have close communities and therefore do not feel the need to find community through BDSM. Moreover, it is possible that racialized groups build BDSM spaces of their own, where their bodies feel more “at-home,” as is suggested by the proliferation of race-specific forums on BDSM networking sites such as Fetlife.

Forum

Within the “BDSM Theory” forum, respondents who openly identified as white initially argued that racialized individuals may not have access to the internet and therefore could not participate in BDSM online or were less involved in BDSM because the practice requires “disposable income,” akin to the claims made by white racialized interviewees. For instance, two participants explained:

BDSM, like the SCA [Society for Creative Anachronism], seems to attract people with an active fantasy life and some “humor of the abstract.” In my experience, that tends to mean well-educated people with a decent amount of exposure to the arts, and probably also with the disposable income to buy toys/garb and attend community events. In the USA at the moment, people who fit that description are statistically most likely to be white. (White man)

It’s probably less about race than it is about class. It seems that a certain level of education and a certain amount of disposable income are a pre-requisite of getting involved in the more organized/formal elements of the subculture. (White man)

Whereas the first participant did not consider racial/ethnic identity, the second suggested that class could be understood without considering race. This, again, reveals an orientation toward whiteness, which makes white racial identity seem invisible and irrelevant to class privilege. Further, white racial invisibility was exemplified when participants claimed that they did “not notice” race/ethnicity in their BDSM interactions. As one participant noted, “I’m usually too busy running my stall at [an event] to pay too much attention to the ethnic balance on the passing crowd” (white man). Another explained, “I’ve never paid any attention” (white woman). A third explained “kink is kink … I don’t think ethnicity has anything to do with if there is more Caucasian kink then [sic] any other ethnic kink” (white woman), suggesting that participation has little to do with racialization. For these individuals, inheriting and living in a white-oriented world allows them to “not see” race and further to utilize whiteness as grammar which shapes “how we see or don’t see race in social phenomenon, how we frame matters as racial or not race-related, and even how we feel about race matters” (Bonilla-Silva, 2012: 174).

Racial stigma and oppression

Most forum participants who identified as racialized, however, refuted the relationship between BDSM participation and access to resources. Instead, these participants explained various reasons for the whiteness of BDSM, many suggesting that racialized individuals experience stigma and oppression in their everyday lives, so adding another stigma for participating in BDSM or identifying as kinky could be riskier. One participant specifically explained that as a racialized person, he already belonged to an out-group, so felt that participating in another out-group would concern his racialized community.

The same participant relayed the following story from a friend:

He says if you are white, you can be a lot of different things. You can be a skater, a punk, a prep, a jock, a nerd, a gamer, etc. But if you’re black, you’re just black. There is often a lack of a sub-categories for blacks as we are seen by society, partly because of the exclusive nature of the black culture, and partly because of the way that society works here. (Black man)

This participant and another continued the conversation in other posts, discussing whether it is the exclusivity of black culture or white culture that impacts BDSM communities. One claimed that white culture prevents racialized people from being accepted in every space: “I have always been one who is comfortable in interracial and multicultural settings, but I am intelligent enough to know that everyone in those settings is not comfortable with me there.” This individual further explained:

Many blacks in the scene have had the experience of feeling isolated at pansexual BDSM events. There are those who view us as a fetish, the BBC syndrome, the ‘I always wanted to be dominated by a black woman.’ Plenty of black Dommes speak of white males approaching them, expecting them to be sassy, finger wagging, ebonic spouting, stereotypes. The same is true of some of the white women in the scene who wish to be ‘used by a black man.’ (Black man)

Instead of focusing on black culture, then, this participant suggested a re-focus on racist ideologies within the USA, which also exist in various BDSM communities. One person noted, “some areas of community remain more equal than others, I’m afraid” (“colourful” woman). A white racialized woman hypothesized that through the experience of racism, racialized people are taught to keep their private lives private, which suggests a difference in terms of where and with whom they engage in BDSM—a racialized woman added, “we tend to congregate—with each other.” Again, these comments suggest that racialized individuals build spaces oriented toward their own racialized lives and bodies.

Another forum participant suggested that the whiteness of BDSM is generational. In other words, older racialized generations were less willing to engage in BDSM because they had a history of trauma related to their “constant sense of otherness.” This man explained:

I see my parents’ generation as struggling to make a space for themselves even in mainstream dominant culture. I don’t know how they could even think about breaking into a subculture where the rules are so much harder to learn. (Chinese Australian man)

Whereas, older racialized generations may still have an interest in BDSM, he noted, the likelihood that they will act upon this interest is low. What this generation-based theory and the biases-based theories suggest is that younger, more racialized individuals may be engaging in BDSM, yet they are doing so with the risk of stigma and oppression and/or are doing so in communities geared toward racialized participants.

Discussion

The discursive practices presented in this study reflect an interesting pattern within the context of Ahmed’s theory of the phenomenology of whiteness, but also Bonilla-Silva’s theory of racial grammar. Specifically, the discursive styles and habits of whiteness that produce and are produced by the whiteness of BDSM and further allow for BDSM spaces to take on the characterizations of the people occupying these spaces is clearly reflected in the divergence between explanations of the lack of racial/ethnic representation in BDSM or more pointedly on the whiteness of BDSM. For instance, white BDSM participants’ discourse focuses on material resources, such as money, education, and time, and racialized BDSM participants’ discourse focuses on social stigmas, racial biases and oppression, and thus cultural survival. These differential explanations for the whiteness of BDSM highlight the habits of whiteness that Ahmed (2007) so carefully described.

In her theory of the phenomenology of whiteness, Ahmed explained that whiteness is a habit or habitual insofar as white bodies go unnoticed and therefore white racialized individuals do not have to think or stress about what their bodies do, and do not have to “face their whiteness” (2007: 156). Not facing your own whiteness also means not having to explain your presence within certain spaces as related to your white privilege. As is made clear within the discourses of BDSM participant interviewees and forum participants, white privilege presented itself when white racialized individuals consistently described their own participation and the lack of racialized individuals’ participation in BDSM as a consequence of access to resources. White BDSM participants in interviews and forum posts surmised that their participation in BDSM emerged from their access to education, money, time, and energy. They also suggested that their own communities were predominantly white because racialized individuals were otherwise busy or did not have the money and time. None of these individuals suggested that their white privilege did or could impact their access to resources and thus their involvement in BDSM, although one white forum participant circuitously explained that access to resources in the USA is linked to whiteness. This lack of conversation regarding white privilege highlights how racial grammar “reproduce[s] a social order as just the way things are” (Bonilla-Silva, 2012: 174).

Furthermore, the whiteness of BDSM was also reflected within the actual participants’ presence within various BDSM “spaces” related to this study. For instance, there was a clear comfort for white participants in this study to interview—many selecting public cafes to do so—versus a comfort for racialized participants in this study to respond to a forum post online. This difference in participation represents the phenomenology of whiteness and how it presents itself in the privilege of living as a “body-at-home” in the world; whereas the white racialized individuals felt comfortable to describe their BDSM experiences in public settings, likely related to the embodiment of white privilege (i.e., taking up space in the world), the racialized individuals elected to present their critiques in a relatively “safe” space—online, where they were more able to take up “space,” with fewer opportunities for their bodies to be deemed “out of place” (Ahmed, 2007: 159) and therefore for their bodies to be “stopped” (2007: 161). The differences exemplify how whiteness “disappears as a category through experience, and how this disappearance makes whiteness ‘wordly’” (2007: 150). They depict how race structures the participants’ modes of operation and how these modes of operation further enforce the whiteness of BDSM, which are particularly clear in how one of the white interviewees explained being “a Master all the time.” As one that inhabits whiteness, he has inherited a world and status that was made white before his arrival, and exists beyond BDSM time and space.

Alternatively, nearly all racialized individuals in this study had other explanations for their participation in BDSM and theories about the whiteness of BDSM. Mostly, these individuals described their own experiences with being exoticized and/or feeling concerned that racialization and fetishization would occur in predominantly white spaces. Although they too discussed needing resources in order to participate in BDSM play, they noted that their participation primarily depended upon their comfort with specific BDSM play spaces and persons. Moreover, they noted that they had heightened awareness of their racialized bodies because of the potential for experiencing stigmatization and racial bias and oppression from those within the BDSM community. This sentiment is reflective of what Cruz (2015) described in her analysis of black women’s experiences with BDSM. Specifically, Cruz noted that because racialized bodies perform racial scripts in BDSM, especially during race play, and have racial scripts performed on them, then racialized individuals “do” race play whether they want to or not.

Because BDSM play in much of the western world occurs within a culture of white heteropatriarchal racism, white participants are oriented around whiteness rather than toward it. Thus, when the participants in this study explained their comfort in various BDSM spaces, they did so with the privilege of not considering the discomfort of those who are consistently oriented toward their otherness in most spaces, but particularly in BDSM spaces which have “aquire[d] the ‘skin’ of the bodies that inhabit them” (Ahmed, 2007: 157). Through their discourse, or “racial grammar,” white BDSM participants therefore established and/or reinforced racialized power relations that already existed within larger social systems and institutions; they upheld the privilege of using discursive style and language to promote the whiteness of BDSM by describing it as a class rather than race concern, and in doing so, they championed their own comfort (Bonilla-Silva, 2012).

To be comfortable is to feel as though one is a part of their environment, they “fit in.” According to Ahmed,

whiteness may function as a form of public comfort by allowing bodies to extend into spaces that have already taken their shape. Those spaces are lived as comfortable as they allow bodies to fit in; the surfaces of social space are already impressed upon by the shape of such bodies.

White individuals in this study felt comfortable in BDSM spaces precisely because these spaces were created by and for these bodies—perhaps not in a literal sense, but via the repetition of discourses which suggest that race does not matter to the extent of class when considering comfort in BDSM participation.

Consequently, as one racialized participant in this study noted, she prefers to congregate with those who may have a similar racialized experience. This participant’s comment suggests that racialized people make their own BDSM spaces, which provide them the privilege of feeling comfort within likeness. Indeed, in a recent Slate article, Green (2019) reported on one of these communities in Los Angeles. This community invites women and non-cisgender men to build a queer, kinky community in a space that typically serves cis-gay leather men. Green noted that historically, leather communities were “very white, very masculine,” but that more queer-identified, racialized individuals are working to make inclusive BDSM spaces; they are working to take up more space, and thus create their own measures of comfort. Despite this, it is impossible to ignore the overwhelming whiteness of BDSM when the only measure of comfort racialized people can seek is in spaces they must create for themselves.

Conclusion

In this study, I utilized Ahmed’s (2007) theory of the phenomenology of whiteness to explore the invisibility of white privilege in the discursive practices of 25 BDSM interviewees and 32 BDSM online forum participants. Critical discursive analyses of the style and habits of BDSM participants’ language support Sheff and Hammers’ (2011) claim that white privilege remains invisible in BDSM communities, especially in the ways that white BDSM participants explain their participation in and the whiteness of BDSM.

Because the extant BDSM research predominantly reflects on white individuals’ identities and practices in BDSM, it misses an important critique of the discursive practices that serve to reinforce the whiteness of BDSM. This study contributes to the field through an analysis of BDSM participants’ explanations of their experiences in BDSM as racialized people. The contribution is two-fold: it suggests that there is a difference in explanation for the whiteness of BDSM between white and racialized BDSM participants, and it supports the notion that white privilege occurs through and in the repetition of acts, such as discursive practices. In other words, the consistent reference to class rather than race differences in BDSM participation serves to deny the very existence of the stigma and oppression that racialized individuals experience when they enter BDSM spaces. Thus, even if racialized individuals do not experience racial bias and oppression within the BDSM context, the discourses that negate these experiences severely limit how these participants inhabit BDSM spaces.

While this study presents some important ideas for further study at the intersections of racialization and BDSM practices, its limitations invite further research. Future studies should consider oversampling racialized individuals and doing preliminary analyses of participant identity to ensure that racialized groups are better represented. Moreover, a better technique for ascertaining forum participant identities would be helpful for assessing the prevalence of racialized discursive practices in the BDSM community. Future research would also benefit from focusing on racialized people within various BDSM spaces (i.e., online, public dungeons, private homes), as this may reveal some interesting results about comfort and the taking up of space.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Katherine Martinez

Notes

Kat Martinez serves as the Interim Director/Chair of the Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy at Metropolitan State University of Denver. This Institute provides student services focused on gender equity and social justice, and offers a major in Gender, Women, and Sexualities Studies and two minors in Gender Studies and Sexualities Studies. Kat has published other works on BDSM, including one on body-image, another on the fluidity of kink identities, and most recently one on kink disclosures. Kat teaches courses in positive sexuality and has an interest in the potential of queer identities, spaces, and politics.

References

Ahmed

(2007) A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory 8(2): 149–168.

Bauer

(2007) Playgrounds and new territories: The potential of BDSM practices to queer genders. In: Langdridge

Barker

(eds) Safe, Sane and Consensual: Contemporary Perspectives on Sadomasochism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 177–194.

Bauer

(2018) Bois and grrrls meet their daddies and mommies on gender playgrounds: Gendered age play in the les-bi-trans-queer BDSM communities. Sexualities 21(1–2): 139–155.

Bonilla-Silva

(2012) The invisible weight of whiteness: The racial grammar of everyday life in contemporary America. Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(2): 173–194.

Califia

(1994) Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. Pittsburgh, PA: Cleis Press.

Cruz

(2015) Beyond black and blue: BDSM, internet pornography, and Black female sexuality. Feminist Studies 41(2): 409–436.

Dancer

Kleinplatz

Moser

(2006) 24/7 SM slavery. Journal of Homosexuality 50(2–3): 81–101.

Green

(2019) Equal opportunity bootlicking. Slate Magazine. Available at: https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/04/cruise-mommy-issues-gender-inclusive-leather-parties.html (accessed 19 April 2019).

Hookway

(2008) ‘Entering the blogosphere’: Some strategies for using blogs in social research. Qualitative Research 8(1): 91–113.

10.

Kolmes

Stock

Moser

(2006) Investigating bias in psychotherapy with BDSM clients. In: Kleinplatz

Moser

(eds) Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, pp. 301–324.

11.

Langdridge

Barker

(eds) (2007) Safe, Sane and Consensual: Contemporary Perspectives on Sadomasochism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

12.

Martinez

(2016) Somebody’s fetish: Self-objectification and body satisfaction among consensual sadomasochists. The Journal of Sex Research 53(1): 35–44.

13.

Miles

(1989) Racism. London: Routledge.

14.

Moser

Levitt

(1987) An exploratory-descriptive study of a sadomasochistically oriented sample. Journal of Sex Research 23(3): 322–337.

15.

Mosher

Levitt

Manley

(2006) Layers of leather: The identity formation of leathermen as a process of transforming meanings of masculinity. Journal of Homosexuality 51(3): 93–123.

16.

Newmahr

(2008) Becoming a sadomasochist: Integrating self and other in ethnographic analysis. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 37(5): 619–643.

17.

Sheff

Hammers

(2011) The privilege of perversities: Race, class and education among polyamorists and kinksters. Psychology & Sexuality. Available at: https://www-tandfonline-com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/doi/abs/10.1080/19419899.2010.537674 (accessed 16 March 2019).

18.

Simula

(2019) Pleasure, power, and pain: A review of the literature on the experiences of BDSM participants. Sociology Compass 13(3): e12668.

19.

Smith

Luykx

(2017) Race play in BDSM porn: The eroticization of oppression. Porn Studies 4(4): 433–446.

20.

Taylor

Ussher

(2001) Making sense of S&M: A discourse analytic account. Sexualities 4(3): 293–314.

21.

Weiss

Wodak

(2003) Introduction: Theory, interdisciplinarity and critical discourse analysis. In: Weiss

Wodak

(eds) Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–34.

22.

Weiss

(2011) Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

23.

Yost

(2007) Sexual fantasies of S/M practitioners: The impact of gender and S/M role on fantasy content. In: Langdridge

Barker

(eds) Safe, Sane and Consensual: Contemporary Perspectives on Sadomasochism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 135–154.