Word: bdsm
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...common misperception is that most DS relationships involve dominant women--dominatrices, in the parlance--ordering around submissive men. (As a result, some feminists have come to see BDSM lifestyles as not only transgressive but progressive.) And, indeed, among the many prostitutes who offer BDSM services, more are dominant than submissive, says Dr. Paul Federoff, a University of Ottawa psychiatrist who has studied sadomasochists. "You also might see a lot of dominant women at a BDSM nightclub," he says, but "although it's not the politically correct answer, more women in the scene are choosing the submissive role." In a study...
...Surri take BDSM much further than most practitioners, but they say they merely verbalize and theatricalize the unspoken power exchanges that exist in every relationship. "About 80% of how we live our lives is the way Mom and Dad did in the '50s," says Doc. "And the way most Baptists live their lives down here," says Surri, referring to the Southern Baptist Convention's resolution that wives should "submit" to their husbands...
...BDSM activists--yes, there are BDSM activists--counter that any sexual activity can become overpowering. And few sexologists would argue that whips and stilettos, in and of themselves, cause sexual compulsion. That's why some mental-health professionals contend that the American Psychiatric Association should remove sadism and masochism from the DSM. "There are no data to support their inclusion," says Charles Moser of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. "There is no study that shows that having BDSM interests causes distress or dysfunction...
...addition, the chains, the hot wax, the boot-licking humiliation--they're all secondary for most BDSM practitioners. "Pain is a means to an end, but not the goal itself," says Federoff of the University of Ottawa. "People into this scene, all of them, will tell you that they want anesthetic when they go to the dentist as well as you do. What's different is what they use pain for." BDSM-ers like to use athletic analogies: marathoners endure the agony of the last miles so they can savor the accomplishment of finishing. SM, they say, is no different...
...question that sexologists can't yet answer. "Tell me the etiology of heterosexuality or homosexuality," says Moser, "and I will tell you the etiology of SM." Federoff has compiled new online surveys from 2,000 women and 2,000 men who identified themselves as part of the BDSM scene. "We have only started to analyze the data," he says, "but the first impression is that the people we have looked at tend to look very much like regular people from all walks of life--that is, they tend to look like people who might fill out Web questionnaires...