Human sexuality is a loaded topic for many people. Parents have a difficult time discussing it with their children, health education rarely covers sexually related topics (aside from the most cursory review of the reproductive system), and adults in relationships often find the subject of their own sexuality challenging to discuss and share with their partners. Although we live in a sex-saturated media culture, human sexuality is still relegated to whispered, private, and often shame-filled discussions instead of an open interactive dialogue. Even between a therapist and a patient, in the confidential confines of the therapy hour, sex is still a taboo subject, one that often elicits anxiety in both patient and therapist.
Sex is clearly a necessary biological function for the perpetuation of the species, but it is also an act of pleasure, a means of expressing passion, desire, creativity, bonding, and connection, with or without the goal of reproduction, orgasm, or even penetration. Sex requires a certain level of experience and skill in order for it to feel good.
Clumsy sex is not hot.
Sex is an ambiguous interaction; different people have varying experiences with it; people place different values, meanings, and interpretations on it. It is a beautifully complicated mess. Part of that mess is the way we put shoulds and musts on sex and what sex means. Sex is wrought with cultural values, a multitude of judgments and proscriptions from religious communities and governmental bodies. Moral judgments surrounding human sexuality are as old, perhaps, as human sexuality itself. Indeed, in many countries, and right here in the United States, certain forms of consensual adult sexuality are both illegal and pathologized by medical and psychological communities as mental or behavioral illnesses or disorders.
One of our tasks, both culturally and socially, is to better learn how to integrate the sexually pleasurable into our consciousness without shame or guilt. Erotic pleasure for its own sake is perfectly acceptable, and can even be a natural antidote to symptoms of anxiety or depression.
In developing a framework for addressing the concerns that arise when people explore the kinkier edges of their sexual world, it becomes important to conceptualize sex in a way that recognizes and honors its incredible complexity. We have taken steps in this book to view sexuality in the broadest and most inclusive perspective possible—a perspective that takes into account biological, cultural, psychological, philosophical, religious, and moral dimensions. This framework allows us to fully explore the variety of sexual expressions we have encountered in our work and present them for you in these pages. The development of this framework has been informed by both research and clinical experience.
The sexual and the erotic are not the same thing. In years of practicing as a psychotherapist and sex therapist, I’ve often let my own patients guide me in determining how they see and experience both sexuality and eroticism, how they differ and in what significant ways they complement one another.
I often see sexuality as technicality and mechanics, whereas the erotic is more about the mystery surrounding what the mechanic might do to us.
The word erotic is derived from the stories of Eros, as represented in ancient Greek culture and mythology. Eros is presented in various forms within these myths. One form, the earliest form, presents Eros as the primordial creative energy in the universe. In other forms, Eros becomes a child-like god of love, causing bonds of love to form between gods and mortals. Like any child, Eros often colors outside the lines, not obeying social norms and rules.
Eroticism refers to an aesthetic focus on desire, particularly feelings of sensuality, mind-body engagement, excitement, and anticipation. The erotic is conceptual in that it thrives in a world of abstraction, imagery, and symbolism. Erotic images and ideas give form to our primordial feelings, sensations, and experiences. The erotic is subjective and playful by its very nature.
Sexuality is the embodied, more concretized way in which people experience the erotic. It inhabits the objective, biological, physiological, and physical realms. I often see sexuality as technicality and mechanics, whereas the erotic is more about the mystery surrounding what the mechanic might do to us.
We need to make the distinction between the sexual and the erotic because in BDSM, Fetish, Leather, and Kink communities[1] there are many practices and activities that are not sexual, but may be experienced as extremely erotic. Being restrained and put on display, for example, need not involve anyone’s genitals or even contact between two bodies, but it can result in an intensely pleasurable and exciting experience.
We live in a culture that emphasizes and values binary viewpoints. Something is either good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, wrong or right, light or shadow. We see this particularly with the delicate subject of sex. Someone is either male or female; an action or feeling is either normal or abnormal, right or wrong, healthy or pathological. Though these classifications appear to make things simpler, they actually serve to undermine and invalidate the wide-ranging complexities of sexual and erotic desire.
In distinguishing the sexual from the erotic, I have been forced to suspend my own preconceived notions and assumptions about sex for the purpose of seeing the erotic through the eyes of the patient or patients I am engaged with. One of the most important lessons I have learned is to recognize the pervasive existence of a cultural and sexual binary, how limiting that binary can be, and how it is shifting before our very eyes.
Within the therapy hour, through the eyes of my patients, I have seen that the landscape of sexual culture is changing, and has changed dramatically in the past decade. I also see this phenomenon outside the clinical setting, in the larger society. The public emergence of both intersex and transgender men and women, as well as the visibility of genderqueer youth who reject the traditional, binary roles of male and female, are helping us to see gender and gender identity in a more complex manner. Polyamorous[2] and other consensually nonmonogamous cultural movements have challenged us to reconceptualize how we view love, commitment, and the formation of family.
BDSM, Leather, Kink, and Fetish communities, which are also emerging more into the public eye, show us the incredible breadth of sexual expression far beyond that of traditional genital and oral intercourse. Change and evolution doesn’t mean we have to lose the tradition of good old-fashioned copulation any more than we must lose the more traditional gender roles of male and female or the more classic traditions of monogamy, but we do gain an expanded sexual and erotic landscape in which to explore and play. The idea that progress forces us to leave behind what we enjoy, or believe in, is erroneous. Change can provide us with a wider array of things to choose from and enjoy.
Though sexual mechanics are important, and perhaps even more important when practicing the technical aspects of the BDSM arts, we have intentionally focused on the nature, forms, and expression of eros over the mechanics of the sexual act. We will be asking you to expand your understanding of sexuality and eroticism. We will challenge you, and ourselves, to determine how we decide whether a form of sexuality is good or bad, or if that decision is even important—or ours—to make. There have been many long-standing cultural assumptions about what can and should be seen as erotic (e.g., women with large breasts), just as there are equally strong assumptions about what should not and cannot be conceived of as erotic (e.g., being whipped or flogged). How did we come to these apparent cultural viewpoints, and how can we expand our understanding of the erotic to incorporate a wider range of individual tastes and desires?
Part of the mythology that we’re questioning is the prevailing cultural assumption that forms of sexuality that fall outside social, medical, or religious norms are pathological or unhealthy, by their very nature. In a binary view of human sexuality there is “normal” and “abnormal.” We are making a case for a much-less-polarized view of human sexuality, one that embraces a diversity of erotic expression.
As a scientist, I started my career by investigating the interplay between social interactions and the acquisition of language. As a topic of study, language is amazing because it is an intersection where culture, biology, the mind, and intimate social relationships all meet. When I switched from the field of child language development to the field of sexual development in adulthood, I was shocked at the difference. Child language is a very focused, organized, and well-supported area of research—there are significant graduate education programs that train the next generation of researchers and clinicians, there are clearly articulated questions and methods of investigation, and the field explores very interesting and productive theories of language acquisition. The study of sexuality, on the other hand, seems to be scattered, disorganized, and unsupported in comparison. How could something so fundamental to human nature, culture, social relationships, health, and well-being be so poorly served by science?
The area of research on BDSM, Fetish, or Kink sexuality is especially neglected. The number of scientific studies on BDSM are few, and most of them are clearly exploratory and most, if not all, are self-funded—meaning the researcher has to pay for materials and supportive services out of his or her own pocket. There are also huge gaps in the research knowledge base, mainly because of the initial stance of “sickness” and “pathology” that colors the history of how psychiatry and early sexology have explained BDSM sexuality.
The view from the scientific field is like being an explorer facing the wilderness, the unknown—we have a few maps from previous explorers, but they are not very detailed or clear, and on many of these maps there are strange spots where previous explorers have said, “Here, there be monsters.”
Things have begun to change. Fields like sexology, sociology, and anthropology are further along in their investigations of BDSM sexuality and BDSM communities. Fields like psychology and psychiatry, however, are still mired in previous assumptions and older theories that clearly make a lot of assumptions of sickness or illness as a starting point. Up until recently, most of the psychological and psychiatric studies were based on a single troubled person in a specific situation. Single case studies are great for raising questions to explore, but not appropriate for providing answers. It would be similar to describing Britney Spears’s Las Vegas costumes and then assuming that all young women dress in this fashion. Likewise, psychological and psychiatric studies of sexual predators or people suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder are primarily the basis for studies of “sadism.” These cases of people who are entangled in the criminal justice system can give a distorted view of the line between healthy and unhealthy sexuality. This forensic work, while important, can easily be misapplied to BDSM as practiced by healthy people in a vibrant subculture. For example, Hans Eysenck has charted that men convicted of sexual crimes often have very conservative, rejecting, and negative attitudes toward sexuality, seeing sex as inherently dangerous and corrupting.[3] This does not accurately describe men who are part of the BDSM subcultures in the United States, in our anecdotal experience. A proper study has yet to be done, but that lack of scientific work means that applying Eysenck’s findings to a population not entangled in the criminal justice system is unscientific.
If all a professional sees are suffering people, it is easy to propose that all people “like that” are sick. But now we have evidence from sociology, sexology, and even some studies in psychology that clearly show that there are happy, well-adjusted people who express BDSM sexuality. I have hope that the scientific study of BDSM will continue to develop, and even flourish, in the years to come.
The view from the scientific field is like being an explorer facing the wilderness, the unknown—we have a few maps from previous explorers, but they are not very detailed or clear, and on many of these maps there are strange spots where previous explorers have said, “Here, there be monsters.”
Everyone’s sexuality is unique. Because of that, there is always the chance that another person will misunderstand, or even reject, someone because their experience of sexuality is different. Sometimes misunderstandings themselves can lead to a sense of rejection, even when rejection is not meant or intended. Misunderstandings and rejections lead to two particular reactions: an attempt to reestablish a sense of control in the face of confusion or rejection, or an attempt to make sense of what is happening, by searching for meaning.[4]
One way to make sense of misunderstanding and rejection is to adopt the other person’s attitude—to internalize the rejection, to internalize the oppression. In essence, by agreeing with the other person, one can make sense of the rejection and feel “on the same page” as the other person, and this can decrease a sense of isolation and loneliness. A person can also attempt to control their own behavior or hide the characteristic that is offending other people. Many times, people do both.
Another way to react to misunderstanding and rejection is to become angry and confront or dismiss the other person’s behavior. This is part of the attempt to reestablish a sense of control. Anger also creates a larger context to understand the other person’s behavior (“They’re ignorant,” “They’re racist,” etc.).
Because BDSM sexuality is often misunderstood and subsequently stigmatized and rejected, we believe the misunderstanding-rejection dynamic is a powerful factor in the lives of kinky people. The lack of knowledge and the presence of a “squick” factor on the part of partners, family members, community leaders, medical professionals, and counselors (among others) will add to the difficulties and stress experienced by the sexual outsider.[5]
When a patient flees a therapeutic environment because they feel pathologized or marginalized by a clinician, we refer to them as therapy refugees. I first heard the term used by Dossie Easton, San Francisco psychotherapist and coauthor of Radical Ecstasy. Many of these therapy refugees have found their way to my office over the years. Traumatized and suspicious, they are in flight from a paradigm and mind-set that views them as somehow sick or maladapted because of their sexual desires, actions, or fantasies.
Whether due to fear, misunderstanding, or a lack of education, our culture has tremendous room to improve when it comes to discussing sex in a candid, open fashion, devoid of shame and judgments. The same, unfortunately, holds true for those of us in the mental health profession.
Though our professional training programs, for the most part, do an excellent job of preparing us for treating patients and helping them recover and heal, they do not do as competent a job of educating us about the breadth of human sexuality. Although one course in sexuality is mandatory in most counseling programs or licensing processes, the coursework is perfunctory and, due to the limited amount of time mandated for them, very basic. When we lecture on human sexuality, and BDSM sexuality specifically, in master’s and doctoral-level programs, we are often struck by the lack of knowledge on the part of students and their discomfort with the topic. Gratefully, by the end, they always seem hungry for more information and more knowledge. But aside from the standard six-to-ten-hour seminar, nothing more is required of our future psychologists, therapists, and doctors.
Therapists hold a great deal of power in relationship to their clients. In the current managed-care industrial system, we have the ability to assess and to assign diagnoses that may, and often will, follow a patient throughout their lives. We have a large book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)[6] to back us up and further strengthen that inherent power. Though the DSM has made great strides in fine-tuning the assessment and diagnostic process for therapists, we often fail to realize that it is a series of guidelines, not absolute truths. Furthermore, it is not merely a scientific or medical document. It is a manual that reflects traditional mainstream societal norms and values. It may be a medical and psychological manual, but it has also been influenced tremendously by politics, morality, and religion. Furthermore, since modern psychology and psychiatry are anything but exact sciences, the manual relies heavily on the judgments and viewpoints of the treating clinician. As clinicians, we are all too human and, try though we may, still bring our own cultural, moral, religious, and political baggage into the therapy room, which can often adversely affect our patients.
The mental health professions often begin with the assumption that kinky behavior is an expression of some mental distress. As a wise client once said to me, after a particularly negative experience with her prior therapist, “I don’t have anger toward, or repressed desires for, my mom or dad, and I don’t have what you guys call ‘attachment issues.’ I just like a good spanking. It doesn’t have to mean there is something wrong with me or that there is something to be fixed. I don’t want to, or need to, be fixed! Freud once said, ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’[7] Well, sometimes a spanking is just a spanking!”
Often by the time my BDSM clients find their way to my consulting room, they have already consulted with, or been in therapy with, another clinician and often with less-than-favorable results. These therapy refugees are fleeing an environment in which their sexual interests were either not understood, pathologized as a mental disorder, or made the focus of what needed to “be changed” about them to help them reach a sense of integration or peace.
These individuals come to me with a legitimate presenting problem (anxiety, depression, relationship trouble, lowered self-esteem, or communication difficulties) that now has an additional layer of trauma overlaying it from a therapy experience in which they felt, at best, misunderstood and, at worst, pathologized and marginalized. My work then becomes two-pronged: to assess the nature of the presenting problem and develop a treatment plan while assisting the client in recovering from the trauma he or she experienced at the hands of a therapist who could not be appropriately present with the diversity of his or her sexuality.
My therapy refugees come from all walks of life—straight, gay, bisexual transgender, wealthy, poor, urban, suburban, and rural—but the one thing they have in common is a deep desire to understand their sexuality, not change it, fix it, or lock it away, but to become more aware of it. My job is to create the space for that awareness to grow, a space for that inquiry to take place in a safe and contained environment, a space in which they have an ally on the journey and not a judge and jury.
Isn’t wanting to be spanked, tied up, roughed up, or to experience extreme sensation a sign of some mental illness? Wanting to do those things to another person—isn’t that sick? For the past 125 years, psychiatrists and psychologists have discussed sadomasochism as a mental disorder.
Until very recently, psychiatrists and psychologists discussed cases and proposed theories about the underlying psychological dynamics of SM behavior, but very little scientific work was done. Many of the statements about underlying mental illness were presented without much systematic observation and testing to support the statements, and some of these statements were adopted into the manuals that guide clinicians in diagnosing mental disorders. The fact that categories like Sexual Sadism, Sexual Masochism, and Fetishism exist in the DSM or International Classification of Diseases (ICD) doesn’t mean the science behind these diagnoses is clear or present.
Lately there has been some critical review of the idea of Sexual Sadism or Sexual Masochism, as discussed in the medical literature. In fact, several Scandinavian countries have removed Sexual Sadism, Sexual Masochism, and Fetishism from their set of diagnostic categories.
The critiques include a range of positions about what should be done with these diagnostic categories. On one end, there is the position that diagnosing a sexual disorder is dangerous to people because how we think of sexual disorders is hopelessly confused and moralistic. This would mean that, given the confusion, therapists end up relying on their own personal morality rather than a body of scientific evidence. At the other end is a position that says there is some confusion, but if we live up to our ideals to practice medicine based on scientific evidence, we can refine the diagnosis of sexual disorders. Are conceptualizations of Sexual Sadism or Sexual Masochism hopelessly confused and ill-defined? Or can they be fixed? Can we use them as they are, in a way that is rigorous and ethical? We do see a small portion of people in the criminal justice system who have committed violent and nonconsensual sexual attacks on others, and the perpetrators find these attacks sexually arousing.[8] We have an intuition that something is seriously impaired, in terms of psychological functioning and character, with this kind of behavior—but exactly how is it different from a “sadist” who takes the position of a controller in a consensual scene, who causes intense sensation and pain in order to create a power exchange as part of the erotic connection?
In either case, the point is that the current situation, the current diagnostic category, can be abused and misused—either because the category itself is unclear or because therapists are ill trained to use it rigorously. This situation can lead to the labeling of people as “mentally disordered” when they are not.
Here’s an example. There are statements made in the DSM that if a person has one sexual disorder like Sexual Masochism (also called a Paraphilia, a clinical word for a sexual disorder or dysfunction), then they are at a higher risk for exhibiting other paraphilias—which include Pedophilia. However, there are very few studies to confirm this statement—and some of these empirical, scientific studies do not support the statement. The actual evidence doesn’t fit and there is no scientific consensus to back up that simple statement.[9] Yet that statement is used by courts in both criminal and civil cases, as well as other institutions in our society. That idea pervades our public understanding of sexualities and can be used in a very punitive way. But if the diagnosis of Sexual Masochism is unclear to begin with, if it conflates together healthy and unhealthy people, then we are in grave danger of harming many innocent people.[10]
We would like to introduce five main messages we’ll be communicating to you as we explore BDSM sexualities and communities together.
We approach BDSM as a complex set of behaviors that can be expressions of people’s health and impulses to grow, or be expressions of people’s brokenness and internal conflict or suffering. One cannot tell by looking from the outside, just like one cannot tell from the outside whether a marriage is good or bad. Just because people are married, that does not tell you whether the union is healthy or unhealthy. Likewise, practicing BDSM doesn’t tell you whether it’s healthy or unhealthy for the person. In order to know this, you have to know what it means to the person, how it affects his or her life; you have to see the larger picture, both inside and out, before you can say anything about BDSM as a positive or negative practice.
We need to understand what the behavior is an expression of, not just what the behavior is.
At the moment we are not talking about specific actions, some of which can be damaging and unhealthy for all people. We discuss specific BDSM behaviors as healthy and unhealthy in more detail in the forthcoming chapters. For now, we are discussing BDSM sexuality as a broad general category, and in this way we cannot prejudge the sexuality as healthy or unhealthy.
Contrary to popular misconceptions that BDSM is either “good” or “bad,” we believe BDSM is a neutral concept. When applied to a healthy relationship, BDSM can be playful, a growth experience, highly intimate, and gratifying. When applied to an unhealthy relationship, it can be traumatic, destructive, a barrier to intimacy, and toxic.
We believe that all healthy BDSM behavior and practice is grounded in, and surrounded by, community. There is a thriving and healthy subculture organized around BDSM in the United States and in many other countries around the world. While this is often an underground community, it has developed clear ethical values, standards, recognized practices that minimize risk, and effective ways of mentoring and educating those new to BDSM.
Practicing BDSM in isolation is dangerous, even in the age of the Internet, where people have the illusion of connection and access to information. Some of that information is good and some of the information is bad. How can you differentiate unless you have a community and culture around you that shares its wisdom and experiences?
In forthcoming chapters we detail the history, values, and organization of BDSM communities in order to help people become, and remain, connected.
There is no one right way of practicing the craft of BDSM. There is no one correct way of being kinky. Many times, people feel alone when they are first coming out of the closet or exploring the edges of their sexuality. It is easy in our culture to, like Colin, feel isolated, to feel like you are the only one who gets turned on by more esoteric sexual practices. We want to assure people that they are not alone in their sexual exploration even though the ways in which they approach and practice it will vary from person to person, even within the BDSM community. We affirm the uniqueness of people’s erotic landscapes by recognizing that, though many people are kinky, there is no one correct way to be so.
Though many people adopt BDSM sexuality as an intrinsic part of their identity, and construct their lives around it, there are just as many people who don’t, but who are just as kinky. There is no better or worse, right or wrong, just different ways of approaching erotic self-expression. There is no one right or wrong way of building a sexual identity. It is paramount to respect people’s autonomy in how they choose to build their sexual selves.
As Esther Perel asserts in her book Mating in Captivity, erotic desire, expectation, and excitement need space in which to grow. Differentiation, a sense of separateness and mystery, creates a dynamic in which desire can build up and then ultimately culminate in people coming together in a way that is electrifying, exciting, and orgasmic.
BDSM often uses a power differential to create that distance and mystery, the structure of which ultimately allows for an intensely connected sexual experience. BDSM is the eroticization of power. Power is a dynamic that people often try to ignore or dismiss, but its presence is undeniable in sexuality and society. Indeed, we argue that power differences have a proper place in our understanding of sexuality and society and should be welcomed and integrated. Using power, manipulating power, playing with power, identifying the presence of power is not something to be afraid of. What we ignore out of fear ultimately has more control over us than what we acknowledge, honor, and accept. Ignoring power and the impact it has on our lives doesn’t make it go away.
Psychology, religion, and law are just some of the social structures that can infuse
sexuality with a sense of shame and secrecy. For sexualities that deviate from what
is viewed as “normal” or “good,” this shame can be exponential. Just as gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) communities continue to experience shame and repression
in their sexual self-
expression, so do BDSM communities. As sexual minorities, GLBT communities have experienced
great political and social advances beyond tolerance and toward true acceptance and
understanding. BDSM communities have not come that far. Those kinky closet doors remain
tightly locked for many people.
The topic of shame and its impact will arise several times in this book, but here we introduce our viewpoint about shame itself. It’s important to distinguish between two types of shame: healthy and toxic. Both healthy shame and toxic shame include an intense negative emotion aroused by evaluating oneself in a negative, “less than” way. Often there is the added dynamic of “being exposed” because shame develops in young children by experiencing negative evaluations from important others. The negative evaluation is intertwined with being viewed, judged, and rejected by others. The adult version would be “What would the neighbors think?!”
Healthy shame is important in the development of solidarity and connection to a family or clan, the development of moral values and behavior, and the development of a “good self”—knowing when we have crossed a line and really hurt someone else or done something that is harmful. Healthy shame is focused on embarrassment over an action, and can lead to attempts to repair and seek forgiveness or to better oneself in the future. Healthy shame involves ways to reconnect with the family or clan and thereby strengthen the group’s identity and the inclusion of the person within that group.
Toxic shame causes great suffering and damages one’s ability to actualize developmental potential, growth, and well-being. This kind of shame is focused on the self, the person, as somehow a failure or unlovable regardless of how one behaves or what one does. It is the difference between “I did something wrong” versus “I am wrong.” The “I am wrong” toxic shame often leads people to develop compulsive tendencies and lays the ground for the development of addictions or anxiety disorders. Toxic shame dynamics can also result in people becoming overly defiant and going on the offense, as a way to defend and protect the self against the intense negative emotion. Anger and antisocial defiance can become a basic habitual stance as a result of deep, unhealthy shame.[11]
Because of ignorance, stigma, and squick reactions, people who express BDSM sexuality have to contend with risks related to unhealthy shame, and BDSM communities have to handle the fallout from unhealthy shame. We feel that shame is often the metaphorical elephant in the room, making its presence known whether we talk about it or not.
The arc of the journey we take you on in Sexual Outsiders is not unlike the journey many therapists go through when working with a client presenting with a desire to better understand, or actualize, their BDSM sexuality. We begin with developing an understanding of what BDSM is, some common themes, an understanding of terminology, and a discussion of identity and roles as they play out in this sexual psychodrama. We meet the curious novice, examining some of the issues that arise when one discovers this aspect of their sexuality for the first time. We look at how common BDSM sexuality is, and delve into the communities and culture that have grown and developed around it.
We examine the process of coming out, and the role that it plays in personal, sexual, and identity development and look at some of the powerful stories from the perspectives of people going through this process. We discover some ways in which BDSM sexuality has been a healing or empowering component in an individual’s life and the role of Carl Jung’s concept of the Shadow and its critical role in the ownership and actualization of one’s sexual fantasies.
We journey into areas where things can and do go wrong, when BDSM is counterindicated based on an individual’s or relationship’s toxicity or pathology. We discern the differences between BDSM and abuse. We look at the delicate strength of power exchange and its erotic role in relationships, from the most casual to the most intensive.
Finally, we unpack two of the most significant themes running throughout BDSM sexuality, that of power and that of consent. We begin an in-depth conversation about how these concepts color and mold our erotic landscape.
Most importantly, in each section, we recount the narratives of people involved in BDSM and present their voices, conflicts, accomplishments, and discoveries throughout their erotic journeys. It is their stories that bring our discussions and inquiries to life. We are most indebted to them for opening doors that have been previously closed to our understanding.
1. Regarding the words community and communities, which the authors use throughout the book, we recognize that the word community, when applied to the world of BDSM, refers to an often overlapping series of communities.
2. Polyamory is a relationship paradigm incorporating more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. It is often referred to by its abbreviation: poly.
3. Glenn Wilson, “Personality, Sexual Behaviour and Marital Satisfaction,” in Hans Eysenck: Consensus and Controversy, ed. Sohan Modgil and Celia Modgil, 263–86 (London: Falmer Press, 1986).
4. K. L. Guadalupe and D. Lum, Multidimensional Contextual Practice: Diversity and Transcendence (Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2005).
5. Squick is the emotional gut reaction to stimuli that one finds repulsive or disgusting—a combination of squirm and ick. It is meant to point our attention to the visceral reaction, without implying a moral condemnation or judgment. The term comes from the BDSM community.
6. Outside of the United States, most mental health professionals use the ICD—the International Classification of Diseases manual, maintained by the World Health Organization. The DSM and the ICD both have fetishism and sadomasochism, in some form, on their lists of sexual disorders.
7. Though popularly quoted, there is no evidence that Sigmund Freud actually said this.
8. R. Eher, C. Grunehut, S. Fruehwald, P. Frottier, B. Hobl, and M. Aigner, “A Comparison between Exclusively Male Target and Female/Both Sexes Target Child Molesters on Psychometric Variables, Dsm-Iv Diagnoses and Mtc:Cm3 Typology,” in Sex Offender Treatment: Accomplishments, Challenges, and Future Directions, ed. M. Miner and E. Coleman, 89–102 (New York: Haworth Press, 2001).
9. W. L. Marshall, “Diagnostic Issues, Multiple Paraphilias, and Comorbid Disorders in Sexual Offenders: Their Incidence and Treatment,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 12 (2007): 16–35.
10. Susan Wright, Survey of Discrimination and Violence against Sexual Minorities, ed. National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, technical report (Baltimore, MD: National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, 2008).
11. E. H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968).