Bdsm Research: Clarifying Emergent Themes

As themes emerged, I returned to modify both questionnaires and data bases which contained ambiguities. For example, from a sample of 34 respondents, 20 initially replied that they resisted their BDSM urges and 14 replied that they did not. However, on pursuing this topic it emerged that my question was inadequately phrased and that most respondents would have answered both “yes” and “no”. Yes, they initially repressed their desires and no, they did so no longer. Many older practitioners had initially resisted, often for decades, because of fear of social consequences, including the response of  employers, wives and children, not to mention the medical profession, law and political climate, but as it had become a more visible and acceptable option with the emergence of the internet and mainstreaming of BDSM topics in media, film, television and advertising, they had ceased to feel the need to repress what had become more visible and acceptable sexual options.

In personal follow-up interviews, many of these men explained in detail.  Submissives usually use different names when they are “in role”. They helped me to choose names to use to preserve their anonymity for the purpose of this report.

One respondent (whom I shall call “hattie” because of his love of Ascot-style lady’s headwear) remarked,

“I don’t think people come to BDSM late in life – it is always there, or it isn’t, but it used to look as if there were mainly people over 40, and I think that was because they said “Sod it, I’ve played safe all my life and now I am going to do what I want”. There isn’t so much stigma these days,  which is why you see a wider spread of people of all ages.” 

In his comments, “wifeconv” (so called because his wife abets him in flaunting convention) shows his perceived status with a lower case “i”: “i am a committed slave , i feel that’s my status in life , i fought it for many, many years and wish to hell i had not done so now”.

The ambiguity of this form of analysis became apparent upon further discussion of responses to the question on discretion. Although no-one chose the option “fear of prejudice”, all agreed they were concerned about social prejudice and 33 of the 34 were very discrete in the vanilla[1] world.

Nine interviewees said they were happy to talk to non-judgemental investigators and most talked to other BDSM practitioners, even if, as noted by “hoagie” (a jazz fan)below, opening up was a difficult process.

“I had not met many people – had a great friend – his wife was submissive – It took him a long time to own up and talk about it.  I met her since he died and I was embarrassed because I knew what he got up to with her. I hope she didn’t know I knew. She was very nice and we became friends.”

[1] Normative, sexually conventional practices and practitioners are referred to in the Scene as “vanilla” (Brame, 1993, Wiseman, 1998).