The highly regarded, comprehensive introduction ot consensual SM - bondage, giving and receiving pain, role-playing, negotiation, finding partners and more. Revised, updated and expanded, including a new chapter on SM Organisations', sections on knifeplay, lifestyle relationships, SM pregnancy and more, and illustrations of key points.'
Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite chronicles the development of sadomasochistic sexuality and its communities in the United States from the post-war period to the present day. Having evolved from scattered networks of sadomasochists to a coherent body bound by shared principles of "safe, sane, consensual," activists worked to transform popular perceptions of their community, end its routine harassment by law enforcement and win inclusion in American society. Often paralleling the work of LGBTQ activists, people who engaged in BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism) transformed both their own sexual practices and how outsiders perceived them, successfully changing popular perceptions of them from fascists, murderers, and outlaws to people living an alternative lifestyle. The development of this community highlights the interactions of people of different sexual orientations within a sexual community, the influence of various campaigns for sexual freedom, and the BDSM community's influence on popular perceptions of sexuality and sexual freedom. The text’s historical perspective gives depth and texture to a specific dimension of American history of sexuality. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in the history of sexuality. Its clear and direct approach offers an important and useful chronology of a movement that has long been neglected.
This study draws on common sense, humor, anecdotes, interviews, history, clinical case studies, analyses of human behavior, and basic ideas from psychology and philosophy to ilustrate the real lives and experiences of men and women in BDSM communities.
"Pleasure, Power, and Pain: Understanding BDSM Practices, Identities, and Communities features cutting-edge empirical research by scholars working from a wide range of disciplinary approaches and in diverse national contexts, along with personal reflections from community educators, activists, and practitioners. Designed to be of interest to scholars working in sexuality studies and related fields, teachers of graduate courses focused on sexualities, identities, communities, inequalities, and a broader, non-specialist audience interested in sexualities, society, and identity, Pleasure, Power, and Pain engages persistent questions about the relationships among sexualities, identities, and communities: What role do communities play in shaping BDSM identities? How are BDSM communities similar to and different from other kinds of sexuality and identity-based communities? What are the ethics involved in researching marginalized and stigmatized communities? How do cultural representations shape lived experiences? What are the relationships between structural and personal power?"--
In this lively ethnography, Weiss studies the pansexual BDSM community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Weiss finds that BDSM practice is not as transgressive as the participants imagine, nor is it simply reinforcing of older forms of social domination. Instead she shows how fantasy play depends on pre-existing social hierarchies, even as it also participates in a commodification of desires.
Featuring over seventy affirming interventions in the form of homework assignments, handouts, and activities, this comprehensive volume helps novice and experienced counselors support LGBTQ+ community members and their allies. Each chapter includes an objective, indications and contraindications, a case study, suggestions for follow-up, professional resources, and references. The book’s social justice perspective encourages counselors to hone their skills in creating change in their communities while helping their clients learn effective coping strategies in the face of stress, bullying, microaggressions, and other life challenges. The volume also contains a large section on training groups of allies and promoting greater cohesion within LGBTQ+ communities. Counseling and mental health services for LGBTQ+ clients require between-session activities that are clinically focused, evidence-based, and specifically designed for one or more LGBTQ+ sub-populations. This handbook gathers together the best of such LGBTQ+ clinically focused material. As such, the book appeals both to students learning affirmative LGBTQ+ psychotherapy/counseling and to experienced practitioners. The Handbook features homework assignments, handouts, and activities that: -Emphasize working with clients from different backgrounds. -Stress the importance of ethical guidelines and culturally competent care. -Demonstrate how to engage clients in conversations about coming out across the lifespan. -Help clients manage oppression and build resilience through self-care, advocacy, and validation. -Identify the facets of relationships that are unique to LGBTQ+ individuals. -Offer interventions to enhance familial support and work through family dynamics. -Assist clients to more deeply appreciate their genders and sexual identities. -Aid therapists in their work with clients who have substance use and abuse issues. -Address concerns about career choices, employment options, and college pursuits. -Create safety in a range of social and clinical spaces, including college campuses. Offering practical tools used by clinicians worldwide, the volume is particularly useful for courses in clinical and community counseling, social work, and psychology. Those new to working with LGBTQ+ clients will appreciate the book’s accessible foundation to guide interventions.
Kink-Affirming Practice is an essential guide on how clinicians can ethically and effectively integrate elements of their client’s BSDM identities and practices into their treatment planning, creative interventions, and client self-care. Embracing both an anthropological understanding of this diverse yet still marginalized community, as well as a sex-positive approach to mental health, Stefani Goerlich recognizes the ways in which specific power exchange dynamics can evoke positive behavioral changes in clients, and guides the reader in how to integrate these concepts into their clinical work. Chapters discuss the foundations of BDSM, what is meant by kink-affirming practice, the purpose of claiming power and ceding control, integrating and reclaiming identities, dominant/submissive personas, and the benefits of caregiving kink, such as pet play. It practically discusses how to conduct a kink-affirming risk assessment, as well as exploring topics like ethical and health boundary setting, how to gain informed consent, and the unique issues that arise when clinicians catch themselves romancing the kink. This book is invaluable reading for professionals working with clients who engage in BDSM activities, such as marriage and family therapists, sex therapists, clinical social workers, and counselors. It may also be useful reading for students on both undergraduate and graduate level human sexuality and sexuality courses.
Winner of the MLA's 2016 Alan Bray Prize for Best Book in GLBTQ Studies How BDSM can be used as a metaphor for black female sexuality. The Color of Kink explores black women's representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) from the 1930s to the present, revealing the ways in which they illustrate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power for black women. Based on personal interviews conducted with pornography performers, producers, and professional dominatrices, visual and textual analysis, and extensive archival research, Ariane Cruz reveals BDSM and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. She explores how violence becomes not just a vehicle of pleasure but also a mode of accessing and contesting power. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, critical race theory, and media studies, Cruz argues that BDSM is a productive space from which to consider the complexity and diverseness of black women's sexual practice and the mutability of black female sexuality. Illuminating the cross-pollination of black sexuality and BDSM, The Color of Kink makes a unique contribution to the growing scholarship on racialized sexuality.
This edited collection focuses on varying communication perspectives in the Fifty Shades of Grey series. In particular, the chapters focus on kinky people’s perceptions of the series; consent, ownership, feminist desire in 24/7 BDSM; erotic romance writing in the post Fifty Shades of Grey landscape; sexual education; news coverage of the series; the rhetoric used in the series; and depictions of consent. The contributors address how a series as dominant in popular culture as Fifty Shades of Grey can affect people involved in a community, those on the outside, and those waiting for an opportunity to explore. Scholars of popular culture, communication, media studies, literary studies, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.
Technology is rapidly advancing, and each innovation provides opportunities for such technology to mesh with the human enactment of physical intimacy or to be used in the quest for information about sexuality. However, the availability of this technology has complicated sexual decision making for young adults as they continually navigate their sexual identity, orientation, behavior, and community. Young Adult Sexuality in the Digital Age is a pivotal reference source that improves the understanding of the combination of technology and sexual decision making for young adults, examining the role of technology in sexual identity formation, sexual communication, relationship formation and dissolution, and sexual learning and online sexual communities and activism. While highlighting topics such as privacy management, cyber intimacy, and digital communications, this book is ideally designed for therapists, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, counselors, healthcare professionals, scholars, researchers, and students.