The Daily Tar Heel
URL: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/03/i_may_be_kinky_but_im_not_crazy
Current Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 03:51:28 -0400
I may be kinky, but I’m not crazy
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S&M (sadism and masochism) references abound in popular culture, from racy rom-coms to Rihanna music videos. But psychiatric medicine seems a little behind: “Sexual sadism” and “sexual masochism” are still diagnosable mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the current list of mental disorders and criteria published by the American Psychiatric Association.
So does being kinky really mean you’re crazy?
The term “BDSM” refers to a variety of bondage/discipline, dominant/submissive and sadomasochistic behaviors, which may include pain, pleasure or both. These practices are often referred to as “kinky,” since they differ from what most consider normal sexual behavior.
But kink is or is becoming more mainstream. As far back as 1953, Alfred Kinsey found that 12 percent of women and 22 percent of men felt an erotic response to S&M stories. Janus found 11 percent of women and 14 percent of men have engaged in some form of S&M.
Discomfort toward BDSM usually stems from disbelief that pain might be enjoyable, from uneasiness around consent or from concern about safety.
Some people can like pain or even feel pain as pleasurable. It’s like picking scabs or getting a deep tissue massage.
As for consent, most BDSM practitioners are meticulous, even painstaking, in negotiating terms of consent before any sexual play. For example, “safe words” are used to stop unwanted play.
BDSM practitioners are also careful about safety. Acronyms like SSC (safe, sane, consensual) or RACK (risk-aware consensual kink) are used as guides.
BDSM is part of the whole spectrum of sexual activity and interest, ranging from tickling and ear-nibbling to whips and chains. The goals are the same, pleasure and intimacy. This is bondage as a form of bonding.
Psychiatrists who have supported the pathologization of BDSM cite psychological distress, serious health risks or non-consent. But there is little data to support these claims, and distress and non-consent are not used rigorously as criteria.
In the research that is available, BDSM practitioners experience no more psychopathology than others, and a rare minority feel distress over their interests.
As for serious health risks, one could argue then that interest in any extreme sport could also be a mental disorder and education around safety is more crucial than pathologization. Nonconsensual activity should be considered criminal, but it is not necessarily caused by sadism but rather problems with control.
These diagnoses are harmful to the BDSM community, have stigmatizing medical and legal implications and prevent open conversations with health care providers about BDSM safety and health. Fortunately, it seems that the American Psychiatric Association is moving in the right direction for the new DSM-5 in 2013, by revising “sexual sadism” to “sexual sadism disorder,” same for “masochism,” subtly shifting emphasis onto related problems rather than the sadism or masochism itself.
Whether you’re getting fuzzy handcuffs or a new sex sling, you’re not crazy. You’re just kinky, and kinky is not a mental disorder.
Perry Tsai is a columnist for The Daily Tar Heel. He is a second-year medical student from New Orleans, LA. Contact him at perrytsai@gmail.com
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9 comments
Geez, how can anyone take this guy’s columns seriously when the issues he writes about are so minimally relevant to college life (as the majority of people experience it). I mean, I guess I’m supposed to be gad that the DTH is writing about sex every week, but really?
I guess my S&M kink is reading opinion articles in the Daily Tar Heel
In such an article, is it disappointing to see such blatant stylistic errors such as not capitalizing “Dominant”
@Joe Daddy, If we were only writing to the masses, to things that the majority experience, we would never see many of the articles in the DTH. Part of the purpose of a paper (and the higher education institution that publishes it) is to enlighten and inform, and just because you may not have interest in the BDSM community, doesn’t mean that there is not someone who is, but is afraid to express said interest because of the stigma around it.
Alan, you’re a fool – his capitalization is correct. Maybe you need to be punished.
The whole “spell dominant with a capital D” thing, along with other goofy BDSM capitalization conventions, started as an ONLINE thing. Nobody into BDSM did that before the Internet. It started in chat and spread to people’s web pages and somehow became de rigeur. I’ve always found it highly annoying. It’s not proper English, and certainly not appropriate for a news article.
info please is correct. The convention of capitalizing “dominant” and lowercasing “submissive” is an offshoot of a form of address that was originally used in correspondence from a submissive to his or her dominant, as a way to reinforce the power dynamic between the two individuals. At some point, some “chatroom dominant” decided it was proper usage, even between two people who had never met. Given that BDSM etiquette holds it both rude and nonconsensual to enact a power dynamic that has not been explicitly negotiated, using the capitalization in a piece of journalism would be incorrect… no matter which Lord Masterful Night Dragon taught Mr. Molton otherwise.
As for Joe Daddy’s remarks, did you overlook the percentages cited in this piece, or do you believe that BDSM fantasies and behaviors simply materialize out of nowhere in late adulthood?
Janet Hardy
Co-author, “The New Bottoming Book,” “The New Topping Book,” et al
You know, you guys are right, there are probably some individuals here at Carolina housing BDSM equipment in their dorm rooms whom I have been forgetting about. I’m sure they needed a column validating their kink to affirm their sense of self-worth. It’s really great to see when the DTH reaches out to such oppressed minorities who clearly deserve a way to voice their… wait, so what was the point again?
Thank you for a sane, rational article on this matter. It’s important that the medical field differentiates between good, clean (read: dirty) consensual kink and mental illness. Though the DSM-5’s designation shows an auspicious shift, it doesn’t quite go far enough, as the authors of the manual should take kink out entirely. Truly, the mind is the biggest erotic organ, and that being so shouldn’t make intelligent kink crazy.
Joe Daddy wrote: “You know, you guys are right, there are probably some individuals here at Carolina housing BDSM equipment in their dorm rooms whom I have been forgetting about.”
You may think you are cute, but the fact is there are a statistically a fair number of Carolina students who are interested or active in the BDSM scene.
Many universities have BDSM groups on campus. Off the top of my head I know of CUFFS at Iowa State University, RACK at the University of Chicago and Conversio Virium at Columbia University. At Carolina, awareness that they are not alone may bring them together. This article and others like it may be what they need to find each other.
This article is not glorifying kink activities. It’s not talking about some hot scene the author saw. The author is giving a clinical look at kink and practitioners of kink, explaining that while not in the norm, it in not abnormal and that those who are interested or who are actively including kink in their sex lives are not mentally ill.
This is important information for students who are exploring their individuality, sexuality and self identity—many for the first time. For this I applaud the author and hopes he has a successful career in medicine after graduation.
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