The term BDSM became far more familiar to everyone following the phenomenal success of the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ fictional books and films which first exploded into the media back in 2011. To summarise the content, Christian Grey, a dark brooding sexually charismatic character introduces his love interest to the only form of sex that he is comfortable with, sadomasochism.

The story of Christian Grey promoted the belief that those who associate pain with sex are usually victims of childhood abuse who have developed psychological problems as adults.

In reality, research has shown that this is just not the case. There is no link to folks who engage in BDSM practices being victims of childhood abuse they are no more likely to have psychological problems in adulthood than anyone else.

BDSM stands for Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submissions, Sadism and Masochism.
In popular culture the acronym BDSM is the umbrella term often used to describe sexual play involving:

Bondage – restraining or being restrained.

Discipline – a dominant role (Dom) training the more submissive role (sub) which can involve physical and/or mental punishment

Sadism – Pleasure through inflicting pain or humiliation.

Masochism – pleasure through experiencing pain or humiliation.

The majority of the population might find it impossible to comprehend how anyone can ‘get off’ on giving or receiving pain. However, within the walls of my therapy room, when people share information about their BDSM experiences they talk about feeling loved, feeling held, feeling safe, and feeling cared for. They talk about exquisite pleasure and release.

Pain produces a dopamine release, similar to the one we receive during pleasure, so some find it exciting and cathartic. For some the focus on physical sensations takes them away from self-awareness and they find the escapism in the ability to ‘lose themselves’ in the moment. Others talk about the experiencing of pain enabling them to block out insecurities and anxieties that would usually inhibit their sexual pleasure.

It’s clear that there is a lot of respect in the BDSM community, and I often find myself comparing it to the experiences I hear about in the conventional normative sex lives of most of the people I see in my therapy room where experiences of consent, respect, love and communication, safety are not as common.

They say don’t knock something until you’ve tried it but if you have been thinking about exploring the world of BDSM, do your homework, educate yourselves, communication with your sexual partner is essential, a contract prior to your practice is the best idea mapping out what you both want and expect of each other including that all important safe word for STOP.