Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy (10 page)

In recent years, work on identity has proliferated, but scholars have objected to its overuse, vagueness, and general weakness as an analytical category.
5
These are astute and important criticisms, and throughout this work I have endeav- ored to be diligent about the use of the term, opting for clearer and more pre- cise concepts such as “identification” and “self-perception” where appropriate.

However, “identity” is useful even as it is nebulous. There is no alternative to capture the sense of self that is, at once, constructed through interaction, influenced by the responses of others, presented to the social world, and invent- ed, evaluated, maintained, and reinvented “from within.” Whatever it includes or does not, identity scholars use it to suggest that the social-psychological implication of “identity” is greater than the sum of its parts. I find “identity” valuable in conveying the importance of
relationships between
particular self- understandings, identifications, experiences, and community memberships for individuals, and the centrality of these relationships in their lives.

Narratives about discovering Caeden are constructed not around a particu- lar identification, but around looking for a sense of belonging. Some people in the community maintain that their SM interest developed
after
finding the community, though this is almost always accompanied by the assumption that they are unusual in this regard. Further, even when community members dis- cuss having known about their SM interest or having sought out the scene because of it, SM interest is often conceptualized broadly, as if it mattered little whether the interest was in topping or bottoming specifically.

Many people in Caeden believe that SM proclivities are innate. Borrowing from the rhetoric of gay and lesbian activism, SM is an orientation, and for most members of the community, concerns over “sexual freedom” are central to participation in SM. Jack, for example, views his SM identity as an essential component of himself. It matters less whether people believe that their SM inter- est is inborn (which may be the most pervasive perspective) or comes out of life experience than that they commonly view it as inextricable from the self:

The interest for me was literally the first thing that I can remember about most of the world. It’s why I say it’s so deeply ingrained in who I am, it’s more today than a sexual orientation, than a gender identity—it’s SM. It’s really where I identify with; it’s that strong. And no one really quite gets

just the power of that until they actually have this conversation with me; ’cause it’s like okay, he’s just really into SM. NO. That was like my first few experiences with the world. That’s how strong it is.

Frank’s perspective on his SM identity is also essentialist, and, having always been aware of his alternative sexual interests, he views the Caeden scene as emancipating:

Look at all those years I was depressed and low self-esteem, because I thought I was bad because of it. Once I found it was a positive thing, I lost thirty-five pounds. I all of the sudden had a self-awareness, I all of a sudden had a self-identity, I had pride for who I was. I’m proud of this. It is my social universe. Sexually it excites me. Psychologically it balances me. Spiritually it completes me. It’s in my genetics.

The idea of SM identity as both essential and meaningful is pervasive in the community. In one major SM organization, meeting attendees take turns introducing themselves, and almost without exception, use a social script: “My name is Jane, I’ve been a member for two years, and I’m a submissive.”

Further, although it is common for people to top when they had previously only bottomed or vice versa, the typical response highlights essentialist views of identity: “I knew you were really a switch!” References to fixed SM identi- ties waiting to be discovered are also typical, such as “a submissive and doesn’t know it yet,” or a “top who can’t admit it.”

Despite these essentialist beliefs, SM identities are also understood as chang- ing over time. The ubiquitous metaphor for SM as “the journey” not only involves the transgression of boundaries and introspection, but also implies that the destination is less important. Stories about identity in the scene very often include change, and identification shifts are both recognized and encour- aged, even as members adhere to essentialist ideas about identities. The essen- tialism shifts from particular SM identifications to more profound identities as SM and not-SM (kinky versus vanilla) and allows for flexibility in the par- ticular SM roles. This fluidity of identity is not an implicit contradiction in the analytical construct of identity (Brubaker and Cooper 2000), but an indicator of the importance of possibilities for meaningful change in selfhood through- out the life course.

The persistence of an essentialist understanding of SM in the face of this vari- ability evidences SM identity as immutably central to self, and underscores the importance of the community in the lives of its members. Further, the essentialist

perspective thrives alongside the contradictory belief in SM as yet another explo- ration undertaken by people whose tendency it is to explore. In a radical depar- ture from the clinical model, it is not the belief in a particular kink itself that is essentialized, but the propensity
for
kink—the interest in SM as a nonconformist activity. The narrative is not built around wanting to take a particular action, as in “I just need to be tied up,” but around being a part of this community, and being different from those outside, thereby reinforcing their sense of membership in Caeden and, simultaneously, the importance of that sense.

The Romanticism of Marginal Identity

The overlap between the SM community and science-fiction fandom is nota- ble in its own right, but it is especially striking against the backdrop of these essentialized perspectives of SM interest. Not being especially familiar with science-fiction film or literature, I was continually surprised at the unques- tioning acceptance of this relationship. Despite its absence from the discourse, when asked about the overlap between the two communities, people in Caeden offer surprisingly similar explanations, as easily as if they were intuitive. While models of alternative sexuality are common in science-fiction literature, so, of course, are alternative worlds. Science-fiction fans in Caeden do not usually trace the relationship between SM and science fiction to the alternative sex in sci-fi, but to its imagination. The most widely held of these views was articu- lated especially well by Seth:

I think unusual ways of thinking attract the science-fiction and fantasy crowd. So that’s what they read, that’s what they enact. . . . I don’t think that that’s a very far jump at all to being more open about sexual desire. I think people who are attracted to freedom, to the freedom to be themselves, are attracted to the freedom to be themselves in a variety of different aspects of their life. And science-fiction and fantasy people really consider them- selves outsiders to begin with. Doesn’t matter whether it’s an outsider in terms of politics or outsider in terms of sexuality or wanting to go to the stars. All being outside the norm, you don’t . . . I mean, really . . . the term “geek” has been really reclaimed. But it still implies outsider. There are an awful lot of geeks in the BDSM scene. But I think the turning point . . . when geeks become masters is when they realize that it’s okay to be out- side. Being outside is cool. One can be geeky and cool. And outside. And powerful. All in the same package. And that’s extraordinary.

From this perspective, interests in alternative literature and film, par- ticularly sci-fi and fantasy, not only precede but also set the stage for other alternative interests, including SM. Outsiderness cultivates open-mindedness, which in turn reinforces outsiderness. Nearly everyone I asked in the commu- nity shared a similar perspective (and I asked almost everyone I knew). Some accounts included the potential for science fiction to create open-mindedness. Greg found in science fiction a means to an end, a mechanism for achieving the level of imagination and tolerance he feels is found in the SM scene:

I think [science-fiction literature] helps open your mind. I think it helps prepare you for anything. Like, there’s a novel on that shelf about a wom- an who crash-lands on a planet which is populated by small . . . creatures, and to be able to survive on the planet, she’s turned into one. You have to be open-minded to read sci-fi. The same way you have to be open-minded in the dungeon. You see somebody doing something extreme, that you would neevvvver do. And your first reaction might be repulsion, your second reaction should be observation, and your third reaction will prob- ably be acceptance. But if you can get to observation and then acceptance quicker, then you’re saving yourself a lot of self-battling, you’re saving yourself beating yourself up. And it’s easier to accept than reject; rejection takes more work, and is ultimately less helpful.

Greg’s perspective posits science fiction as a virtual training ground for the tol- erance necessitated by SM participation. Yet the pragmatism of this perspective is not inconsistent with the romanticism of Seth’s. In both views the apprecia- tion of and attraction to science fiction and SM are fundamentally the same. They cultivate and
require
imaginativeness, creativity, and social acceptance.

Kyle made the argument even more broadly:

The people that are willing and courageous and able enough, and have the willpower and the strength to question themselves, and to question the way they were raised, and the way that they’re living—the people that have the courage to admit maybe we’re wrong about this and maybe we need to look elsewhere and get new information, new ideas, and maybe try some- thing new—those people have an affinity for one another. Whether they did that kind of questioning through sci-fi, through religion or spirituality, whether they did it through SM and alternative sexuality, whether they did it through really anything—it—once a person questions their basic tenets of existence, and questions them successfully, and says you know what,

maybe—by successfully I mean they actually do admit to themselves may- be they’re wrong. They have one chance in hell to rebel against themselves. And if they can do that, and by doing so they can find a way of life that makes them happier, um . . . then they’re forever open-minded. And open- minded people have a great affinity for one another, because they don’t shut down when they’re talking to one another about their way of life.

For Kyle, it might as well have just
happened
to be SM. Interestingly, he does not ask why people come to SM, but instead frames human behavior in terms of surrendering (or not) to social inhibitions. SM interest, in this view, is not at all rare, but pursuing it is; therefore, the scene consists of people who have the courage and, presumably, the impetus, to seek it out. From this perspective, people engage in SM, or science-fiction reading, or pagan religions, or vampir- ism, or a host of alternative activities, because they were open-minded enough to try new things. That some of them “stick” and some of them do not, for Kyle, amounts to little more than chance.

Many members of this community believe that their own interest in SM is inborn. Kyle’s implication that an affinity for experimentation perhaps super- sedes the affinity for SM threatens the essentialist beliefs that permeate the community, and most certainly threatens the romanticism of the good/evil binary that provides the backdrop for much SM play.

Regardless of whether SM exists as one of a multitude of new “flavors” of life one might (or might not) be inclined to try, or as a preexisting procliv- ity for the activities themselves, Kyle’s observation is consistent with the life stories of my respondents. Because outsiders find each other in the SM scene, immediately and easily, they cease to be outsiders just as quickly. If overlap between interests in alternative lifestyles exists because of dialectically expand- ing horizons among people prone to experimentation, this cements the bonds between community members; SM, therefore, is not the only interest they have in common. SM becomes, for them, the symbol of home—they are familiar, safe, understood, and accepted unconditionally.

This view of SM—and of social life—makes sense in the context of identi- ties of marginality and lived defiance. Marginal status, on multiple levels and in multiple ways, takes precedence over any particular source of outsiderness. This status either leads to or is framed as the explanation for marginal interest and pursuits, rendering a nonconformist life—the romanticized, open-minded, creative rejection of social imperatives—the overarching explanation for the connection among community members.

The open-mindedness that is taken for granted among community members is clearest when outsiders venture into the community for the first time. While some newcomers integrate fairly seamlessly, others, particularly those who do not appear to necessarily live lives on the margins of social acceptance, find that the scene is not what they envisioned. During a major multi-day event, I was wandering through the dungeon, stopping occasionally to chat with people, when I was approached by a clean-cut, good-looking man in his mid-twenties. Appearing frantic and highly agitated, he asked me to point out “Miss Danielle” to him. “Miss Danielle,” who was known as Danielle in the scene, was ten feet away from us. I explained that I was unwilling to identify her because I did not know who he was, but I said that I would be happy to give her a message when I saw her. He grew increasingly agitated, his voice raising in pitch and his eyes darting around the room. He did not seem angry, only profoundly uncomfort- able and slightly fearful. I told him that he seemed highly agitated and asked what the trouble was.

He finally looked me in the eyes. Though a bit reticent at first, he agreed to accompany me to a quiet corner with a table, where we sat down together and he told me his story. Danielle, whom he had met through a personal ad, had told him about the event, and he had come to meet her. It was his first time at an SM event. Having paid a good deal of money to attend this event, he (Scott) was shocked by the sight of so many conventionally unattractive attendees, and he was afraid to meet “Miss Danielle” without knowing what she looked like.