BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
28 march 2012
Power, pain and pleasure (BDSM Australia)
Source: www.greatlakesadvocate.com.au. - Great Lakes advocate - Australia
AUSTRALIA - Fetish is not for freaks. From the high powered to the housewives, it seems fetish can be fun for all walks of life and your "normal" neighbours might be getting up to a lot more mischief than you think.
In the 2011/12 Great Australian Sex Census of over 15,000 people, almost 13 per cent of women and 9 per cent of men admitted to thinking about a taboo sex act while masturbating and around 47 per cent of respondents admitted to having some sort of fetish.
Dominatrix doyenne, Miss Dee runs regular fetish and BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism) workshops in Sydney, teaching people techniques such as spanking, bondage, caning, cling-wrapping and fetish photography. She says the workshops draw a diverse mix of people.“I get people from their early 20s all the way through to late 60s, early 70s,” she says. “[With the older attendees] someone may have died or they’ve parted ways and [for the first time] they’re acknowledging something they’ve been sexually interested in for a long time ... they’re just as scared as those in their 20s who are coming along for the first time.”And it is, for many, unnerving territory.
While the past couple of decades has seen the rise of kink in the mainstream - think Helmut Newton's iconic images, catwoman (or batman?) and more recently, Rhianna's controversial song, "S&M" it remains a largely stigmatised subculture. La Trobe University's Sex in Australia survey found that less than 5 per cent of Australians regularly engage in BDSM practices. Other studies have highlighted the risks practitioners face if they disclose their interest. But, Dee says that, for the most part, the community is made up of ordinary people, who simply enjoy pushing the boundaries of their body in an environment that is safe and respectful.
“A lot of people think BDSM is just...about pain - either receiving or dispensing pain. And that in some way the people who indulge in that or need it are victims in other parts of their lives. That really isn’t necessarily true.”In fact, this Australian study found that people who engaged in BDSM were no more likely to have been coerced into sexual activity nor were they significantly more likely to be unhappy or anxious.A lot of people just find it fun, says Dee. “The concept [of BDSM] can be what we call a DS [dominant/submissive] relationship. Which is a person saying ‘I want you to do this’ and the other person going ‘yes, I’m happy to do that,’ and the other person getting a sexual charge from that.”She says this can be as simple as saying “I expect you, when I come through the door to hand me a glass of wine and be kneeling at my feet when I take my shoes off.“That’s a pretty vanilla kind of a thing to do but, to have it told to you and expected of you is the sexual charge,” she explains. “We call it a power exchange. One person gives up some power and [the other] assumes some power that the [first person has willingly] given up."It is this giving up of control that is appealing for many in the community, Dee says. "They are in control of everything in their lives. Sometimes they’re in very, very high-powered positions and they don’t want to make decisions when they come home. They don’t want to make decisions when they play.”
Photo: Lucas Konrad Messerer Rose*, is a stay-at-home mum, who identifies with being a submissive and enjoys a DS relationship with her husband. She says she likes being consensually dominated, a thrill she discovered by chance with a former partner."Out of the blue I asked ... the [man] I was with whether he’d ever played master and slave, without really understanding what I’d asked him," she says. "And so he role played with me and so I found myself like a fish in water."She began exploring the scene and her own boundaries."It almost became a mission to understand what being a masochist means and how to challenge my body to reach that next phase," she explains. "You could do it within BDSM or you could do it at the gym - it’s exactly those same endorphins that you get at the gym that you also get from a really good caning."She acknowledges that experiencing pleasure from having pain inflicted might be confronting, but says the thrill doesn't come from pain directly."It’s funny, it’s not from the pain [for me]," she says. "That’s purely about the chemicals and the endorphins that I get. I call them the happy chemicals that are the outcome of that physical pain.
"The sexual arousal I guess was from the exhibitionism, the environment that it was done in and the service that I was providing to the other person who wanted to inflict that pain on me. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and I think that’s what aroused me sexually." She also says dabbling in BDSM has created an outlet for expression that has subdued some of the less healthy aspects of her character."It’s benefitted me," she explains. "Through getting to learn about my submissive self....certain behaviours that I didn’t really like started disappearing: mainly attention seeking behaviour, placing myself in dangerous situations and victim behaviour."Now, I get the attention I need in an appropriate situation. For a certain amount of time I’m able to live that situation...as soon as there is expression of that in a safe and consensual way then I didn’t need to express it in an inappropriate way."
Safe and consensual are key words in the community. Unfortunately, not all people abide by them."I have had some negative experiences," says Rose. "Mainly because I didn’t know the rules of the game initially and I didn’t know how to protect myself...[and there are] some people use and abuse the power. Definitely."I met up with a guy who inflicted pain in a way that was not consensual and at the same time video-taped it. So, it was a gross defy of my consent and approval and my wishes."In spite of this, her attitude towards the community has not been tainted."Because one person did the wrong thing by me doesn’t mean the whole community is that way inclined," she says. "There are, in the BDSM community, many many rules of etiquette. It’s called safe, sane and consensual - there are safe words, there are a lot of safety procedures that you go through because we do edge play - we play with things that could be dangerous potentially."[And] there is a lot of respect [normally]. As I said, it’s a symbiotic relationship - if the submissive doesn’t give permission for the dominant to dominate them they won’t be able to dominate them."Teaching these rules underlies the workshops, Dee says. "I’m not an advocate that people should do [BDSM], but that as consenting adults they should be able to explore their sexuality in any particular way, as long as it doesn’t hurt people who are unconsenting ...[For those who want to explore it] they can expect to walk away with an awful lot of information, we show them how to do it safely, we talk about levels of safety...and we talk about why it’s fun."*Name has been changed to protect privacy.
See larger photo:
Greatlakesadvocate.com.au.
