Reflective Journal #2
Topic: BDSM

1. What did you learn today?
I recalled the first time I encounter the term ‘SM’ is when I accidentally got a wax burn on skin in Mid-Autumn Festival. My friends joked about it and said it was a kind of ‘SM’. Public knowledge on BDSM is only confined to Sadism where practitioners inflict pain on others in order to get sexual pleasure. After this session, however, I realized there are a broad variety of practices under BDSM such as bondage and role-playing with one being dominant and another being submissive. Those are activities that are not necessarily involving physical pain. BDSM is an umbrella term for many practices other than just sadism. They are all regarded as ‘kinky’ sexual behavior but they all have one thing in common - the utter emphasis on safety. The guiding principle in BDSM community includes safe, sane and consensual. Majority of people associate BDSM with violence, dangerous and self-destructive activity. On the contrary, they place a lot of importance on safety issues. Thorough communication about the medical condition, limits and preference need to be conducted before engaging in the activity. Safe words have also be developed in the community – for example, green to mean ‘Okay’ or even ‘More’, yellow to mean ‘Slow down’ and red to mean ‘Stop the scene immediately’. As BDSM is somewhat very private in bed, whether normal or kinky, it can however lead to legal consequences even though it is performed in consensual manner. In September, 2010, the Swedish court ruled that a 32-yer-old man was guilty of undertaking BDSM with a 16-year-old woman despite the age of consent in Sweden is 15.( The Local, 2010) BDSM is also becoming more mainstream and prevalent nowadays. People are generally more open-minded and receptive to BDSM than in the past. With the newly published book ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and music video featuring BDSM (‘S&M’ by Rihanna), BDSM is no longer a complete stranger to many.

2. Anything surprised or shocked you?
Like LGBT, BDSM also has an underground community in which they can share their experiences, views and get support from other members. However, they are less public and playing low profile than LGBT community so many people will not the existence of such community. Norms and values regarding the subculture is also communicated with all members to reduce the potential danger. (Kamel 1980, Lee1979) The BDSM community also provides public dungeon where instruments are provided and members are supervised when engaging in the activity so as to ensure safety. Both Kamel (1980) and Lee (1979) point out that risk is reduced through agreement on norms and values within the subculture. a public dungeon in New York

Also, I previously reckoned that BDSM is only popular in western countries as most of the media that portrayed the issue is from other countries other than Asia. However, the guest speakers from FetLife actually stated that there are a lot of Hong Kong people joining the community and share the same interests with them. Asian people are deemed to be far more conservative and seldom share their intimacy things with others. Ashamed to say, I would find it very selfish for people to act on BDSM and inflict pain on or humiliate others in order to obtain sexual pleasure in the past. I also thought that it is a deed of self-destruction for people being submissive. It can be very dangerous when the dominant one disregards the safety and feelings of another in order to satisfy his own sexual desire. Yet, I have learned that this case is very rare in BDSM community, as they will communicate thoroughly before the activity. They will show respect to their partners and avoid testing their limits and performing acts that they cannot sustain. Indeed, before obtaining consent to take part in the scene, SMers will already know the background and reputation of their partners. It is attributed to the small size of this community that reputation can be easily dented and circulated around all members if you violated their principle – safety, sane and consent. Those with bad reputation will hardly find potential partners in the future. This serves as a kind of ‘social control’ to safeguard the interests of all members in enjoying the activity without sacrificing their safety. (Brodsky, 1993;Kamel, 1980; Lee1979)

3. What view do you have of the BDSM practices you have learned about?
Bondage is to tie and restrain using rope, metal such as handcuffs or leather. The one who tie his or her partner can acquire visual pleasure and feeling the dominance by doing so. While for the one being tied up, he or she will get sexually aroused by feeling helpless and submissive. Tying someone up can be very dangerous if the materials used in binding are not soft. Also, practitioners should not be restrained for more than one hour as blood circulation problem may arise. Certain areas need to be avoided such as neck that will impair breathing. In view of its potential dangers, I think this practice requires a high degree of communication and people should be completely sober during the bondage. Dominance and submission is a wider concept, involving any activities that underlying a dominance/submissive relationship between the participants. Although sometimes these activities do not involve physical sufferings, communication between the participants beforehand is still very important. It is because, in my view, the relationship is a means to pursuit mutual pleasure instead of a chance for any one of the parties to exploit another. Therefore, both participants have to be clear to each other’s preference and acceptance to the activities involved, so as not to mentally traumatize any parties. As for Masochism and Sadism, which is to obtain pleasure by suffering pain and inflicting pain respectively, I think it is an acceptable means to pursuit physical pleasure, only when slight pain is involved. Although some people may get great pleasure from suffering or causing serious pain and physical damage, these activities may cause permanent trauma and should not be encouraged and endorsed. I appreciate the efforts the community has made to ensure the safety of members. Development of safe words and guidelines is of utmost importance in this practice. I think individuals taking parts in BDSM should develop a safe word system with their partners beforehand to insure the things they do during BDSM are not beyond each other’s acceptance.

4. In your view, are they sexual diversity or sexual disorder?
Kinky sexual preference is still generally regarded as a mental illness in many societies as they relate BDSM with pain and thus only people with self-destructive character will resort to such act.

Nevertheless, the members in the community are mostly normal without any psychological problems. There are members who are successful and professional in real life such as teachers, accountants and journalists in FetLife. Indeed, a recent research pointed out that people who take part in bondage are generally more mentally healthy than those who do not. They share characteristics like being more extroverted and considerate of others’ feelings. It may be due to the fact that BDSM can somehow release pressure accumulated in real life and channel their negative emotions through BDSM. With communication strongly stressed in the practice, they also learn the importance of taking other’s feelings into account. An article published in Journal of Sexual Medicine (Wismeijer & van Assen, 2013) indicated that past researches are problematic to conclude there is a link between BDSM and psychological problems, omitting other environmental factors that contributed to the psychopathy. While the BDSM is completely harmless to society and consensual, identifying BDSM practitioners as psychopath is not justified. It is just a sexual preference or lifestyle perused by people. Only forms of non-consensual sex should be consider as an abuse of power and therefore abnormality.

Topic: Pornography

5. Should pornography be better controlled than it is?
At this moment, publishing obscene materials is against the law unless the publishers have applied for exemption with the government while all child pornographic materials are banned. Therefore, basically, anyone ages 18 or above can legally gain access to print and non-print adult pornography. I think the current control is appropriate enough. Some believe the restricted age should be lowered, from 18 to around 16 because teenagers have sexual urges well before 18 and pornography may help provide sexual outlets, lowering chances of sexual offense or unsafe sex. However, teenagers under the legal age may not be aware of the practical function of pornography but project these fictional scenes to their real life and cause inappropriate behaviors instead. Therefore, the current legal age restriction is sufficient and reasonable enough to cater the issue. On the other hand, some propose to tighten the control, with some extreme proposition suggesting to ban all Internet pornography like the case in the UK.

This is not recommended because, first, as mentioned, pornography is a sexual release tools for people to healthily release their sexual tension; second, the pornographic industry employs thousands of people and banning the whole industry will certainly pose undesirable economic effects. Therefore, the current control on pornography in Hong Kong is efficient enough.

6. Are there people who need to be protected from pornography? If so, who, and why?
Children should be protected from pornography. It is because children are yet have full world knowledge and may be misled to objectify women as sex objects, which will cause an unhealthy concept about sex, interpersonal relationships and marriage etc. Moreover, children do not have sexual urges yet and hence do not need pornography as sexual energy releasing channel. If teenagers are exposed to pornography and start to have masturbatory behaviors too early, their physical development is likely to be hindered. Other than children, there should not be any groups which need particular protection from pornography as they are all above the legal age and should be responsible for their choices. However, some people do need protection in the industry. Some pornographic actresses are forced to work in the industry unwillingly due to various reasons, debts, drug problems, triad activities etc. There should be regulatory body to oversee the conduct in the industry to make sure no illegal arrangements are made in order to produce these pornographic materials. Also, some actresses may be unaware of the content of the production and accidentally sign up to traumatizing pornographic activities. There were cases that some violent pornographic production has caused permanent corporal damage to the actresses and criminal cases were filed. There should also be regulations and enforcement to prevent these kinds of production from taking place.

References:
Brodsky, J.I. (1993) The Mineshaft: A Retrospective Ethnography, Journal of Homosexuality 24(3/4), 233-252.

Kamel, G. W. L. (1980). Leathersex: Meaningful aspects of gay sadomasochism. Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1, 171-191. Lee, J. A. (1979). The social organization of sexual risk. Alternative Lifestyles 2, 69-100. The Local. (2010, Sep 14). Swedish court hears landmark S&M case. Retrieved from http://www.thelocal.se/20100914/28980 Wismeijer, A. A.J. and van Assen, M. A.L.M. (2013), Psychological Characteristics of BDSM Practitioners. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 10: 1943 – 1952.