Fifty Shades of Deviant: Normal Relationships in the BDSM Subculture

• In Event: 600 - Section on Crime, Law and Deviance Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Deviant and Delinquent Identities II

Abstract

Members of the BDSM (Bondage & Discipline/Dominance and submission/Sadism & Masochism) subculture often complain that they do not know how to discuss their relationships with people outside of the subculture. Thanks to the success of James’ novel 50 Shades of Grey, BDSM relationships have become recently glamorized and othered in the popular imagination. Although previous research has explained the roles that people tend to play in the BDSM subculture, and the overlap between polyamorous (a form of ethical non-monogamy) and BDSM subcultures, it has not described the complex way these roles play out in relationships. Based on my extensive observations as a long-time member of the BDSM subculture, in addition to 70 in-depth interviews conducted in 2012, I seek to explore how deviant relationships fostered within the BDSM subculture really are. I argue that understanding deviant relationships in American culture has become increasingly difficult as romantic relationship formation seems to have become anomic. However, accepting the premise that there is some generally agreed upon expectations from romantic relationships, I argue that relationships in the BDSM subculture are most deviant in terms of their open non-monogamy (polyamory), as well as their relationship to mainstream sexual values. I explain the ways in which the BDSM subculture functions as a hook-up culture, while still promoting some relationships that are entirely non-sexual. I argue that BDSM relationships are least deviant in their construction of the goals of intimacy, romantic love, and marriage/cohabitation; I also point out that they tend to support heteronormative power relations.

Author

• Julie Lynn Fennell, Gallaudet University