The acronym is easy enough to unravel. Bondage. Domination. Submission. Masochism. What the BDSM lifestyle is all about isn’t so easy to sum up in four simple words. BDSM is a doorway into activities that allow the participants to explore their fantasies of power and domination, or, conversely, to take on the role of a slave or submissive. There’s a wide range of subcultures and activities in BDSM and BDSM can extend no further than role playing or mild spanking during intercourse, or it can be a lifestyle, in which the domination and submission dynamic between the individuals involved becomes the defining, all-encompassing aspect of their relationship.
If you immediately think of spankings, punishment games, or humiliation when BDSM comes to mind, it’s an understandable response. BDSM comes replete with tons of regalia—masks, corsets, nipple clamps, whips, paddles, chains, and even some rather elaborate devices for genital torture. Having a paddle in your closet or wearing a studded collar with your Marilyn Manson t-shirt doesn’t indicate that you’re part of the BDSM whole. Serious dominants and submissives regard their BDSM activities and relationships as being far more weighty than a fashion statement. Toys are a part of these relationships to be sure, but fetishistic activities are an expression of a couple’s BDSM lifestyle, not the sum total of it. The innate desires to be owned and dominated or to exert absolute power over another human being require modes of expression, and BDSM gear provides this.
When you’re trying to grasp what BDSM means, it’s easy to dismiss the lifestyle as a sort of sexual sideshow. The leather, the masks, the whips and chains—all of that makes BDSM easy to shrug off or lampoon if you don’t try to understand what the participants get out of it. For some, it’s complete surrender. For others, it’s utter control. Both parties find a fulfillment in this that they can’t attain anywhere else. Ultimately, for the people engaged in the BDSM world, BDSM means finding their contentment and their own unique bliss in this world.
