Ace of (BDSM) Clubs: Building Asexual Relationships Through BDSM Practice

Article

Sexualities 2015, Vol. 18(5/6) 548–563 Ace of (BDSM) clubs: ! The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: Building asexual sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1363460714550907 relationships through sex.sagepub.com BDSM practice

Lorca Jolene Sloan Adler School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, USA

Abstract Since the, 1990s, asexuality has gained prominence as an identity adopted by individuals who do not experience sexual attraction. Paradoxically, many asexual individuals form relationships through Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) – acts conventionally assumed to involve sexual desire and pleasure. I interviewed 15 asexual individuals to illuminate why they participate in interactions where sexual attraction is often expected and expressed. I propose that BDSM helps these practitioners form non-sexual relationships by providing tools for navigating sexual expectations and redefining their behaviors as indicative of affections that do not stem from sexual desire.

Keywords Asexuality, BDSM, identity, sex, sexuality

I follow Jessie’s jeweled heels up two flights of stairs, past a smoking couple whose upturned lapels frame matching leather collars, and enter Chicago’s foremost BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism) club. For the next hour, Jessie strikes her partner’s shoulders until his flesh blossoms red and purple. Ginny draws pink constellations across her companion’s skin with a pocketknife and Michael sends current through electrodes affixed to his and his partner’s skin until they pulse together like twin hearts. Jessie, Ginny, and Michael perform acts that are common sights in the club, but they are not typical BDSM practitioners. Broadly speaking, BDSM describes consensual interactions in which two or more adults cultivate a power imbalance through physical restraint, emotional vulnerability, role-playing, pain, or other intense

Corresponding author: Lorca Jolene Sloan, 6112 North Winthrop Avenue Chicago IL 60660, USA. Email: [email protected]

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sensations. While a single archetype cannot represent the heterogeneity of BDSM practices and motivations, most literature posits that BDSM practitioners gain sexual satisfaction from their behavior. However, individuals like Jessie, Ginny, and Michael maintain that they do not participate in BDSM for erotic pleasure or sexual companionship. In fact, they declare that they do not experience sexual attraction towards people of any gender. In their own terminology, they are asexual – or ‘‘ace’’ for short. The prospect that asexual individuals form intimate partnerships through BDSM contradicts the dominant interpretation of scholars and activists that BDSM practitioners derive sexual arousal and pleasure from exchanges of pain and control. How can asexual individuals form relationships through the practices of a subculture traditionally associated with sexual expression? How do they manage the possibility that their behavior might be interpreted as a wish to be sexually aroused or take pleasure from anticipating, fantasizing, or having sex? How do they negotiate the sexual desires and expectations of non-asexual partners?

Contemporary consideration of asexual identities Most individuals come to identify as asexual through acknowledging and commu- nicating that they do not experience sexual attraction towards individuals of any gender (Bogaert, 2004; Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). To elaborate, they never feel a visceral desire to engage in intercourse or any other act with another person in order to experience arousal and/or orgasm. They never feel drawn to another individual or motivated to initiate a relationship based upon the desire for sexual intimacy or satisfaction (Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Asexual individuals’ responses to the prospect of sex range from revulsion to indifference, and it follows from this variability that asexual individuals do not necessarily abstain from sex (Bogaert, 2004; Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Some even enjoy arousal and orgasms, but attest that only objects, situations, or masturbation elicit these feelings (Carrigan, 2011). Their arousal is not caused by nor directed at an individual. Indeed, three of my informants explain that people are absent, peripheral, or ‘‘faceless’’ in their fantasies. A definition of asexuality that centers on not experiencing sexual attraction subsumes a variety of identities. But a recurring theme in many individuals’ narratives is a struggle to navigate the implications of lack of interest, aversion, or anxiety concerning sexual relationships within a society that expects and privileges sexual desire as a form of intimacy and self-expression (Cerankowski and Milks, 2010; Przybylo, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Many asexual individuals experience attraction to – sometimes even romantic infatuation with – people they find comforting, inspiring, beautiful, or talented (Carrigan, 2011). But for most, their indifference or aversion to the prospect of sex alienates them within political, medical, religious, and media discourses that expect sexual desire to be a ubiquitous part of adulthood, if not a vital component of personhood and intimacy (Cerankowski and Milks, 2010; Przybylo, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Adopting an asexual identity helps

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these individuals assert that their relationships are not impeded by or compensating for a lack of sexual desire, but rather stem from viable forms of non-sexual attraction. Many authors have examined asexuality as a response to social pressures to highly value sexual desire and companionship, or at the very least to experience sexual attraction as a profound aspect of adulthood (Cerankowski and Milks, 2010; Przybylo, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). However, little work explores how asexual individuals form relationships through navigating partners’ expectations for sexual attraction, investments in sex, and potentially ambiguous ideas about what behaviors constitute foreplay or sex. Some authors propose that viable asexual relationships require strict demarcations between ‘sexual’ and ‘non-sexual’ sensations and acts (Brotto and Yule, 2011; Haefner, 2011; Prause and Graham, 2007; Scherrer, 2008). But how can asexual individuals construct a sustainable framework for distinguishing sexual from non-sexual behaviors, given that they may define and value sex differently than their partner or mainstream society? I argue that BDSM provides asexual individuals with uniquely effective tools for setting unconven- tional boundaries and reformulating dominant scripts about how sexual desire should manifest and be valued, in effect creating spaces where they can express affections that do not implicate sexual attraction. These tools enable asexual practitioners to create relationships that they experience as non-sexual through behaviors conventionally associated with sexual desire, or even by having sex. It is not my aim to determine why my informants demonstrate non-normative responses to sex and sexual relationships. A variety of factors may inform their disregard or discomfort with sex – two individuals have experienced sexual abuse, and three transgender informants recount that sex possesses a volatile power to destabilize their gender identity. Instead, I intend to illuminate how asexual individuals negotiate expectations to have or desire sex and form relationships that affirm their non-normative boundaries and desires.

Scripting sex and sexual desire Authors examining the cultural and historical variance of sexual behaviors theorize that acts, emotions, and relations become sexual not as expressions of an innate impulse, but rather through being ascribed scripted connotations with sex during social activity. Foucault (1990 [1978]) proposes that sexual desires are not intrinsic, invariable phenomena that social conventions repress or restrain. Rather, cultural systems associate sex with behaviors, physiological reactions, emotions, and gender, race, age, and class categories that script a unique interaction characterized by roles and affects that are collectively recognized and individually experienced as ‘‘sexual’’ (Gecas and Libby, 1976; Green, 2008; Simon and Gagnon, 1986). Sexual desire, then, is not a purely instinctual impulse with a definitive object, singular means of fulfillment, or invaluable function in relationships. Rather, its orientation, pleasure, and potential for self-expression emerge as individuals navigate the connotations of certain behaviors through performing social roles

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(Gecas and Libby, 1976; Green, 2008; Foucault, 1990 [1978]; Plummer, 1996; Simon and Gagnon, 1986). Sex-positive rhetoric is a powerful and prominent instrument for contemporary advocacy groups to provide political support and education on behalf of safe sex practices and marginalized sexualities. At its core, sex-positivity is a philosophy that recognizes the potential of behaviors beyond penile-vaginal intercourse and encounters other than heterosexual partnerships to aﬃrm personal sexuality and cause sexual pleasure (Glick, 2000). However, as these parties increasingly incorporate sex-positive rhetoric into their dialogues on sexuality, they risk proliferating scripts that privilege sexual expression’s capacity to engender intimacy and personal integrity. These discourses delegitimize asexual individuals’ intentions to form non-sexual relationships and obscure the mechanisms they employ to create and navigate these partnerships (Feministe, 2012; Glickman, 2011). Asexual BDSM practitioners oﬀer an ideal opportunity to illuminate how individuals can use activities that are conventionally equated with eroticism to create intimacies that they experience as non-sexual.

Behind the scenes: BDSM means and mechanisms Most authors, writing either as practitioners or outside observers, distinguish BDSM as practices that produce relationships by foregrounding, manipulating, and enacting scripts that delineate consent and power (Califia, 1994; Martinez, 2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). Practitioners utilize BDSM archetypes, language, and props to converge social categories like race, gender, sexuality, class, and age through fantasy and activity in a way that constitutes radical intimacies (Califia, 1994; Martinez, 2011; Weiss, 2011). These tools rest upon three tenets that loosely bind individual BDSM practitioners to a community through an informal system of interpersonal accountability. First, most practitioners assert that BDSM activities should only occur between able-minded, non-coerced, and consenting adults (Califia, 1994; Martinez, 2011). Second, BDSM practitioners typically designate physical and imaginary spaces to cultivate and contain an imbalance of power, which can be considered the capacity to produce (through acts, commands, or emotional expressions) an intended somatic or emotional state in one’s partner (Califia, 1994; Martinez, 2011; Weiss, 2011). They refer to the physical location, time span, and fantasized scenario in which this power exchange takes place as a ‘‘scene’’ (Martinez, 2011; Weiss, 2011). Third, scenes generally conclude with an interval termed ‘‘aftercare,’’ during which partners dissolve and appraise their power exchange (Weiss, 2011). My informants describe aftercare as an opportunity to alleviate the intense emotions incited by scenes by cuddling, rehydrating, troubleshooting the scene, or recounting its successes. Generally, BDSM partners collaboratively negotiate and script a power exchange, enact this dynamic during the scene, and dissolve it during aftercare. It is worth noting that practitioners vary in how prominently they feature power imbalance in their activities, how explicitly they articulate consent and script their

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activities, and how emphatically they believe that a power imbalance should exist strictly within the interval of a scene and be entirely dissolved upon its conclusion (Califia, 1994; Weiss, 2011). But while these three components cannot account for the heterogeneity of BDSM practices, their prevalence obligates one to be familiar with the relations they enable before exploring how asexual individuals use BDSM to create relationships. Current literature, whether produced by sexuality scholars or BDSM activists, primarily attributes BDSM’s potential for academic study or personal empower- ment and pleasure to its nature as a sexual practice (Califia, 1994; Kleinplatz and Mosner, 2006; Martinez, 2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). Most scholars, whether conducting field research or analyzing the subculture’s history, interpret BDSM as inseparable from sexual desire and pleasure regardless of whether intercourse occurs or whether informants describe their own behavior as erotic (Kleinplatz and Mosner, 2006; Martinez, 2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). Weinberg et al. describe BDSM as ‘‘blatantly’’ (1984: 385) sexual, even though intercourse may be ancillary or absent in practitioners’ scenes. No literature considers whether BDSM can foster connections that do not stem from sexual desire, let alone whether it can sustain asexual relationships. Academic consideration of BDSM as a primarily sexual practice stems in part from the subculture’s history of supporting marginalized sexual identities and relationships. Early BDSM subcultures in the 1970s drew considerable membership from gay communities, and so were dedicated to creating spaces to sustain marginalized sexual practices (Califia, 1994). Writers from within the BDSM community are invested in preserving the subculture’s rich history of providing marginalized populations physical and social spaces in which to explore and articulate stigmatized sexual desires (Bauer, 2007; Califia, 1994). This history deserves to be celebrated, but neither academic nor activist authors leave space in their analyses to consider whether BDSM can create radical intimacies through means other than fostering sexual expression and pleasure. I intend to address this gap by exploring how asexual individuals use BDSM practice to form intimate relationships and navigate expectations to have or desire sex.

Methods I interviewed 15 individuals who self-identiﬁed as asexual and had participated in some form of BDSM. From July 2012 to April 2013, I met ﬁve informants through events at a popular 18+ BDSM club in Chicago and conversed with three blog- gers. Ten informants contacted me after administrators of Asexual Visibility and Education Network (2011–2012) permitted me to post a research request on the site’s forums. Currently the largest asexual community, AVEN provides information and forums for asexual and questioning individuals, friends and family, researchers, and the press. I conducted two-hour interviews either in person or via online messaging (depending upon informants’ availabilities) based on pre-prepared questions

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about informants’ experiences identifying as asexual, realizing interests in BDSM, and articulating these identities and interests to partners, BDSM communities, families, and peers. To avoid distressing informants, I did not inquire about abuse, mental or physical illness, or transgender identification unless they explicitly brought up these topics. In total, I interviewed ten women and two men who can be described as cisgender, in that they self-identified as the gender assigned to them at birth, and two women and one man who self-identify as transgender. My informants spanned 19 to 34 years of age, most being in their mid-20s. There were 13 Americans (seven from Chicago), and two hailed from the UK. All names in this article are pseudonyms. My informants’ stories reflect a complex diversity of asexual identities and BDSM practices, informed by a variety of backgrounds and ‘‘coming out’’ narratives. Informants I interviewed online were afforded more privacy than those I spoke to face-to-face, which could have led them to disclose more. On the other hand, these individuals were capable of revising their responses before send- ing them to me. Informants volunteered to be interviewed, suggesting that they were motivated to share and reflect upon their experiences with a greater degree of honesty than if I had randomly requested their participation. However, since I relied on individuals who frequent clubs, online forums, or blogs to volunteer their stories, my data does not comprehensively represent the range of ages, dis- ability statuses, locations, or comfort with disclosure that could characterize asexual practitioners as a population. Also, my description of non-asexual or ‘typical’ BDSM practice derives from informants’ experiences, current literature, and my own observations rather than from a comparative sample of non-asexual practitioners.

Asexual BDSM relationships: Unbinding power from sexual attraction While identifying as asexual enables informants to articulate their lack of interest in sexual relationships, participating in BDSM helps them form partnerships based on attractions they do feel and fantasies they do wish to realize. In Amy’s words, ‘‘the ace community let me communicate what I didn’t want. Kink gave me the language and conﬁdence to communicate what I did want.’’ I will explore two ways that asexual practitioners use BDSM to create intimate, frank, and compatible relationships that they experience as non-sexual. First, BDSM negotiation provides a reliable space for them to set physical boundaries and proactively dispel partners’ expectations for them to desire or have sex. Second, some informants use BDSM discourses to foreground reasons for arousing or having sex with their partners that do not invalidate their asexual identities. These discourses outline motivations for having sex that diverge from conventional narratives of consummating sexual desire and attaining sexual pleasure, and enable informants to communicate the anxiety that sex may involve.

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‘‘Just another kink’’: Negotiating sexual expectations Most informants integrate BDSM into their relationships to form connections based on mutual vulnerability, trust, and accountability. Some explain that relin- quishing control over their physical and emotional condition requires ‘‘absolute trust’’ in their partners’ intentions, skills, and self-control. Jessie attributes ‘‘the trust I’ve learned to give and the protection I’ve learned to accept’’ to how BDSM helps her expect respect when she is vulnerable rather than fearing mistreatment if seen as powerless. Being an effective dominant requires informants to take responsibility for their capacities to exercise control – by virtue of their intelligence, brawn, or intensity – and wield power in a manner that benefits their partners. Bella states that dominant/submissive relationships ‘‘invite me to use my strengths in being attentive to a partner and creating a life that is rewarding for [her].’’ She explains that the ‘‘exchange of authority’’ involved in dominant/submissive relationships generates self-discipline, accountability, and attunement that ‘‘isn’t important in a more egalitarian relationship.’’ But asexual individuals who seek relationships in BDSM spaces or wish to incorporate BDSM into preexisting partnerships face a conundrum. To feel safe and respected, informants must be able to trust that their partner will not expect them to desire or have sex regardless of what activities they participate in. Consequently, they are generally guarded about participating in ‘‘sexual’’ acts – a label most use to denote behavior that might cause a partner to desire intercourse, mutual sexual attraction, or mutual arousal. However, informants cannot assume precisely what behavior their partners might misinterpret as a sign of mutual sexual attraction, mutual arousal, or an invitation for intercourse. Deb explains that what constitutes a sexual act ‘‘depends on the person – everyone has their own demar- cation of the boundary between sexual and nonsexual.’’ Therein lies the conundrum: declaring intercourse off-limits does not always provide adequate assurance that their partner does not hope for or expect them to desire or have sex, and they cannot always predict what behaviors would incite these expectations. To dispel expectations to have or desire sex, asexual practitioners must gain information about their partners’ desires and set boundaries upon what acts will occur and the intended effect of these acts. BDSM negotiation offers asexual individuals a safe space to unconditionally veto intercourse or any behavior that they fear will lead their partner to expect them to have or desire sex. Informants ensure that penetrative and/or oral intercourse will not occur during a scene by overtly declaring it off-limits or simply not mentioning it as they collaborate with their partner. They also place limitations upon behaviors that could cause their partners to expect them to want or to have sex. For example, Mindy stipulates to her partner that genital touching is off-limits during scenes because past partners consistently interpreted the behavior as her initiating sex, and she feels more comfortable refraining from gestures that cause her to feel pressure either to reciprocate sexual desire or repeatedly stress her indifference to sex.

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In addition to setting physical boundaries, negotiation also enables asexual practitioners to proactively communicate that scenes will not cause them to feel sexual desire and stipulate that partners should not expect or hope for the scene to have this eﬀect. Practitioners often negotiate a particular goal for scenes by dis- closing what speciﬁc mental state they intend the scene’s constituent acts to induce, and requesting the same information from their partner(s). Informants are able to voice their own motivations for participating in BDSM scenes and stress that their intentions assuredly do not include the desire for intercourse or arousal. Bella explains that she welcomes physical contact because she enjoys the tactile sensa- tion, but is uncomfortable if partners interpret such touch as foreplay. She states:

There’s nothing better than skin-on-skin [contact]. There aren’t any areas that are necessarily off-limits. If a partner wants to cuddle such that they’re pressed against my genitals, that’s lovely. But I don’t appreciate when that is a prelude to sex. I want to savor caresses exactly for what they are, to let that delicious dizziness float and ebb on its own rather than being distracted by the idea of finding something better.

Negotiation provides an opportunity for Bella to communicate to partners that she wishes to focus the scene on cultivating the pleasure of physical contact, and does not want partners to interpret her behavior or value her pleasure as foreplay. BDSM negotiation structures a non-stigmatized, explicit conversation in which asexual practitioners may ensure that their partners will neither initiate stress- inducing behaviors nor attempt to focus their activity on cultivating mutual sexual attraction and desire. In addition, negotiating enables informants to reconfigure sexual desire as one motivation among many to participate in BDSM, and sex as one means among many to cultivate intimate pleasure with another. BDSM provides a socially recognized term – ‘‘kink’’ – describing an activity that practitioners should respect for its potential to generate pleasure and intimacy, but not assume to be ubiquitously desired. Asexual practitioners describe sex as ‘‘just another kink’’ to reconstitute it as one possible source of pleasure that others should not expect them to desire nor judge them for forgoing. Discussing sex as ‘‘just another kink’’ allows asexual practitioners to present their lack of desire for sex as no different than an indifference or aversion to any other BDSM activity. Michael states:

Sex is just not one of our kinks. [Asexual people] enjoy plenty of things that fall under the umbrella of BDSM, but sex ...can be anywhere from uninteresting to disgusting to us. Nobody I’ve met is into everything; plenty of people have things they’re anywhere from vaguely disinterested in to repulsed by. This doesn’t imply that sex is a bad thing; it’s just not for us. Sex – just as any other kink – is not required by everyone to be happy or for a relationship to be fulﬁlling ...it’s completely ﬁne to like it or not.

Michael likens asexual individuals’ reactions to sex to the diverse interests and boundaries that all practitioners hold, and proposes that neither asexual nor

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non-asexual individuals conflate personal preference with intrinsic value. Jessie adds that asexual and non-asexual practitioners similarly structure and value negotiation as a space to agree upon activities that will fulfill both partners’ desires without causing harm. The primary difference is that non-asexual practitioners typically plan scenes that will cause themselves and their partners to experience desire, pleasure, and intimacy engendered by anticipating, fantasizing, or having sex. Regardless of this difference, Jessie emphasizes that negotiation fosters respect and enables fulfilling partnerships between asexual and non-asexual practitioners by structuring a similar conversation ‘‘whether or not it means asking how to get a person off in a way that will feel comfortable and whether that’s their goal.’’ Reframing sex as ‘‘just another kink’’ enables informants to highlight similari- ties between how asexual and non-asexual practitioners experience BDSM when they interact with prospective partners, which allows them to terminate negoti- ations without fear of being stigmatized as repressed or apprehensive. By bringing sex into the diverse realm of kinks in which all practitioners hold preferences and boundaries, they can decline invitations with the explanation that a prospective partner’s interest in intercourse or mutual arousal simply does not complement their own desires. Jessie recounts, ‘‘I’ve had people say ‘I don’t think I could play with someone where it wasn’t sexual for them.’ That’s fine, everyone has opinions. There’s just a non-compatibility.’’ By subsuming sex under the umbrella of kink, declaring intercourse off-limits becomes no more elaborate or stigmatized than vetoing spanking or rending clothes. Four informants do not even feel the need to always declare themselves as asexual to prospective partners. Jessie explains, ‘‘the important thing is not using the term ‘asexual,’ it’s saying ‘these are the limits. These are the no-touch areas. Now let’s go have fun.’’’

When asexual practitioners have sex: Their use for sex within a BDSM context Informants acknowledge that non-asexual people do not always, indiscriminately, or only desire sexual satisfaction, but experience has taught them that most priori- tize mutual sexual attraction and pleasure within intimate relationships. In con- trast, informants do not feel attracted to others based on the desire to have sex with them and do not seek relationships that stem from expressing this reciprocal attraction. Consequently, informants diﬀerentiate ‘sexual’ and ‘nonsexual’ acts in a manner that helps them distinguish behaviors that might lead their partner to expect or desire sex, and address the possibility that engaging in these behaviors could lead them and their partner to hold divergent and uncomplimentary investments in sex. They accomplish this by deﬁning ‘sexual’ and ‘nonsexual’ behaviors based not upon what physical acts individuals engage in, but rather upon whether an individual’s main motivation is to generate sexual desire or initiate sex. Informants consider a behavior ‘sexual’ when one performs, invests in, and values it due primarily to its capacity to vitalize a desire for intercourse, or to incite pleasurable arousal, anticipation, or fantasy derived from the idea of

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intercourse. If an individual is not chiefly motivated to perform an act by its capacity to incite these kinds of desire, then it is accurate to describe that act as non-sexual. Employing a definition of ‘sexual’ that centers on a specific individual’s motivations creates opportunities for informants to communicate expectations and values surrounding sexual desire and sex with potential partners, where a definition describing purely physical occurrences provides no such benefit. Determining whether a behavior is sexual requires them to consider and inquire about a behavior’s meaning and affect, specifically whether their partner wishes for the behavior to be sexually pleasurable and whether this outcome requires mutual experience of and investment in sexual pleasure. For this reason, when exploring how asexual individuals form relationships with non-asexual partners it is more useful to consider informants’ distinction between ‘sexual’ and ‘nonsexual’ behaviors as an instrument that creates opportunities for negotiating intention and expectations with their partners, rather than a label for categorizing behaviors and affections. As previously discussed, negotiation provides a space for asexual practitioners to gain necessary information about whether partners would interpret their activity as a desire or invitation for sex. It allows them to assuredly dispel expectations to have or desire sex by vetoing behaviors that are ‘‘sexual’’ to others, and to justify those boundaries by reconstituting sex as one among many means of pleasure. But for some informants, negotiating enables them to so confidently dispel expectations to have or desire sex that they conceptualize sexual arousal and pleasure as distinct states that do not intrinsically imply that their partners are expecting or investing in sex. As a result, they do not feel pressured or invalidated if their behavior is sexual, that is, sexually arousing or pleasurable, for their partner. Jessie explains:

It doesn’t necessarily make me uncomfortable that you have a boner. It’s what you expect to come of that. Arousal doesn’t mean that [partners] are prepping for or expecting sex. [My partner] will get aroused, but for the sake of both our comforts, sex isn’t the goal – not for me and not for him.

Many informants share Jessie’s sentiment, and there are seven who, on occasion, even have sex with their partners. Having sex while identifying as asexual may seem incongruous, but I propose that these informants use particular BDSM frameworks both to attribute motivations other than sexual desire to their behavior and also to articulate the anxiety that sex may cause them. Informants maintain that their primary motivation for participating in any behavior that sexually arouses or satisfies their partner is that these activities are reliably effective at producing intimate relationships, and expressly not because the acts themselves are viscerally appealing or physically pleasurable. As Gregory states, ‘‘I’ll have sex not because I think it’ll be fun but because I’m really interested in that person.’’ Informants reconfigure intercourse, or any behavior that sexually satisfies their partner, to be nonsexual for them personally by foregrounding its effects on their relationship with a partner and diminishing personal desire for or pleasure from the physical act as a motivating factor. Specifically, they emphasize

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that participating in acts that sexually arouse or satisfy their partner can strengthen their relationship by delighting their partner, illuminating their personality, and cultivating a BDSM power imbalance. Some informants observe that for many of their non-asexual partners, sexual experiences foster a uniquely profound state of comfort and pleasure. They wish for their relationships to cultivate these emotions, and acknowledge that sex is for their partner an exceptional means of producing such delight and aﬃrmation. Consequently, they are willing to participate in acts that are sexual for their partners in order to validate, thrill, console, or please them. Gregory often consents to have penile-vaginal intercourse during scenes because he understands that the behavior ‘‘can make some people feel very unique’’ by causing them exceptional sexual pleasure and validation. While intercourse remains an immutable boundary for Michael, he occasionally includes genital touching in scenes even though the behavior is sexual for his partner because of ‘‘the enjoyment it brings’’ her. Informants also use sex to create intimate relationships by taking advantage of the fact that their non-asexual partners are exceptionally spontaneous, aﬀectionate, and open regarding their needs and desires when experiencing sexual arousal and/or pleasure. Margaret recounts that sexually arousing and pleasing past partners through intercourse was the easiest way to elicit transparency, creativity, and candor from them. As a result, she will sometimes have intercourse because she considers it an ‘‘interesting way to get to know new people.’’ Gregory also uses intercourse to incite vulnerability and unhindered expressivity that partners uniquely demonstrate while sexually aroused or pleasured, thus learning about their personality and evaluating whether they would make compatible long-term companions:

You get to know some people by having sex with them – it’s very revealing. I’ve had sexual encounters that have ended badly, but I don’t regret the sex because the act of getting to know the person – of revealing that we weren’t compatible – is valid.

Aside from pleasing and gaining insight into their partners, many asexual individuals have sex to generate and reify any power imbalance during scenes. Jessie consents to behaviors that her partner experiences as ‘‘sexual’’ – speciﬁcally, acts causing orgasm and/or involving contact with genitals or breasts – to authenticate a power exchange in which she is submissive and he is dominant:

We have a dominant/submissive relationship, so [sex is] much more of a power dynamic. He’s stuck ice in my vagina because he’s evil (laughs) and uses nipple clamps because they hurt. We use forced oral as breath play (where one practitioner is deprived of air to create a sense of submission, panic or disorientation, or an endorphin-induced high).

Jessie’s account illuminates two reasons why acts that are sexual for one’s partner are exceptionally eﬀective for generating power exchanges. First, sensations

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that are innocuous on most parts of the body may be intensely uncomfortable when felt upon areas that typically sexually arouse non-asexual partners (such as breasts and genitals). Stimulating these areas causes a cascade of endorphins and adrenaline, which elevates informants’ threshold for feeling discomfort. This increases how long informants can delight in enduring pain and their dominant partners can enjoy witnessing their discomfort. Second, behaviors that sexually arouse or satisfy non-asexual individuals often possess the potential to trigger informants’ upsetting memories about being pressured by past partners to demonstrate sexual desire or disregard personal boundaries. Anxiety over this possibility can make informants feel acutely vulnerable, which leads them to place considerable trust in their partner. BDSM discourse enables practitioners to redefine conventionally ‘sexual’ behaviors as means of generating a power exchange rather than pursuing sexual pleasure. As previously discussed, most literature considers BDSM practice to necessarily reflect sexual desire and pleasure regardless of what behaviors informants participate in or whether informants describe their activities as ‘erotic’ or ‘sexual’ (Califia, 1994; Kleinplatz and Mosner, 2006; Martinez, 2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). But BDSM discourse contains language and archetypes that support alternative interpretations. In many cases, asexual individuals can foreground the power exchange in other practitioners’ stories while inter- preting sexual desire as a peripheral phenomenon. For example, a practitioner might state, ‘‘I want to force a slave to get me off,’’ rather than ‘‘I want to get off.’’ It is possible that this individual practitioner could not become aroused or achieve orgasm without establishing a power imbalance, thus the power exchange’s appeal derives from its potential to cause sexual pleasure. However, asexual individuals can read into his statement that the power dynamic is his primary goal and that sexual desire is a peripheral experience. Because the discursive space exists for this interpretation to be placed upon common BDSM narratives, informants can reconstitute the creation of a dominant/submissive dynamic as a legitimate source of satisfaction on its own. They can communicate their intent to create a dominant/ submissive dynamic as the primary reason for engaging in any behavior, including sex, and feel some relief from the pressure to hide or continually assert that they are not motivated by sexual desire. A practitioner like Ginny can communicate that scenes do not ‘‘feel sexual for me ...there’s no thought for sexual things or sexuality in my mind – rather the attraction behind it for me is submissive and trust-based.’’ Presenting reasons for their sexual encounters that are distinct from sexual attraction and desire allows informants to sustain an asexual identity within their relationships, even while participating in acts that sexually arouse or satisfy their partners. By highlighting their behavior’s capacity to foster intimacy and insight rather than fulfil sexual attraction and pleasure, informants can also communicate that acts like intercourse sometimes provoke anxiety that they are none- theless willing to endure in order to strengthen their relationships. Gregory describes that he often feels pressure during intercourse to physically perform

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and emotionally respond in a way that incites the most pleasure and spontaneity from his partner. Margaret typically has a few drinks after consenting to intercourse to alleviate similar anxieties. But BDSM discourse enables them to communicate the existence of these anxieties, and hopefully receive the support they need from their partner in order to comfortably risk or endure such stress. Speciﬁcally, BDSM provides a framework explaining how informants could experience emotional and/or physical discomfort as valuable and worth enduring, rather than debilitating. BDSM discourse casts physical and emotional pain as a means to generate exceptionally insightful and empathic relationships by describing pain’s potential to demonstrate personal fortitude and cultivate trust. This framework allows informants to position sexual desire, attraction, and pleasure as peripheral motivations for enduring discomfort compared to pain’s capacity to generate intimacy. Two explicitly compare their sexual encounters to what they consider a character- istic experience of BDSM to explain why they derive fulﬁllment from stressful activities. Gregory states,

I have sex in a similar way that people do kink. People will endure terrible pain and they’ll cry and they’ll hate it at the time – I don’t usually hate sex, but we can draw on the analogy on an emotional level.

He likens the motivation to have intercourse to the rationale behind participating in any BDSM activity – one engages in discomforting behavior to foster powerful attunement with another individual. Similarly, Tess compares arousing her partner to engaging in a particularly intense and engrossing scene: ‘‘watching [their] arousal is like watching any scene that’s too hardcore to want to partake in yourself – it’s still fascinating to see what others get out of it.’’ By subsuming their behaviors under a BDSM characterization of pain, informants like Gregory and Tess reconstitute their decisions to sexually arouse or please their partner as a stressful experience that they endure to celebrate their own fortitude and strengthen their relationships, rather than to express sexual attraction or gain sexual pleasure. It is worth acknowledging that individuals who do not identify as asexual can also utilize and value sex for its potential to foster connections that do not center upon mutual sexual attraction and pleasure. Non-asexual people can certainly experience anxiety surrounding sexual acts, but willingly engage in them to strengthen their relationships. However, not only are these experiences downplayed in most literature exploring non-asexual relationships or non-asexual sex, but they are wholly absent from works examining non-asexual BDSM practitioners. Informants state that BDSM provides singularly effective social spaces to redirect sex’s meaning to alternative ends and affirmations. Indeed, they either only consent to sex as a part of BDSM scenes or feel more comfortable having sex during scenes than in other contexts. These proclamations suggest that the concerns and strate- gies of asexual individuals, particularly asexual BDSM practitioners, offer a fruitful

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lens to understanding how non-asexual individuals might navigate similar investments and anxieties.

Conclusion Asexual identities challenge the mainstream assumption that experiencing sexual attraction and desire is crucial for attaining intimate companionship and personal authenticity. Most informants were met with scepticism, grief, or even threats of corrective rape when they came out to friends and family as asexual. Such reactions reflect the belief that asexuality tragically divorces one from a crucial instrument of integrity and expression, a central form of human interaction, and an exceptional means of forming radical intimacies (Cerankowski and Milks, 2010; Przybylo, 2011; Warner, 1999). But asexual BDSM practitioners are able to form subjectively non-sexual relationships by creatively employing available scripts to reconstitute conventionally eroticized activities in a manner that articulates and affirms their own desires and boundaries. These individuals adapt BDSM practice to navigate expectations to have or desire sex, and redefine their behaviors to indicate and generate insight, trust, courage, self-discipline, and attunement rather than sexual attraction or pleasure. Asexual practitioners demonstrate that BDSM provides discursive spaces and conceptual frameworks for fostering and validating intimate exchanges that do not derive from or rely on sexual desire. Their experiences encourage a second look at BDSM practice, one acknowledging that sexual attraction is not a ubiquitous component of BDSM and exploring a new dimension of communication that BDSM practice can facilitate. That is, BDSM possesses the potential to guide practitioners not only through negotiating what acts and dynamics would maxi- mize both partners’ sexual pleasure, but also through elucidating whether partners intend their activities to cultivate sexual desire in the first place and navigating how the implications of particular behaviors might affect those boundaries. This facet of BDSM recognizes the existence of non-asexual practitioners whose activities do not exclusively or continually involve sexual attraction or pleasure, and opens a discursive space for them to explore alternative satisfactions. One question illumi- nated by my research that would investigate this new dimension of communication is how non-asexual individuals navigate their own investment in reciprocal sexual pleasure and the sexual implications they associate with particular behaviors if they wish to form mutually respectful and affirming relationships with asexual partners. How might BDSM practice or discourse support this process? The experiences of asexual practitioners not only illuminate BDSM’s potential to foster connections that do not exclusively or continually derive from sexual attraction and pleasure, but also contribute to sexuality studies more generally. Informed by the use of sex-positive discourse in contemporary activist, media, and political dialogues, much research examines how behaviors assume exceptional potential to generate personal authenticity and interpersonal intimacy when framed as expressions of sexual desire. Asexual individuals are one pronounced

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population of individuals who destabilize the salient expectation that sexual desire is central to personal integrity and viable relationships. They accomplish this not through denying the possibility that their behaviors can be experienced and valued as arousing and sexually pleasurable. Indeed, some asexual individuals encourage their partners to experience their activities as sexual as a means of fostering intimacy. Rather, they seek conceptual frameworks that enable them to creatively ascribe new meanings and implications to the aﬀections that they experience and the activities that they enjoy. Their experiences encourage further exploration of how individuals, in the midst of a cultural emphasis placed upon sexual desire and a proliferation of scripts characterizing its expression, might disarticulate and reconstitute the sexual implications of their acts – creating spaces in which even sex can be experienced as non-sexual.

Funding This work was supported by the University of Chicago’s PRISM grant and Earl R. Franklin Research Fellowship.

Acknowledgements Thank you to Jennifer Cole for advising the bachelor’s thesis that informed this manuscript and Andrew Hinderliter for supervising my presence at AVEN.

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Lorca Jolene Sloan holds Bachelor’s degrees in Comparative Human Development and Psychology from the University of Chicago, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Psychology at the Adler School of Professional Psychology.

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