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Symbolic Boundaries, Authenticity and Inauthenticity in the BDSM Subculture

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Symbolic Boundaries, Authenticity and Inauthenticity in the BDSM Subculture MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES Department of Sociology From Steel to Plush: Symbolic Boundaries, Authenticity and Inauthenticity in the BDSM Subculture Lucie Drdová Supervisor: Professor Steven Saxonberg Brno, 2020 I declare that this thesis was composed by myself, that the work contained herein is my own except where explicitly stated otherwise in the text, and that this work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. The second chapter of this work is based on a publication by Drdova, L. and Grochova, M. (2015). „Hra na hrane zakona: Trestne ciny proti zdravi v kontextu BDSM“. In Tauchen, J., Schelle, K. et al.. Trestne ciny proti zivotu a zdravi vcera a dnes. Ostrava: Key Publishing. ISBN 978-80-87475-48-5. The fourth chapter of this work has been published in Drdova, L., and Saxonberg, S. (2019). Dilemmas of a subculture: An analysis of BDSM blogs about Fifty Shades of Grey. Sexualities, DOI: 1363460719876813. 14. 04. 2020 Lucie Drdová Brno _________________ This research was financially supported by a Specific research project at Masaryk University, project num. MUNI/A/1359/2019. Acknowledgements Most of all to my mum, who encouraged me to continue with an academic career, supported me in all possible ways and never forced me to end my studies. I love you. I would also like to thank my advisor, Professor Steven Saxonberg, for being the best advisor – friendly and critical at the same time. Many thanks to my partner (and also to my ex-partner) for the tolerance of my weird dissertation topic and patience with me being often over-worked. My biggest thanks go to all my respondents for their interest in my research, their trust and their time – thank you so much. Last but not least, I would like to thank my gatekeeper and his wife for the trust they put in me, the openness of their minds, the continuous access to anything my work needed, their gradual friendship and endless hours of discussions about sociological aspects of BDSM. I wish you and your family all the best. The names of all respondents in this thesis have been anonymized using the most common Czech names by drawing lots. The names of BDSM clubs and organizations, including streets and location identifiers, have also been anonymized. Only the names of five Czech cities (Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Pardubice, Liberec) and the names of post-communist magazines and TV shows have remained non-anonymized. Table of Contents 1. Chapter One – Introduction__________________________________________________________8 2. Chapter Two – Symbolic Boundaries between Ill and Healthy: Pleasure in Deviance, Deviance in Pleasure. How Does the Psychiatrical, Sexological and Medical Discourse Frame BDSM?_________27 3. Chapter Three – Symbolic Boundaries between Legal and Criminal: Play on the Edge. How Does the Czech Legislative System Frame BDSM?_______________________________________________51 4. Chapter Four – Dilemmas of a Subculture: How Does the BDSM Subculture Frame Itself and How Does the Mainstream Culture Frame It? Symbolic Boundaries between Cultural and Subcultural____63 5. Chapter Five – Symbolic Boundaries between Individual and Subcultural: High Fear, High Stakes. How Was the BDSM Subculture Formed after the Velvet Revolution?_________________________85 6. Chapter Six – Symbolic Boundaries between Old Generation and New Generation: The Elimination of Roles in Role Play? What Was the Generational Development of the BDSM Subculture?_______119 7. Chapter Seven – Symbolic Boundaries between BDSM Identity and Non-BDSM Identity. How Does the BDSM Subculture Frame Its Identity in the Context of Institutions?_______________________137 8. Discussion and Conclusion________________________________________________________159 9. References_____________________________________________________________________165 Preface As an ethnographer, hitch-hiker in abandoned and remote places, Central Asia lover, and female guitarist I’m not a fan of prejudices. I have been living in them most of my life: “They will kill you with Kalashnikovs as soon as you step out of the airport”, or: “That state has a border with Afghanistan; everyone is surely a fanatic there”. Or my favorite: “You cannot play a guitar because you are a girl”. These are prejudices we apply to our loved ones, to discourage them from their own life trajectories. I would like to see myself as a person open to various worldviews, understanding and accepting all kinds of different viewpoints on various aspects of life in different cultures. But then, suddenly, I was caught out on one prejudice in my own culture, unprepared, like a child is caught touching a burning stove. It was a minor meeting, but the extent of my own prejudice struck me. Humbled, I realized I still have a long path towards being an open and understanding person. That realization gradually made this dissertation happen. 7 1. Chapter one – Introduction “I put it on my head. It was faintly warm and sticky inside and the thick leather lining clung to my forehead. ‘I want to know what it really means’ I told myself in a mirror whose cracks had been pasted over with the trimmings of postage stamps. I meant of course the whole portentous scrimmage of sex itself, the act of penetration which could lead a man to despair for the sake of a creature with two breasts and ‘le croissant’ as the picturesque Levant slang has it. The sound within had increased to a sly groaning and squeaking — a combustible human voice adding itself to the jostling of an ancient wooden-slatted bed. This was presumably the identical undifferentiated act which Justine and I shared with the common world to which we belonged. How did it differ? How far had our feelings carried us from the truth of the simple, devoid beast-like act itself? To what extent was the treacherous mind — with its interminable catalogue raisonne of the heart — responsible? (…) Impatient to deliver myself from the question I lifted the curtain and stepped softly into the cubicle which was fitfully lighted by a buzzing staggering paraffin lamp turned down low.” Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet, 1962. I encountered the BDSM (bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, masochism) community face-to-face for the first time in the spring of 2012 when conducting one of my research interviews for my diploma thesis dealing with a live-action role play game. I was told that a group of “BDSM positive” people were attending a tea-house meeting and that I was invited. It was presented, by my respondent, almost like an intimate secret, and I was myself imagining the BDSM tea-house meeting as something dark, secret, vulgar, probably covertly violent, full of black clothes, whips, suppressed emotions, and perhaps even dangerous. I was afraid to go. When I arrived to conduct my interview, none of the above corresponded to what I saw. For about an hour, about fifteen people in plaid flannel shirts or t-shirts and jeans sat around a table and discussed external hard-drives and taking pictures of trains. During the evening, there were several cues or symbols that could be traced back as likely present because of the parallel with BDSM subcultural characteristics as they are presented to an 8 outside observer. However, this apparent discrepancy between how the BDSM subculture is presented in the mainstream view and how the practitioners presented themselves at that meeting constructed the basis of this dissertation. This dissertation focuses on the ways in which the symbolic boundaries between “BDSM” and “non-BDSM” are constituted. With the continuing postmodern commodification of subcultures and their gradual infiltration into mainstream discourse, the subcultures need to define their position against the acceptance of the subcultural symbols in the mainstream culture. The research question is: “How are the symbolic boundaries between BDSM and non-BDSM created, maintained and legitimized?”. The aim of this dissertation is to analyze how members of a subculture in a contemporary society define their position against their commercial image and how they maintain the existence of their subculture despite its fragmentation. Theoretical approach This research is based on the concept of subcultures by Gelder and Thornton (1997), who define subculture as a group of people who share a common problem, interest or procedure and who differentiate in a significant way from the members of other social groups. The BDSM subculture is conceptualized as a postmodern subculture in accordance with Muggleton (2000), who differentiates postmodern subculture from the traditional subculture in three aspects: no social class membership, developed individualism, and high fragmentation of subculture. Individualism is seen as more important than collectivism; diversity and difference as more important than conformism and uniformity. Individuality is seen in contrast to what is conventional and mainstream – members of mainstream society are often seen as a homogeneous mass, while members of a subculture see themselves as unique or original and their subculture as a heterogeneous group, which unites some shared interest or taste (Muggleton, 2000). 9 This study is also based on Thornton’s (1996) theory of subcultural capital, concerning what is “in” and “out” with regard to the subcultural scene. According to Thornton, subcultural capital is important for the subculture to differentiate itself from the mainstream and the subculture must constantly endeavor to avoid its merging into the mass.
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