Pleasure, Community, and Marginalization in Rope Bondage: A qualitative investigation into a BDSM subculture by Zoey Jones A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2020 Zoey Jones Abstract1 Rope bondage subculture is a social world positioned underneath the broader umbrella of pansexual BDSM subculture. It is characterized by its own norms, spaces, words, practices, art, career opportunities, events, identities, and more. The status of rope as a sub-subculture spread across and between locations renders it mostly invisible to outsiders. As such, although there are a few studies on rope bondage, its discrete social world has rarely been recognized in academic research, and never as the primary focus. Through my insider status I investigate the shape of the rope bondage world and the experiences of some of the people within it. I draw on 23 qualitative interviews with people who practice rope bondage in Canada and the United States to investigate peoples’ experiences of rope bondage practice and subculture. My analysis is supported by a theoretical foundation informed by symbolic interactionism, feminism, critical disability studies, and critical race theory. I explore the theoretical and methodological intricacies of conducting qualitative research on rope bondage from the inside, while prioritizing and theorizing ethical participant-centered methods informed by select kinky etiquette and practices. My findings suggest that rope bondage subculture is characterized by almost indescribable experiences of pleasure, belonging, and joy, along with experiences of conflict and discrimination at personal and structural levels. It is both a vibrant social world and a subculture informed by (and reflective of) the racism, ableism, sexism, 1 This work was supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program. ii homo/transphobia, and classism that plague wider society. The accounts of disabled and racialized rope bondage practitioners are crucial to understanding both oppression and resistance in this world. I build upon Weiss’ (2006) concept of unintelligibility to argue that kinky pleasure that is not strictly, normatively sexual appears to be unintelligible to most BDSM researchers. Further, in some respects, kinky pleasure is unintelligible—or at least ineffable—to some of the practitioners themselves. My findings show that understanding the texture of rope bondage’s pleasure requires listening to how rope bondage practitioners theorize their own desires, pleasures, and lives. This work offers theoretical, conceptual, and practical tools to understand rope bondage practitioners, complex sexualities, BDSM, and participant-centered research on deviantized demographics. iii To K, for surviving. iv Acknowledgments I would first like to thank my supervisor, Ummni Khan, for believing in me and my ideas. You treated me like a scholar from day one and supported me through the winding turns of my PhD journey. Thank you for your flexibility, your generosity, your kindness, and your brilliance. Your openness to startling prose and transparent reflection was (and is) an inspiration to me. I am so grateful I have had the opportunity to spend time with you, and that together we have had so much fun exploring the boundaries of research and kink. To Chris Bruckert, my friend, mentor, and committee member, thank you. Thank you for hearing the spark of this idea and my frustration and fanning it into a research project. Thank you for teaching me about power, and theory, and for modeling the kind of academic I want to be. Thank you most of all for your friendship. To Jackie Kennelly, thank you for your insightful and open approach to qualitative methods and ethics. I learned so much from your thoughtful pen marks, your gentle critiques, and your excitement when I got something right. You particularly helped me find and own my arguments when I was inclined to write around them instead. You are a magnificent scholar, and I am grateful to have worked with you. To my parents, Jody and Stef, thank you, as always, for your unwavering support and belief in me. Thank you for making sure I always have somewhere to go back to, and for being my safest and most healing place. I am sure thirty years ago you did not expect your commitment to seeing me well educated would end up here, and I’m grateful you were happy to watch me find my own path—even if it meant an unexpected decade or so of school! To my sisters, Tia and Frankie, thank you for helping me through the roughest parts and being my remote stylists. Thank you for coming to Ottawa to rescue me when I needed you. I love you both forever. Thank you to my writing group and writing friends for helping me find structure, mutual care, inspiration, and camaraderie through the most alienating parts of grad school. Thank you particularly to Katie, Lauren, Janna, Samantha, Chloe, Taylor, Olena, Claire, Christine, and Kat, among others who occupied real and virtual spaces with me as we crafted and battled our way through various pieces of work. You reminded me what this is all for. To Alexis, thank you for your coaching, in writing, academia, and life. I learned so much from you about working with the magic of words and honouring yourself as a writer and v a person. Thank you for creating encouraging, motivating writing spaces both before and during a pandemic. Thank you to my grandparents (Gummy, Nanny, and Grandpa), to my aunts, uncles, and cousins, in Canada, the United States, Europe, and beyond. Thank you for your gestures of support throughout the years I worked on this, from offering me an escape in England to sending me sweet cards and texts for no reason. I love you all more than words can say. To Cecelia, Renée, and Dawn, thank you for going above and beyond in your efforts to keep my corporeal self whole (or at least some semblance of it). To Ness, Shelly, and Alan, all for different reasons, thank you. You were here from the start of this project to the end of it, and I could not have done it without you. Thank you for believing in me, for working out the intricacies of ethical project design with me, for helping me grapple with clashes between academia and community needs. Thank you for keeping me fed and alive. Thank you for your love, and for accepting mine. To my community, thank you. You changed me, for the better. Thank you for teaching me (and demonstrating) what actual inclusivity, anti-racism, and accountability looks like. I hope I do you justice in this dissertation, and I am ready to hear about where I do not. Thank you for being willing to support this project through brainstorming, participating, theorizing, and general hype. Thank you most of all for being my world. Last, thank you to Arya, June, and the five little souls born in my closet right as things were looking their strangest. Thank you for teaching me that love and possibility are infinite. vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments v Glossary x Introduction: “Exactly what you think it is, and nothing like you think it is” 1 Why Should We Care? 3 Positioning Myself 6 The Project 9 What Is Rope Bondage? 11 Rope Bondage Subculture 17 Dissertation Outline 19 Chapter One: Kink, Desire, Race, and Rope in Sociology and Criminology 23 What is BDSM? 24 Choosing Language: BDSM? SM? S/M? 25 A Short History of BDSM Research and Findings 27 Conceptualizing Kink Desire 36 Race and BDSM: Research Sampling and Racial Representation 42 Rope Bondage Practice and Subculture 45 Contributions 49 Chapter Two: Theory and Methodology 51 Brainstorming Theory 51 Critical Theoretical Influences: Feminism, Critical Race Theory, and BDSM Subculture 53 Feminism 54 Critical Disability Studies 55 Critical Race Theory and Representation 57 Micro-to-Macro Symbolic Interactionism: Meaning-Making, Stigma, Community, and Resistance 58 Power 61 Methodology 62 Chapter Three: Methods and Kinking Research 66 Methods Part 1: Project Design and Research Ethics 68 Data Sources, Research Structure, and Institutional Ethics 68 Interviews 70 Methods Part 2: Finding, Meeting, Speaking 71 Preparing to Enter the Field 71 Entering the Field: Gatekeepers, Recruitment, and Sampling 73 vii Recruitment 73 Sampling and Diversity 76 Interviews 79 Interviewing as a Scene 80 Methods Part 3: Analysis 82 Methods Part 4: Postscript 87 Limitations and Strengths: Insider Research 87 Messy Methods 91 Tensions in Interviewing Ethics 92 Interviewing on Race and Racism 100 Methods Part 5: Kinking Methods 102 Chapter Four: Meet the Participants 109 Chapter Five: “Because It’s Community”: Unpacking Rope Bondage Subculture 121 Community: Discovery, Construction, and Meaning 123 Finding Community 123 The Meaning of Community 127 “This is Where Community Happens”: The Role of Events and Spaces in Rope Community and Subculture 139 Community, Consent, and Conflict 143 Belonging, Joy, and Pleasure: “The Rope Community is Love” 146 Chapter Six: Marginalization, Stigma, and Disability in Rope Bondage Subculture 150 Disability, Stigma, and Social Identity 152 Stigma, Social Identity, and Microaggressions 157 Clashing Social Identities 160 Benefits to Rope 164 Exceptions and Layered Marginalizations 169 Chapter Seven: Kinksters of Colour in Rope Bondage Subculture: Race, Representation, and Resistance 172 Responsibility and Visibility 176 Allyship and Whiteness