BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves to be practising BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture often is said to depend on self-identification and shared experience.
Ageplay or age play is a form of roleplaying in which an individual acts or treats another as if they are a different age. Ageplay is roleplaying between adults, and involves consent from all parties. Ageplay is not necessarily sexual, but can be. Portraying any age can be the goal of ageplay, from babies to a child to the elderly. Usually this involves someone pretending to be younger than they actually are, but more rarely can involve assuming an older role.
The handkerchief code is a system of color-coded cloth handkerchief or bandanas for non-verbally communicating one's interests in sexual activities and fetishes. The color of the handkerchief identifies a particular activity, and the pocket it is worn in identifies the wearer's preferred role in that activity. Wearing a handkerchief on the left side of the body typically indicates one is a "top" while wearing it on the right side of the body would indicate one is a "bottom". For example, a dark blue handkerchief indicates an interest in anal sex, and wearing it in the left pocket indicates a preference for being the penetrating partner. The code was first used in the 1970s in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, by gay and bisexual men seeking casual sex or BDSM practitioners. Over time the colors and types of apparel in use have greatly proliferated.
In BDSM, a collar is a device of any material worn by a person to indicate their submissive or slave status in a BDSM relationship. A person wearing a collar to symbolize their relationship with another is said to be collared. Collars are used to signify ownership or connection within a Dom/sub relationship. The collar may also be worn by the submissive as a visual indication to others.
Samois was a lesbian feminist BDSM organization based in San Francisco that existed from 1978 to 1983. It was the first lesbian BDSM group in the United States. It took its name from Samois-sur-Seine, the location of the fictional estate of Anne-Marie, a lesbian dominatrix character in Pauline Réage's erotic novel Story of O, who pierces and brands O. The co-founders were writer Pat Califia, who identified as a lesbian at the time, Gayle Rubin, and sixteen others.
This glossary of BDSM terms defines terms commonly used in the BDSM community.
Dominance and submission (D/s) is a set of behaviors, customs, and rituals involving the submission of one person to another in an erotic episode or lifestyle. It is a subset of BDSM. This form of sexual contact and pleasure has been shown to please a minority of people.
Consent within BDSM is when a participant gives their permission for certain acts or types of relationships. It bears much in common with the concept of informed consent and is simultaneously a personal, ethical and social issue. It is an issue that attracts much attention within BDSM, resulting in competing models of consent such as safe, sane and consensual and risk-aware consensual kink. Observers from outside the BDSM community have also commented on the issue of consent in BDSM, sometimes referring to legal consent which is a separate and largely unrelated matter. However, the presence of explicit consent within BDSM can often have implications for BDSM and the law and, depending on the country the participants are in, may make the differences between being prosecuted or not.
In human sexuality, kinkiness is the use of non-conventional sexual practices, concepts or fantasies. The term derives from the idea of a "bend" in one's sexual behaviour, to contrast such behaviour with "straight" or "vanilla" sexual mores and proclivities. It is thus a colloquial term for non-normative sexual behaviour. The term "kink" has been claimed by some who practice sexual fetishism as a term or synonym for their practices, indicating a range of sexual and sexualistic practices from playful to sexual objectification and certain paraphilias. In the 21st century the term "kink", along with expressions like BDSM, leather and fetish, has become more commonly used than the term paraphilia. Some universities also feature student organizations focused on kinks, within the context of wider LGBTQ concerns.
SouthEast LeatherFest (SELF) is an annual adult fetish event for the BDSM, leather, and kink communities based in the United States' Southeast and centered in Georgia with regional and smaller related events held throughout the year.
V. M. Johnson, also known as Viola Johnson, born in 1950, is a leatherwoman, leather activist and author.
In BDSM, Master/slave, M/s or sexual slavery is a relationship in which one individual serves another in a consensual authority-exchange structured relationship. Unlike Dominant/submissive structures found in BDSM in which love is often the core value, service and obedience are often the core values in Master/slave structures. The participants may be of any gender or sexual orientation. The relationship uses the term "slave" because of the association of the term with ownership rights of a master to their slave's body, as property or chattel. While male "masters" will usually be referred to as "Master", whether or not female Masters are referred to as "Master" or "Mistress" may depend upon whether they identify as following the leather subculture or BDSM path, or simply preference.
BDSM is a frequent theme in culture and media, including in books, films, television, music, magazines, public performances and online media.
Steven Toushin is an American producer and distributor of gay pornographic and BDSM films who has operated adult theaters and sex clubs since 1970. Toushin owned and managed the Bijou Theater in Chicago, the oldest gay adult theater and sex club in the United States. Toushin has produced multiple underground and classic pornographic films through his studio Bijou Video and published several books on the matter. He and his businesses have been the subject of twenty-one obscenity cases, including two federal trials, and he has suffered thirty-five personal arrests and over 200 busts to his businesses.
The terms top, bottom, and switch are used to describe roles during a sexual act, or they may more broadly denote a psychological, social, or sexual identity, or indicate one's usual preference. The terms top, bottom, and switch are also used in BDSM, with slightly different meanings. In BDSM, a top is the person doing something to someone else, and a bottom is the person receiving that act. In both contexts, the terms top and bottom refer to active and passive roles, not to who is physically on top in a particular sexual act. A switch is someone who can act as both a top and bottom. The older term versatile is sometimes used instead of switch.
Guy Baldwin is an American psychotherapist, author, activist, and educator specializing in issues of particular relevance to the BDSM and leather communities. Based in Los Angeles, he maintains that inclusion of non-injurious elements of sadomasochism in a consenting sexuality does not itself indicate or confirm mental illness or psycho-sexual dysfunction.
Feminist views on BDSM vary widely from acceptance to rejection. BDSM refers to bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and Sado-Masochism. In order to evaluate its perception, two polarizing frameworks are compared. Some feminists, such as Gayle Rubin and Patrick Califia, perceive BDSM as a valid form of expression of female sexuality, while other feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Susan Griffin, have stated that they regard BDSM as a form of woman-hating violence. Some lesbian feminists practice BDSM and regard it as part of their sexual identity.
Hardy Haberman is an American author, filmmaker, educator, designer living in Dallas, Texas. He is a prominent figure in the leather/fetish/BDSM community, and a frequent speaker at leather events and contests.
Bill Schmeling, better known by his pen name The Hun, was an American artist active in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, known for his explicit, homoerotic fetish illustrations and comics.
