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This study explores the psychological aspects of sadism and masochism in BDSM practitioners, including relationship dynamics, altered states of consciousness, and the psychological functioning of individuals engaging in these practices.
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Brad Sagarin, James Ambler, Ellen Lee, & Kathryn Klement Northern Illinois University The Science of SM
Sadism would … correspond to an aggressive component of the sexual instinct which has become independent and exaggerated and has been brought to the foreground by displacement. Freud (1938)
[Masochism is] nothing but a continuation of sadism directed at one’s own person in which the latter at first takes the place of the sexual object. Freud (1938)
[Masochism is] a peculiar perversion of the psychical sexual life in which the individual … is controlled by the idea of being completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex; of being treated by this person as by a master, humiliated and abused. Krafft-Ebing (1965)
Abused as children • Irrational guilt • Filled with unconscious rage and the desire for revenge • Fragile sense of identity • Indistinct personal boundaries between themselves and others Ross (1997)
Hamilton’s 1929 survey of 200 married men and women: 51% 28% Men 32% 29% Women “Pleasant thrills” frominflicting pain “Pleasant thrills” fromreceiving pain
Clinical Criminal Consensual
Demographics • Higher education and income • Higher divorce rate • No higher incidence of childhood abuse • Socially well adjusted
Demographics con’t... • Many realize SM tendencies at an early age: • Gay men before straight men (all before 16 yrs) • Men before women
Relationship dynamics • Partner selection, power dynamics, and sexual bargaining in self-defined BDSM couples (Cutler, 2003) • Great diversity in relationships • Compatibility ≠ identical kinks • Sexual gift-giving
Testosterone Sagarin et al. (2009)
Cortisol Sagarin et al. (2009)
Relationship closeness Sagarin et al. (2009)
Psychological Functioning of BDSM Practitioners (Connolly, 2006) • 132 respondents • 56 women, 73 men, 3 transgendered individuals • Ages 25-74 • Recruited in Southern California via e-mail through BDSM clubs and organizations
Psychological Functioning of BDSM Practitioners (Connolly, 2006) • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2, 567 items) • Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III, 175 items) • Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI, 100 items) • Postraumatic Stress Disorder Scale (PDS, 49 items) • Multiscale Dissociation Inventory (MDI, 30 items) • Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II, 21 items) • Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI, 21 items)
Psychoanalytic theorizing Depression Anxiety Obsessive-compulsion PTSD Dissociation Psychological sadism Psychological masochism Narcissism Borderline pathology Paranoia
BDSM practitioners vs. normative samples Out of body experiences Missing one’s freeway exit because one’s mind is elsewhere Ego self-involvement Connolly (2006)
Altered states of consciousness • Physiological short term changes in the brain caused by SM related activities
Flow The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one. Csikszentimihályi(1991)
Conditions under which flow happens • Engagement in activity chosen for its own sake • Perceived challenges are high while skill level is also high • Clear goals that are regarded important • Immediate feedback indicating success at task • Highly focused attention
Characteristics of flow state • Intense concentration on task • Deep sense of involvement and merging of action and awareness • Sense of control over one’s actions • Enjoyment in activity • Distorted sense of time
Escape from the Self The self is sometimes burdensome • "The greater the demands in my outside life, the likelier I am to feel submissive sexually." Baumeister(1988) Wiseman (1996)
Transient Hypofrontality Hypothesis Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DL): • Important for directed attention, temporal integration, and working memory Working memory deficits cause: • Less abstract thinking • Less access to memory • Less self-reflective consciousness • Less cognitive flexibility • These lead to subjective changes in consciousness Dietrich (2003)
Common experiences of altered states of consciousness: time distortions disinhibition from social constraints changes in focused attention Transient Hypofrontality Hypothesis Transient Hypofrontality States -Runner’s High -Meditation -Dreaming -Day dreaming -Hypnosis -Various Drug Highs • Specific variations: • reduction of pain • feelings of floating • feelings of peacefulness • little consistent logic • difficulty with memory • feeling of living in the here and now • little active decision making Dietrich (2003)
Subspace “With my girl, she was punishing me, and I felt a deep sense of pain and pleasure, sort of a one with nature and my environment, it was incredible.” “It’s very dreamlike. I knew that I felt good, and I was aware of my partner, but I was not paying attention to anything else.” “I felt intense pleasure and pain, I almost felt like I was flying and for a moment I thought I would pass out. I felt like I was separating from my own body.” “An almost trance like state. Pain didn’t exist in any form.” “While bottoming with my partner, I was able to let go to the point of losing touch with reality while my partner spanked me.” “While being dominated I stepped back inside myself. After getting the rush from playing I lost track of what was going on, nothing seemed to affect me while I was down inside myself.”
