Exploring Women’s, Trans*, and Queer BDSM Subcultures

Over the last two decades, empirical research on BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and/or sadomasochism) has increased exponentially, and has moved beyond the pathologizing approaches of the early sexologists (Ellis 1901; Krafft-Ebing 1903) to an understanding of BDSM that focuses in part on understanding BDSM from participants’ own perspectives. While much of the early social constructionist work on BDSM focused on the gay SM and leather subcultures (Kamel 1983; Lee 1983 [1979]; Spengler 1977 [Spengler uses a German sample]), more recent work has expanded to include the pansexual community (Falk and Weinberg 1983; Weinberg et al. 1984; T. S. Weinberg 1995). Queer and lesbian women’s voices are largely absent from much of this work (but see Ritchie and Barker’s 2005 study, which focuses on women in the UK). Thus, Queer BDSM Intimacies, which focuses specifically on participants who belong to what Bauer terms the Binternational dyke+queer^ subculture—communities that started out as lesbian communities, but have expanded to include trans* people (individuals whose gender identity/ies and/or expression(s) transgress gender boundaries), as well as bisexual, pansexual, and heterosexual women— is an important addition to the expanding field of BDSM Studies. Bauer’s ethnography joins several other recent ethnographies of BDSM subcultures and communities, including Newmahr’s (2011) ethnography of a community in the Northeast U.S., Weiss’ (2011) ethnography of the Bay area community in the U.S., and Lindenmann’s (2012) ethnographic study of pro-Dominatrixes in New York City and San Francisco, but is the first full-length ethnography to focus exclusively on women’s and trans* communities. All empirical studies cited in this review are based on U.S. samples unless otherwise noted. The author draws on queer theory to question heteronormativity, specifically as it relates to the pathologization of queer, trans*, and BDSM sexual identities and practices. In line with other recent work in the field (Kleinplatz and Moser 2006; Langdridge and Barker 2007; Langdridge and Butt 2004; Langdridge and Butt 2005 [studies by Langdridge and colleagues are based on UK samples]), Bauer’s analysis focuses on how BDSM practitioners themselves understand and experience their BDSM interactions, but extends previous work by focusing specifically on dyke, trans, and queer BDSM practitioners, and on an understudied part of the BDSM subculture, the dyke+ queer subculture. Drawing on an analytical process that blends Strauss and Corbin’s grounded theory method (1990) with Haraway’s (1988) understanding of situated knowledges, Bauer frames the narratives created through his interviews in relation to structural power relations. Attentive to his own positionality as a White, queer/ gay, poly, BDSM top and transman, and a member of the international dyke+queer BDSM community, Bauer foregrounds the voices of his interview partners throughout the analysis. Bauer describes himself as an active member of the community, but specifies that the majority of the data from which the analysis presented in Queer BDSM Intimacies derives is drawn from the 49 qualitative, semistructured interviews conducted in person with selfidentified dyke, bi/pansexual women, trans*, and queer BDSM participants from the US and Western Europe. Bauer notes that the majority of interviews were conducted in Germany and Amsterdam, but does not give information about country of residence beyond that 31 interviewees were from Western Europe and the remaining 18 were from the * Brandy Simula bsimula@emory.edu