Talk:BDSM

Removed image.

I removed the image File:Waiting by Balzac.png from this article and Impact play, because it seems to be rather out of place. First and foremost, I'm not sure why a rendered image is of any use to the article-- there are many photographs that can illustrate BDSM, with real people, so I'm unsure as to what the point of the image would be, seeing as it's clearly substandard to what we can provide.

Secondly, we already have images that illustrate the practice of flogging, this image is purely redundant.--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 13:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

we often use artwork, rather than photographs, as it avoids the problems of model release, vanity photography and similar aspects. I've re-added it to both works since it seems equally valid as our other illustrations. Max Rebo Band (talk) 08:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

No, we don't, if we have photographs they are always preferred over drawings or diagrams, especially this low quality poser art. I've gone and removed the image from both articles again, as well as this 'File:Rendered Handcuffed Nude Model.jpg'. Neither of these images are needed in either article, and both are of extremely poor quality compared to the photographic images we have in both articles. I appogize for not replying sooner, but I missed this reply.--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 14:03, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

File:Flogging demo folsom 2004.jpg is far from a "high quality photographic image", I mean it's photographic, yes - but beyond that it's really quite poor quality. And the statement "if we have photographs they are always preferred over drawings or diagrams" is patently untrue, want to go look at Rape or Cunnilingus? For sexually explicit subjects, we often prefer to use Art instead of photographs, or we use both. Max Rebo Band (talk) 02:09, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

How about taking both images out? This isn't the article about flogging. Besides, the "rendered" artwork is pretty poor quality, so complaining about the poor quality of the photo seems moot. I'd take out all the rendered images based on this quality criterion. In fact, I'd winnow the images in this article pretty heavily; it seems to be pretty image heavy, and not all images are relevant to the sections they are displayed beside. 99.234.48.101 (talk) 14:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Digging around, it looks like both rendered images have been uploaded by Max Rebo Band, and copied off the same external Wiki/website. I'm not sure if the same user created the images or not - almost impossible to tell - but they can hardly be considered to be objective in either case. - 99.234.48.101 (talk) 15:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I did not create the images, take a look at my upload history and you'll see it's not surprising that two BDSM-related images were uploaded by me. Max Rebo Band (talk) 15:28, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• More importantly, the amount of images in this article is beyond excessive many of them add nothing to the article at all, are decorative only and some only indirectly related. This is the first thing that should be considered rather than who uploaded the image and the quality. Does this article need even more images? --neon white talk 20:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

As long as they ad information? Sure it does...--84.152.125.1 (talk) 07:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

On the topic of photographs... Maybe take off that photo of the man with a knife up his bum and another one in his... somewhere. I don't quite see how it compliments or illustrates the fine concepts and practices of the article in such a responsible way. I mean, call me vanilla but maybe the fear of accidental manslaughter is a little more than simply erotic or safe sex play. Doctors see enough accidents as it is. Oops, I did it again. I played with your spleen. Ooo puncture, baby! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.234.192.254 (talk) 05:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Why?

What was wrong with the tone? Solokhabar (talk) 17:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It sounded a bit negative, so I thought you could come here and say why you made the edits. There's probably nothing wrong, I just wanted to be careful and make sure there wasn't bias being snuck in. Zazaban (talk) 22:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Come on. What bias? Not a single word in that was negative or biased! What was it biased against? If it was the American to British spellings, then tell. Sorry. You could have merely changed that back if it was so. Didn't mean to offend anyone's linguistic sensibilities. I am neither Brit, nor American, though I do speak more Brit Eng, but that was a small thing. Keep it American if you like. But I don't think the other para, which I added, was wrong. I think it is important to talk about Vanilla sex in order to provide a comparative understanding of BDSM. I think the para that I added is important. Solokhabar (talk) 21:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

When I first read your edits, I also perceived a possible negative bias, but I didn't read it thoroughly then and chose to defer to other editors' opinions. Some examples of why I thought this:

1. Changing "...some BDSM activities may appear to be violent or coercive" to "There is violence or coersion involved" is quite definitive -- the former is more accurate.
2. The sentence describing "the opposite of BDSM" is misleading. My partner occasionally refers to our BDSM activities as "love making", and there is often "fondling" in some sense involved.
3. The description of "vanilla sex" as "non-kinky, traditional activities and sexual positions for achieving orgasm" is not needed, as "vanilla" is defined (correctly, IMHO) later as "sexual behavior without BDSM elements" and linked to a more complete article.

Even though you may not have intended bias, your wording may have given that impression. I agree with the removal -- rephrasing would roughly give or duplicate the original text. HalJor (talk) 22:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Passivity Sex

Whoever suggested that that article be merged with this one is either a moron or an arrogant... ... well back to the point. I assume that person suggested such a thing because of the submission side of BDSM. Submission is about giving up control, it's about taking control. Think about it, how is getting exactly what you want a loss of control. DS isn't about control (well not only about it) it's mainly a contract between two people with socially unacceptable desires there is nothing passive what-so-ever about it.

I doubt you could ask a submissive to explain it. If you must ask someone, ask a Master. In order to achive that title you must have to through understanding of the submissive mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.229.33 (talk) 07:15, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I would have to agree. Being submissive has nothing to do with being passive, in my opinion. I am a submissive in case you are curious, and I am not passive in the slightest. I was quite offended by the suggestion that we submissives are. 124.149.54.33 (talk) 09:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• The terms top and bottom are more accurate from my point of view while offering a lower potential for too detailed discussions on single aspects.--Nemissimo (talk) 21:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Pedophile culture

Studies have shown that there may be hidden links between the BDSM culture and the so-called pedophile culture. For instance, it was reported not long ago that Italian police were investigating 186 people after uncovering an Internet pornography site for pedophiles that showed young children being tortured. This could maybe be discussed within the bounds of the article in order to show the existing legal limits against the practice of BDSM. [1] [2] [3] [4] ADM (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Again conflating pedophilia with LGBT people. Really, it's disruptive. Those sources don't seem to hold up to our standards. If you have any reliable sources to support non-fringe POV feel free to present them otherwise this seems to be the latest in dozens of such posting suggesting such inflamatory content litter the encyclopedia. -- Banjeboi 23:48, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't even mention gays in that last comment, you're the one who did. ADM (talk) 23:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm going by your track record coupled with that BDSM culture is historically linked with LGBT people. Regardless your efforts to disassociate sex abuse in Catholic articles or position it as primarily associated with the "problems of homosexuality" while simultaneous linking Jewish people, pedophilia and LGBT people seems a net deficit for Wikipedia. We let reliable sources not the Catholic League lead our articles. -- Banjeboi 00:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

An inflammatory "hidden link" assertion, claiming "studies" but providing only a quasi-random set of links ... Might not feeding the trolls be the best policy here? BitterGrey (talk) 04:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Definitely, however this is the umpteenth talk post they have made such pointy "gee, shouldn't this article ____" statements. When I see them I call them out to halt the nonsense. On some of these well-meaning others waste energy trying to have a good faith discussion when none seems to be sought. I also want to ensure they can't defend these as "No one ever told me they were problematic." Thank you for the post though. -- Banjeboi 18:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes

I've added an introductory line that could solve some ambiguities. Please give me feedback on the same.

Besides that, I have a slight niggle with this one:

While not always overtly sexual in nature, the activities and relationships within a BDSM context are almost always eroticized by the participants in some fashion.

As terms themselves, "sexual" and "eroticized" could mean different things to different people, since these experiences are subjective. It could be biased to say that BDSM isn't overtly sexual, because what does sexual mean in the first place then? Without any references, this line should not be in the article.

Thanks, A. Alinovic (talk) 10:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I also have an issue with this line. What in the world do we mean?

Many dominatrixes do not see themselves as prostitutes, since sexual intercourse between dominatrix and client usually is out of the question.

This is complete POV. There's no reference being made to anyone who's made a statement like this. It is also untrue. Do we mean that prostitutes always give sexual intercourse? Certainly not!

Can we please begin to remove some of these biased claims?

Alinovic (talk) 20:06, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see bdsm.org linked to —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.64.185.60 (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Inaccurate image caption on File:BDSM_logo.svg thumbnail

Since the separate "BDSM emblem" article was rather annoyingly deleted, some might claim that the image should not be included in this article at all. However, as long as it is included, it should be accurately described, so I radically changed a previous inaccurate caption for this image ("Tricelli" is a rather strange form of the word "Triskelion", and definitely incorrect in English; there's no evidence that the symbol is intended to represent a rope-separator, and Quagmyr's website gives a very different account of its origin;[5] [6] etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 12:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I just saw it has been deleted, what an utter nonsense... Regards,--Nemissimo (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Commons Conflict strikes again

[7].--Nemissimo (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Psychology Section Expansion

BDSM can be cute also. ^_^

shouldn't there be some more info on WHY people are into this stuff, not just the incidence, etc?? as a sexually open-minded person that not only doesn't find BDSM arousing, but finds it quite disgusting/creepy (for e.g. the leather mask thing to me is like something out of a horror movie), i'm very curious as to what is behind the attraction to BDSM. is there any correlation with people who were sexually abused as children who grow up to be into BDSM?? why is there not more on the psychology behind BDSM??--Gummy Dummy (talk) 09:49, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

From one point of view you could say; Society has been fetishizing violence for a very long time now, this could simply be seen as the logical conclusion. Similar to the extreme popularity of slasher movies. Zazaban (talk) 23:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Your personal squeamishness about the issue aside, Gummy Dummy, I too, would welcome information about the psychology of BDSM, provided it comes from reliable sources. Asarelah (talk) 01:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

1."is there any correlation with people who were sexually abused as children who grow up to be into BDSM??"
-No, but for thanks for the good laugh.
2."why is there not more on the psychology behind BDSM??"
-No one has any idea, that's why.
I do agree there should be more of an expansion, but the only way to expand I can think of is ways in which practitioners increase feelings of humiliation, objectification, submission, and dominance, as further explaining the "why" the enjoy these feelings won't really lead anywhere.Wikiposter0123 (talk) 20:55, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit:I put up an image for you Gummy. :) Wikiposter0123 (talk) 21:02, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

You know, the book "Arousal:The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies" touches on BDSM fantasies and does a good job of explaining at least some of the psychology. Unfortunately I don't have the book anymore, but I'm sure someone could get it a library. Asarelah (talk) 03:16, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Wild Side Sex goes into detail about erotic humiliation if anyone's interested:(the part on the psychology of erotic humiliation can be found on Google books)

Wild Side Sex: The Book of Kink Educational, Sensual, And Entertaining Essays. Daedalus Publishing. 2005. p. 48. ISBN 9781881943228. http://books.google.com/books?id=SO0BbX_oBiUC&dq=erotic+humiliation&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

Wikiposter0123 (talk) 04:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The article stated that Larry Townsend's *The Leatherman's Handbook* described "The Old Guard." However, his description of leather/BDSM culture is almost completely at odds with descriptions of "Old Guard" I've read. For example, the OG is usually described as being intolerant of switching. Townsend explicitly states that "leathermen" (his term) were switches more often than not and provides examples and details to back up the claim. Likewise, the OG culture is usually described as tightly knit and hierarchical, with successive ranks and commensurate privileges. Townsend, however, describes a loose community in which everyone is a free agent and on roughly equal social footing. I just don't see how anyone can read Townsend's book as a description of The Old Guard.

I've removed the reference to the Old Guard. If someone wants to put in a new one, I just ask that they don't use *The Leatherman's Handbook* as a reference to support their claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Clay201 (talk • contribs) 05:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Relevance of links in "See also" section

Why are these the links that make up the See Also section?

• Handcuffs
• Legcuffs
• Thumbcuffs
• Bondage cuffs
• Testicle cuffs
• Index of BDSM articles

Anyone have any idea how this could've happened or why these were chosen? --AerobicFox (talk) 08:45, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree these may be suboptimal. WP:SEEALSO provides no compelling reason why any of those links should be there. I'm not even convinced there needs to be a See also section, as this article is already very well-developed. Why not WP:BEBOLD and delete it? If someone objects, they can revert and discuss. --Meitar (talk) 09:57, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Bold it is. --AerobicFox (talk) 06:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

This article needs refs

I'll start a list below, please help add.

• Sex-interface-aesthetics: The docile avatars and embodied pixels of Second Life BDSM
• Painful pleasures: Sacrifice, consent, and the resignification of BDSM symbolism in" The Story of O" and" The Story of Obi"
• Partner selection, power dynamics, and sexual bargaining in self-defined BDSM couples: has been mostly incorporated into article
• The mastery of submission: inventions of masochism
• Therapy Experiences of Clients with BDSM Sexualities: Listening to a Stigmatized Sexuality
• Kinky clients, kinky counselling? The challenges and potentials of BDSM: in process of being incorporated into article

I'll start inserting info from these sources. Any help with that or with adding sources would be appreciated. --AerobicFox (talk) 06:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Image request

The current image for the section ==Parties and clubs== has nothing to do with BDSM parties and clubs. I wasn't able to find any images for this section at Wikimedia. If anybody knows where some free images are, or could upload some images they took themselves it would help. --AerobicFox (talk) 02:33, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes

I'm posting just to make sure everyone is okay with the changes I have been making to the article including renaming and organizing some sections. I am foreseeing this article possibly becoming too large in which case some of these sections are going to need their own articles("BDSM and the law" for example) to cover all the material and to keep this article from becoming unwieldy. I've noticed it seems a lot of the images are just randomly placed throughout the article, so I will probably be moving them around and/or replacing, removing, or inserting new images into the article. --AerobicFox (talk) 04:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Gendering of images

Why are 90% of the images of subs and bottoms in this article images of femme women? This is creepy and sexist. For that matter, why aren't there more images of doms and tops? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.11.76 (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Most subs are women, so most of the images we have are of women. If you can upload some free images of male subs then please do.AerobicFox (talk) 23:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

There are 8 female images and 7 male(not including sexually ambiguous images, and one of the female is of a domme. That is fairly balanced.AerobicFox (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I have noticed this across Wikipedia, on a lot of sexuality-related articles they do tend to have predominantly female and hetero images. I wonder if having a bit more diversity in images on sexuality articles is part of WP:CSB. —Tom Morris (talk) 05:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree - I thought this as I first read the article. I was glancing at the photos and felt that there seemed to be a lot of women. The photos with men are further down, and tend to show the whole body from further away, while the earlier photos are of women and their body parts. I would like to see some more photos of men, naked or near naked, as the photos of women are, nearer the top of the article.Snorgle (talk) 19:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

File:Ben tied.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Possible Addition To Section 6.3: IRC

Currently: In the late-eighties, the Internet provided a way of finding people with specialized interests around the world as well as on a local level, and communicating with them anonymously.[8][106] This brought about an explosion of interest and knowledge of BDSM, particularly on the usenet group alt.sex.bondage. When that group became too cluttered with spam, the focus moved to soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm.

My suggestion would be that a few sentences be added about BDSM on IRC, (Internet Relay Chat). While usenet groups provided one method for people to find like-minded friends, IRC was just as powerful. IRC channels devoted to different forms of BDSM offered real time connections, real time conversations. For many, it was their first time actually conversing with a Dominant or submissive. The anonymity and immediacy of IRC should not be overlooked. I suggest:

...focus moved to soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm. IRC, (Internet Relay Chat) was yet another way that people who were curious or interested in the subject could make connections. The real-time component of IRC made it particularly appealing. People from around the world could easily find IRC 'channels' that matched their own interest. <end>

If I have offended anyone by this suggestion, or the way that I am submitting the suggestion, I do apologize. This is my first attempt at adding something to Wikipedia. Any advice on better ways to contribute ideas would be welcomed.

GlacierSapphire (talk) 03:35, 25 June 2011 (UTC)