Dissident sexualities: An outlook on identity narratives and lifestyle in cyberspace

Abstract

The subculture of BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism, Masochism) is organized around dissident erotic practices based on consent. Starting with a netnography survey, this study seeks to understand how adepts of BDSM present themselves from the standpoint of identity in cyberspace. In this sense, blogs and sites related to BDSM, as well as social networks, have been observed. Added to this material are interviews of adepts in other media. Techniques of Saturation Sampling and Discourse Analysis were applied. By eroticizing power, they construct erotic games based on hierarchies, where one individual occupies the role of domination and the other of submission. However, beyond a mere sexual role, the adepts argue that both domination and submission are part of their own nature, revealing an essentializing and instituting discourse, which they claim to be a sexual orientation. From specific scenarios, dress and sexual paraphernalia, their practitioners relive their social traumas, particularly those involving gender oppression. In spite of the stigma that is attributed to the subjects involved, their narratives echo from some of the pillars of contemporary subjectivity, such as valuation of experience, of self-development, and of the maximization of pleasure.