Abstract
The bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, and sadism-masochism (BDSM) community has achieved diversity with respect to gender identity and sexual orientation yet does so to a lesser extent with respect to race and ethnicity. A total of 398 BDSM practitioners recruited in 2018 and 2019 from BDSM conferences located within the Southern, Midwestern, and Western regions of the U.S., as well as online, completed surveys asking about racial and ethnic discrimination, fetishization, and inclusivity. People of color were 16 times more likely than non-people of color to feel discriminated against at BDSM events and 17 times more likely to feel fetishized. Qualitative results included troubling stories of overt racism and offensive racial slurs, and examples of microaggressions, feelings of isolation, and feelings of being dismissed. The results suggest that organizations can increase inclusivity by understanding the unique costs faced by people of color with an awareness that these costs might be invisible to non-people of color, diversifying positions of authority and leadership, and teaching well-meaning members what types of behaviors could create a hostile environment.
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Notes
Although given the absolute number of people of color in the current study (80) and the very large effects observed, it is unlikely that the skewed distribution of race and ethnicity strongly impacted the conclusions.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the attendees and leadership of the Master/slave Conference, the Southwest Leather Conference, the Southeast LeatherFest, C.O.P.E., the Great Lakes Leather Alliance, Kinky Kollege, and Onyx for supporting this research. We thank Mama Vi Johnson, the Black FemDoms – Atlanta, MsDDom, CreamDream, and Mufasa Ali for their insights and advice during the development of this project, and Kevin Casey for his feedback on the manuscript. This research was supported by grants from Butchmanns, Inc. (www.butchmanns.com) and MTTA (www.mttaacademy.org). Some of the findings reported here were initially presented at the 2019 meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, Illinois, and at the 2019 Multiplicity of the Erotic Conference in Chicago, Illinois.
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This research was supported by grants from Butchmanns, Inc. (www.butchmanns.com) and MTTA (www.mttaacademy.org).
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Erickson, J.M., Slayton, A.M., Petersen, J.G. et al. Challenge at the Intersection of Race and Kink: Racial Discrimination, Fetishization, and Inclusivity Within the BDSM (Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission, and Sadism-Masochism) Community. Arch Sex Behav 51, 1063–1074 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02102-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02102-9