What is BDSM ?
Written by: Carter Stevens
ORIGINAL WEBSITE: http://www.smnews.com/articles/articl10.htm

As a public figure, I am constantly bombarded by letter, e-mails and phone calls from people asking questions about the BDSM
scene. There are a lot of people out there who think it is their right to have me drop everything to recommend a support group
or a Pro dome in East Bum Fuck, Utah. Being a lovable person I try to help them out as much as I can. but many times the
answer SHOULD be "look it up." However, there is one question that never fails to annoy me because I've spent 30 years trying to find the answer myself. The question (or perhaps I should say just, the quest) is simply put...What is BDSM? It sounds like a
simple question but hundreds of people have written thousands of words about it and still there is no good answer.

What is "B" "D" "S" "M".

In order to define BDSM we have to first agree on what BDSM stands for. After all, according to many sources at least 10% of
the population have played with one or another aspect of BDSM and up to 50% of the population have some interest in it. If so
many people are interested, why can't anyone define what they are interested in? Some people say it is a combination of B&D
and S&M. Some add D/s to the middle and say it stands for BD DS SM. So, now we have to define 3 terms instead of one. Let
us start with B&D. B&D is rather universally agreed to stand for Bondage & Discipline OR Bondage & Dominance. D/s is
Dominance & Submission.

And last, but far from least, is S&M which stands for Sadism & Masochism or Slave & Master. (If I missed your favorite please
do not write to tell me. I have enough dealing with 6 different definitions for one small 4 letter "word"). To make it even more
interesting the ampersand (&) is often interchangable with a slash (/) or dropped entirely to change S&M to S/m or just SM
and then given a totally different definition such as SM = Sexual Magik.

Since it is the most commonly heard (and probably the oldest) let's start with S&M. S&M gets it's primary definition from the
famous Austrian psychiatrist R. Krafft-Ebing who, over a hundred years ago, named two mental aberrations after several famous authors the Marquis De Sade and von Sacher-Masoch. Krafft- Ebing was NOT talking about casual kinky sex play, he was talking about deep seated mental disease(s) which caused it's sufferers to be unable to function in a normal way in "polite"
society.

However, the general public, being either unable or unwilling to differentiate between someone who gets a sexual thrill from
spanking a willing partner on the backside during sex play and a Ted Bundy like serial killer have over the last hundred years
usually lumped all erotic power exchange sex play (more on that definition later) in with mental disease. To avoid the stigma
attached to Sado/Masochism many "Scene" people have invented the Slave/Master definition for S/M. Since Erotic Power
Play doesn't always (or even mostly) involve pain many people prefer B/D, as their erotic exchange of power often involves
Bondage and Domi- nance (or discipline). To some however, bondage doesn't enter into erotic play at all (perhaps because
they don't find it erotic?) so they subscribe to the D/s definition, pure dominance and submission. By combining many of these
definitions and acro- nyms we come up with BDSM, which in modern day serves as a gener- al label, but doesn't even touch
on sexual fetishes (leather, rubber, et al). Confused yet?, don't worry, you will be by the time I get finished.

The problem is that sexual needs and channels of fulfillment for mankind are so diverse and morals are so segmented that what a single couple find to be sexually exciting and/or fulfilling might not be the same as any other couple on the face of the
earth find it to be. So how can we define BDSM or even "Kinky" if everyone has a different, built in, definition? We can't really.
What we can do is define a general all encompassing term that will give the average person some idea what we are talking
about. A "scene" friend of mine (although we have never met) in the Netherlands is a great champion of the term EPE (erotic
power exchange) with the "ultimate" EPE being TPE ("total power exchange") which does work for many of the offshoots of
BDSM but totally overlooks fetish play which may not involve any exchange of power at all. A very popular term that has grown up
with the internet that is used by many members of the "BDSM Scene (or community)" is WIITWD. WIITWD is short for "What It Is That We Do." WIITWD is about as generic a term as one could ever use to try to tie together this broad spectrum of humanity as any. But, what about those NOT into the "scene"? WIITWD doesn't include them.

But does it really matter what you call it? Remember the true definition of perversion is "Anything I would n't do!" so no matter what you call it, the 50% of the population NOT interested in BDSM will still call it "sick". So, until some thing better comes along, I believe BDSM is as good a label as any to lump in all sorts of "kinky" (or as I call it "fun") sexual actions and orientations. Alright class, so what does BDSM stand for? You still have no idea? Glad I could be of help.