Our kinky world is a closed book to outsiders. Some terms are familiar to everyone, others cause big question marks. The external impact of the scene can be very different. Visually, some BDSM practices are exciting, provocative, dark, perverse, brutal, dangerous and formidable. Other kinks, on the other hand, receive no attention at all in society. Or they are not immediately associated with BDSM. But the eye is always the first to catch the greatest sensation. And those remain the extremes. A breeding ground for clichés.
Although BDSM is fortunately becoming more and more accepted, vanilla rarely looks behind the leather facade. Why? Anyone who has no contact with BDSM will not engage with it or inform themselves. BDSM also has little or doubtful presence in the media. Unfortunately, this creates a lot of room for clichés. We would like to dedicate ourselves to the most common SM myths and dispel them.
BDSM means being into pain
One of those BDSM clichés that isn’t all that incomprehensible. That’s right, the most well-known SM practices often involve pain, hitting and bondage. Precisely because pain and pleasure do not belong together for most people, these kinks are particularly perceived from the outside.
Practices that do not have impact, dynamism and suffering simply come into focus less.
Painless kinks are often quieter and less impressive for vanillas.
If someone is into orgasm control, it simply attracts less attention than ballbusting and whipping. During the painful practices, BDSM tendencies become visually much more tangible. That’s why they seem representative.
Of course, this cliché is a myth. BDSM doesn’t have to have anything to do with pain and not every kinkster is a masochist or sadist. There are fetishes and practices in which pain plays no role at all. Especially since power exchange can occur without any physical suffering. Pain can be a part of BDSM, but it is not a requirement.
Submissive men in leadership positions – the alpha male cliché
Everyone is probably familiar with this gender-specific cliché: especially successful men who hold a position of power at work like to be dominated in bed. We immediately have the image in our heads of the big boss from the executive suite who enjoys groping in front of his mistress. Instead of holding the reins in his hand, he lets himself be put on a leash here. And it’s totally understandable that he likes it. The myth goes that he simply needs it to compensate for his job.
The fact is: Every person can have submissive tendencies, regardless of their social status. There are subs, including cis-males, from all professional backgrounds. Then why is this one of the most common clichés?
Maybe because it’s so easy to understand. One tries to find a cause for a different tendency. An explanation of why a person feels pleasure from being humiliated.
Simply understanding it as a natural sexual preference that needs no justification is more difficult.
The alpha male cliché is plausible, which is why it persists. It is also used again and again in the media. This is how this stigma is fed.
The cliché of the toxic BDSM relationship
The image of a healthy partnership is based on love, communication, consideration and equality. A relationship with a power imbalance, in which one person calls the shots and another person obeys, sounds unhealthy to many people. If we add a pinch of pain and humiliation in the bedroom, alarm bells start ringing. A BDSM relationship is absolutely toxic. Or?
Let’s look at an example Dom/Sub relationship to understand what this cliche is based on. From the outside we see a top who is superior to the sub and appears authoritarian. For example, he or she decides what to wear or what to eat in a restaurant. Sub, on the other hand, appears obedient, asks for permission, and may appear intimidated by this. No trace of equality. Everything seems coordinated and cool.
What outsiders don’t see, however, is that a BDSM relationship involves a lot of communication, empathy and responsibility.
However, these aspects usually take place behind closed doors and in an intimate setting. On the surface, it is not obvious how much security and relaxation the sub enjoys by giving up control. Or how attentive and needs-oriented the Dom makes the decisions.
Just as an apparently perfect partnership can actually have long since fallen apart, a Dom/Sub relationship can be full of understanding and love. Because these decisions and the practices carried out at home in the bedroom are made out of love and affection, just like cooking dinner for each other. Even if that may not be obvious at first glance.
So while we view the above statements as cliche, we don’t want to discount some toxic risk to BDSM relationships. You can find out more about this in our series about red flags and the 10-point check.
Cause childhood trauma – one of our toughest clichés
Probably the most controversial and unpleasant BDSM myth. Even at the risk of not being able to cover all the facets and possibilities of this topic, we still want to shed light on it: the cliché that something must have gone wrong in childhood for a person to develop a BDSM tendency at all.
Again, this myth is about finding an explanation. Terms like borderline, father complex and narcissism are often thrown around. Unfortunately, this comes with a very negative connotation.
Because the assumption that BDSMers have had a traumatic childhood or even suffer from a personality disorder means nothing other than: Anyone who practices BDSM is sick. And this statement is not deeply discriminatory, but simply wrong.
Neither older nor current studies have found evidence that clinical disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorders or other pathologies occur more often among people who show an interest in BDSM than in the general population (for example Connolly, 2006 or Brown et. al 2020).
A possible cause for such unpleasant clichés could be the following: people who actually suffer from a personality disorder can develop BDSM tendencies as a result. For example, self-harming behavior is not atypical for borderlines. BDSM practices could be misused as an outlet here. Likewise, for narcissists, the Dom role will seem tailor-made at first glance. Such personalities quickly come into focus and unfortunately provide the basis for disproportionate generalizations.
Under no circumstances should one draw the reverse conclusion here: Yes, there is a certain overlap of people with a traumatic history and mental illnesses who practice BDSM. But that doesn’t mean that every BDSM person has experience with it.
Men are always dominant and women are submissive
Another gender-specific stereotype about heterosexual people. But the fact is: BDSM is not just a cisgender and heterosexual story, but occurs in a wide variety of forms and intensities for every sexual orientation and all binary and non-binary gender identities. Let’s take a quick look at what lies behind this assumption when it comes to heterosexual cis people.
The fact that society accepts this idea is probably due to cultural and social ideas about masculinity and femininity. In this stereotype, women are only dominant in one situation: when they are paid to do so. As a dominatrix.
Although the data on BDSM tendencies is very thin, figures from Canada from 2015 suggest that the desire to be dominated and to dominate yourself is almost equally distributed among men and women and that these genders are both generally more inclined towards submissive fantasies . Other surveys from 2013 to 2017 found that up to three quarters of women see themselves as submissive.
Since BDSM is not a clear term, the results are always very different and are therefore difficult to compare. What is fantasy, what is self-image, what is reality? And where are the switchers?
