Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy (14 page)

The acceptance of this paradox is indicated by the phrase “power exchange” in the SM community, which is used to describe both the objective and the dynamics of SM interactions. Its meaning is taken for granted, and it is difficult to identify a precise and universally accepted meaning. There is a good deal of agreement that SM is intertwined with power, and that “power exchange” is the objective of most SM play. Leading SM texts that emerge from, and are written for, the community help to frame play as power exchange. In
Different Loving
(Brame et al. 1993), SM is defined as “the willing surrender of sensual control by a submissive to a dominant.” Jay Wiseman’s
SM 101,
widely recognized as the definitive guidebook for the community, considers SM to be “the know- ing use of psychological domination and submission, and/or physical bondage, and/or pain, and/or related practices” (Wiseman 1998, 10). The definition in Patrick Califia’s
Sensuous Magic
(2001) is “a temporary, consensual transfer of control from the bottom to the top for the duration of an S/M scene or an S/M relationship. Used as a synonym for S/M.”

At its core, the link between SM participants is a quest for a sense of authen- ticity in experiences of power imbalance. In order to achieve this, participants must suspend belief in their own egalitarian relations for the duration of the scene. When this is successful, the sense of power imbalance
feels
real. This is sought, and is what often occurs, in and through “power exchange.”

SM participants seek authenticity in emotional, physical, and psychologi- cal
experience,
rather than authenticity in their presentation to others. I use “authenticity” to refer to participants’
feelings and experiences
of relative pow- erful- or powerless-ness, during and as a consequence of their SM scenes. This achievement of authenticity is
beyond
that of what one might experience when playing a role. In other words, SM participants who, when they play, feel as if they are playing a role (as an actor might) do not achieve the authenticity of players who say that they
feel
afraid, helpless, evil, or invincible during their play. Unlike in improv or other kinds of performance, the authenticity in SM

lies in the extent to which SM participants are able to convince themselves, and each other, of the real-ness of the experience. D/s and “straight” SM employ different (but sometimes overlapping) strategies toward the achievement of authentic experiences of power imbalances.

All SM, though, is a carnal experience. It is enacted, performed, processed, lived, and experienced on and through the body. Bodily manifestations and consequences of SM, such as bruises, scratches, and scars, are deeply entwined in ideologies of power. For SM participants, “marks” are indicators of authen- ticity, as well as visible sites of its accomplishment. Similarly, the spilling of blood (less common in public play but not unusual), is a powerful symbol of authenticity.

Phoebe stood in the brightly lit conference room beside a small steel table that held supplies for the demonstration. She unwrapped a cotton- looking scalpel pack and laid it beside a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a first aid kit, and a large box of cotton gauze. Aidan, shirtless and in jeans, was lying face down on the table with his arms at his sides. I moved further into the room, closer to the top half of his body. [ . . . ] When Phoebe cut into the flesh of Aidan’s shoulder, he hissed. He came up on his toes, feet flexed and his back muscles visibly rigid. She put her hand on his back and waited a second, while blood trickled from the wound. She continued her work, inserting the tip of the scalpel into his skin and making small slices. Slowly she cut a simple pattern, angled and tribal-looking. Every couple of minutes, she wiped the blood off of the scalpel on a swathe of gauze she kept on the small table. Once or twice she blotted his wound with a fresh piece of gauze (in order to see what she was doing, she later explained). Aidan was quiet throughout, punctuating the silence with only an occasional pained (sounding) moan—soft, deep and brief.

In this demonstration scene, Phoebe is injuring Aidan’s body. His blood testifies to her ability and willingness to wound him, and to his mortality. The power exchange—the suspension of belief in egalitarianism—here is assisted by the visibility of Aidan’s blood.

In negotiating the tension between the desire for authentic experiences of power imbalance and the aspiration to play safely, SM participants must navi- gate conceptually muddy waters. Their experiences are constructed and inter- preted through a complex, and sometimes competing, set of discursive and social-psychological strategies in the community. Leah said, of the first time that she “got the concept of power exchange”:

He’s doing all this really horrible stuff to me. I’m going, “I don’t like this.” He’s going, “I do.” And I want you to take five more, seven more, three more, whatever it was, depending on how miserable I looked at the time. [laughs] I don’t know where he was fishing his numbers from. But he was going, you know, it was the first time. It was like, okay you have the power. Because you’re doing all this nasty stuff. I’m trying to exert what little power I have, going “I don’t like it.” I’m not safewording, which might be stupid, or might not be, but I really didn’t—I didn’t want to, and
I don’t know why.
[ . . . ] And it was like okay, well if you want to, and this is going to please you, then that’s a good enough reason for me and I guess I can do this, and I’m going to just draw off on the fact that you want to and that’s going to make you happy. And I’m just going to draw from that and that’ll work for me at some level.

Here Leah constructs an imbalanced relationship by discounting her agency in the scene, recounting the events as if her resistance was genuine. This narra- tive of helplessness allows submissives to disavow their decision-making, there- by protecting—and arguably constructing—the experience of powerlessness.

The success of a scene depends on the accomplishment of this paradox by the participants. The top must provide the appropriate material cues to the bottom, in order for the performance to succeed. In this sense a scene might be understood in terms of Goffman’s team performance—an interaction during which more than one actor contributes to the “staging” of the performance. Again, though, Goffman’s “staging” is not intended to convey a façade (at least not any more than all interactions are façades for Goffman), but to indicate the tacit collaboration in social interaction (Goffman 1959b). Here the participants are team performers from one perspective (that of the onlookers), but they are also performers and audience unto themselves, simultaneously. The selves presented are intended to produce effects in the other members of the team, namely experiences of relative power and powerlessness.

Feminist insights into heteronormative eroticism notwithstanding, most people do not conceptualize their sexual activity as being “about” power. Sex- ual pleasure is located in conventionally defined sexual activity, and provides the motivation to engage in sexual activity. In Caeden, the objective is also pleasure, but the pleasure is linked,
at the conscious level,
to power. This link exists alongside sex in some cases, and instead of sex in others. The common link across all activities and relationships represented in the self-defined SM community is not a sexual context, nor the adoption of roles, but the quest for experiences of imbalanced interpersonal power.

Strategies of Accomplishment

In constructing contexts for experiences of power imbalances, SM participants employ particular strategies, among them the structure of SM scenes, commu- nication during scenes, and identification labels.

NEGOTIATION AND AFTERCARE

Despite a wide range of kinds of SM scenes, most participants adhere to a par- ticular structure in their SM play. This structure itself contributes to the cre- ation and protection of experiences of power imbalance. Because many SM participants are putting themselves into situations in which they “truly could be powerless,” to quote Laura, nearly all scenes in Caeden are negotiated before- hand. At its most structured, this may consist of a questionnaire completed by the participants that outlines interests, fears, and limits, which are then discussed before playing. They agree on safewords and safe signals, sometimes carefully selected so as not to disturb the perception of the power imbalance, and outline the kind of scene in which they will engage.

Alternatively, when players know each other well, they may briefly relay the kind of scene in which they are interested (or not interested) and either assume the use of ubiquitous and accepted safewords or rely on conventional communi- cation during play. As play relationships progress, negotiation tends to become less formal, but it remains a visible part of the process in public SM play.

At the symbolic level, the primary objective of negotiation is to allow the bottom to set the parameters outside the scene, so as not to disturb the expe- riences or illusions of relative powerful- and powerless-ness in scene. During this process, however informal, the bottom determines what cannot and can be done. Typically, and often ideally, the negotiation constitutes, for the bottom, the pinnacle of what is to be his or her power course through the scene.

When the play begins, control of the scene (or the illusion of control) shifts dramatically. In the majority of scenes, the top is
acting upon
the bottom, in one way or another. The top orchestrates and directs the scene. Even when play is not consciously structured around power dynamics, the top usually remains in control on a purely physical level. At minimum, the top is arguably in con- trol by virtue of having a whip (for example) at the moment, when the bottom does not.

The top also determines the end of the scene, by which time the bottom often evidences a shift in mental or emotional state. This condition, similar in appear-

ance to intoxication, is generally attributed to a combination of biochemical responses to intense stimuli (i.e. “endorphin rush”) or to psychological responses to physical stimuli or to the psycho-emotional context of the scene. The bottom frequently appears glassy-eyed, unsteady, and intellectually impaired.

In part because of this likelihood, most scenes conclude with “aftercare.” The objective of aftercare is to meet the post-scene needs of the bottom (and sometimes, but never only, of the top). Typically this involves caressing, strok- ing, cuddling with, or rocking the bottom. Although desire for aftercare dif- fers by person as well as by scene, the provision of appropriate aftercare is the responsibility of the top. It is also widely accepted that, because the bottom’s judgment and functioning may be impaired to some degree, the top is even more responsible for the welfare of the bottom at this point.

The ways in which scenes are structured and accomplished coalesce to create and preserve perceptions of power imbalances in play. This operates discur- sively as well; the process includes rather than constitutes what is known in the SM community as the “play,” or the “scene.” Therefore, the initial stage, in which the bottom defines limitations and outlines desires, is understood as a precursor to play rather than as part of SM “proper.” The final stage, in which the bottom is often impaired but the top performs a nurturing service by cater- ing to his or her needs, is similarly omitted from consideration as SM. These experiences are bookends; they are prep work and cleanup, the necessary sup- port for the “big event.” Negotiation is framed as information the top needs in order to “make the best decisions,” and aftercare as what the top needs to do to be responsible for her or his actions. All of this contributes to a successful front stage (Goffman 1959b), for the top is thus “in charge” when it matters—and what matters are the times when the top is in charge.

The objective of SM—for participants to achieve as total and as authentic a sense of power imbalance as possible within the confines of consent—is ambi- tious. The negotiation process itself, along with discursive tools through which the bottom’s agency is ignored or discounted, helps SM participants accomplish this.

COMMUNICATION IN SCENE

SM play is a dynamic experience. Although negotiation provides parameters, it does not furnish a script for actors to perform. Participants communicate directly in scene, yet this can be confusing when the objective is the con- struction or performance of power imbalances. A common compromise is to communicate directly first, and rely on safewords as a backup if direct com- munication is misunderstood.

Though not discussed in public, bottoms deliberately and consciously guide action in a scene through verbal and vocal responses. For example, silence on the part of a bottom (particularly sudden silence) can result in the cessation of a particular activity by the top, while increased volume encourages continua- tion or intensification. Tops, almost without exception, say that the reaction of the bottom is a prime motivation and objective in their topping. This widely employed metaphor—tops as “reaction junkies”—frames bottoms as provid- ing what the tops need, in order to feed their “addiction” to evidence of their own efficacy. Bottoms, in turn, withdraw the reward when they are no longer satisfied with the situation.

Bottoms develop signals and gestures that acquire meaning between par- ticular play partners, and sometimes throughout the larger community. For example, while play partners may not have negotiated that stomping means that the bottom is at his or her limit, it can quickly become incorporated into the repertoire between players if it predictably precedes a particular response from the bottom. Occasionally, that signal with that bottom becomes common knowledge in the community, leading other bottoms to deploy it toward the same end.

More frequently, however, tops need to learn new signals with new meanings each time they play with a new partner, and it is widely accepted that signals change from one scene to the next. For tops, this can lead to uncertainty in scene; they must read signals quickly and accurately, aware that they differ from one person to the next, maintain the illusion of omnipotence, and still keep the bottom feeling safe. Once, during an early scene with Trey, the stingy pain of the whip was too intense for me, and I asked him to “switch to thuddy.” I was surprised when he asked, “Do you
really
want to switch to thuddy, or is what you want for me to make you keep taking stingy?” Having intended no ambiguity, I asked Trey about this later, and learned that, unlike safewords, direct communication in scene cannot always be trusted by tops.