‘I feel so much better in myself’: Exploring meaningful non-erotic outcomes of BDSM participation

Although research tends to focus on the sexual and/or erotic aspects of consensual BDSM participation, there are many non-erotic and nonsexual beneficial outcomes arising from participating in BDSM. This research aims to elucidate those other meaningful aspects of BDSM that reach beyond the sexual in order to highlight their salience for BDSM practitioners and to ensure that these non-erotic aspects of BDSM participation are not overlooked. Eleven regular practitioners of consensual BDSM took part in customized in-depth, face to face interviews conducted within an interpretive phenomenological perspective that focused on the lived experiences of consensual BDSM. The template analysis method was used to analyse the data. Findings illustrated that various non-erotic and non-sexual aspects of BDSM are important to practitioners. These elements are necessary and significant to participants’ lived experiences of BDSM and will be discussed in this paper in terms of transformative experiences and demonstrate that BDSM should be studied from a holistic perspective.