The current study examines judicial discourse about BDSM activities within decisions rendered in Canada during the past 20 years. A recent uprise in popular culture representation has resulted in a greater uptake of Bondage / Discipline / Dominance / Submission / Sadism / Masochism (BDSM) in the sexual lives of Canadians. Little research to date has been completed to analyze the implications that the uprise may have on the legal system when BDSM cases are presented. In particular, the legal system is being tasked with interpreting many different consent standards through the narrow affirmative-based definition found under Section 273.1 (1). The current study employed a qualitative analysis of all Canadian criminal court cases and appeals available in legal software that dealt with the issues of consent and BDSM (n=23) over a 20-year time frame. The study found that judges must interpret 4 different types of consent found within sexual relationships: affirmative consent, advanced consent to unconscious acts, consent to bodily harm and mistaken consent. Finally, the current study found that the way judges interpreted BDSM consent standards reflects a wider shift in governance from legal moralist thinking to a neoliberal paternalist governance.

Esta dissertação é uma etnografia realizada em três festas fetichistas/sadomasoquistas (autodenominadas BDSM), abertas ao público em geral, que acontecem na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Meu objetivo foi investigar este tipo de sociabilidade, tendo como foco dois importantes temas das Ciências Sociais: festas e sexualidade. A revisão teórica e a análise do material de campo buscam o diálogo com estes temas através de uma reflexão sobre identidade e gênero. / This study consists on an ethnography in three public fetishist/sadomasochistic parties (self-called BDSM parties) that take place in Rio de Janeiro. My aim was to investigate this kind of sociability, focusing on two important themes in Social Sciences: parties and sexuality. Bibliographic review and fieldwork analysis search for a dialog with these two themes by means of considering identity and gender issues.

Denna studie kom till efter att RFSU hade börjat arbeta med frågor om sadomasochism, och efter att Socialstyrelsen tog bort sadomasochism ur sin diagnosmanual. Syftet med studien är att ta reda på vilka diskurser som används när media talar om sadomasochism. Queerteori är det teoretiska fundamentet i studien. Jag utgår även från Michel Foucaults teorier. Min metod är foucauldiansk genealogisk diskursanalys. Analysmaterialet består av 33 tryckta artiklar från svenska dags- och kvällstidningar. Resultatet visar att talet om sadomasochism i media följer olika diskurser. Vissa utgår från att normalisering är godtycklig, att normer är föränderliga och att alla människor bör ha rätt till sin egen sexualitet. Diskurser om kvinnor och barn utgår från att sadomasochism är farligt och att människor måste skyddas från sexuella avvikare. Det talas om sadism som inte sker under samtycke som sjukt. Vissa diskurser framställer sadomasochism som positivt och används i sadomasochisters identitetsskapade. Även när de accepterande artiklarna talar om sadomasochism görs det på ett sätt så att de sexuella normerna inte ifrågasätts. Media lägger fram en nomaliserad variant av sadomaschism som är lättare för allmänheten att acceptera. Sadomasochism fortsätter på grund av normaliseringen att betraktas som avvikande.

Esta dissertação é uma etnografia realizada em três festas fetichistas/sadomasoquistas (autodenominadas BDSM), abertas ao público em geral, que acontecem na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Meu objetivo foi investigar este tipo de sociabilidade, tendo como foco dois importantes temas das Ciências Sociais: festas e sexualidade. A revisão teórica e a análise do material de campo buscam o diálogo com estes temas através de uma reflexão sobre identidade e gênero. / This study consists on an ethnography in three public fetishist/sadomasochistic parties (self-called BDSM parties) that take place in Rio de Janeiro. My aim was to investigate this kind of sociability, focusing on two important themes in Social Sciences: parties and sexuality. Bibliographic review and fieldwork analysis search for a dialog with these two themes by means of considering identity and gender issues.

Introduction. The aim of this thesis is to examine information practices among erotic minorities in Sweden in 1975–1995. These minorities include among others sadomasochists, fetishists and transvestites. The survey moves within the subculture that existed around deviating sexual practices. The center of the survey is the association Club Sunrise who organized erotic minorities, where the majority of the members had a mainly heterosexual orientation.  Method. Sixteen semi-structured interviews have been carried out with people active in the Swedish subculture during the studied period. The empirical data also consists of the Club Sunrise member magazine SMART. The author also had access to material from other media, in which the members participated. Analysis. The material has been analyzed based on J. Tuomas Harvianien’s concept of embodied information literacy and Elfreda A. Chatman’s four critical concepts that serve as the basis for defining an impoverished life-world: risk-taking, secrecy, deception and situational relevance.  Results. People belonging to various erotic minorities have used all four of Chatman’s critical concepts, with an emphasis on secrecy and deception. They also obtained information through embodied literacy. In addition to these results, the investigation also resulted in a mapping of various associations and venues that existed in Sweden before 1995. Conclusion. Erotic minorities in Sweden 1975–1995 were in a state of information poverty. However, they have not suffered from any information poverty in their lives as a whole, but it has been expressed in their belonging to an erotic minority. To get in touch with like-minded, without revealing their secrets to outsiders, they used different concepts of secrecy and deception. They also found and identified each other through secret signs and symbols, special clothing or ways of behaving. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

<p>Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka hur fyra sexuellt dominanta kvinnor uppfattar sin sexualitet. Särskilt inriktar den sig på hur kvinnorna definierar sig som sexuellt dominanta och vad dominans innebär för dem sexuellt men också till vardags och generellt. Vidare undersöks hur informanterna uppfattar sin sexuella dominans i relation till sin identitet och sitt identitetsskapande överlag. För att kunna verkställa syftet har fyra kvinnor intervjuats som alla definierar sig som sexuellt dominanta på ett eller annat vis. Fortsättningsvis inriktar sig uppsatsen på kvinnor som utövar sin sexuella dominans via aktiviteter och uttryck för dominans vanliga inom bdsm.</p> / <p>This thesis aims to examine how four sexually dominant women understand their sexuality. It specifically concentrates upon how the women defines themselves as sexually dominant and what dominance means to them sexually but also what it means to them in everyday life and in general. Additionally this essay examines how the informants understand their sexual dominance in relation to their identity and in shaping their identity. In order to carry out the purpose of this thesis four women who define themselves in one way or another as sexually dominant have been interviewed. Furthermore the study focuses upon women who practice their sexual dominance through activities and expressions that are common in the world of bdsm.</p>

Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka hur fyra sexuellt dominanta kvinnor uppfattar sin sexualitet. Särskilt inriktar den sig på hur kvinnorna definierar sig som sexuellt dominanta och vad dominans innebär för dem sexuellt men också till vardags och generellt. Vidare undersöks hur informanterna uppfattar sin sexuella dominans i relation till sin identitet och sitt identitetsskapande överlag. För att kunna verkställa syftet har fyra kvinnor intervjuats som alla definierar sig som sexuellt dominanta på ett eller annat vis. Fortsättningsvis inriktar sig uppsatsen på kvinnor som utövar sin sexuella dominans via aktiviteter och uttryck för dominans vanliga inom bdsm. / This thesis aims to examine how four sexually dominant women understand their sexuality. It specifically concentrates upon how the women defines themselves as sexually dominant and what dominance means to them sexually but also what it means to them in everyday life and in general. Additionally this essay examines how the informants understand their sexual dominance in relation to their identity and in shaping their identity. In order to carry out the purpose of this thesis four women who define themselves in one way or another as sexually dominant have been interviewed. Furthermore the study focuses upon women who practice their sexual dominance through activities and expressions that are common in the world of bdsm.

The present doctoral thesis is focused on consensual forms of sexual violence. In both theoretical and empirical aspects, it is based on existing information available in Czech as well as foreign research. Furthermore, this thesis utilises general findings of research on partner violence, as this topic has a long tradition at the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University. The selected topic is understood as a social phenomenon that is gradually becoming a part of culture. It includes a number of medical, psychological and legal aspects; the sociological approach, however, is central, both in employed methodology and in the utilisation of partial sociological theories. This thesis endeavours to assess to what extent the issue of consensual sexual violence becomes a part of culture and to what extent there is a shift from the sphere of intimate relationships and communities to a more or less open market environment and the Internet. Given the breadth of scope and the highly specific nature of the topic, the present thesis makes use of several sources of both quantitative and qualitative data from 2015- 2019. The paper explores in detail especially the attitudes and the degree of tolerance in the Czech population towards selected forms of violence, including consensual...

This essay explored gendered embodiement within the practice of kinbaku, also called shibari or Japanese rope bondage. The research has been done within the Swedish kinbaku community using ethnographic methods consisting of interviews with practitioners of kinbaku and complete participation observations. By using phenomenology of touch as a methodological and theoretical approach together with theories of somatechnics the intimate experiences and relationships practitioners have to kinbaku, the practice of rope bondage can be understood as processes of embodiement through affect, sensation and technology. By using this understanding of kinbaku questions are asked about how these embodied positions are gendered and further what possibilities, restrictions and potential of renegotiating these positions are embedded within the practice.

This thesis proposes a new school of literary analysis: Kinky Criticism. This critical theory will examine the presence in literature of themes related to BDSM, an acronym referring to bondage/discipline, domination/submission, and sadism/masochism. My purpose in examining this power exchange and sadomasochism in literature is threefold. Firstly, I aim to reveal the presence of kinky themes in not only a range of literary works, but also leave the reader aware of kink present in everyday human interactions. Secondly, through this application to literature, Kinky Criticism sheds new light on the techniques of characterization and adds complexity to the dynamics between characters. Finally, Kinky Criticism provides a new perspective that leads to unexpected conclusions about hotly debated topics in literature, such as the infamous sodomites of Dante’s Inferno. Although a few scholars have commented on kinky themes, their analyses have not yet gained the coherence of a critical movement. This thesis aims to outline the tenets of Kinky Criticism and to establish not only its legitimacy as a critical lens, but also Kinky Criticism’s unique contributions to the interpretation of three major literary works: Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, and D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love.