Article

Ace of (BDSM) clubs:

Building asexual
relationships through
BDSM practice

Sexualities
2015, Vol. 18(5/6) 548563
! The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/1363460714550907
sex.sagepub.com

Lorca Jolene Sloan

Adler School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, USA

Abstract
Since the, 1990s, asexuality has gained prominence as an identity adopted by individuals
who do not experience sexual attraction. Paradoxically, many asexual individuals form
relationships through Bondage and Discipline, Domination and Submission, and Sadism
and Masochism (BDSM) acts conventionally assumed to involve sexual desire
and pleasure. I interviewed 15 asexual individuals to illuminate why they participate in
interactions where sexual attraction is often expected and expressed. I propose that
BDSM helps these practitioners form non-sexual relationships by providing tools for
navigating sexual expectations and redefining their behaviors as indicative of affections
that do not stem from sexual desire.
Keywords
Asexuality, BDSM, identity, sex, sexuality

I follow Jessies jeweled heels up two ights of stairs, past a smoking couple whose
upturned lapels frame matching leather collars, and enter Chicagos foremost
BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and
Masochism) club. For the next hour, Jessie strikes her partners shoulders until
his esh blossoms red and purple. Ginny draws pink constellations across her
companions skin with a pocketknife and Michael sends current through electrodes
axed to his and his partners skin until they pulse together like twin hearts. Jessie,
Ginny, and Michael perform acts that are common sights in the club, but they are
not typical BDSM practitioners. Broadly speaking, BDSM describes consensual
interactions in which two or more adults cultivate a power imbalance through
physical restraint, emotional vulnerability, role-playing, pain, or other intense
Corresponding author:
Lorca Jolene Sloan, 6112 North Winthrop Avenue Chicago IL 60660, USA.
Email: lorcasj@gmail.com

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sensations. While a single archetype cannot represent the heterogeneity of BDSM

practices and motivations, most literature posits that BDSM practitioners gain
sexual satisfaction from their behavior. However, individuals like Jessie, Ginny,
and Michael maintain that they do not participate in BDSM for erotic pleasure or
sexual companionship. In fact, they declare that they do not experience sexual
attraction towards people of any gender. In their own terminology, they are asexual
or ace for short.
The prospect that asexual individuals form intimate partnerships through
BDSM contradicts the dominant interpretation of scholars and activists that
BDSM practitioners derive sexual arousal and pleasure from exchanges of pain
and control. How can asexual individuals form relationships through the practices
of a subculture traditionally associated with sexual expression? How do they
manage the possibility that their behavior might be interpreted as a wish to be
sexually aroused or take pleasure from anticipating, fantasizing, or having sex?
How do they negotiate the sexual desires and expectations of non-asexual partners?

Contemporary consideration of asexual identities

Most individuals come to identify as asexual through acknowledging and communicating that they do not experience sexual attraction towards individuals of any
gender (Bogaert, 2004; Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). To elaborate, they never
feel a visceral desire to engage in intercourse or any other act with another person
in order to experience arousal and/or orgasm. They never feel drawn to another
individual or motivated to initiate a relationship based upon the desire for sexual
intimacy or satisfaction (Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Asexual individuals
responses to the prospect of sex range from revulsion to indierence, and it follows
from this variability that asexual individuals do not necessarily abstain from sex
(Bogaert, 2004; Carrigan, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Some even enjoy arousal and
orgasms, but attest that only objects, situations, or masturbation elicit these
feelings (Carrigan, 2011). Their arousal is not caused by nor directed at an individual. Indeed, three of my informants explain that people are absent, peripheral,
or faceless in their fantasies.
A denition of asexuality that centers on not experiencing sexual attraction
subsumes a variety of identities. But a recurring theme in many individuals narratives is a struggle to navigate the implications of lack of interest, aversion, or
anxiety concerning sexual relationships within a society that expects and privileges
sexual desire as a form of intimacy and self-expression (Cerankowski and Milks,
2010; Przybylo, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Many asexual individuals experience attraction to sometimes even romantic infatuation with people they nd comforting,
inspiring, beautiful, or talented (Carrigan, 2011). But for most, their indierence or
aversion to the prospect of sex alienates them within political, medical, religious,
and media discourses that expect sexual desire to be a ubiquitous part of adulthood, if not a vital component of personhood and intimacy (Cerankowski and
Milks, 2010; Przybylo, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). Adopting an asexual identity helps

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these individuals assert that their relationships are not impeded by or compensating
for a lack of sexual desire, but rather stem from viable forms of non-sexual
attraction.
Many authors have examined asexuality as a response to social pressures to
highly value sexual desire and companionship, or at the very least to experience
sexual attraction as a profound aspect of adulthood (Cerankowski and Milks,
2010; Przybylo, 2011; Scherrer, 2008). However, little work explores how asexual
individuals form relationships through navigating partners expectations for sexual
attraction, investments in sex, and potentially ambiguous ideas about what behaviors constitute foreplay or sex. Some authors propose that viable asexual relationships require strict demarcations between sexual and non-sexual sensations and
acts (Brotto and Yule, 2011; Haefner, 2011; Prause and Graham, 2007; Scherrer,
2008). But how can asexual individuals construct a sustainable framework for
distinguishing sexual from non-sexual behaviors, given that they may dene and
value sex dierently than their partner or mainstream society? I argue that BDSM
provides asexual individuals with uniquely eective tools for setting unconventional boundaries and reformulating dominant scripts about how sexual desire
should manifest and be valued, in eect creating spaces where they can express
aections that do not implicate sexual attraction. These tools enable asexual
practitioners to create relationships that they experience as non-sexual through
behaviors conventionally associated with sexual desire, or even by having sex.
It is not my aim to determine why my informants demonstrate non-normative
responses to sex and sexual relationships. A variety of factors may inform their
disregard or discomfort with sex two individuals have experienced sexual abuse,
and three transgender informants recount that sex possesses a volatile power to
destabilize their gender identity. Instead, I intend to illuminate how asexual individuals negotiate expectations to have or desire sex and form relationships that
arm their non-normative boundaries and desires.

Scripting sex and sexual desire

Authors examining the cultural and historical variance of sexual behaviors theorize
that acts, emotions, and relations become sexual not as expressions of an innate
impulse, but rather through being ascribed scripted connotations with sex during
social activity. Foucault (1990 [1978]) proposes that sexual desires are not intrinsic,
invariable phenomena that social conventions repress or restrain. Rather, cultural
systems associate sex with behaviors, physiological reactions, emotions, and
gender, race, age, and class categories that script a unique interaction characterized
by roles and aects that are collectively recognized and individually experienced as
sexual (Gecas and Libby, 1976; Green, 2008; Simon and Gagnon, 1986).
Sexual desire, then, is not a purely instinctual impulse with a denitive object,
singular means of fulllment, or invaluable function in relationships. Rather,
its orientation, pleasure, and potential for self-expression emerge as individuals
navigate the connotations of certain behaviors through performing social roles

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(Gecas and Libby, 1976; Green, 2008; Foucault, 1990 [1978]; Plummer, 1996;
Simon and Gagnon, 1986).
Sex-positive rhetoric is a powerful and prominent instrument for contemporary
advocacy groups to provide political support and education on behalf of safe sex
practices and marginalized sexualities. At its core, sex-positivity is a philosophy
that recognizes the potential of behaviors beyond penile-vaginal intercourse and
encounters other than heterosexual partnerships to arm personal sexuality and
cause sexual pleasure (Glick, 2000). However, as these parties increasingly incorporate sex-positive rhetoric into their dialogues on sexuality, they risk proliferating
scripts that privilege sexual expressions capacity to engender intimacy and personal integrity. These discourses delegitimize asexual individuals intentions to
form non-sexual relationships and obscure the mechanisms they employ to create
and navigate these partnerships (Feministe, 2012; Glickman, 2011). Asexual BDSM
practitioners oer an ideal opportunity to illuminate how individuals can use
activities that are conventionally equated with eroticism to create intimacies that
they experience as non-sexual.

Behind the scenes: BDSM means and mechanisms

Most authors, writing either as practitioners or outside observers, distinguish
BDSM as practices that produce relationships by foregrounding, manipulating,
and enacting scripts that delineate consent and power (Calia, 1994; Martinez,
2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). Practitioners utilize BDSM archetypes,
language, and props to converge social categories like race, gender, sexuality, class,
and age through fantasy and activity in a way that constitutes radical intimacies
(Calia, 1994; Martinez, 2011; Weiss, 2011).
These tools rest upon three tenets that loosely bind individual BDSM practitioners to a community through an informal system of interpersonal accountability.
First, most practitioners assert that BDSM activities should only occur between
able-minded, non-coerced, and consenting adults (Calia, 1994; Martinez, 2011).
Second, BDSM practitioners typically designate physical and imaginary spaces to
cultivate and contain an imbalance of power, which can be considered the capacity
to produce (through acts, commands, or emotional expressions) an intended somatic
or emotional state in ones partner (Calia, 1994; Martinez, 2011; Weiss, 2011). They
refer to the physical location, time span, and fantasized scenario in which this power
exchange takes place as a scene (Martinez, 2011; Weiss, 2011). Third, scenes
generally conclude with an interval termed aftercare, during which partners
dissolve and appraise their power exchange (Weiss, 2011). My informants describe
aftercare as an opportunity to alleviate the intense emotions incited by scenes by
cuddling, rehydrating, troubleshooting the scene, or recounting its successes.
Generally, BDSM partners collaboratively negotiate and script a power
exchange, enact this dynamic during the scene, and dissolve it during aftercare.
It is worth noting that practitioners vary in how prominently they feature power
imbalance in their activities, how explicitly they articulate consent and script their

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activities, and how emphatically they believe that a power imbalance should exist
strictly within the interval of a scene and be entirely dissolved upon its conclusion
(Calia, 1994; Weiss, 2011). But while these three components cannot account for
the heterogeneity of BDSM practices, their prevalence obligates one to be familiar
with the relations they enable before exploring how asexual individuals use BDSM
to create relationships.
Current literature, whether produced by sexuality scholars or BDSM activists,
primarily attributes BDSMs potential for academic study or personal empowerment and pleasure to its nature as a sexual practice (Calia, 1994; Kleinplatz and
Mosner, 2006; Martinez, 2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). Most scholars,
whether conducting eld research or analyzing the subcultures history, interpret
BDSM as inseparable from sexual desire and pleasure regardless of whether intercourse occurs or whether informants describe their own behavior as erotic
(Kleinplatz and Mosner, 2006; Martinez, 2011; Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss,
2011). Weinberg et al. describe BDSM as blatantly (1984: 385) sexual, even
though intercourse may be ancillary or absent in practitioners scenes. No literature
considers whether BDSM can foster connections that do not stem from sexual
desire, let alone whether it can sustain asexual relationships.
Academic consideration of BDSM as a primarily sexual practice stems in
part from the subcultures history of supporting marginalized sexual identities
and relationships. Early BDSM subcultures in the 1970s drew considerable
membership from gay communities, and so were dedicated to creating spaces to
sustain marginalized sexual practices (Calia, 1994). Writers from within the
BDSM community are invested in preserving the subcultures rich history of providing marginalized populations physical and social spaces in which to explore and
articulate stigmatized sexual desires (Bauer, 2007; Calia, 1994). This history
deserves to be celebrated, but neither academic nor activist authors leave space
in their analyses to consider whether BDSM can create radical intimacies through
means other than fostering sexual expression and pleasure. I intend to address this
gap by exploring how asexual individuals use BDSM practice to form intimate
relationships and navigate expectations to have or desire sex.

Methods
I interviewed 15 individuals who self-identied as asexual and had participated in
some form of BDSM. From July 2012 to April 2013, I met ve informants through
events at a popular 18+ BDSM club in Chicago and conversed with three bloggers. Ten informants contacted me after administrators of Asexual Visibility and
Education Network (20112012) permitted me to post a research request on the
sites forums. Currently the largest asexual community, AVEN provides information and forums for asexual and questioning individuals, friends and family,
researchers, and the press.
I conducted two-hour interviews either in person or via online messaging
(depending upon informants availabilities) based on pre-prepared questions

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about informants experiences identifying as asexual, realizing interests in BDSM,

and articulating these identities and interests to partners, BDSM communities,
families, and peers. To avoid distressing informants, I did not inquire about
abuse, mental or physical illness, or transgender identication unless they explicitly
brought up these topics. In total, I interviewed ten women and two men who can be
described as cisgender, in that they self-identied as the gender assigned to them at
birth, and two women and one man who self-identify as transgender. My informants spanned 19 to 34 years of age, most being in their mid-20s. There were 13
Americans (seven from Chicago), and two hailed from the UK. All names in this
article are pseudonyms.
My informants stories reect a complex diversity of asexual identities and
BDSM practices, informed by a variety of backgrounds and coming out narratives. Informants I interviewed online were aorded more privacy than those
I spoke to face-to-face, which could have led them to disclose more. On the
other hand, these individuals were capable of revising their responses before sending them to me. Informants volunteered to be interviewed, suggesting that they
were motivated to share and reect upon their experiences with a greater degree of
honesty than if I had randomly requested their participation. However, since
I relied on individuals who frequent clubs, online forums, or blogs to volunteer
their stories, my data does not comprehensively represent the range of ages, disability statuses, locations, or comfort with disclosure that could characterize asexual practitioners as a population. Also, my description of non-asexual or typical
BDSM practice derives from informants experiences, current literature, and my
own observations rather than from a comparative sample of non-asexual
practitioners.

Asexual BDSM relationships: Unbinding power from sexual

attraction
While identifying as asexual enables informants to articulate their lack of interest in
sexual relationships, participating in BDSM helps them form partnerships based on
attractions they do feel and fantasies they do wish to realize. In Amys words,
the ace community let me communicate what I didnt want. Kink gave me the
language and condence to communicate what I did want. I will explore two ways
that asexual practitioners use BDSM to create intimate, frank, and compatible
relationships that they experience as non-sexual. First, BDSM negotiation provides
a reliable space for them to set physical boundaries and proactively dispel partners
expectations for them to desire or have sex. Second, some informants use BDSM
discourses to foreground reasons for arousing or having sex with their partners that
do not invalidate their asexual identities. These discourses outline motivations for
having sex that diverge from conventional narratives of consummating sexual
desire and attaining sexual pleasure, and enable informants to communicate the
anxiety that sex may involve.

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Just another kink: Negotiating sexual expectations

Most informants integrate BDSM into their relationships to form connections
based on mutual vulnerability, trust, and accountability. Some explain that relinquishing control over their physical and emotional condition requires absolute
trust in their partners intentions, skills, and self-control. Jessie attributes
the trust Ive learned to give and the protection Ive learned to accept to how
BDSM helps her expect respect when she is vulnerable rather than fearing
mistreatment if seen as powerless. Being an eective dominant requires informants
to take responsibility for their capacities to exercise control by virtue of their
intelligence, brawn, or intensity and wield power in a manner that benets their
partners. Bella states that dominant/submissive relationships invite me to use my
strengths in being attentive to a partner and creating a life that is rewarding for
[her]. She explains that the exchange of authority involved in dominant/submissive relationships generates self-discipline, accountability, and attunement that
isnt important in a more egalitarian relationship.
But asexual individuals who seek relationships in BDSM spaces or wish to
incorporate BDSM into preexisting partnerships face a conundrum. To feel safe
and respected, informants must be able to trust that their partner will not expect
them to desire or have sex regardless of what activities they participate in.
Consequently, they are generally guarded about participating in sexual acts
a label most use to denote behavior that might cause a partner to desire intercourse,
mutual sexual attraction, or mutual arousal. However, informants cannot assume
precisely what behavior their partners might misinterpret as a sign of mutual sexual
attraction, mutual arousal, or an invitation for intercourse. Deb explains that what
constitutes a sexual act depends on the person everyone has their own demarcation of the boundary between sexual and nonsexual. Therein lies the conundrum: declaring intercourse o-limits does not always provide adequate assurance
that their partner does not hope for or expect them to desire or have sex, and they
cannot always predict what behaviors would incite these expectations. To dispel
expectations to have or desire sex, asexual practitioners must gain information
about their partners desires and set boundaries upon what acts will occur and
the intended eect of these acts.
BDSM negotiation oers asexual individuals a safe space to unconditionally
veto intercourse or any behavior that they fear will lead their partner to expect
them to have or desire sex. Informants ensure that penetrative and/or oral intercourse will not occur during a scene by overtly declaring it o-limits or simply not
mentioning it as they collaborate with their partner. They also place limitations
upon behaviors that could cause their partners to expect them to want or to have
sex. For example, Mindy stipulates to her partner that genital touching is o-limits
during scenes because past partners consistently interpreted the behavior as her
initiating sex, and she feels more comfortable refraining from gestures that cause
her to feel pressure either to reciprocate sexual desire or repeatedly stress her
indierence to sex.

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In addition to setting physical boundaries, negotiation also enables asexual

practitioners to proactively communicate that scenes will not cause them to feel
sexual desire and stipulate that partners should not expect or hope for the scene to
have this eect. Practitioners often negotiate a particular goal for scenes by disclosing what specic mental state they intend the scenes constituent acts to induce,
and requesting the same information from their partner(s). Informants are able to
voice their own motivations for participating in BDSM scenes and stress that their
intentions assuredly do not include the desire for intercourse or arousal. Bella
explains that she welcomes physical contact because she enjoys the tactile sensation, but is uncomfortable if partners interpret such touch as foreplay. She states:
Theres nothing better than skin-on-skin [contact]. There arent any areas that are
necessarily o-limits. If a partner wants to cuddle such that theyre pressed against my
genitals, thats lovely. But I dont appreciate when that is a prelude to sex. I want to
savor caresses exactly for what they are, to let that delicious dizziness oat and ebb on
its own rather than being distracted by the idea of nding something better.

Negotiation provides an opportunity for Bella to communicate to partners that she

wishes to focus the scene on cultivating the pleasure of physical contact, and does
not want partners to interpret her behavior or value her pleasure as foreplay.
BDSM negotiation structures a non-stigmatized, explicit conversation in which
asexual practitioners may ensure that their partners will neither initiate stressinducing behaviors nor attempt to focus their activity on cultivating mutual
sexual attraction and desire. In addition, negotiating enables informants to recongure sexual desire as one motivation among many to participate in BDSM, and
sex as one means among many to cultivate intimate pleasure with another. BDSM
provides a socially recognized term kink describing an activity that practitioners should respect for its potential to generate pleasure and intimacy, but not
assume to be ubiquitously desired. Asexual practitioners describe sex as just
another kink to reconstitute it as one possible source of pleasure that others
should not expect them to desire nor judge them for forgoing.
Discussing sex as just another kink allows asexual practitioners to present
their lack of desire for sex as no dierent than an indierence or aversion to any
other BDSM activity. Michael states:
Sex is just not one of our kinks. [Asexual people] enjoy plenty of things that fall under
the umbrella of BDSM, but sex . . . can be anywhere from uninteresting to disgusting
to us. Nobody Ive met is into everything; plenty of people have things theyre anywhere from vaguely disinterested in to repulsed by. This doesnt imply that sex is a bad
thing; its just not for us. Sex just as any other kink is not required by everyone to
be happy or for a relationship to be fullling . . . its completely ne to like it or not.

Michael likens asexual individuals reactions to sex to the diverse interests

and boundaries that all practitioners hold, and proposes that neither asexual nor

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non-asexual individuals conate personal preference with intrinsic value. Jessie

adds that asexual and non-asexual practitioners similarly structure and value negotiation as a space to agree upon activities that will fulll both partners desires
without causing harm. The primary dierence is that non-asexual practitioners
typically plan scenes that will cause themselves and their partners to experience
desire, pleasure, and intimacy engendered by anticipating, fantasizing, or having
sex. Regardless of this dierence, Jessie emphasizes that negotiation fosters respect
and enables fullling partnerships between asexual and non-asexual practitioners
by structuring a similar conversation whether or not it means asking how to get a
person o in a way that will feel comfortable and whether thats their goal.
Reframing sex as just another kink enables informants to highlight similarities between how asexual and non-asexual practitioners experience BDSM when
they interact with prospective partners, which allows them to terminate negotiations without fear of being stigmatized as repressed or apprehensive. By bringing
sex into the diverse realm of kinks in which all practitioners hold preferences and
boundaries, they can decline invitations with the explanation that a prospective
partners interest in intercourse or mutual arousal simply does not complement
their own desires. Jessie recounts, Ive had people say I dont think I could play
with someone where it wasnt sexual for them. Thats ne, everyone has opinions.
Theres just a non-compatibility. By subsuming sex under the umbrella of kink,
declaring intercourse o-limits becomes no more elaborate or stigmatized than
vetoing spanking or rending clothes. Four informants do not even feel the need
to always declare themselves as asexual to prospective partners. Jessie explains,
the important thing is not using the term asexual, its saying these are the limits.
These are the no-touch areas. Now lets go have fun.

When asexual practitioners have sex: Their use for sex within a
BDSM context
Informants acknowledge that non-asexual people do not always, indiscriminately,
or only desire sexual satisfaction, but experience has taught them that most prioritize mutual sexual attraction and pleasure within intimate relationships. In contrast, informants do not feel attracted to others based on the desire to have sex with
them and do not seek relationships that stem from expressing this reciprocal attraction. Consequently, informants dierentiate sexual and nonsexual acts in a
manner that helps them distinguish behaviors that might lead their partner to
expect or desire sex, and address the possibility that engaging in these behaviors
could lead them and their partner to hold divergent and uncomplimentary investments in sex. They accomplish this by dening sexual and nonsexual behaviors
based not upon what physical acts individuals engage in, but rather upon whether
an individuals main motivation is to generate sexual desire or initiate sex.
Informants consider a behavior sexual when one performs, invests in, and
values it due primarily to its capacity to vitalize a desire for intercourse, or to
incite pleasurable arousal, anticipation, or fantasy derived from the idea of

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intercourse. If an individual is not chiey motivated to perform an act by its

capacity to incite these kinds of desire, then it is accurate to describe that act as
non-sexual. Employing a denition of sexual that centers on a specic individuals
motivations creates opportunities for informants to communicate expectations and
values surrounding sexual desire and sex with potential partners, where a denition
describing purely physical occurrences provides no such benet. Determining
whether a behavior is sexual requires them to consider and inquire about a behaviors meaning and aect, specically whether their partner wishes for the behavior
to be sexually pleasurable and whether this outcome requires mutual experience of
and investment in sexual pleasure. For this reason, when exploring how asexual
individuals form relationships with non-asexual partners it is more useful to consider informants distinction between sexual and nonsexual behaviors as an
instrument that creates opportunities for negotiating intention and expectations
with their partners, rather than a label for categorizing behaviors and aections.
As previously discussed, negotiation provides a space for asexual practitioners
to gain necessary information about whether partners would interpret their activity
as a desire or invitation for sex. It allows them to assuredly dispel expectations to
have or desire sex by vetoing behaviors that are sexual to others, and to justify
those boundaries by reconstituting sex as one among many means of pleasure. But
for some informants, negotiating enables them to so condently dispel expectations
to have or desire sex that they conceptualize sexual arousal and pleasure as distinct
states that do not intrinsically imply that their partners are expecting or investing in
sex. As a result, they do not feel pressured or invalidated if their behavior is sexual,
that is, sexually arousing or pleasurable, for their partner. Jessie explains:
It doesnt necessarily make me uncomfortable that you have a boner. Its what you
expect to come of that. Arousal doesnt mean that [partners] are prepping for or
expecting sex. [My partner] will get aroused, but for the sake of both our comforts,
sex isnt the goal not for me and not for him.

Many informants share Jessies sentiment, and there are seven who, on occasion,
even have sex with their partners. Having sex while identifying as asexual may seem
incongruous, but I propose that these informants use particular BDSM frameworks both to attribute motivations other than sexual desire to their behavior
and also to articulate the anxiety that sex may cause them.
Informants maintain that their primary motivation for participating in any
behavior that sexually arouses or satises their partner is that these activities are
reliably eective at producing intimate relationships, and expressly not because the
acts themselves are viscerally appealing or physically pleasurable. As Gregory
states, Ill have sex not because I think itll be fun but because Im really interested
in that person. Informants recongure intercourse, or any behavior that sexually
satises their partner, to be nonsexual for them personally by foregrounding its
eects on their relationship with a partner and diminishing personal desire for or
pleasure from the physical act as a motivating factor. Specically, they emphasize

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that participating in acts that sexually arouse or satisfy their partner can strengthen
their relationship by delighting their partner, illuminating their personality, and
cultivating a BDSM power imbalance.
Some informants observe that for many of their non-asexual partners, sexual
experiences foster a uniquely profound state of comfort and pleasure. They wish
for their relationships to cultivate these emotions, and acknowledge that sex is for
their partner an exceptional means of producing such delight and armation.
Consequently, they are willing to participate in acts that are sexual for their partners in order to validate, thrill, console, or please them. Gregory often consents to
have penile-vaginal intercourse during scenes because he understands that the
behavior can make some people feel very unique by causing them exceptional
sexual pleasure and validation. While intercourse remains an immutable boundary
for Michael, he occasionally includes genital touching in scenes even though the
behavior is sexual for his partner because of the enjoyment it brings her.
Informants also use sex to create intimate relationships by taking advantage of
the fact that their non-asexual partners are exceptionally spontaneous, aectionate,
and open regarding their needs and desires when experiencing sexual arousal
and/or pleasure. Margaret recounts that sexually arousing and pleasing past partners through intercourse was the easiest way to elicit transparency, creativity, and
candor from them. As a result, she will sometimes have intercourse because she
considers it an interesting way to get to know new people. Gregory also uses
intercourse to incite vulnerability and unhindered expressivity that partners
uniquely demonstrate while sexually aroused or pleasured, thus learning about
their personality and evaluating whether they would make compatible long-term
companions:
You get to know some people by having sex with them its very revealing. Ive had
sexual encounters that have ended badly, but I dont regret the sex because the act of
getting to know the person of revealing that we werent compatible is valid.

Aside from pleasing and gaining insight into their partners, many asexual individuals have sex to generate and reify any power imbalance during scenes. Jessie
consents to behaviors that her partner experiences as sexual specically, acts
causing orgasm and/or involving contact with genitals or breasts to authenticate
a power exchange in which she is submissive and he is dominant:
We have a dominant/submissive relationship, so [sex is] much more of a power
dynamic. Hes stuck ice in my vagina because hes evil (laughs) and uses nipple
clamps because they hurt. We use forced oral as breath play (where one practitioner
is deprived of air to create a sense of submission, panic or disorientation, or an
endorphin-induced high).

Jessies account illuminates two reasons why acts that are sexual for ones
partner are exceptionally eective for generating power exchanges. First, sensations

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that are innocuous on most parts of the body may be intensely uncomfortable
when felt upon areas that typically sexually arouse non-asexual partners (such as
breasts and genitals). Stimulating these areas causes a cascade of endorphins and
adrenaline, which elevates informants threshold for feeling discomfort. This
increases how long informants can delight in enduring pain and their dominant
partners can enjoy witnessing their discomfort. Second, behaviors that sexually
arouse or satisfy non-asexual individuals often possess the potential to trigger
informants upsetting memories about being pressured by past partners to demonstrate sexual desire or disregard personal boundaries. Anxiety over this possibility
can make informants feel acutely vulnerable, which leads them to place considerable trust in their partner.
BDSM discourse enables practitioners to redene conventionally sexual
behaviors as means of generating a power exchange rather than pursuing sexual
pleasure. As previously discussed, most literature considers BDSM practice
to necessarily reect sexual desire and pleasure regardless of what behaviors
informants participate in or whether informants describe their activities as
erotic or sexual (Calia, 1994; Kleinplatz and Mosner, 2006; Martinez, 2011;
Weinberg et al., 1984; Weiss, 2011). But BDSM discourse contains language and
archetypes that support alternative interpretations. In many cases, asexual individuals can foreground the power exchange in other practitioners stories while interpreting sexual desire as a peripheral phenomenon. For example, a practitioner
might state, I want to force a slave to get me o, rather than I want to get
o. It is possible that this individual practitioner could not become aroused or
achieve orgasm without establishing a power imbalance, thus the power exchanges
appeal derives from its potential to cause sexual pleasure. However, asexual individuals can read into his statement that the power dynamic is his primary goal and
that sexual desire is a peripheral experience. Because the discursive space exists for
this interpretation to be placed upon common BDSM narratives, informants can
reconstitute the creation of a dominant/submissive dynamic as a legitimate source
of satisfaction on its own. They can communicate their intent to create a dominant/
submissive dynamic as the primary reason for engaging in any behavior, including
sex, and feel some relief from the pressure to hide or continually assert that they are
not motivated by sexual desire. A practitioner like Ginny can communicate
that scenes do not feel sexual for me . . . theres no thought for sexual things or
sexuality in my mind rather the attraction behind it for me is submissive and
trust-based.
Presenting reasons for their sexual encounters that are distinct from sexual
attraction and desire allows informants to sustain an asexual identity within
their relationships, even while participating in acts that sexually arouse or satisfy
their partners. By highlighting their behaviors capacity to foster intimacy and
insight rather than full sexual attraction and pleasure, informants can also communicate that acts like intercourse sometimes provoke anxiety that they are nonetheless willing to endure in order to strengthen their relationships. Gregory
describes that he often feels pressure during intercourse to physically perform

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and emotionally respond in a way that incites the most pleasure and spontaneity
from his partner. Margaret typically has a few drinks after consenting to intercourse to alleviate similar anxieties. But BDSM discourse enables them to communicate the existence of these anxieties, and hopefully receive the support they need
from their partner in order to comfortably risk or endure such stress. Specically,
BDSM provides a framework explaining how informants could experience emotional and/or physical discomfort as valuable and worth enduring, rather than
debilitating.
BDSM discourse casts physical and emotional pain as a means to generate
exceptionally insightful and empathic relationships by describing pains potential
to demonstrate personal fortitude and cultivate trust. This framework allows
informants to position sexual desire, attraction, and pleasure as peripheral motivations for enduring discomfort compared to pains capacity to generate intimacy.
Two explicitly compare their sexual encounters to what they consider a characteristic experience of BDSM to explain why they derive fulllment from stressful
activities. Gregory states,
I have sex in a similar way that people do kink. People will endure terrible pain and
theyll cry and theyll hate it at the time I dont usually hate sex, but we can draw on
the analogy on an emotional level.

He likens the motivation to have intercourse to the rationale behind participating

in any BDSM activity one engages in discomforting behavior to foster powerful
attunement with another individual. Similarly, Tess compares arousing her partner
to engaging in a particularly intense and engrossing scene: watching [their] arousal
is like watching any scene thats too hardcore to want to partake in yourself its
still fascinating to see what others get out of it. By subsuming their behaviors
under a BDSM characterization of pain, informants like Gregory and Tess reconstitute their decisions to sexually arouse or please their partner as a stressful
experience that they endure to celebrate their own fortitude and
strengthen their relationships, rather than to express sexual attraction or gain
sexual pleasure.
It is worth acknowledging that individuals who do not identify as asexual can
also utilize and value sex for its potential to foster connections that do not center
upon mutual sexual attraction and pleasure. Non-asexual people can certainly
experience anxiety surrounding sexual acts, but willingly engage in them to
strengthen their relationships. However, not only are these experiences downplayed
in most literature exploring non-asexual relationships or non-asexual sex, but they
are wholly absent from works examining non-asexual BDSM practitioners.
Informants state that BDSM provides singularly eective social spaces to redirect
sexs meaning to alternative ends and armations. Indeed, they either only consent
to sex as a part of BDSM scenes or feel more comfortable having sex during scenes
than in other contexts. These proclamations suggest that the concerns and strategies of asexual individuals, particularly asexual BDSM practitioners, oer a fruitful

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lens to understanding how non-asexual individuals might navigate similar

investments and anxieties.

Conclusion
Asexual identities challenge the mainstream assumption that experiencing sexual
attraction and desire is crucial for attaining intimate companionship and personal
authenticity. Most informants were met with scepticism, grief, or even threats of
corrective rape when they came out to friends and family as asexual. Such reactions
reect the belief that asexuality tragically divorces one from a crucial instrument of
integrity and expression, a central form of human interaction, and an exceptional
means of forming radical intimacies (Cerankowski and Milks, 2010; Przybylo,
2011; Warner, 1999). But asexual BDSM practitioners are able to form subjectively
non-sexual relationships by creatively employing available scripts to reconstitute
conventionally eroticized activities in a manner that articulates and arms their
own desires and boundaries. These individuals adapt BDSM practice to navigate
expectations to have or desire sex, and redene their behaviors to indicate and
generate insight, trust, courage, self-discipline, and attunement rather than sexual
attraction or pleasure.
Asexual practitioners demonstrate that BDSM provides discursive spaces and
conceptual frameworks for fostering and validating intimate exchanges that do not
derive from or rely on sexual desire. Their experiences encourage a second look at
BDSM practice, one acknowledging that sexual attraction is not a ubiquitous
component of BDSM and exploring a new dimension of communication that
BDSM practice can facilitate. That is, BDSM possesses the potential to guide
practitioners not only through negotiating what acts and dynamics would maximize both partners sexual pleasure, but also through elucidating whether partners
intend their activities to cultivate sexual desire in the rst place and navigating how
the implications of particular behaviors might aect those boundaries. This facet of
BDSM recognizes the existence of non-asexual practitioners whose activities do
not exclusively or continually involve sexual attraction or pleasure, and opens a
discursive space for them to explore alternative satisfactions. One question illuminated by my research that would investigate this new dimension of communication
is how non-asexual individuals navigate their own investment in reciprocal sexual
pleasure and the sexual implications they associate with particular behaviors if they
wish to form mutually respectful and arming relationships with asexual partners.
How might BDSM practice or discourse support this process?
The experiences of asexual practitioners not only illuminate BDSMs potential
to foster connections that do not exclusively or continually derive from sexual
attraction and pleasure, but also contribute to sexuality studies more generally.
Informed by the use of sex-positive discourse in contemporary activist, media, and
political dialogues, much research examines how behaviors assume exceptional
potential to generate personal authenticity and interpersonal intimacy when
framed as expressions of sexual desire. Asexual individuals are one pronounced

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population of individuals who destabilize the salient expectation that sexual desire
is central to personal integrity and viable relationships. They accomplish this not
through denying the possibility that their behaviors can be experienced and valued
as arousing and sexually pleasurable. Indeed, some asexual individuals encourage
their partners to experience their activities as sexual as a means of fostering intimacy. Rather, they seek conceptual frameworks that enable them to creatively
ascribe new meanings and implications to the aections that they experience and
the activities that they enjoy. Their experiences encourage further exploration of
how individuals, in the midst of a cultural emphasis placed upon sexual desire and
a proliferation of scripts characterizing its expression, might disarticulate and
reconstitute the sexual implications of their acts creating spaces in which even
sex can be experienced as non-sexual.
Funding
This work was supported by the University of Chicagos PRISM grant and Earl R. Franklin
Research Fellowship.

Acknowledgements
Thank you to Jennifer Cole for advising the bachelors thesis that informed this manuscript
and Andrew Hinderliter for supervising my presence at AVEN.

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Lorca Jolene Sloan holds Bachelors degrees in Comparative Human Development

and Psychology from the University of Chicago, and is currently pursuing a
Doctorate of Psychology at the Adler School of Professional Psychology.

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