The hormonal response experienced by runners after physical exertion is barely any different from that of BDSM practitioners. The difference is that the latter group is stigmatised. This is unjustified and not without consequences, researchers at the University of Antwerp say. “Current psychiatry textbooks still list BDSM as a disorder,” notes PhD researcher Elise Wuyts.
The acronym BDSM encompasses a range of concepts, including bondage and discipline (BD), dominance and submission (DS) and sadism and masochism (SM). A 2017 study by the University of Antwerp involving over 1,000 Flemings showed that almost half those surveyed had tried a BDSM activity at some point.
“BDSM is often linked to sex, although this is not necessarily always the case. Despite the strong link with pain, BDSM practitioners experience the activity as pleasurable or arousing,” Wuyts explains. She studied two test groups: submissive BDSM practitioners and dominant BDSM practitioners.
What stood out? Among the submissive participants, levels of both stress and pleasure hormones in the blood rose. “In fact, the pleasure response was found to be clearly linked to the stress response,” the report states. Furthermore, pain thresholds were also higher in this group than among the dominant participants. Hormones play a role here, but so does the context. “We know that BDSM practitioners approach pain differently during role-play. They put the sensation of pain into perspective.”
Nevertheless, non-conformist behaviour, such as BDSM, is still relegated to the realm of taboo. “In a psychiatric context, we know that patients who practise BDSM are sometimes reluctant to talk about it. They fear being labelled as ‘sick’,” says the researcher.
“In the most recent edition of the DSM-5 – the manual of psychiatric disorders – BDSM features on the list of disorders,” she adds. “If we want to break the taboo surrounding BDSM, not only society but also the medical world must change its perspective.”