Re-imagined power: BDSM as Utopian fantasy

The BDSM-themed movie, Fifty Shades of Grey, is the number one movie in Australia. Its success means that a lot of people are titillated by the idea of sex beyond “vanilla sex.” Controversy about BDSM often centres on the psychology of its practitioners across gender (including Meagan Tyler and Laura Tarzia’s recent Conversation article), class, and social ideas of deviancy, particularly as represented in the media. As a design anthropologist, I am more interested the cultural aspects of BDSM. In particular, I wonder if the BDSM lifestyle represents a Utopian world where historical realities of pain and suffering are converted into fantasies of safe, sane, and consensual pleasure.