Is Kink Political?

A typical shibari studio may not come off as an especially political space. After all, as a bondage-based practice centered on connection and trust, shibari hardly seems prone to contention. But its perception as an aberrational sexual behavior in many Western cultures can place bondage at the center of controversy, like 2022’s unfortunate Balenciaga advert, or even legal scrutiny, like in actor Armie Hammer’s 2021 abuse scandal, in which his self-described ‘obsession’ with shibari was salaciously invoked in media reports.

Pleasure is always a political issue in conservative or religious cultures, especially when it subverts dominant cultural norms around gender and power the way BDSM tends to do. In fact, a huge reason for that may be because a disproportionate amount of self-proclaimed kinksters are LGBTQ. This means that government and social media censorship of kinky creative expression can have an outsized impact on queer and trans people, from banned accounts to job losses, especially for those who work around kids.

Pleasure is always a political issue in conservative or religious cultures, especially when it subverts dominant cultural norms around gender and power…

The US has been on a particularly regressive path in recent years. Despite being an entirely separate art form, legal bans on drag performance have proliferated there, as lawmakers willfully conflate drag with kink, designating the mere act of cross-dressing as lewd and obscene. Such backlash has rapidly curdled into possibly permanent outcomes, with the Supreme Court undermining citizens’ right to privacy while protecting the freedom of expression of those who target individuals whose own expression they consider deviant.

Anti-kink attitudes are nothing new

Sadly, this isn’t the first time that kink has found itself in the crosshairs of conservative voters and lawmakers. In the 1980s, the waves of activism that emerged from the leather scenes amid the AIDS crisis gave kinky and queer men new collective power, which they wielded in part to protest society’s determination to pathologize them. The then-formal classification of kinky and homosexual behavior as ‘deviant’ underscored this ugly historical moment and sadly, extends into the present via moral tragedies like the criminalization of BDSM participants.

Then there’s the endless internet debate about the validity of ‘kink at Pride', another recent iteration of this moral panic, this time acting as a placeholder for the limits of the dominant culture’s tolerance for LGBTQ and kinky folks. We’re allowed to exist and take up public space, so long as we assimilate to the arbitrary standards of respectability of cis-hetero people. When there is ‘tolerance’ but not true acceptance of queer life, BDSM can seem a bridge too far for the mainstream, which has predictably harmful effects.

We’re allowed to exist and take up public space, so long as we assimilate to the arbitrary standards of respectability of cis-hetero people.

One 2016 study from the healthcare non-profit TASHRA (strikingly titled ‘Health Disparities and Kink as an Unrecognized Sexual Minority’) notes another parallel between queer and kinky communities. By suggesting a conception of kinkiness that mirrors common portrayals of queer and trans identity - such that the concept of ‘orientation’ applies to kinkiness due to factors like childhood onset of related desires and behaviors, as reported by up to 80 percent of enthusiasts - TASHRA makes a compassionate case for kinksters to receive similar recognition.

Regardless, as queer and kinky communities overlap tremendously, so do the threats to their collective civil rights. When straight cis folks make a point to target a form of creative and sexual expression dominated and pioneered by LGBTQ people, what can you call it but de facto discrimination? When being kinky is an acceptable pretense for rescinding personal privacy and civil rights, that is indeed a political problem.

BDSM as a liberation movement

In a post-Fifty Shades of Grey world, more of us have the kind of access to info about sex, kinks and fetishes that was once only accessible in shady chat rooms or the rare sex shop. Now everyone knows what a flogger is and where to find one, but not everyone is happy about it. Amplified by the ubiquity of social media and sustained by poor pop culture representation (like the deeply misguided Netflix hit Bonding), we seem to be in a new cycle of obsession and outrage over kinky things.

But as the trappings of BDSM drift further and further into the mainstream (remember Timothée Chalamet’s red carpet ‘chest harness’?), it’s important they aren’t completely co-opted by it. Like any appropriations of marginalized (sub)culture, visibility doesn’t always portend real progress, nor protection. We’ve seen this happen with sex worker aesthetics too, as Pleaser heels and pole dance classes have wandered from the strip clubs to the suburbs. While these shifts can seem positive on their face, they actually perpetuate the marginalization of queer and kinky people by detaching those practices and aesthetics from their true roots.

Like any appropriations of marginalized (sub)culture, visibility doesn’t always portend real progress, nor protection.

Regardless of the way it’s portrayed in the world, real kinksters know that BDSM is inherently a tool of liberation. It’s an erotic means of unlocking desire for some and healing trauma for others that immerses you in radically novel experiences and social dynamics, and frees you from the strictures and expectations of daily life. The rejection of the societal status quo is the entire point, as you’re forced to ask new questions about pleasure, power and desire that leave you with a deeper understanding of the human experience. That is a process that will always be politically disruptive.