Episodes

Philias: Why People Like BDSM (“It Was Like Taking Drugs”)

Whips, chains, and… legal pads? In this episode of Taboo Science, we dive deep into the world of BDSM to explore its long history, the science behind subspace, the submissive rich guy stereotype, and why aftercare is essential for everyone (even vanilla folks!). With help from paraphilia researcher Dr. Christian Joyal, the Ask a Sub podcast’s Lina Dune, and the Loving BDSM podcast’s Kayla Lords and John Brownstone, we’re debunking misconceptions and shedding light on the reality of safe, consensual BDSM practices. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just curious about the lifestyle, this episode is a must-listen. Hey, it’s way better than Fifty Shades of Grey.

Video version:

Why Do People Like BDSM? (“It Was Like Taking Drugs”) – Taboo Science Podcast S4 E2

Whips, chains, and… legal pads? In this episode of Taboo Science, we dive deep into the world of BDSM to explore its long history, the science behind subspace, the submissive rich guy stereotype, and why aftercare is essential for everyone (even vanilla folks!).

Resources from Christian Joyal:

Resources from Lina Dune:

Resources from Kayla Lords & John Brownstone:

Citations and further reading:

Levels of cortisol, a stress hormone (A); endorphins (B); and two types of endocannabinoids (C & D) before, during, and after a BDSM scene as compared with controls. (Note that although these graphs don’t show a change in endocannabinoids in Dominants, the researchers found that those who introduced more power dynamics into their sessions did experience a spike in these hormones.)

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Ashley: Christian Grey really did a number on the popular understanding of BDSM. Fifty Shades of Grey, of course, is a wildly popular book series that got turned into a wildly popular movie. The basic plot, and sorry, there will be spoilers here, but the basic plot involves the innocent, virginal Anastasia Steele being pursued by the billionaire Christian Grey, who reveals the only way he can maintain romantic relationships is through acts of sadism.

[00:00:42] Ashley: He shows her his dungeon, which is full of whips and floggers and suspension contraptions, and presents her with a multi page contract saying what he can and can’t do to her as his submissive. Throughout the movie, it’s hard to tell whether she’s into this. She seems to have fun negotiating the terms of the contract with him, but she also seems to be really bummed that this is the only way he’s willing to be with her.

[00:01:07] Ashley: But the point is, it doesn’t matter to Christian Grey. He’s acting out his trauma. You see, at 16, he became an older woman’s submissive. And now he’s doomed to repeat this abusive history. The movie ends not with Christian going to therapy or learning a healthier approach to BDSM or any real character development at all.

[00:01:31] Ashley: No, it ends with Anastasia Steele calling Christian a monster and leaving him. For many people, this was their first introduction to BDSM. And everything they learned was terribly, terribly wrong. BDSM isn’t abuse. It’s not the result of childhood trauma. And it’s certainly not about a dominant doing what they want, and a submissive getting no say in the matter.

[00:01:59] Ashley: When it’s done right, BDSM is a safe, consensual act between enthusiastic participants. It can be fun, Even euphoric.

[00:02:12] Ashley: Today, we’re learning the ropes of BDSM to understand its history, uncover its appeal, debunk its misconceptions, and delve into the incredible effects it has on the brain. I’m Ashley Hamer and this is Taboo Science, the podcast that answers the questions you’re not allowed to ask.

[00:02:51] Ashley: The most embarrassing part of interviewing kinksters about kink, for me, was not asking about their sex lives or anything like that. It was asking each person what they thought about Fifty Shades of Grey. I mean, it makes me look like a goddamn amateur. Of course they hated it. But I wanted to hear it from them.

[00:03:10] Lina Dune: I think the most offensive part about Fifty Shades is not the actual way that it employs BDSM, which is, of course, is extremely wrong and

[00:03:19] Ashley: bad. That’s Lina Dune. She’s a kink writer, host of the Ask a Sub podcast, and a 24 7 collared submissive.

[00:03:28] Lina Dune: But for me, the most offensive part about Fifty Shades is the bad writing, because BDSM really hinges on a shared goal.

[00:03:36] Lina Dune: creative reality between all the participants. A part of BDSM is being able to be empathetic and flexible and listen well enough to create something that both of you can buy

[00:03:51] Lina Dune: into.

[00:03:53] Kayla Lords: So here’s my charitable answer, and I do mean this.

[00:03:56] Ashley: That’s Kayla Lords, one half of the Loving BDSM podcast and submissive to John Brownstone, the other half of the Loving BDSM podcast, who you’ll hear responding in the background.

[00:04:08] Kayla Lords: Fifty Shades opened the door for people who read it or watch the movies to go, wait, something about this appeals. I want to go learn more. And we’ve met a lot of people who went to their first munch, who talked to their partner about kink, whatever, because of Fifty Shades. And for that, that’s commendable.

[00:04:31] Kayla Lords: As a piece of content, I find it personally awful.

[00:04:39] John Brownstone: Yeah, I mean, it was okay ish erotica, but as a guidebook for, you know, living the lifestyle? No.

[00:04:49] Ashley: You’re going to hear a ton more from Lina and Kayla and John later in the episode. But first, we’ve got to lay down some basics. Like, I honestly thought I knew what BDSM stood for before researching for this podcast.

[00:05:02] Ashley: See, BDSM is four letters. But it actually refers to six terms. BD is for bondage and discipline. Tying up, putting in handcuffs, spanking and flogging, that kind of thing. DS is for dominance and submission. A dynamic that puts one person in power over the other. SM is for sadomasochism. Sadism is when someone enjoys inflicting pain, and masochism is when someone enjoys receiving it.

[00:05:33] Ashley: So really, it shouldn’t be BDSM, it should be B D D S S M. Yeah, BDSM community, shoot me an email. I have way more branding tips where that comes from.

[00:05:46] Ashley: BDSM was only coined as a term in the early 90s, on the internet. Thanks, internet. But people have been taking pleasure in pain for as long as we have written records. And I mean that literally. Around 2250 BC, the world’s first author, a Mesopotamian priestess, wrote hymns to a dominatrix goddess. A little while later in ancient Egypt, Sparta, and Rome, pain and pleasure were parts of religious rites and festivals.

[00:06:15] Ashley: People would be whipped and beaten to come of age, or boost their fertility, or just to celebrate a god or two. And don’t forget about the Kama Sutra, which fully explains how and where to bite, scratch, and strike a lover for maximum pleasure. But the history of BDSM really gets going around the 1600s.

[00:06:34] Ashley: This is when Japanese rope bondage becomes a thing. And across the world in England, the first professional dominatrixes were setting up shop to service wealthy and even royal clientele. A century later, the Marquis de Sade publishes a fantasy novel full of graphic sexual violence. And a century after that, a man named Leopold von Sacher Massach wrote an erotic book about a man who becomes a beautiful woman’s sex slave.

[00:07:02] Ashley: She beats him. He likes it. Psychiatrist Richard von Kraft Erbing, who you might remember from the heterosexuality episode as the inventor of the word heterosexuality, well, he also invents the words sadism and masochism, inspired by the Marquis de Sade and von Sacher Masoch, respectively. Our ancestors were beating each other and getting a thrill from it long before it became a hot topic.

[00:07:29] Ashley: So the fact that today, one in five adults say they’ve engaged in BDSM at some point should come as no surprise. And these people are nothing like Christian Grey. They’re not damaged, as much as the DSM would like to say they are.

[00:07:45] Christian Joyal: In the DSM, they define stuff like bondage, suffering, humiliation, masochism, and uh, you know, consenting sadism as paraphilia.

[00:08:00] Ashley: That’s Christian Joyal. You’ll remember him from the last episode. He’s a psychology professor at the University of Quebec and a researcher at the Philip Pennell Institute, a forensic mental health hospital. And paraphilia is the word for an abnormal sexual desire. It basically shows there’s something wrong with you.

[00:08:19] Christian Joyal: And we were wondering why, I mean, based on what, based on what? And after other studies that we conducted and others did the same thing, we just realized that people with those so called paraphernalia, especially in the BDSM area, they were. They were not only more sophisticated, but they received more years of formal educations compared to the general population.

[00:08:51] Christian Joyal: So we were, we just raised our hand asking, why should these be signs of madness?

[00:09:00] Ashley: In the last episode, we talked about how little research there is on sexual diversity. But, lucky for us, BDSM is about the best researched kink there is. We have studies that show that BDSM practitioners are no more likely to have been abused as children than the general population.

[00:09:18] Ashley: They’re no more likely to have PTSD, or guilt about sex, or misogynistic beliefs. In fact, most are feminists. They do tend to have a higher sex drive than other people, but like, oh no, how terrible for them. But the question remains. Why does BDSM appeal to some people? What makes them want to do it in the first place?

[00:09:39] Ashley: Here’s Kayla.

[00:09:41] Kayla Lords: I’d always known that what I would now consider, and air quote this, typical non kinky vanilla sex was fine. I’d never been Satisfied that way. When things would get a little rougher, maybe a ass would get smacked, hair would get pulled. I always had a better time. I didn’t think too much of it because I didn’t get a lot of that.

[00:10:06] Kayla Lords: My first marriage, we were equally as inexperienced and fumbling around and sexually repressed. And so it was very dissatisfying. So by the time I was exploring that stuff and reading about it and watching things, I could make the connection that Oh yeah, those times it was rough, you kind of liked it.

[00:10:28] Kayla Lords: For me as a masochist, I don’t like every kind of pain. I don’t like every kind of sensation. I don’t like every kind of act that creates pain, but the pain I do enjoy both sort of keeps me on my toes. I don’t know what to expect. It’s a huge feeling of powerlessness that I enjoy. And then there are just some sensations that.

[00:10:53] Kayla Lords: Feel good and turn me on and make me want to have more sex, do more kinky things, do all kinds of filthy things, air quote filthy, it’s not really filthy, uh, to my partner because I feel good. And so I now want to make him feel good and I want more things that make me feel good. But that part was sort of a journey. Took, took a minute to get there, to understand it.

[00:11:20] Ashley: Lina Dune feels the same way.

[00:11:22] Lina Dune: I think it just came to me via craving aversive sensation. Like pain, like spanking, like you know, a firm hand on the throat. Not necessarily choking or constriction of air, but like these sort of. Things that people think of when they think of kink.

[00:11:39] Lina Dune: They were things that just called out to me. It’s not like anything particularly happened. The call was coming from inside the house and it was like, we need to start doing this stuff or else. And I don’t really know what the or else was, but I started doing it and it’s led me to a very happy sexual life after all that.

[00:11:57] Ashley: In the last episode, Christian Joyal told us about how many of his BDSM study participants could point to times in their childhood when they remember something like this. Cartoon bondage, for instance, being really appealing. But not everyone has that starting place. Kayla and Lina just know within themselves that they’re masochists.

[00:12:16] Ashley: And it’s the same with John and Sadism. His first experience with BDSM was in his first real relationship, and he just knew that he wanted to tie her up and spank her.

[00:12:27] Ashley: (in interview) And it just came to you. I’m so interested to know what it is that appeals to you about that?

[00:12:33] John Brownstone: I, I enjoyed it.

[00:12:42] John Brownstone: Well, you know, in the beginning, when, when I first was in that relationship, like I said, I liked it. It felt very natural after the relationship ended because at that time I didn’t know there was a name for it. I didn’t know other people engaged in it. I felt a lot of shame over it and I even had wondered if that was the reason why the relationship didn’t last.

[00:13:09] John Brownstone: So fast forward to um, 90s when I discovered the community, I attended my first munch.

[00:13:18] Ashley: Quick terminology note, a munch is a casual social gathering for people into a particular fetish or alternative lifestyle. Think Denny’s, not Dungeon.

[00:13:28] John Brownstone: And that was such an eye opening, revealing thing for me. To know that there were other people out there that enjoyed the things that I’ve had in my head and that it was okay, it just opened up the world for me and it, it, it was.

[00:13:50] Ashley: Do you feel shame anymore?

[00:13:55] John Brownstone: No.

[00:13:56] Ashley: That’s wonderful.

[00:13:57] John Brownstone: No. Um, you know, originally the power exchange aspect of the lifestyle came very naturally. What I had difficult was reconciling the sadist aspect. of me. And what finally did away with that, I was at a munch and I was having a conversation with a submissive there and we got into this conversation and we’re explaining about my shame and apparently it’s something that’s fairly common.

[00:14:30] John Brownstone: And she told me that when a sadist spanks them, flogs, you know, gives them pain, it’s an act of giving, an act of love, because it’s giving them something that they desire, that they need. To the masochist. To the masochist, yeah. And from having that conversation, it, it, it kind of helped alleviate that shame.

[00:14:58] Ashley: When we come back, we’re tackling the submissive powerful man stereotype and diving headfirst into the science of subspace. Stay tuned.

[00:15:13] Ashley: All of the examples so far are of female subs and male doms, but subs and Doms can be of any gender. There are also switches, who can toggle between dominant and submissive depending on the scene and the partner, and a whole rainbow of other ways to identify. Anyway, there is a trope out there about powerful men wanting to be dominated in the bedroom.

[00:15:34] Ashley: Maybe as a pressure release from their high stakes jobs. Turns out, there is some truth to that. In that it’s true of some powerful men, but certainly not all.

[00:15:50] Christian Joyal: One, especially in Australia and Melbourne, we are texting each other and we’ve been doing it for like three years and she told me, you know, almost all of my clients, not only they are submissive, but they are really powerful person. We call it an equalizer. When you need as a human to give up all the responsibilities that you have and you need to relax and to give the power to someone else.

[00:16:25] Ashley: Some people might relax through meditation, yoga, playing music, or doing art. But like I mentioned, people who are into BDSM tend to have a higher sex drive than other people. And when a relaxation method is related to sex, it’s a lot more appealing than pulling out the old acoustic guitar. I should mention that BDSM doesn’t always involve sex, but it’s definitely got that erotic vibe, even when no sex is happening.

[00:16:50] Ashley: But, when powerful men meet with a professional dominatrix, or pro dom, it’s often nothing like what you see on TV.

[00:16:58] Lina Dune: When I talk to pro Dommes about how they work with male subs, there’s a lot of work on things like misogyny and interrogating their role in society, and, you know, when somebody with a lot of means and resources comes into contact with someone who’s a sex worker The least resources and, you know, what they do is so precarious that power exchange can be a real place of learning.

[00:17:21] Lina Dune: There are people who have used that position in, like, specifically to work on anti racism or anti misogyny, deconstructing, um, a dominatrix who since passed away, very sadly, Mistress Velvet in Chicago really publicly pioneered this process of taking white affluent male clients and teaching them how to disassemble their privilege.

[00:17:43] Lina Dune: So, like, When we see it on TV, we’re like, yeah, hit him, you know, but in reality, these kinds of relationships are really interesting intersection of disparate levels of privilege and can be leveraged for really interesting ends that I haven’t seen on TV yet and would love to see.

[00:18:00] Ashley: It’s worth mentioning that not all subs are powerful in their daily lives.

[00:18:04] Ashley: And relatedly, not all Doms are powerless in their daily lives. Everyone has their own reasons for what they like sexually. And it’s really hard to put kinksters in a box like that. However, One thing does tend to be true. If your life is set up so that the kink in question could be an actual risk in the real world, it’s not going to be sexy to you.

[00:18:26] Ashley: For example, you don’t see a lot of racial diversity in BDSM. It’s largely white, and there’s a good reason for that.

[00:18:34] Christian Joyal: Some of our respondents who were Black told us that, well, you know, my grand grandmother I was a slave in South Carolina, so no, it’s not a turn on for me to play the slave. That makes sense to me.

[00:18:51] Ashley: And on the flip side, if you’re a woman from a country with high levels of gender equality, you’ll be more likely to be submissive. Because it’s safe. You’re not stuck being submissive because of strict gender roles, so taking on a submissive role by choice is more appealing.

[00:19:06] Christian Joyal: And the southern you go, like in Caribbean countries, in South America, in Africa of course, the less you have that kind of, um, submissive fantasies.

[00:19:20] Christian Joyal: I always remember one phrase that a guy told me in prison. He said, when you are a prisoner, you don’t fantasizing about being a prisoner. So I think it’s the same. If you have power in your everyday life, As a woman or a man, whatever, you can let yourself fantasizing about giving power. But if you are living in Iran, Iraq, Middle East, and you don’t, as a woman, have any power Well, I guess you’re not fantasizing about that.

[00:19:58] Ashley: Clearly, there’s a lot at play behind why people like BDSM. Identity, culture, life experience, maybe just how you were born. But there’s also brain chemistry involved in BDSM’s appeal.

[00:20:17] Ashley: When one person is inflicting pain on another person who wants it, it sets off hormonal fireworks inside of both of them.

[00:20:26] Christian Joyal: We published two years ago a paper about submissive people, but especially people who were into masochisms, and we asked them, why? Why? Why do you like it? Because personally, I don’t understand.

[00:20:43] Christian Joyal: You know, in Arabia, for instance, if you stole something, you can be whipped, and we all think it’s really horrible, but you, in your bedroom, you do it for fun. I don’t get it. And they all said the same thing.

[00:21:03] Christian Joyal: They are reaching another level of consciousness, and Most of them told us it was like taking drugs and they were into what they call the subspace.

[00:21:19] Kayla Lords: Yes, subspace.

[00:21:21] Lina Dune: Subspace.

[00:21:30] Lina Dune: As a sub, you can kind of go to this altered brain space that can feel a little bit like you’re high, um, on something.

[00:21:39] Kayla Lords: There were some times where I just felt high. It was floaty, you know, no thoughts, all vibes. What worries? What to do list? It’s gone. The brain is quiet. And I just would just float on a little sea of serotonin or whatever it is.

[00:21:57] Lina Dune: I think a lot of people experience subspace as this sort of euphoric, floaty, quiet space that they go to, whereas other people become, you know, like mischievous and want to wrestle and other people will get the giggles. Other people will cry, have cathartic crying that comes out.

[00:22:14] Kayla Lords: Other times it would be both mental and physical.

[00:22:18] Kayla Lords: I physically could not move my body. I could not speak. I could not respond. It wasn’t a negative experience or a scary experience. But I felt like I didn’t have control over my own body, and so I just needed to lay very still.

[00:22:32] Lina Dune: And then when it’s happening, your brain and whole body are just like, whoa!

[00:22:36] Lina Dune: Like, so the fireworks go off, and yeah, there can be this really transcendent feeling that can be kind of hard to explain, particularly because everyone experiences a little bit differently.

[00:22:47] Christian Joyal: What we saw is that if you are going slowly, And they all told us, you cannot spank me right away. No, no, no. You can’t.

[00:22:57] Christian Joyal: You have to prepare me and I have to trust you. And after like one hour and a half, it’s like you don’t feel painful stimuli as you would like 90 minutes earlier. When you have more and more and more pain. Painful stimuli, or when you are bonded or you don’t see anything, you can travel into your inner space.

[00:23:26] Christian Joyal: So maybe that’s why some people in other countries, other eras, were walking on fire. They were walking on broken glasses and they were sleeping on, you know, nail beds. And I just connected that with all the religions thing, you know, the people were auto flagellating themselves in the 18th century and they are still doing it, for instance, in Spain, and they are walking to streets and flag, flag, flag, but they are going into trance.

[00:24:03] Christian Joyal: They are going into trance. It’s a trance. It’s you’re, you’re elsewhere. And this, a lot of them told me that they had an out of body experience so they can see themselves, but they don’t feel anything. They are flawed. Boom, boom, boom. They don’t feel anything.

[00:24:24] Ashley: Scientists have done some really cool studies that tell us exactly what’s happening chemically to get to this state. One study published in 2020 by Belgian researchers recruited 35 BDSM couples to perform a BDSM scene. That’s the term for the kind of setting or scenario in which a BDSM activity or encounter takes place.

[00:24:44] Ashley: It’s doing a BDSM. Anyway, researchers took blood samples from both participants before the scene, directly after, and post aftercare. which is the often cuddly wind down time people use to get back down to Earth afterward. As a control, the researchers also took blood samples from 27 couples hanging out at a local bar.

[00:25:05] Ashley: During the scene, subs experienced a massive increase in cortisol, which is a stress hormone associated with that fight or flight feeling. That’s probably not surprising. But they also experienced a boost in endocannabinoids. If that word sounds like cannabis to you, that’s because it’s very closely related.

[00:25:26] Ashley: Endo means inside, and cannabinoid, as you might guess, is a chemical substance most commonly found in cannabis. The whole reason you can get high off of cannabinoids in nature is that you have receptors for this substance. And you have receptors for this substance because your body makes it in house.

[00:25:45] Ashley: Endocannabinoids can reduce your perception of pain and give you a peaceful, floaty feeling. Subspace makes people feel high because they’re literally high. But there’s also science to Kayla’s description of her mind going blank.

[00:26:01] Kayla Lords: You know, no thoughts, all vibes. What worries? What to do list? It’s gone. The brain is quiet.

[00:26:09] Ashley: There’s this complicated sounding theory called transient hypofrontality. which was proposed by a psychology researcher in Beirut named Arne Dietrich. It says, in essence, that the brain only has so many resources to go around, and when it’s faced with tons of input, like it is during a BDSM scene, it shuts off the parts that aren’t important in the moment so it can focus on the intense stuff that’s happening.

[00:26:33] Ashley: One of those parts that shuts down is the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for executive function, working memory, and attention. When the prefrontal cortex goes quiet, It’s no thoughts, all vibes. You might feel a distortion of time, a feeling of peacefulness, and a reduced sense of pain.

[00:26:53] Ashley: It’s the same brain state people experience during endurance running, meditation, daydreaming, hypnosis, and being high on actual drugs. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? But that’s subspace. Is there a Dom space? The word does seem to exist, but it’s not all that widely used. Terminology or not, though, Doms get their share of altered consciousness, too.

[00:27:18] Ashley: When the Belgian researchers took blood samples from Doms, they found that those who introduced more power dynamics into their scenes experienced a spike in endocannabinoids. That same home baked high. And when other researchers surveyed Dominance directly after BDSM scenes, the Doms reported experiencing all the qualities of a flow state, the kind of full immersion people get when focusing on a usually skill based activity, like playing music, making art, or playing a sport.

[00:27:48] Ashley: Skill, in fact, is an essential part of being a Dom. Remember Lina’s point about 50 Shades? Well, here’s the rest of what she said.

[00:27:57] Lina Dune: BDSM really hinges on a shared creative reality between all the participants, and as a sub, if my Dom was writing our experience as badly as that book and film are put together, I would be, I couldn’t get to that transcendent subspace.

[00:28:17] Lina Dune: I would feel unsafe, honestly, because a part of BDSM is being able to be empathetic and flexible and listen well enough to create something that both of you can buy into.

[00:28:33] Ashley: The way that you just described, like, a Dom’s responsibility sort of sounds like Like a dungeon master in D& D? Like, is there a lot of prep that is involved in preparing for a scene for a Dom?

[00:28:46] Lina Dune: This is so funny. We tease my Dom, myself and other subs that we play with, because when a new scene is about to begin or somebody’s expressed a need for something, And we haven’t really played with it very much. He goes, okay, I’m getting out the legal pad, and he’ll get out, he has literally like pages and pages and pages of legal pads where he’ll bullet out like the workflow of all the things that need to happen to lead into a certain kink being deployed into a scene so that it makes, you know, we’re, we’re very creative people.

[00:29:17] Lina Dune: We love, you know, film and books and whatever. So he really needs things to make narrative sense and be consistent. Like he’s very like, you know, there’s a specific dirty talk narrative that’s been going on all night and we are going to be like very consistent to the rules of that world. You know, other people have their own way, you know, they, Go more jazz with it, but he’s, um, I think he’s very directorial when it comes to, to scenes.

[00:29:40] Lina Dune: And so I get to, you know, offer my suggestions and then, yeah, things are very much put into the legal pad and, you know, my suggestions are taken under advisement and then they get, you know, they get put in, in a place where they are properly applied.

[00:29:55] Ashley: Not all Doms draft a narrative on a legal pad before a scene.

[00:29:59] Ashley: But Lina’s example shows how much care goes into a dom’s role. It’s not just guys on a power trip who like hurting women.

[00:30:07] John Brownstone: You know, the analogy I’ve used throughout the years is a well. A dominant who comes in and just draws from that submissive well, at some point that well is going to go dry. You know, as, as a dominant, you have to give back as much as you get.

[00:30:25] John Brownstone: It is a give and take.

[00:30:26] Kayla Lords: It’s an exchange of power. It’s an exchange. We are trading and sharing and giving and taking.

[00:30:32] John Brownstone: I mean, one of the ways that I describe our relationship, Kayla and I are equals. We are equals who are now in a consensually negotiated power imbalance.

[00:30:47] Kayla Lords: And at any point, I can reclaim that power.

[00:30:51] Kayla Lords: I can safe word and say, no, we’re not doing this. I can just withdraw consent in general. Tomorrow I could say, I can’t be in a power exchange anymore. I can’t, I can’t be your submissive anymore. Look, I cannot imagine that we should be at the apocalypse of that happening. That’s not going to happen. That’s, we are not manifesting that.

[00:31:13] Kayla Lords: However, I have that option at all times. Right.

[00:31:18] Ashley: After a scene full of intense sensations and power play, with both people’s brains creating a firework show of hormones, it’s pretty difficult to just put your pants back on and get back to your day to day responsibilities. You need a bit of decompression time.

[00:31:32] Ashley: And that’s what’s called aftercare.

[00:31:42] Lina Dune: Safe BDSM is sort of defined by a three-part system, which is negotiation before you do a scene, and then a scene which has active consent and safe words. And then we do aftercare afterwards, which is sort of how it sounds. It’s a moment for people to regulate their nervous systems back into reality. And the reason we do aftercare is as sort of a

[00:32:03] Lina Dune: prophylaxis against sub drop or top drop, which are both these feelings of depression or dysphoria after sexuality or even just kink exchange, you don’t have to ever have been naked, but sort of traversing these taboos and then coming back out of it, there can be this shame spiral or like a big wave of feeling that comes, so that’s why we create aftercare as a specific time to make all of this safe, and I had heard that sub drop was not really well studied or well understood.

[00:32:35] Lina Dune: It’s just like a thing that happens and good luck. And then I did a lot more research myself into the phrase post coital dysphoria, which is a understood and studied phenomenon among people, all people who have sex of all genders, where people can feel irritable or depressed or get tired and after sex for seemingly no reason, like nothing necessarily went wrong, but people just feel off from the transition of feelings.

[00:33:02] Ashley: There isn’t a ton of research on post coital dysphoria, but the research that exists says it happens to women more often than men, and it doesn’t seem to be affected by the closeness of the relationship between partners. Sometimes you just get sad after sex.

[00:33:17] Lina Dune: I guess the headline is if you experience those feelings, you’re normal.

[00:33:22] Lina Dune: And also BDSM aftercare perhaps would be great for everybody because sexuality is such a vulnerable process and having. A space to transition out of it, whatever that may be, be it casual or more involved, is something that I think the human body really enjoys when we, when we go to that place. Just having a plan is almost more important than whatever it is.

[00:33:46] Lina Dune: Just having the intention to say to your body, like, I know something serious just happened here and like you felt things, body. So we’re going to take a beat to transition back to reality. It is sort of the essence of aftercare, whatever that looks like. Some people want to get up and have a dance party, some people want to go on a run, some people want to get in the bath, you know, whatever it is, finding a way to sort of bookend the experience and notate that there is a transition back to reality happening and you don’t have to just sort of like shake it off and snap out of it and keep rolling with your day.

[00:34:19] Ashley: Yeah. Yet again, the kink community has lessons for the vanilla community. I mean, that’s, that sounds like great advice.

[00:34:26] Lina Dune: We want to help them. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:30] Ashley: I’m going to let you in on a little secret. This podcast series is a bit of a bait and switch. I bait you with the promise of peeking in on other people’s weird sex lives, but then bam, I hit you with the realization that they’re full humans who make rational decisions about how to experience pleasure and you feel empathy.

[00:34:49] Ashley: If you came here for the weird sex stuff, I hope you feel that empathy, because the misconceptions people have about BDSM can be really dangerous for people who live that lifestyle.

[00:35:01] Kayla Lords: There’s a part of me that just wishes it didn’t have to be taboo at all, even though I understand that some of the excitement is that a lot of it is taboo.

[00:35:11] Kayla Lords: I mean, that’s what gets a lot of people off. It’s more of, I just want to be left alone to be kinky. I wish I didn’t have to worry that if somebody in my non kink life found out I was kinky, that it, as it still can today, could cost me a job, could cost me a relationship, could cost me custody of my children.

[00:35:34] Kayla Lords: When I first figured out I was kinky and I was going through a divorce, I was paranoid because I did not know what my ex husband might say or do if he found out. And at one point, we even had a falling out with family members. And I’d been in kink for several years. We’d been together for a while. We were married already.

[00:35:56] Kayla Lords: And I spent six months waiting for what felt like a shoe to drop. for somebody come knocking at my door to make sure I was a fit parent because I happen to be kinky and raising two kids. So part of me is sort of like, I just want you to leave me alone and let me just be kinky on my own. That’s. That’s what I wish.

[00:36:27] Ashley: Thanks for listening. I am so thankful to fellow podcasters Lina Dune, Kayla Lords, and John Brownstone for sharing their stories with me for this episode. If you’re interested in BDSM, I highly, highly recommend their podcasts. Lena Dune hosts Ask a Sub, and Kayla Lourdes and John Brownstone host Loving BDSM.

[00:36:46] Ashley: Check them out wherever you found this show. And thank you once again to Christian Joyal. You can find links to all of his research in the show notes. Taboo Science is written and produced by me, Ashley Hamer. The theme song is by Dani Lopatka of DLC Music. Episode music is from Epidemic Sound. I was recently on Tom Scott’s Lateral podcast and I noticed a bunch of new downloads, so if you came here from there, welcome!

[00:37:10] Ashley: Whether you’re a new listener or have been around for a while, I would really appreciate it if you’d leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. That social proof really helps others take a chance on the show. And it also feeds my fragile ego. Two birds, one stone. Next time on Philias, we’re putting on the fursuit and learning all about furries.

[00:37:30] Ashley: Oh, I’m excited for this. I hope you tune in. I won’t tell anyone.