Fifty Shades of Grey sparks wide interest in erotic subculture
Global Times
By Li Lin
“I love being dominant, and the feeling of power I have in our sexual role-playing games,” says 28-year-old Ada Ling, a certified nurse who lives and works in Beijing.
“[And] I love being trampled by her, especially when she’s wearing high heels,” her 26-year-old boyfriend, university tutor and graduate student Xiao Wu explains.
Xiao and Ling met roughly two years ago on a BDSM message board. While in the popular imagination, BDSM most often evokes images of skintight leather suits and whips, practitioners of BDSM usually define it in relational terms – as forms of erotic play based on control and uneven power dynamics.
In the wake of the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, which depicts a young woman’s sexual awakening and initiation into the world of BDSM, the erotic subculture has been garnering considerable attention around the world.
Although neither the film nor the best-selling trilogy of novels by EL James upon which it is based have been officially released on the Chinese mainland, a frenzy of interest around BDSM has nevertheless developed in the country.
“For me, BDSM is like a secret garden, in which I’m totally liberated to be my true self,” said Xiao. “The feeling of being controlled excites me.”
BDSM is a compound acronym that combines “bondage and discipline” (B&D), “dominance and submission” (D&S) and “sadism and masochism” (S&M).
One partner will usually assume the role of the “dominant,” who wields control over his (her) “submissive” partner.
In Ling and Xiao’s relationship, it is Xiao who usually adopts the role of the submissive.
“I get a kind of mental pleasure from being humiliated, tied up, and even punished, such as being spanked on my side or whipped on my back,” he explained.
Ling said that common scenarios in their BDSM role-plays included Roman queen and servant, police officer and prisoner, and dog owner and dog.
Sexual perversion?
In China, numerous headlines for articles related to Fifty Shades of Grey have described BDSM as a form of “sexual perversion,” and some social media users have even questioned whether it is a form of sexual abuse.
Peng Xiaohui, a sexologist at Wuhan-based Central China Normal University, rejected such characterizations outright. He noted that essential to BDSM was the idea of mutual, informed consent.
“Consent in BDSM is crucial,” said Peng.
“The level of stimulation is discussed and agreed upon in advance. Also, there always has to be a unique ‘safe word,’ which is a word or gesture to signify a limit if one of the partners wants to stop.”
Sexual abuse, on the other hand, is “arbitrary and reckless, intended to hurt the victim, and constitutes a criminal offence,” said Peng. …