MstrssScarlet
Posts: 633
Joined: 6/3/2005
From: Indianapolis, Indiana
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There was someone on here just the other day asking if people on Collarme thought BDSM would be accepted anytime soon. I think this may give you a partial answer. (Notes in red are my opinion only.)
Mistress Scarlet
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Max Mosley's Nazi S&M Orgy
It was distasteful. Was it also pathological?
By Juliet Lapidos
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008, at 5:45 PM ET
Max Mosley
Max Mosley is facing calls to resign as president of Formula One
after News of the World published an exposé about his sex life. In a
video obtained by the British tabloid, a prostitute straps the 67-
year-old Mosley to a bench and beats him with a cane; then Mosley
switches roles: He shouts orders in German while he lashes
prostitutes dressed in imitation death camp uniforms. Mosley's
bedroom habits may be distasteful, but are they pathological? (I would agree that it's distasteful, but at least he switches roles and gives them a chance to get even.)
Not necessarily. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual recognizes eight major paraphilias, or
aberrant sexual urges: exhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism (the
desire to rub against a person), pedophilia, transvestic fetishism
(attraction to the clothing of the opposite gender), voyeurism,
masochism, and sadism. We're lumped in there with pedophiles?!?!
But the big eight aren't considered
diagnosable disorders unless the activity (or fantasy about the
activity) is recurrent, (So recurrent practicing of BDSM is a DISORDER?) causes significant emotional distress,
impairs social functioning, or involves a violation of consent. So,
consensual S&M that doesn't lead to, say, crippling guilt is not
classified as a disease. (Well, at least it's just a disorder and not a disease!) 
As for the orgy's Nazi overtones, Nazi costumes and other
paraphernalia are not unheard of in the sexual role-play subculture.
Like biker gear, SS outfits can heighten the sense of a "top/bottom"
power differential, which, to some, is highly arousing. Mosley may
have some demons to exorcise (his father, Oswald, was a known Nazi
sympathizer), but his penchant for sinister playacting doesn't
demonstrate any form of psychosis. (Ok, how many of you know someone who uses Nazi uniforms and has no demons to exorcise?)
Sadomasochism has a long literary history. The fourth-century Kama
Sutra, for example, recommends erotic slapping, scratching, and
biting. And in the 17th century, German physician Johann Heinrich
Meiborn used contemporary anatomical theory to explain why pain would
cause sexual excitement (flogging warms semen). But psychiatric
research on the practice began in earnest during the 19th century
when Austrian psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing
published Psychopathia Sexualis. According to Krafft-Ebing, sex that
isn't directly related to procreation, like S&M, is a perversion.
Rape, by contrast, is aberrant, but not perverse, since it can result
in pregnancy. Sigmund Freud also considered the desire to inflict or
receive pain during sex a perversion and noted that these opposite
tendencies often occur in the same person (see Max Mosley).  Rape is more acceptable than BDSM?!?!?!
Psychoanalysts today theorize that sadomasochists may be repeating an
early sexual experience. (French majors may recall that, in the
Confessions, Rousseau enjoys an early-childhood spanking and then
seeks to repeat the experience later in life). (Hey! I don't know about the rest of you, but the spankings I experienced as a child don't even closely resemble the spankings I see in BDSM today.) But the current
empirical research on what motivates sadomasochistic behavior is
inconclusive. There's no established link between S&M and childhood
history; practitioners are no more likely to have been spanked or
sexually abused than anyone else in the population. There's also no
scientific proof that consensual S&M is a gateway to nonconsensual
sadomasochistic assault. Andreas Spengler, a German physician who
conducted a large-scale S&M study in the 1970s, found that
practitioners are generally happy with their sexual preferences, yet
burdened by social stigma. (The first thing I agree with!)
Sadomasochists who aren't happy with their preferences and seek
treatment have a few options. Traditional approaches include
psychoanalysis and 12-step sexual addiction/compulsion recovery
programs. More recently, drugs that reduce testosterone levels and
thus lower the sex drive have been used in conjunction with
behavioral therapy. (This is NOT for me!!!! I don't WANT to be "cured".)
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Barbara Bartlick of Weill Cornell Medical College,
Fred Berlin of Johns Hopkins University, and Vernon Quinsley of
Queen's University.
< Message edited by MstrssScarlet -- 4/14/2008 8:30:50 PM >
_____________________________
"Say, that hurts a little bit" "And you don't like to be hurt do ya?" "I don't know...kinda fun sometimes if it's done in the right spirit."
Jean Harlow in The Beast of the City
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Reposted from local Indy Slosh - 
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