By Thom Waite
For people who aren’t particularly open when it comes to sex and sexuality, BDSM can be difficult to understand, even though previous reports suggest that its practitioners tend to have better sex. Now, a new study suggests that the pleasure associated with BDSM is also scientifically provable.
Published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the research involved taking blood samples from 35 Belgian couples – recruited via FetLife, a popular social network for the fetish community – before a consensual BDSM “play” session at a sex club. More blood samples were taken after the end of the session, then analysed to measure the change in hormone levels. Meanwhile, a group of 27 people not interested in BDSM (the control group) ran similar tests at a sports club.
The results show that the biological effects of a BDSM interaction are a clear indicator of increased pleasure. For dominant partners, this is mainly linked to the power play aspect of the interaction, which caused a rise in endocannabinoid levels (which are linked to feelings of bliss and contentment). For submissive partners, on the other hand, the results showed that the hormonal change isn’t associated with power play, but with pain play.
Another finding was the increased release of cortisol – typically a response to stress – in submissive partners, but not their dominant counterparts. The researchers say that the findings: “confirm our hypothesis that a BDSM interaction seems to elicit a stress response from the body.” The study also concludes that this increase in stress is related to the provable experience of pleasure in BDSM interactions.
According to the researchers, demonstrating this biological drive behind sexual behaviors that many people find “aberrant” or abnormal is a first step in deconstructing the stigma.
Elise Wuyts, the author of the study, tells PsyPost: “Even though the idea of including power imbalances and pain in (sexual) intimacy is something many people struggle with, enjoying these practices has a biological basis and could for instance be compared to the pleasurable high that long-distance runners experience.”
“Because this is a pilot study,” Wuyts adds, “it is only scratching the surface of what can be said about the biology of BDSM… It would be interesting to see if the results can be reproduced with other cultures or larger sample sizes.” Presumably, FetLife has plenty of willing participants if a future study were to come around.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!