Article

Sexualities
14(2) 129–150
Pain as culture: ! The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1363460711399032

approach to S/M and sex.sagepub.com

women’s agency
Maneesha Deckha
University of Victoria, Canada

Abstract
The interaction of gender, culture, race and sexuality is a central dynamic to this article,
which seeks to move forward feminist debate on the benefits and harms of sadomas-
ochist practices for women by applying the critical race and postcolonial method
of world-travelling. The article seeks to make a novel contribution to the feminist
analysis of consensual violence and sadomasochism in law by filtering the issue through
a postcolonial feminist theoretical framework to productively circumvent the current
analytical impasse in this area of feminist ‘sex wars’.

Keywords
agency, culture, feminism, pain, pleasure, postcolonialism, sex, sexuality, sadomasochism

Introduction
One variation in the conversation western feminists have had regarding the ability
of sex to empower women is the debate surrounding the status of sexual sadomas-
ochism (S/M) as a feminist practice (Cossman, 2004). At the risk of oversimplifying
the nuances of the positions, especially the differences between responses to lesbian
S/M versus heterosexual S/M, it may be said that one side views S/M as a healthy
and – because it is transgressive of cultural norms – ideal expression of female
sexual agency. This ‘pro-sex’ side casts any critique of the practice, feminist or
otherwise, as reproducing hegemonic and oppressive norms of sexuality that are
harmful to women (Ardill and O’Sullivan, 2005; Chancer, 1982, 1992, 2000;
Hanna, 2001; Hawthorne, 2005/2006). While not discounting the importance of
sex and sexual expression for women’s autonomy relationally understood, other
feminists view S/M, in which the infliction of physical and/or psychological pain

Corresponding author:
Maneesha Deckha, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3H7, Canada
Email: mdeckha@uvic.ca
130 Sexualities 14(2)

inheres through a power differential created by dominance and submission,

as violence emblematic of heterosexual male sexual domination over women.
To the extent that women express masochistic desires to be sexually dominated,
this ‘radical feminist’ side views these desires as deformed by sexist power struc-
tures that encourage women to eroticize their own sexual submission. The ‘con-
sensual’ nature of these sexual relations is viewed as weak and not worthy of
respect (Superson, 2005).
This is a long-standing debate, which has proven difficult to resolve precisely
because of the merits of each position, often leaving feminists at a stalemate in
these sex wars. As Brenda Cossman has noted, the polarization has even effected a
‘rupture’ between feminism and queer theory on the one hand, and analyses of
gender and sexuality on the other (Cossman, 2004). What I attempt here is an
intervention that may bring these two sides closer together.1 While not adopting
a perspective either way as to the feminist value of S/M, I want to suggest a heu-
ristic that may help to frame the issue in a fresher and more fruitful way. I define
S/M as consensual sexualized encounters involving an orchestrated power
exchange characterized by domination and subordination typically involving the
infliction of pain2 (Taylor and Ussher, 2001), I argue that postcolonial feminist
insights contain important reminders as to why feminists should not dismiss
the potential of S/M as part of a feminist project. Postcolonial feminist theory
helps illuminate that while feminists need not celebrate S/M as a feminist prac-
tice or even tolerate sadomasochism involving serious bodily injury as a legal
practice, they should not discard the possibility of imputing feminist meaning
to S/M.
I turn to postcolonial feminist critiques against imperial feminism to reframe the
S/M debate for an argument against the immediate categorization of S/M as an
unfeminist pursuit. I hope to contribute to feminist analysis of S/M by marrying
the discussion of consensual violence with postcolonial feminism and, in doing so,
showcase the usefulness of postcolonial feminist theory as a framework to inves-
tigate questions of agency. Again, I will not make an argument either for or against
the classification of S/M as a feminist practice. My purpose is more preliminary.
It is an argument as to why feminists should not reject S/M, and by extension, any
consensual subcultural practice, outright.
Why the juxtaposition of the theory of postcolonial feminism with the feminist
controversy over S/M? In repositioning the S/M debate and the larger issues of how
feminists should treat consensual violence and women’s agency within a postcolo-
nial feminist framework, S/M emerges and is marked as a cultural practice to which
the cautions of postcolonial critiques against immediate rejection by feminists or
anyone else apply. It is possible to imagine individuals with personal sensibilities
that are pain-averse, not just because they find the physical sensation of pain dis-
tressing, but also because they are inclined to regard the infliction of pain on
another as a violation of bodily integrity, and thus as a step away from the
type of harmonious, peaceful and non-aggressive society they envision when imag-
ining a just society. Indeed, typically, I find myself wincing, grimacing, closing my
Deckha 131

eyes and covering my ears to block out the suffering that a character on a film, for
example, endures.3 For some, this initial, intuitive response should activate con-
templation of what principled basis may ground these strong, negative conclusions
given that in sadomasochism, the ‘sufferers’ have given their consent to the
violence.
This is especially true of feminists whose intuitions in postcolonial debates
about women’s agency, which typically are also about painful practices implicated
in power structures (herein lies the analogy) such as female genital mutilation/sur-
geries, has been to err on the side of affirming the complicated choices of women to
engage in painful practices.4 Their conclusions here have urged westerners to edu-
cate themselves before judging or otherwise representing a practice emerging from
a cultural milieu into which they have not been acculturated (Narayan, 1997a;
Sunder, 2000).5 Yet might a similar framework apply to S/M, a practice also
heavily associated with pain but commonly marked as ‘western’ and thus not a
postcolonial issue, and thus bypass the stalemate on this topic?
To be clear, then, my rationale for bringing postcolonial feminist insights to
bear on the S/M debate within feminism rests on the concepts of pain and dom-
ination that centrally anchor them both. While recent studies of meaning-making
among S/M practitioners argue that the element of the power exchange is the vital
ingredient in constructing an S/M encounter and not pain, it is still the case that
pain is a common feature that eroticizes the activity, is a technique of distributing
power, and yields pleasure for many participants (Cross and Matheson, 2006;
Weinberg, 2006).6 Ethical objections to S/M emanate from the pain and domina-
tion involved which is then conceptualized as (bad) violence rather than (good) sex.
Similarly, many of the debates that have prompted postcolonial feminist scholar-
ship have centred on painful practices in non-western cultures that appear enabled
by male domination of women. Female genital cutting, foot-binding, sati, and
dowry deaths are easily summoned examples. It does not seem to be a coincidence
that all these usual suspects on the list of ‘sexist third world cultural traditions’
(with veiling, perhaps, excluded), involve bodily pain and are perceived as mani-
festations of male domination and female subordination and victimization (Kapur,
2005). Given that many people who are uncomfortable with S/M feel this way
because of S/M’s resemblance to torture and the acuteness of physical pain therein,
it seems logical to extend insights learned about representation and perception
from postcolonial feminist studies to painful practices involving domination in
the West as well.
Lest it be argued that postcolonial and domestic paradigms do not mix, I draw
the reader to another point of connection between non-western painful practices
and S/M: the marginalized cultural identities of its practitioners. While not claim-
ing symmetry in cultural and social locations of racialized non-western people and
western S/M practitioners – nor a monolithic identity for either – (Narayan, 1998;
Sunder, 2000; Weinberg, 2006)7 both groups may be said to occupy a non-domi-
nant cultural position within the respective cultural milieus in which their debates
operate (Moser and Kleinplatz, 2005). The core issue in postcolonial feminist
132 Sexualities 14(2)

theory is the imposition of an imperial worldview and the attendant Othering of

non-western cultural practices (Narayan, 1997a). Again, similarly, we can discern a
cultural component to the S/M debate to the extent that S/M in its more than mild
variety is still very much a stigmatized cultural practice constituting its practi-
tioners as a marginalized sexual subculture (Wright, 2006). Here, too, concerns
arise surrounding the ethics of those occupying a certain privileged cultural posi-
tion normatively assessing and representing the practices of those occupying a
marginalized one (Hopkins, 1994).
Further, and perhaps most important, applying a postcolonial paradigm to S/M
will reveal the practice for what it is – a subcultural practice. Recognizing the
heterogeneity of cultural practices at ‘home’ (i.e. in the ‘West’), which are not
typically racialized with respect to sex or otherwise, will help undo the colonialist
sensibilities that it is only third world peoples who ‘have’ culture, and that culture is
a monolithic, easily identifiable and discernible entity wherever it circulates
(Volpp, 2001).8 Not only does the connection situate S/M as a cultural practice
to elicit this beneficial discursive result, it highlights the marginal status of its more
intense practitioners, and in doing so, another point of connection to postcolonial
subjects and reason for an integrated analysis.
For all these reasons it is reasonable to assume that the well-developed insights
of how to approach instances of consensual violence (if we can call all of these
practices ‘violent’ because of the pain involved without passing judgement on them
normatively) in the postcolonial context could apply to the more domestically
perceived issue of S/M. The incompleteness of any analogy between S/M and
‘third world cultural practices’ given obvious differences in addition to the central-
ity of sex and sexual pleasure in S/M should not deter the comparison. Rather,
the multiple points of connection illustrate the credentials postcolonial feminist
theory possesses to navigate a new route through this contested terrain. With
these points of connectivity in mind – pain and subcultural status – I turn now
to apply these insights of postcolonial feminist theory to the feminist S/M debate.

Postcolonial critique of mainstream western feminism

Third world women living in non-western countries as well as in the West have
elucidated the imperialistic premises of western feminist discourses that morally
condemned certain ‘third world cultural traditions’ or practices. Chandra Talpade
Mohanty’s self-consciously titled ‘Under western eyes’ is a classic in this respect
(Minh-Ha Trinh, 1989; Mohanty, 2003; Ong, 1988; Spelman 1988; Spivak, 1988).
In this article, Mohanty deconstructs several prominent western feminist texts to
reveal a discourse of ‘imperial feminism’. By this, she refers to a discourse that
reproduces the civilizing mission, wherein white western women seek to bring
gender equality from their western shores to those of their downtrodden racialized
‘sisters’ (Mohanty, 2003). The mainstay of postcolonial feminism is to contest
western feminist representations of non-western women as duty-bound, traditional,
self-sacrificing, submissive, and backward in equality consciousness to the extent
Deckha 133

that they are slaves to and victims of completely and irrevocably misogynistic
cultures. This representation of a ‘truncated’ worldview for ‘third world women’
is then cast in direct opposition to an image of white western women as autono-
mous, liberated beings (Mohanty, 2003). It is a critique that implicates white west-
ern feminism in discourses of Othering, the process which, in the colonial context,
casts racialized peoples as irreducibly different, exotic, inferior, and auxiliary to the
white western self and non-western women as the ‘hegemonic victim subject’
(Kapur, 2005).9
Further, postcolonial feminists have accused mainstream western feminists of
constructing and confirming imagined notions of racial and cultural difference by
sensationalizing practices that are unfamiliar in the everyday repertoire of experi-
ences of most white westerners (Narayan, 1997b). The intense preoccupation
of western feminists with certain divergent yet ‘different’ (read: non-western) prac-
tices – female genital mutilation/surgeries/cutting, sati, veiling, foot-binding, bride-
burning, honour killings – produces a discourse that props up notions of western
superiority and third world inferiority (Mohanty, 2003). The preoccupation has
lumped ‘third world women’ into a timeless and ahistorical group that intimates a
singular similarity: they are all victims of cultures far more misogynistic than
‘western culture’ (Mohanty, 2003). The point of departure of imperial feminism
is one that invokes culture to explain oppressive conditions circumscribing the lives
of third world women, rather than global social and economic hierarchies in which
western women (and men) are complicit (Howe, 1994; Narayan, 1997b). Thus, the
discourse has been able to propose the metaphor of sisterhood as the best signifier
of the assumed sameness of women’s experiences (Mohanty, 2003). Paradoxically,
mainstream feminist discourse failed to view western women’s oppression as a
story, at least in part, about culture. To the contrary, the implicit faith in the
superior gender relations in the West led some to the conclusion that enculturation
to ‘western’ human rights norms and a liberal agenda is the solution to the oppres-
sion women face in third world countries (Kapur, 2005; Mohanty, 2003).10
Postcolonial feminists have impugned this feminist epistemology as a type of
knowledge production firmly invested in global circuits of power (Kapur, 2005;
Mohanty, 2003). This discourse, they argued, reproduced the imperialistic episte-
mic violence of reductive representation and concomitant maltreatment of cultural
and racial Others. It also perpetuated the ideology of western subjects
spreading Enlightenment teachings to the darker reaches of the world (Spivak,
2003). By the mid 1990s, a counterdiscourse had emerged explaining and even
defending these contested practices on feminist grounds and/or revealing the
hypocrisy of a feminism that went searching for tales of horrific treatment
when such practices existed closer to home. Since female genital mutilation was
the cause ce´le`bre in mainstream western feminist discourse regarding third
world women, writing soon emerged about its connections to plastic surgery
(Obiora, 1997), about the routine nature of genital surgeries and alteration in
children here11 and the disparity of western feminist attention between the issues
(Case, 2002).
134 Sexualities 14(2)

Within this counterdiscourse the concept of ‘world-travelling’, emerged, a term

signifying a certain critical yet respectful stance of listening to Others from cultural
contexts not our own. Also often referred to as a ‘politics of location’ (Kaplan,
1994), it is a discourse informed by the experiences of individuals who live in
different worlds on a daily basis, travelling between the norms and practices of
their marginalized subculture in the midst of a larger hegemonic culture.
These individuals must negotiate with the multiple perceptions that others have
of them and that they may have of themselves depending on which ‘world’ they are
in at any given moment (Gunning, 1991).12 The world-travelling approach readily
affirms the situatedness and embodiedness of all knowledge-making. Steeped as it is
in the nuances and subtleties of the scattered nature of power (Kaplan and Grewal,
1994), it denies the possibility of a pure or innocent ‘equal’ exchange between
relatively privileged and marginalized locations, despite the best intentions we
may hold as privileged subjects of undoing hegemonies that mediate our interac-
tions with Others (Fraser, 1995). As Caren Kaplan puts it, the politics of location is
an approach that insists that ‘feminists with socioeconomic power need to inves-
tigate the grounds of their strong desire for rapport and intimacy with the ‘‘other’’’
(Kaplan, 1994: 139).
World-travelling provides a framework for looking at relatively unfamiliar,
unlived practices with a recognition that a rush to judgement, uninformed by the
perspectives of those with lived experience or otherwise cultivated familiarity with
the practice, generates inaccurate, culturally biased, and often arrogant results
reminiscent of imperial knowledge production. World-travelling does not disallow
evaluations of practices to which we are ‘cultural outsiders.’ Rather, it is a struc-
tured reminder that all ways of knowing and seeing are situated and embodied and
that the buffer to prevent slippages into an unwitting imperial standpoint is to
educate one’s affect with these different perspectives before settling on a position.
Isabelle Gunning, in her application of the approach to female genital ‘cutting’
or ‘surgeries’, states that this requires at least three moves that those in hegemonic
social locations must undertake in order to reduce the mark of ‘difference’ we
attach to the cultural practices of Others (Gunning, 1991). The first step is to
examine one’s own cultural histories for evidence of the practice that now seems
so ‘backward’, ‘absurd’ or ‘horrific’. This step, Gunning intimates, should not lead
to an affirmation of social Darwinism or the belief that all cultures follow the same
trajectory, with the West leading the rest, or some other theory of cultural hierar-
chies (Gunning, 1991).13 Rather, it is a precursor to the second step, which is to
survey one’s own cultural context for parallels between the Othered practice and
the normalized ones ‘at home’ as part of the project of contextualizing the practices
of others as we implicitly do our own (Gunning, 1991). The final step is to realize
the hegemonic position that one may occupy vis-à-vis the Other and that the Other
might connect your cultural inquiry into histories of discipline and exploitation
(Gunning, 1991).14
This ‘world-travelling’ approach to looking at ‘third world’ cultural practices
should be adopted at ‘home’ when debating whether to support, tolerate or
Deckha 135

denounce a particular practice. In addition to the general utility of this framework,

it seems particularly adept for exploring the ethics of S/M given the connections
with respect to pain and domination and cultural marginalization outlined earlier.
Having identified the contours of postcolonial feminism, and, in particular, the
concept of world-travelling, as an analytical framework, the discussion now
turns to the implications of this critique for S/M.

Applying postcolonial feminist insights to S/M

What are some of the insights gained when we apply the world-travelling approach
to S/M? Again, pursuing this query is not to assess whether S/M is a feminist
practice. Rather, the aim is to argue that it is problematic for feminists to reach
the conclusion that S/M is not a feminist practice without first undertaking a
world-travelling approach to the issue. Here, I map out the considerations and
benefits such an approach might lend to the creation of a responsible discourse
about S/M (Fraser, 1995) by those whose first reaction to the pursuit of sexual
pleasure through pain and domination is a negative one.

Step 1: Examining one’s own culture

Recall that the first measure Gunning advocates is to examine our own cultural
histories for evidence of similar practices. This might mean recognizing the increas-
ing number of cultural references to S/M in the media that mainstream society
appears to sanction (Langdridge and Butt, 2005; Pa, 2001; Wilkinson, 2009).
As Cheryl Hanna (2001: 243–244) notes, these references are pervasive.

S/M is so trendy, it is almost passé. Black leather is the look in bars and clubs among
the urban chic and tragically hip. Stories about S/M appear in mainstream magazines
like Psychology Today, Jane, and the New Yorker. Noted authors such as Anne Rich
write sadomasochistic erotica for the mass market. Personal ads in newspapers and on
websites provide a private forum to find a partner. Those in search of ‘how-to’ man-
uals can bypass dirty bookstores for Barnes & Noble. Sex shops that sell whips and
chains and Velcro restraints are moving from red light districts to upscale shopping
areas. Websites advertising torture tools are a click away. Clubs and conferences for
the curious and the committed are commonplace. Anyone can become a card-carrying
member of the Black Rose or the Disciplinary Wives Club. Images of Beautiful people
experiencing pleasure through pain appear in ads for Skyy Vodka, Bass Ale, Candies
Shoes, and high-priced fashion. It is the subject of popular songs, Hollywood movies,
and prime-time TV.15

Recognizing the increasing and desired presence of the images and associations
of S/M is an important first step. We can also go further to explore the exchange of
power and relations of domination and subordination in our own erotic and not-
so-erotic relations. As Reina Lewis and Karen Adler note, power is an element of
136 Sexualities 14(2)

many human relationships including sexual ones that conform to normalized het-
erosexual cultural sexual scripts such that it may be ‘impossible to be in relation-
ships and never make compromises that you do not regret or resent’ (Lewis and
Adler, 1994: 439).16

Step 2: Searching for parallels

A second element of properly contextualizing S/M is a search for parallels
between S/M (what we may feel is undesirable or wrong) and other activities or
practices that we feel are desirable or right or, at least, permissible. We are then
faced with the self-reflective task of trying to distinguish what we feel is ‘wrong’
from what we feel is ‘right’ or else consider that we might have to shift our affective
responses. Here, we could begin by noting the ubiquity of the pursuit or tolerance
of pain and domination in everyday life. As Carl Holmberg notes, drawing from
David Hume, some of us prefer tearjerkers to comedies when it comes to movies
and actually pay to go to see a film that will make us cry (Holmberg, 1998).
Moreover, arguably in pursuit of an oppressive and elusive aesthetic ideal, many
women book regular appointments for waxing, electrolysis or other painful beauty
treatments and push their bodies through exercise, straining tendons, muscles and
ligaments to the next level despite the resulting ‘burn’.17 And, of course, women
get pregnant and give birth – not exactly a painless process – every day to wide-
spread social approval.18
We could also note the routine nature of relations, even erotic ones, of domi-
nation and submission, in corporate and bureaucratic structures. Lynn Chancer
has identified the features of S/M generated by corporate cultures that: (1) nor-
malize ‘strict hierarchy’ according to which rankings of personal superiority
and inferiority are assigned; (2) repress freedom, including freedom of expression;
(3) devalue low-ranking employees; and (4) motivate superiors to exert increasing
levels of control and power over their subordinates (Chancer, 1998; J Williams,
2000). Far from being condemned, she argues that corporations, which permeate
late capitalist societies, are pregnant fora in which sadomasochistic dynamics
may flourish. Christine Williams develops Chancer’s analysis in the context of
universities no less (C Williams, 2002). She notes that the reverence and hierarchy
inculcated in students in favour of faculty, especially between male professors
and the female graduate students who idealize them, makes students vulnerable
to and accepting of demanding professors who, seeking further student subordi-
nation, leave them for another student.19 In both corporate and public hierarchical
institutions, the attendant lack of mutual respect and recognition enables sadomas-
ochistic dynamics to develop (Chancer, 1998; C Williams, 2002).
Why is it that these activities strike many as ordinary while S/M in anything
other than its mild variations is stigmatized and transgressive (Holmberg, 1998)?
And how should feminists receive this social demarcation? One answer that is
comfortable with how social sanctions are currently organized might contend
that the type of S/M behaviour that is properly cast as transgressive of just
Deckha 137

social norms is that which causes serious or permanent physical injury and involves
the reproduction of oppressive power dynamics linked to domination and subor-
dination. To the extent that S/M behaviour falls within these parameters, it is
properly outlawed and ostracized unlike the parallels just mentioned.
But how clear is the line drawn on this basis? How many of the aforementioned
activities might blur it? We can think of further examples still where the activities
women engage in that are completely normalized arguably involve serious and
lasting suffering and untoward power imbalances that oppress them. Recalling
Chancer’s work (Chancer, 1998), consider working as a legal secretary in a huge
corporate law firm or getting married – positions that are not just prone to incite
ordinary relations of domination and subordination, but those with strong sexu-
alized markers, in other words, the suitability of the position of ‘secretary’ or wife
depends on ‘sexual attraction’ to the boss or husband (Batlan, 2010; J Williams,
2000). Are these practices painful and subjugating ones that cause long-term suf-
fering? If so, should we as feminists prevent women from performing them or
rather work to improve the conditions of reception for their performance?
For example, should we object to a woman working as a legal secretary in a cor-
porate law firm since this is a pink ghetto type of position in which she is not being
compensated properly for her labour (J Williams, 2000)? Under the rationale of
empowerment should we limit her choice to take up exploitative work? Should we
prevent women from exercising too strenuously, in order perhaps to meet some
unattainable image of beauty (Bordo, 1993; Wolf, 1990), and thus avoiding the
pain that exercise and participating in sports can entail? Should we discourage
women from getting married since we ‘know’ that there is a high likelihood
they will harm themselves by taking on a double burden occasioned by primary
caregiving responsibilities and further exposing themselves to the risk of domestic
violence (Okin, 1997; J Williams, 2000)?
The answer, of course, is that we do not, even as feminists, legislate against these
types of choices. This is so even though one could reasonably infer that the levels
of pain and domination involved and harm done to some bodies over years of
working, training, and marriage approximate that experienced in S/M. Why the
discrepancy? Several reasons figure in the explanation. One, certain routinized or
performed hierarchical and dominating acts are part of the liberal cultural fabric
while others, such as S/M of a particular level, are viewed as excessive and violative
of it (Downing, 2004). In contrast to sex that carries mainstream cues for violence,
the job of secretary is seen as a respectable job and the response, then, from fem-
inists has been not to prevent women from taking it up but to give them better
working conditions in which to do their job. Except for certain branches20
(Tong, 1989), feminism has not also seriously called for an end to marriage possibly
because feminists are aware of both the pleasures and pain it involves and the
overwhelming desire of so many women, including those who are feminists, to par-
ticipate in this highly normative institution. The criticism to these parallels
may be that being a secretary and being a spouse are not reduced to sex
and sexual gratification exclusively while engaging in S/M often is. Relying on
138 Sexualities 14(2)

this distinction, however, should prompt the worry that society and feminists
are adopting an anti-sex attitude that does not appear to help women
(Franke, 2001).
A second reason why ‘corporate’ S/M is better tolerated than the sexual varia-
tion may link to a tendency to experience a stronger resistant reaction to visceral, as
opposed to psychological, pain. Despite the likelihood that many of the choices
women make will cause them psychological or emotional harm at some point in the
future, a sustained denunciation of these choices has not survived within feminism.
Yet, it would undermine the attempts in feminist and other critical scholarship
to attend to emotion, affect, and psychological suffering if we were to treat
women’s choices portending such suffering with any less concern than those raising
the risk of physical suffering (Gatens, 1992). Most feminists who write against a
Cartesian mind/body split (Nussbaum, 2001) care about both forms of suffering
and would certainly advocate state sanction against those actors that forced
women to submit to either.
It would also contribute to the oppressive hyperregulation of sexuality to accord
greater scepticism of women’s sexual choices than to their non-sexual ones. Unless
a good reason for distinguishing between physical and psychological suffering in
this way is adduced, it may be inconsistent and thus premature to condemn any
type of S/M, even those activities causing permanent and irreversible injuries.
This is not to say no such reason exists or that an ethical platform must conform
to an all-or-nothing paradigm where all problems are targeted or none at all.
But the analysis presented does underscore the difficulty of dismissing S/M as a
‘good thing’ for women merely because it causes physical pain. This would appear
especially so when S/M practitioners say that they enjoy this physical pain whereas
most women would not presumably say, for example, that they enjoy a double
burden of domestic and paid sector work or a bikini wax.
One point of possible distinction between physical and emotional harm could be
that the legacy of emotional harm is reversible while the legacy of physical harm is
not. Although challenging, it might be possible to undo the effects of a sadist boss
that one has worked under for 20 years whereas it is not possible to, for example,
regain a body part that is amputated (Johnston, 2002; Johnston and Elliot, 2002).21
If we were to draw the line here, we might conclude that this distinction is appro-
priate since it protects the future choices people might make. A person might care
less about an irreversible injury now, but change her mind later. A person who
wants her or his limb amputated now could possibly change her or his mind a year
from now. By criminalizing this level of irreversible damage, the criminal law
can be a disciplinary yet progressive force by preventing a person from acting
now in order to protect their wishes and agency at a later date. And since most
practitioners are not medically trained, we should abjure activities that result in
serious pain because we do not know whether or not they will result in reversible
damage.
Yet, this distinction would only catch a small portion of S/M practice – that
which results in serious, irreversible physical injury. What about the rest?
Deckha 139

Here, feminists concerned about S/M may have final resort to the dignity argu-
ment raised in the jurisprudence that it is not sex that is impugned, but dignity-
diminishing practices (R v. Brown, 1993; R v. Elliot, 1995). Does it not impede
the realization of a culture of human dignity to permit or even tolerate sadistic
behaviour? As Susan Hawthorne (2005/2006: 40) eloquently affirms:

The long-term implications of acts of violence for the health of the social matrix are
also significant. When a society allows or enables violence against a group of its
members, there is an impact on social health. Such violence generates fear and dis-
trust. It fosters social disconnection. It condones violence. It calls for scapegoats and
creates what we are now seeing in the Western world, a new kind of fascism: post-
modern fascism, slippery as an eel, multifaceted, dispersed, and often difficult to pin-
point. In a social sense, it is like the experience of pain in the body. It is hard to talk
about, although many of us feel the distress and discomfort.

Hawthorne’s response to some feminists’ celebration of S/M is an important

one. Certainly, individual acts do not occur in a social void and together constitute
a culture and social fabric that we can subject to critical evaluation. Again, though,
we are faced with inconsistency concerns if we look to parallels as world-travellers
should. As Lynn Chancer has persuasively argued, S/M, true to its original mean-
ing, is a pervasive feature of corporate life in late capitalism, which, in turn, is an
economic, political and social force that deeply marks most of our lives (Chancer,
1992).22
To be fair, many feminists would want to undo the inegalitarian dynamics
of capitalism, if not capitalism itself. But again, presumably, the sadistic boss is
not someone a subordinate would normally choose. Yet, the sadistic sexual partner
is someone a masochist would choose. Also instructive is the fact that whereas
capitalism is largely an unchangeable reality of many people’s lives, S/M, in a
healthy relationship, is often experienced as a script that people perform – one
out of an array of sexual scripts available to them.23 We may even perceive it as
make-believe and an ‘engagement with fiction. . . similar to reading a book or
watching a film’ (Stear, 2009). To be sure, pressing ethical issues can arise in
terms of the authorship of those scripts and from where they may be appropri-
ated24 (Hawthorne, 2005/2006), but the thorny question that the violence is con-
sensual (however fraught agency may be) and enacted rather than non-consensual
and actual, remains. It would be inconsistent, and thus ethically questionable,
for feminists to criminalize or otherwise campaign against S/M if we also do
not attend to the similar disturbing features of current normalized practices in
the same way.

Step 3: Recognizing hegemonic positioning in representing S/M

To consider the final step in world-travelling, recall the apparent cultural sanction
Hanna documents of S/M (Hanna, 2001). How can we reconcile this sanctioning
140 Sexualities 14(2)

with the desire to prohibit it, at least in certain forms? While S/M images in main-
stream cultural representations have increased as Hanna details, it is important
to acknowledge the presence of mainstream consumerist appropriation and the
mixed impact these images have in affirming S/M practice and the normalcy of
its practitioners (Wilkinson, 2009). As Eleanor Wilkinson has noted in her work
on representations of S/M, the flipside of the glamorized advertisements for
middle-class or high-brow brands aiming to harness S/M’s kinky and naughty
associations to attract attention to their products is a media focus on the ‘seedy’
venues of ‘real-life’ S/M practitioners (Wilkinson, 2009). Perhaps what is disquiet-
ing about S/M is not so much the idealized image of it when it is associated with
coveted, stylized, consumer and luxury goods or Hollywood’s favourite stars,
but the sordid associations it takes on when attached to the lifestyles of a sex-
ual underclass. If this is the case then it is a factor to worry about in a world-
travelling paradigm. If it is anxiety over the presence of a particular group seen
as ‘different’ from the mainstream, a marking perhaps enabled by oppressive
class and racial knowledges, such that the practice is objectionable depending on
who its practitioners are, then an important insight is gleaned for feminists.
We need to be attentive to the possibility that it is not so much the general practice
that brings it under ethical scrutiny, but the stereotypes of the ‘deviants’ who
practise S/M.
Indeed, the third step in world-travelling is to recognize the power differential
that informs the perception of another’s cultural practice and that the hegemonic
interpretation of that practice may be illegitimate. A first mini-step toward this end
would be to situate S/M within a social order mediated by power, wherein the
marginalization of sexual minorities are elevated as important concerns in need of
redress. In this context, S/M activities are transgressive practices (Holmberg, 1998)
whose meanings, since their discursive inception, have been formulated by psychi-
atrists ‘[d]rawing on a discourse of the natural’ [by which] they have pathologized
these practices as perversions, deviations, and paraphilias’ (Langdridge and Butt,
2005: 65–66). These representations, in turn, are fortified by the media and con-
servative groups (Wilkinson, 2009; Wright, 2006).
There must be recognition of the discrimination faced by practitioners and their
abject sexual citizenship status within the parameters of liberalism (Langdridge,
2006; Wilkinson, 2009). This includes the propensity of: the police and children’s
aid authorities to intervene unnecessarily in the lives of practitioners of stigmatized
sexual practices (Ridinger, 2006) – especially those marked as queer – (Pa, 2001);
employers to refuse to hire and promote if S/M practitioners are ‘out’ or ‘outed’
(Wright, 2006); and the medical and psychoanalytical communities to continue to
pathologize them (Cross and Matheson, 2006; Taylor and Ussher, 2001).25 It is
crucial to note that the medical pathologization continues with relative ease despite
a growing body of sociological literature that identifies ‘SM practitioners as emo-
tionally and psychologically well balanced, generally comfortable with their sexual
orientation, and socially well adjusted’ (Weinberg, 2006: 37).26 This selective or
disproportionate legal scrutiny against marginalized sexual subcultures is not an
Deckha 141

anomaly, but part of a systemic purging of subcultural practices seen to imperil the
prevailing views of sexual and reproductive normalcy (Stychin, 1994). This is a
concern that anyone whose initial response is to feel negatively toward people
who engage in S/M will have to seriously consider. This is one step in seeing oneself
as the Other sees you.
A second mini-step toward hegemonic positioning is to admit the legitimacy of
perceiving S/M as many of its practitioners do – as sex consented to and actively
and mutually desired (Pa. 2001; Taylor and Ussher, 2001; Thompson, 1991). S/M is
something that many people actively seek out and enjoy. It holds value for some
women and it is too dismissive to regard this value as an expression of false con-
sciousness. The ability of individuals to make choices with less than ideal alterna-
tives or educated minds and emotions themselves cannot negate those choices
outright (Narayan, 2002, 2003). If it did, how many of us could pass this stringent
test of having our choices about what to eat, how to dress, what to buy, and with
whom to interact, for example, respected? It is necessary to transcend ‘simple
depictions of women as either agents of free choice or as passive victims’
(C Williams, 2002). More fundamentally, though, we must take the time to find
out why one person’s suffering can be another person’s pleasure. And this means
listening to the views that differ from the ones we may hold, especially where they
are subjugated.
We can acquire guidance on more precisely what this would entail if we turn,
for a moment, to the issue of veiling by Muslim women. This is another polarizing
issue for feminists, but one where the exigencies of world-travelling are more famil-
iar to western feminists due to postcolonial feminist analyses of veiling represen-
tations.27 As a result of these critiques, we are more aware of the history of the veil
as a symbol to westerners of women’s inferiority and a justification of imperialism,
which is ‘a heritage Western feminists should not forget’ (J Williams, 2000). We are
increasingly sensitive to the varied reasons women wear the veil, including every-
thing from economic security, gender socialization, religious pressure, to class sol-
idarity (Bilge, 2010; Lazreg, 2010; Narayan, 2003). Similar lessons are to be learned
in the S/M and sex wars context with respect to the constitution of perversity, the
oppressive regulation of sexuality, and the literature documenting the varied affec-
tive responses humans have to pain and the experience of sexuality (Pa, 2001). Pain
is not a universal, precultural phenomenon necessarily experienced as aversive. In
her influential treatise, The Body in Pain (Scarry, 1985), Elaine Scarry argues that
the experience of pain is unshareable because it cannot be communicated through
language and that it is a basic human biological fact. These two factors lead her to
characterize the pain as a universal, precultural entity. This universalist account of
pain has been recently subjected to critique by scholars who argue that pain is a
cultural concept, the experience of which varies widely across time, peoples and
space (Kaufman-Osborn, 2001). Being aware and sufficiently alive to such multi-
plicity would also assist a respectful feminist world-travelling approach.
And as we continue to world-travel, we encounter the varied subjective experi-
ences that practitioners attach to their S/M meetings. A recent study of white,
142 Sexualities 14(2)

middle-class, sexually diverse yet almost exclusively British women and men
found ‘eight common interpretive repertoires. . . in which participants made sense
of their SM’: dissidence, pleasure, escapism, transcendence, learned behaviour,
intra-psychic, pathological and inexplicable.28 Within these subjectivities, the per-
formance element of S/M and the adoption of roles in a script may be seen as an
avenue for political dissent, particularly gender role subversion. The sensation of
pain may be seen as sensual and an avenue for escape of the mundane and monot-
onous approaching the spiritual (Schullenberger, 2005; Taylor and Ussher, 2001).
If we continue to expand the number of perspectives alternative to our own, we
would encounter another reading of and rationale for the violence in S/M:
the desubjectification effect of painful practices that have the effect of reducing
the person, and the body to flesh. A possible productive meaning of this reduction
is to permit the individual to escape, even if only temporarily, from daily circuits of
power in which they are entangled and thus to effect a ‘transformation of subjec-
tivity’ (Hoople, 1996). It would be reasonable to expect these categories of experi-
ence and productive effects to increase and complexify with further diversification
of the participants. Within even the reported ‘interpretive repertoires’ discussed
here there are arguments of female empowerment through resistance to, and post-
modern destabilization of, hegemonic heterosexual scripts, and the pursuit, even as
a masochist, of sexual agency and control (Holmberg, 1998; Hoople, 1996; Pa,
2001; Plante, 2006; Taylor and Ussher, 2001).29
Integrating such subjective articulations of S/M practitioners into an assessment
of S/M need not privilege experience as ‘truth’ or prediscursive and thus evacuate
postmodern teachings about the discursive construction of identities, desires,
and subject positions. Experiential accounts of S/M practitioners can still be inter-
preted and critiqued by feminists as stories that seek to conform to ideas of nor-
malcy and entrench essentialized definitions of sexuality (Plante, 2006) or as
evidence of psychological maladjustment or inappropriate behaviour (Stear,
2009). But integrating these articulations is a critical component of any project
that seeks to understand and represent the Other.

Conclusion
S/M is a particular cultural practice and feminists should regard it as postcolonial
feminists do other practices in different subcultural contexts. The insights provided
by postcolonial feminist critiques of mainstream western feminism caution against
a simple response to S/M by feminists unfamiliar with the practice and who accord-
ingly may view its appeal as incomprehensible. An application of postcolonial
feminist analytical tools can uncover the cultural hegemony that results when
those who prefer to engage in normalized sexual relations criticize the sexual
Other. Particularly, the use of the world-travelling approach allows those who
may initially recoil at the idea of sexuality paired with pain and domination to
rethink latent and potentially misinformed assumptions about S/M subcultures.
This can occur by first reflecting introspectively on our own cultural habits and
Deckha 143

then deeply contextualizing the practices of sexual Others by informing ourselves

of the varied reasons individuals support or attach value to a particular activity.
In cultivating this knowledge and our resulting opinions, we must be vigilant
in guarding against stereotypes and other cultural biases (third world women as
devoid of agency, sex is bad and so forth) and hypocritical positions (permitting
activities that result in serious or irreversible psychological harm, but not doing the
same where physical harm is at issue).
An application of postcolonial feminist understandings of choice to this varia-
tion of the feminist sex wars allows for a richer discourse surrounding the root
causes and underlying meaning of some women’s preferences for sexual pleasure
mixed with pain. That being said, the approach is not one that acritically endorses
multiplicity, pluralism and difference. It is capable of drawing lines and defining
limits. World-travelling does not imply that we must champion S/M as a feminist
practice or that legal regulation is misplaced. It merely means that we must refrain
from impugning it as an anti-feminist practice before we take certain steps, central
among them to listen to and elevate the knowledge of those who do see it as a
hallmark of a feminist lifestyle. Indeed, the analysis here is offered as another
contribution to ongoing feminist discussions about women’s agency and how
best to enable their flourishing, the latter being something that all feminists, by
definition, would want. The world-travelling framework and postcolonial feminist
approaches to choice have the potential to depolarize the S/M debates in the fem-
inist arena and thus remind us of this unity of purpose lying at the heart of feminist
movements.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Layli Antinuk for her excellent research assistance and the
anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Notes
1. Some scholars have suggested that the ‘pro-sex’ and ‘anti-S/M’ positions are not as
far apart as commonly perceived. Points of similarities between the two positions include
the tendency to analyse sex and sexuality apart from historical and material conditions
and thus to invoke a liberal and individualistic paradigm to theorize freedom. In this
respect, ‘both pro-sex and radical feminists reproduce the ideology of personal emanci-
pation within contemporary capitalist society by making the liberation of sex a funda-
mental feminist goal’ (Glick, 2000). While such continuities between the two positions
exist, it is important to recognize that the cultural stories told about S/M’s relationship to
hegemonic values persist to sustain a question/debate/issue in contemporary feminisms
about the feminist status of S/M. It is this question I seek to explore here without,
following Glick’s concern, validating liberal understandings of sex, the individual, free-
dom, or subjectivity. For an account of the problematics of liberal theories of the indi-
vidual and justice, see Kapur, 2005.
2. Following Gary W. Taylor and Jane M. Ussher (2001), I do not wish to posit an essence
to the practice, but merely highlight a usual defining feature both in medicalized accounts
144 Sexualities 14(2)

and the subjective experiences of those who actually practise S/M. See, for example,
Christine L. Williams (2002).
3. My ability to relay what moved me personally to write about this topic is facilitated
by my perspective aligning with hegemonic cultural expectations about responses
to pain and sexuality. I am aware that had my personal desires been inclined toward
S/M that it would be considerably more difficult to include this narrative in a pub-
lic space as I would need to ‘out’ myself as an S/M practitioner. For an account of
another scholar’s experience of writing from the other side of the spectrum see Hoople
(2006).
4. The contested terminology is a synecdoche for the larger debate as to whether cultural
practices are harmful or just neutral. For an explanation of why ‘surgeries’ rather than
‘mutilation’ is a better term for female circumcision, see Gunning (1991).
5. I am aware of the critiques of positing the existence of monolithic, discrete cultures and
do not wish to pursue those here. See Narayan (1997a).
6. Through questionnaires administered to self-identified S/M practitioners, Cross and
Matheson test and discard the psychoanalytic, medical, radical feminist and escapist
theories for the motivations of S/M practitioners. Instead, they prefer their informants’
‘S/M-centered perspective’ that stressed an understanding of S/M ‘as an eroticized,
consensual exchange of power’ (Cross and Matheson, 2006: 137).
7. It is obvious that non-western peoples are not a monolithic group. It is less obvious from
mainstream discourse that individual cultures are internally heterogeneous, contested,
and fluid; this anti-essentialist framing has been a vital point articulated by cultural
studies and postcolonial studies, including feminist theorizing within these areas.
See, for example, Narayan (1998). It is similarly important to note the dangers of
assuming a monolithic S/M culture when, in fact, ‘[t]here are many different sadomas-
ochistic worlds’. See Weinberg (2006).
8. For a discussion of the current association/collapse of culture with/into race, see
Razack, 1998.
9. For a detailed discussion of Othering, see Said’s Orientalism (1978).
10. For an example of such a perspective, please see Okin, 1999.
11. For a literary illustration of this point, please see Eugenides, 2002.
12. Isabelle Gunning describes an example of this process when she writes: The traveling
that women and men of color must do from their various sub-communities or ‘worlds’
to the dominant culture or ‘world’ is a more conscious kind of traveling. For the woman
of color to survive she may have to acquire very consciously a different language and
set of norms to become a fluent speaker. Or she may have to be clearer than her
white counterpart on how far a ‘shared history’ can take one. A white age-group
peer and I may reminisce pleasantly on those great songs of the 50’s and 60’s – we
share the history. But for me the 50’s and 60’s are always about the major phase
of the struggle for African-American equality that occurred in my lifetime. (Gunning,
1991: 203)
13. For a discussion of social Darwinism see McClintock, 1995.
14. Gunning calls these three steps a three-pronged approach to ‘world-travelling’. She lists
them in a slightly different order than I have presented them here. Her list is: (A) Seeing
Oneself in Historical Context. (B) Seeing Oneself as the ‘Other’ Sees You; and (C) Seeing
the ‘Other’ in Her Own Context (Gunning, 1991: 205–207).
15. See also Spaise, 2005.
Deckha 145

16. In Lewis and Adler (1994), the authors argue against glorifying lesbian SM as always
already a subversive act, but their point about the prevalence of power in human rela-
tionships, I would argue, still holds.
17. Who can forget the applauding of Kerri Strug when she continued with her final vault in
what must have been a considerable amount of pain to try to secure the gold medal for
the USA in women’s team gymnastics at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? See, Ken Campbell
‘Playing in pain part of the game for some; Schilling and 10 other remarkable athletes
fractures and food poisoning all overcome’ Toronto Star (Campbell, 2004), Garth
Woolsey ‘Memories of 96, from spit to splendor’ Toronto Star (Woolsey 1996) and
Philip Hersh ‘It’s weird to be Kerri’ The Ottawa Citizen (Hersh, 1996).
18. By this I mean that the actions of pregnancy and childbirth are normalized in most
societies. I am mindful of the disparity between mothers in global and domestic
responses to motherhood and the ensuing offspring based on class, race, and other
biases. (See e.g. Fried, 1990; Roberts, 1991.)
19. This is not to say that all faculty–student relations are negative, disrespectful experi-
ences, as Christine Williams (2002) herself notes. For a feminist defence of such rela-
tionships, even those that end poorly, as containing positive features for student
development (see hooks, 2003).
20. Lesbian separatism based on a critique of heterosexual engagement as inextricably
entangled in masculinist paradigms is an example. See Tong (1989).
21. This would be a distinction that is not just relevant to theorizing about S/M. For dis-
cussion of the ethics of the specific sexual preference for healthy limb amputation of
oneself or for having sex with amputees see Johnston and Elliott (2002) and Johnston
(2002).
22. Holmberg also notes ‘in late modern North America, Christian S/M in everyday life is
not stigmatized, even when perpetrated upon minors, but S/M between consensually
affirmed adults is considered a perverse transgression of the taboos of bondage, pain,
humiliation, and dominance’ (Holmberg, 1998: 96).
23. Some academics have even commented on the spiritual significance of S/M to secular
practitioners wherein practising S/M becomes a stand-in for the traditional religions
that the secular humanist has rejected. See Shullenberger, 2005. Others have claimed
it as a performative process for ‘psychic healing of sexual trauma’. See Freeman, 2008:
38 discussing the work of Hart, 1998.
24. In responding to queer theorists and feminists who highlight for positive effect the
performative aspects of S/M, Hawthorne importantly raises disturbing examples of
appropriation of experience from marginalized individuals who have actually been tor-
tured or otherwise gone through the suffering that S/M practitioners role-play.
(Hawthorne, 2005/2006: 42–43).
25. As Taylor and Ussher (2001) note, S/M is still listed as a psychiatric disorder in the
Diagnostical and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) and the International Classification of
Diseases. For a critique of the scientific evidence on which the DSM editors included
this classification, see Moser and Kleinplatz (2005).
26. It is important to note that the majority of the literature discussing the perspectives of
S/M practitioners comes from male experiences (see Rye and Meaney, 2007: 41).
27. This literature is now too expansive to list all of its important citations here. For an
excellent overview of the issue by one of the leading postcolonial feminist theorists
writing in the area, please see Lila Abu-Lughod, 2002.
146 Sexualities 14(2)

28. The authors interviewed 24 participants between the ages of 22 and 65 who ‘were
required to define their sexualities or sexual practices as ‘SM’, to engage in consensual
SM practices on a regular basis and to have done so for at least six months’ (Taylor and
Ussher, 2001: 296).
29. Many authors support the interpretation that posits the masochist as the one in control
and at the centre of attention of a well-planned S/M session since it is she that
directs and delimits what may be done to her (Holmberg, 1998: 96; Hoople, 1996; Pa,
2001: 60–61; Plante, 2006; Taylor and Ussher, 2001: 299).

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Maneesha Deckha is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University

of Victoria. Her research interests include critical animal studies, intersectionality,
feminist analysis of law, law and culture, animal law and bioethics. Her work has
been published in Canada and internationally in legal and interdisciplinary
Journals including Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Medical Law Review, Canadian
Journal of Women and the Law, Hastings Women’s Law Journal, UCLA Women’s
Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Gender and Law, Wisconsin Journal of Law,
Gender & Society, Ethics and The Environment, Animal Law Review, Journal of
Animal Law and Ethics, Stanford Journal of Animal Law and Policy, and
Unbound: The Harvard Journal of the Legal Left. She has also contributed to sev-
eral anthologies relating to feminism, cultural pluralism and health law and policy,
and she is the recipient of grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research,
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canada-US
Fulbright Program.