In today’s unglamorous though overstimulating post-2000 culture with its post-9/11 wartime stress, there doesn’t seem to be much reason to get it up … not even for college kids. Will S&M save the day?
Campus Kinksters
BDSM — the practice of engaging in bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism, and/or dominance and submission to produce intense sensory stimulation — might be just the thing to rescue some of today’s college campuses from the sexual doldrums. Official BDSM clubs and fetish scenes are offering new-millennium students great drama, fantastic fetish fashions, role-playing, and some highly sensual encounters. And it might interest empty-nest parents to know that BDSM may actually be more safe and mature than traditional campus sexcapades.
Though the sexual revolution began on college campuses in the late 1960s, campus sex has taken a hilly and chilly course from the “If it feels good, do it!” era of experimentation and tolerance. The eighties and nineties were a period of sexual correctness (a new Victorianism) with anti-AIDS moralism; an anti-male sexual counterrevolution; a date-rape “epidemic” sensationalized by establishment feminists; and ideological women’s-, gender-, and queer-studies classes. That era has given way to the sober and lackluster 2000s, in which “hooking up” reigns and women outnumber males at colleges and universities around the country.
Today there is less hysteria over date rape, thanks to supposedly fewer incidents of “unwanted sexual contact” since the late 1980s (University of New Hampshire survey). In the new millennium, college students are thoroughly studying sex, promoting sex, and even occasionally having it in class. The Poetics of Porn; Lesbian and Gay Detective Fiction; Pornography: The Writings of Prostitutes — such courses attract students for all the reasons one can imagine. In a male-sexuality class at the University of California at Berkeley, classmates allegedly had an orgy at a party and went on a field trip to a gay strip club where they watched the instructor perform a sex act onstage. At New York University a woman masturbated for her performance-art-class project. Sex toys are openly displayed and sold at many school-sponsored fairs — and yet surveys seem to indicate that students in 2002-2003 are just too busy studying and planning careers to actually date or have much sex at all.
Will BDSM save the day? The growing number of kinksters on campus are pleased to see “erotic power exchange” seeping into the insensate mainstream, but are eager to dispel certain myths and stereotypes of the world of BDSM. They are plagued by the general sentiments that what they do is symptomatic of mental illness, that only sex maniacs partake, that they dress in leather and wield whips all day, and that BDSM is abusive or encourages domestic abuse.
“Virgil,” active in his university’s official BDSM club, has done his homework. He says, “For millennia, religious groups from the ancient Greeks to monastic Christians to modern Hindu mystics have used intense physical sensation to induce states of euphoria that were believed to lead to higher planes of spirituality. While these practices seem strange by today’s standards, they are not insane.”
Campus kinksters maintain that BDSM is about safety, sanity, and the consensual exchange of power between two or more people. BDSM scenes are well planned and negotiated, and participants have the freedom to choose or refuse sexual partners. Overall, BDSMers on campus lead seemingly vanilla lives and adhere to civic rules, on and off the scene. Incredibly, drugs and alcohol play almost no role in BDSM, since the success of fetish scenes depends on how well kinksters can control their actions and purely experience the especially intense stimulation.
Most undergraduate BDSMers don’t advertise their sexual predilections outside of close circles. By day they are lowkey and “steer clear of closed-minded people.” Some have experienced negative reactions, but it’s usually just cringing or eye rolling at the suggestion of “perverted behavior.” Family members typically offer words of caution. None of the young BDSMers I spoke with has experienced real harassment, which is likely due to their discreet approach. (We’ve used pseudonyms to avoid blowing their covers.)
Though it’s integral to their lives, most kinky students don’t give BDSM more weight than they give any other part of their lives. For most, identity is not solely wrapped up in the lifestyle. (Contrast this with the lesbian-and-gay community, whose members tend to identify themselves as queer before everything else.) The students I interviewed realize that, though they do find lasting relationships and friendships in the world of BDSM, they don’t necessarily have much else in common with the wide variety of people involved.
“I came to welcome the pain…”
Virgil, a thoughtful, perfect gentleman, is a member of his school’s BDSM club. One of the first such clubs in the country, it aims to provide a safe and positive atmosphere where people can express their fantasies. For club members (as it is for the bondage community at large), BDSM is about etiquette. Participants in the first meeting of the 2002-’03 school year included a returning student who had been a pro dom (professional dominatrix) in between educational stints. They discussed plans for the year, but members were first asked to describe their fetishes. “Spanking,” piped up one woman, followed by, from others, “flogging,” “trance music,” “dominance,” “submission,” “voyeurism,” “restraints,” “discipline,” “role-playing,” “biting and gnawing.” New, shy members explained that they were “just experimenting.”
Virgil later spoke privately about a recent scene with an experienced top (the dominant person). It was his first single-tail encounter (a single tail is the BDSM icon, a long one-piece cracking whip, best used by skilled practitioners). “I asked to be warmed up before-hand with some gentler deerskin and elk floggers [multitailed whips, in this case made of many flat strands of leather] before being single-tailed,” Virgil says. “In the middle of the scene, my attractive partner reassured me by speaking to me and occasionally stroking my back, chest, and shoulders …. This all added up to a pretty good endorphin high … definitely a buzz, but really a different universe from either alcohol or sex-induced euphoria. This doesn’t mean that I felt no pain when my partner started to use the single tail. In fact it hurt very much, but I was able to transform that sensation to pleasure to such an extent that reward more than canceled risk, and I came to welcome the pain as the harbinger of more pleasure. My partner took good care of me afterwards, holding and kissing me to reassure me; one is very disoriented after such an experience. While it was nonsexual in nature — I had only removed my shirt — I experienced a physical closeness this time that was absent in my previous flogging sessions.”
“I was just about to orgasm,” Raizel said, “when suddenly my top stopped and walked away. I could barely support myself.”
“On the bottom, I like to guide the action.” Raizel is a cute, young, typical bright-eyed undergraduate. She is a “switch” (likes being a bottom or a top) with limited experience as a top. “In many ways,” she says, “I’m more of a dom than a sub, because even when I’m on the bottom, I still like to guide the action somewhat.” As far as sexual orientation, she, like many women her age, is still exploring. “With girls there’s less pressure. You can spend a whole night kissing and caressing and nothing more. With guys, it’s all about their dicks. Also, I’m much less picky with girls. I find a lot more women attractive than men.”
Her liberal parents are well aware of her down-and-dungeony proclivities, and though it doesn’t bother her mom that Raizel has gone into BDSM, she’d be disappointed if her daughter ended up lesbian. However, when Raizel described the “fetish club” and her activities therein to an inquiring aunt, her aunt begged her to “have sex” rather than “do these things.”
Spanking is Raizel’s fetish, and contrary to what her aunt thinks, Raizel feels that her BDSM play is much safer than sex. But the line between sex and S&M is a fine one. “There was one night I was getting spanked that was quite memorable,” she says, “simply because the scene was extremely intense, and I was just about to orgasm when suddenly my top stopped and walked away. I could barely support myself, but my girl was also doing the scene [a second bottom], so she supported me. By the time [the top] came back, I was practically demanding that he finish the scene. He did, and I screamed. It was the first time I ever screamed an orgasm.” When asked about her favorite scenes, Raizel says she· really loves being flogged. And though she has never been thrown over anyone’s knee and spanked, she thinks that might be fun. She goes on, “I don’t really have any other favorite scenes yet, only fantasies, but if I were to answer this same question in a year, I guarantee the answer would be longer.”
“I made her beg for her daddy’s cock.” Corey, a biologically female, female-to-male transgender, is just getting into BDSM this year and already enjoys his status as a top and being a “daddy.” Besides daddy-with-little-girl scenes, Corey likes period scenes with such settings as medieval taverns and the Salem witch hunts.
He tells me of an enjoyable scenario with a submissive partner: “Once I didn’t let her touch me for a week, and one night when she couldn’t stand it and stopped obeying me, I punished her by tying her hands with restraints, tying her tits up with black rope and her legs down with black rope, running the rope between her legs, and I blindfolded and gagged her. Then I read her BDSM porn until she couldn’t stand it, and I teased her with my tits and made. her beg for her ’daddy’s cock.’ After a while I flipped her over on the bed and beat her with my belt, then I fucked her in about five different positions, and she ejaculated about seven or eight times. Subsequently she went down on me and fucked me and I ejaculated also.”
For Corey, BDSM isn’t just a hobby, it’s a fetish that makes up a huge part of his activities and who he is as a person. He doesn’t think it’s sick, just something he and his partner “enjoy doing that makes us more intimate.”
“From wrestling to self-mutilation…” Zeke joined his school’s BDSM group, which promotes consensual behavior and strongly condemns abuse, domestic violence, and rape. His first BDSM-oriented relationship, before college, was with a female friend he had known for years. She was a total masochist. They were into heavy metal and, he says, “banging around with each other, from wrestling to self-mutilation. The whole package.” Zeke, a top, is a fan of rope bondage and has taught his club members the fine art of using harnesses and other bondage paraphernalia. He installed eyebolts above his bed in his dorm room for bondage activities (which, he says, can double as flower holders when necessary). For most of his college tenure, he has helped pay his tuition as a vendor of BDSM accoutrements — including rubber-spiked condoms, cock rings, clamps, and leather-wear. It was the perfect part-time job for this self-described voyeur; he could watch the scenes going on around him without seeming like a gawker.
Modeled after other clubs that are educational in nature, Zeke’s organization sponsors for its members BDSM workshops, including lectures by BDSM authors, how-to classes, and parties and outings. Its 2002 year-end on-campus party “got sleazy,” says Zeke. There was some roping and paddling, and then people headed back to Zeke’s room to continue. He is always happy to help new female members with the essentials of BDSM.
Even on such an extremely liberated urban campus, where students “dress provocatively, speak openly on sexual issues, and actively promote reproductive freedoms,” Zeke has found that “many are waiting for marriage, are in monogamous relationships, or are abstinent for other reasons.” He adds, “Many students know how to put a condom on five different ways, but have only had the opportunity to try out two of them.”
Zeke feels that his university aggressively encourages homosexuality, and that many adopt the lifestyle without the sex. He thinks fellow students are too busy or too confused by ideology to actually partake in or enjoy sex. All the “wild ” sex stories he hears are tame in his book. “Maybe it’s the high-paced urban environment, where the only sex one can set aside time for is frantic, anonymous orgasms.”
Though the administration and population’s tolerance of casual, non-monogamous, and homosexual relationships does stray from the sexual conventions of mainstream America, Zeke feels that his school has “evolved [its] own version of ’mainstream,’ replete with the prejudices of the new left. People who willingly engage in monogamous heterosexual or polarized master/slave relationships may be considered regressive, oppressed, or patriarchal, so I would challenge my school’s claim to a non-judgmental tolerance.”
“I like to have some resistance…” Denise moved to New York City to study acting, directing, and writing. She was interested in BDSM “probably from 13 on.” When she was older, she and her boyfriend used handcuffs, and he would frequently tie her up and tape her hands behind her back during various bouts of passion.
“I flipped her over the bed,” said Corey, “then I fucked her in about five different positions. She ejaculated about seven or eight times.”
Though most of her sexual partners at school haven’t been into BDSM per se, many did role-playing — “Daddy and his little princess” — or liked light bondage or rough sex. Denise prefers to be tied up in interesting positions. “I’m pretty flexible, and I like to make use of that,” she boasts. “I definitely want to be aesthetically pleasing, because I know that gets my master off. What I like about dominance is gaining that power over someone …. I like to have some resistance [though].” For her, BDSM keeps her out of vanilla-sex ruts. Last October Denise became play partners with someone she met through Zeke’s BDSM group. On their first rendezvous, Denise experienced some firsts, which she dubbed her popped-cherry totals:
- First time serving as lighter mistress
- First time playing in public
- First time playing with a girl
- First time playing with more than one person at the same time
- First blade-play scene
- First time being turned on by a guy in a backward baseball cap First time being a tic-tac-toe board First chest punching
- First time (she thinks) in front of a large group wearing nothing but pigtails and high heels
- First flogging
- First time being caned anywhere other than her ass
- First time (she thinks) kissing someone’s boots
- First foot caning
- First brush with clips (on nipples and thighs)
- First time being fingered in front of other people
“I was scared, but he took his time…” Britney is “forever a bottom.” She states unequivocally that her school is the most liberal in existence.
“The college’s main goal is to build women’s confidence both inside the classroom as well as out, and to prepare women for the corporate world. Some people here are in same-sex relationships for the first time. These people are thought to have vanilla sex. Some people here think that a woman should always be dominant in bed with her partner. Others think it is okay to have a more submissive role. The faculty’s sex life will always remain unknown, but the students are open to almost anything.” During high school, Britney thought BDSM was abusive and wrong for women, but after being introduced to it during her freshman year, she realized that “it’s okay to give up complete control in bed as long as you really trust the person you’re sleeping with.”
Britney’s most memorable scene was during her sophomore year, when she was dating a leather daddy. “He knew I was scared of the whole thing, but he took his time with me,” she says. He was clear on what Britney was comfortable with and made sure she was fully in agreement with the scene to come. “The next thing I knew, he had grabbed my hair and was holding my face an inch above his dick. I tried to reach for it, but he pulled me away. This went on for some time. I was told to call him ’sir.’ I had to beg with my body and my voice to do anything to him. This went on for quite some time. He eventually forced himself on me. I had my only orgasm ever, along with bruises all over my body. It was the best.”
“I am always grateful for correction.” Sonya is a slave. Not just to books, though. The junior computer-science major has noticed that the ratio of males to females at her school is four to one. “So the sex lives of most students are limited to self-stimulation if they are male. The majority of females … usually end up with frat boys — to, I’m sure, endure the terrors of straight sex with an uninformed male.” Sonya thinks her campus is sexually conservative and contemptuous of homosexual sex, not to mention BDSM. She began her school’s BDSM club, and though her flyers are usually quickly torn down, she has experienced no real resistance to the club’s existence. So far she has been able to attract a number of non-BDSM-practicing students to the club. Her current relationship with her owner began two and a half years ago when they were a high school senior and junior respectively; they play together exclusively.
Sonya says, “I live every moment of my life as my owner’s servant. I cook her meals and clean her apartment. I do what she says, when she says, and if my actions are not up to her specifications, I am beaten. While I am driven somewhat by a sexual desire to serve her, it is not my primary motivation. I am driven to serve her out of my desire to be a slave. This has nothing to do whatsoever with how many times, or even if, I get off. I am bound by honor to my master. I am required to treat her with respect at all times, and my only responsibility is to see to it that she is happy. When we do have sex … it is when she decides it to be, regardless of my desires. When I am beaten, it is sometimes for her pleasure, but is mostly to correct some wrong in me. When the beating is in correction, it is never erotic, only painful. I am always grateful to my owner for correction.”
“I had to beg with my body and my voice,” said Britney. “This went on for quite some time… I had my only orgasm ever.”
For Sonya, life as a free woman causes her to be nervous, anxious, and sleepless. As a slave, she finds happiness and contentment in the security that comes from knowing her place and her duties. She says, “I am never happier than when I am controlled and owned utterly.” Being a slave has improved her personality, she says, due to her added self-control and attention to detail. It has also improved her communication skills. “I made one decision to end my life as a free individual and to become my owner’s possession. Sometimes it’s not safe. My owner has the right to mark me and change me as she pleases. On a final note, no life for me seems more sane.”
“Some might call me a doormat…” Who would ever think that a good ol’ southern football school would have an underground BDSM scene? Jeff, a former military brat majoring in education, lives on campus, where the prevalence of Christian organizations adds to the general “chilly attitude toward sex.” Jeff thinks that “out of the public eye, however … even the choir boys are out getting laid.” A few like-minded BDSMers occasionally get together to huddle about the lifestyle and plan to play with local BDSM groups.
Before college, Jeff got into BDSM via Internet chat rooms, but didn’t do anything physical about it. Just before the last Christmas break, one of Jeff’s female friends, who didn’t have much topping experience, asked him to do a scene. That “puppy play” was his first public scene ever. Jeff was naked, led around on all fours, and told to fetch a throbbing vibrator with his teeth. When he delivered it to his top, she smacked Jeff on his bare rear end with a modified ping-pong paddle. He was so out of it at the end that he had no idea how long the whole thing had lasted. The train ride home was unpleasant, he says, and the next morning he awoke to a bad rug burn on his right knee. Jeff says that he is just a naturally submissive person; “some might even call me a doormat.” With BDSM, he can really let go of all his responsibilities and worries, without people taking advantage of him. As someone who just likes “good” pain, he wishes people could see the cathartic nature of his activities. It’s tough for him on campus, where the feminist organizations equate his style of release with wife beating (though Jeff’s first scene obviously put the woman in power), and, he says, “Hey, I’m in the South. Doggie-style is sick and perverted around here.”
“It’s fun to alternate between toys…” Ms. Ann, now 24, got her best BDSM lessons while at college, where she led a campus group whose mission was to inform and educate students about alternatives to vanilla sex. The group’s parties were geared toward encouraging students to become aware of their kinky leanings and to teach and have them experience their fantasies. Ms. Ann describes her alma mater as sexually liberated, but believes that when it comes to BDSM, students still got “freaked out.” She saw the irony, though, when classmates, who were usually “not entirely sober,” would come in droves to her group’s parties (though drinking was not allowed at its events).
Before going to college, Ms. Ann honed her BDSM practice at clubs in the Washington, D.C., area. In her early days at school she got some funny looks when she decided to dress up in a severe black dress, handcuff belt, and gloves, and lead a male friend around by a collar in her dorm. A self-described “play slut,” Ms. Ann likes swings, horse benches, and whipping posts. “I love sensual scenes where someone is blind-folded and tied up. It’s fun to alternate between toys that stimulate pleasure and pain. Overall, blindfolds have been a consistent feature of my scenes.”
“It was an extremely cathartic release…” Kevin, a 20-year-old psychology major who is the former president of his school’s BDSM club, thinks his campus is fairly reserved.
For his first scene after reaching college, Kevin, a switch, was lucky enough to have a knowledgeable dom introduce him to the single tail. At the end of the scene she gave him a stroke so hard that he started crying. “I hadn’t cried in front of someone since the eighth grade, and though the first tear was from pain, it released a wave of emotions that had me crying for almost 15 minutes. It was an extremely cathartic release, and I doubt I’ve had another experience as emotionally powerful in my life.”
As you might guess, statistics on campus BDSM and general Kink can be pretty diffucult to come by. It can be a tad delicate asking mom and dad for a six-figure commitment to “higher education” for their little darling(s) while at the same time pointing out all the “firsts” that may well be happening there. Inights come easily with a glance at campus students themselves and their perhaps opposing views on sensual evolution. Be careful about holding less liberal opinions there, however. That risk has not changed much over the decades.
