Science of Sex #6: “Psychological characteristics of BDSM practitioners.”
Are BDSM practitioners totaly mad ? Or are they absolutely sane ? Follow @sex-info if you like Sex and Sciences !
Hi everybody !
Bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, sadism-masochism (BDSM) is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. It has been generally thought that the practice of BDSM is in some form associated with psychopathology… but is it true ?
The aim of this study published in 2013 in The journal of sexual medicine was to compare scores of BDSM practitioners and a control group on various fundamental psychological characteristics.
Their results are, in my opinion, absolutely logical: “The results mostly suggest favorable psychological characteristics of BDSM practitioners compared with the control group; BDSM practitioners were less neurotic, more extraverted, more open to new experiences, more conscientious, less rejection sensitive, had higher subjective well-being, yet were less agreeable. […] We conclude that BDSM may be thought of as a recreational leisure, rather than the expression of psychopathological processes.”
Finally, it seems fairly obvious that people who are willing to play such games and to satisfy their impulses in a healthy way (with willing partners) are more comfortable in society and more open-minded. Finally, like many things in Human sexuality, BDSM is just a game between adults !
The link to the scientific abstract of the present article (which I encourage you to read if the topic interests you): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23679066
Thank you to follow my Steemit account and upvote my posts if you like my content. Having people reading me is a big motivation to look for new interesting articles ! Leave me some comments or ask me to deal with some subjects of the scientific literature related to sexuality if you want me to talk about a particular point.
See you soon !
