CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Leyva del Río, Santiago |
|---|---|
| Title | Playing with Identity: A Study on the Budapest BDSM Community |
| Summary | This thesis examines the unexpected outcomes arising from the intersection of sexuality, identity and game in BDSM. In so doing, it explores the performative nature of BDSM by analysing BDSM practitioners’ narratives in the city of Budapest. I examine the friction produced by the fact that BDSM is simultaneously deemed as a game and as a foundational element of my respondents’ identity. I argue that rendering BDSM as a game is a strategy which enables practitioners to produce a seemingly bounded context, detaching BDSM practice from their problematic referents in “reality.” The bounded space of the game allows practitioners to play with sexuality, that is, with parts of themselves perceived to be natural. Modern technologies of power have conducted us to find our subjectivity in sexuality, which has become the expression of our inner truth. Hence playing with sexuality/identity calls into question ontological notions of the self, destabilising naturalised gendered dynamics of power attached to sexuality. Examining the role of “play” in BDSM is critical when it comes to understanding why, in BDSM, gendered roles seem to be more fluid than in other forms of sex. |
| Supervisor | Hadley Z. Renkin |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/leyva_santiago.pdf |
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