Newmahr on the rewards of SM play (Chapter 4 of "Playing on the Edge")

Continuing to move backwards through Staci Newmahr's "Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy".

This chapter discusses some of the ways in which participants gain on a social and personal level from being involved:

Chapter 4: Fringe Benefits - The Rewards of SM Play

Newmahr opens by comparing BDSM to the categorisation of leisure by Robert Stebbins, as either "casual leisure" and "serious leisure", where casual leisure is immediately rewarding, whereas serious leisure takes some work. Newmahr's thesis is that BDSM qualifies as "serious leisure", because it requires, "specialized skills and resources, and provides particular benefits."

Newmahr states that, "Above all else, SM is a recreational activity in the Caeden community." While I am happy to go along with the "serious leisure" definition in the specific terms introduced from Stebbin, I find this statement to be curiously dismissive of something that I feel forms a core part of my self-identity. But the community to which Newmahr refers is the public play community and their activities. Rather than saying "heterosexuality is a recreational activity", this is more like saying, "going out on the pull is a recreational activity" - and if we roll in Pick-Up Artistry into that conception then it could even be considered a "serious leisure" activity at that (since PUA is supposedly about working to acquire specialised skills for success in pulling!)

Short version: "'SM is a recreational activity' because it seems to me that public play is recreational by default, whereas in other spaces and contexts it might be something else."

In Stebbins' model, notes Newmahr, these benefits focus on, "the personal, social, and psychological rewards and benefits provided by participation."

Newmahr breaks these down, in the context of public SM participation, as follows:

• Accomplishment (acquiring of new skills, competence)
• Empowerment (through feelings of trust, having an effect as a top, feeling strong)
• Personal growth
• Catharsis and healing
• "Flow"
• Reinvention and rebirth
• Social status (as a volunteer and as a participant)

The rewards of accomplishment are discussed under a heading "The Making of a Player", which is awkward because "player" can have two meanings depending on context or who is speaking. Some people use the term, as Newmahr does, to mean an active participant. Others, however, use the term to mean someone who does not take it seriously (i.e. who tries to treat BDSM as a "casual leisure" rather than "serious leisure" activity) and is thus a term of derision or censure towards that person.

In discussing the learning process by which one acquires skills and competence, Newmahr makes what I feel to be a contentious statement:

Some people enter the scene with a broadly defined interest in SM or D/s. Others come to the community 'knowing' their SM identification. It is common, though, for SM interests, and, by extension, identification labels, to change, sometimes multiple times. Often this change emerges in part from learning to top or bottom; the acquisition of skills co-constructs the desire to practice them. Learning to play is an integral part of becoming a sadomasochist, shaping motivations and forming identities in the process.

My specific point of contention with the above paragraph is with the assertion that interest (and consequent adjustments of identity) result from learning new skills, rather than a developing interest prompting further exploration and learning.

I have made no secret of the fact that I identify strongly as a top, both sadist and Dominant, and did so before finding the BDSM community. However, as I learned more about what was available and possible in terms of techniques, some of these seemed interesting, others seemed to me to be difficult and not interesting enough to me to be worth following up. Interest, therefore, prompted acquisition of skills, or lack of interest meant that I did not bother with those skills.

Similarly, bottoming is something that interests me not because I wish to practise new skills but because I wish for new experiences.

I suspect that this difference in interpretation may stem from the fact that Newmahr focusses solely on the public play scene, and also that it may be that the relative prevalence of teaching activities in the Caden community also produces a tendency to learn something more-or-less at random because it happens to be the demonstration on that week, and then want to try it out. Either of these could produce a greater emphasis on learning as the first step, then producing desire, whereas I tend only to seek out learning after I have identified a desire.

- LEARNING TO TOP -

Newmahr identifies four "distinct processes", requiring, "specialized information sets and modes of practice."

• Acquiring technical skills
• Learning safety
• Learning in-scene communications
• Understanding the emotional and psychological effects on bottoms

Technical skills are the practical things of how to tie different knots, how to make sure you hit what you're aiming at, and so on.

Safety includes basic first aid, where it is safe to strike the body with an implement, and how to identify physiological signals that a bottom may be in trouble.

On communication, Newmahr observes that, "Direct communication threatens power performances and handicaps the accomplishment of 'pushing limits,' a common objective of SM play." This means that reading subtle non-verbal signals becomes a key skill. As noted in the "what I would have done differently" post, context is everything and with several of the scenes Newmahr described and I discussed there, the lack of the subconscious communication may be why things that would seem hot, felt awkward or uncomfortable.

Finally, there is recognition of the significance and implication of different things for a particular bottom. I once had a top refuse to play with me in an online scene because she felt like she kept tripping over awkward things for me that were unusual in her experience and therefore she felt she lacked this level of competence in understanding my emotional reactions.

Newmahr discusses the tradition within the community of passing on knowledge and making sure that the next generation of participants will be able to hand the information on the people who come after them. She also notes that the importance of safety means that, "Contrary to images of 'rough sex,' a sense of genuine recklessness and chaos is normally undesirable in SM interactions."

Safety also plays a social role with reputation on the line, but also genuine concern for people's wellbeing. Newmahr recounts a situation where a symptom raised a mild concern and immediately concern was expressed by other members of the community, while the top also had worries about reputation.

Newmahr identifies one final part of the process of "becoming" a top:

Most tops grapple with feelings of guilt, shame, and fear at some point during their topping careers… More commonly, tops process these feelings with their friends in the scene, and turn to other tops for reassurance and support.

People who read my posts about suffering a crisis from one particular passage of Newmahr's book, will be well aware that this is very familiar territory to me! At the time I first read this passage, I noted that I had tended to find reassurance from bottoms rather than tops. One of the very first online articles I read after discovering consensual BDSM communities existed concerned this very topic, and how to deal with it.

I had believed that I had resolved my issues already, but obviously, there was still at least a bit more to do, and that's how come I was tripped up by a particular passage.

Newmahr's discussions of violence and intimacy in later chapters throw some light on these feelings; Newmahr discusses how society has a tendency to separate sex and violence as two opposites, and how even within SM, where the two clearly intermingle freely, there is a tendency for practitioners to keep them separate in their minds: either SM is not really about sex, or it's not really about violence.

At some point, of course, that attempt to "sanitise" the conceptions of sex and violence within SM comes a cropper and the challenge to the social norms is laid bare. This point of dissonance could well be a key element in these feelings.

- LEARNING TO BOTTOM -

If topping involves a lot of technical learning, both in the physical techniques of practice and of safety, and in the mental techniques of communication and emotional understanding, then bottoming is much more generalised:

Unlike the formalized, technical learning process in becoming a top, this is a meaning-making process. Participants who bottom choose from sometimes competing discourses to contextualise, recast, make sense of, and enjoy the pain, anguish, or subservience of bottoming.

This seems to be part and parcel of the power/powerlessness element at the heart of BDSM, such that the learning is itself cast as "how to wield power" versus "how to be cool with not having power." Newmahr noted that the "top crisis moment" of guilt, shame and fear, is not typically addressed in workshops and suchlike, even though that "how to be cool with having and wielding power" problem is obviously highly prevalent, probably even more so that the issues that bottoms are invited to address as a matter of course. But to discuss emotional elements of topping in this way could challenge the perception of power imbalance and inequality.

There are, of course, technical aspects of "how to bottom" that can be learned or taught, but it is typical to find that it is considered in a relationship that the top (Dom) partner should teach the sub the specifics. Newmahr discusses elsewhere in the book how bottoms can learn techniques both of non-verbal communication (to complement the top's skill in reading these) and of physical presentation (that is, making it easier for the top to do hir job, for example, by making the target areas easier to hit). These, especially the non-verbal communication (which, if played too heavily, may result in accusations of trying to manipulate the top or "top from the bottom"), would challenge the perception of the top as wielding all the power.

Social-Psychological Rewards of SM

- EMPOWERMENT -

Trust

Newmahr identifies trust as, "a central feature of the experience of SM play." In discussing it, she talks about various ways in which "trust" is understood, or is hard to understand, intellectually, both in general and in terms of her own specific experience. The community was okay with this lack of rational explanation and accepted trust as normal without needing to explain it.

Above all, Newmahr observed that the sense of trusting or of being trusted is "empowering and meaningful". This again ties into the discussions in Chapter 8 of how intimacy works. To trust effectively means to allow oneself to be vulnerable to another and knowing that it will be okay.

Efficacy

Feelings of efficacy appears in Newmahr's text to mean "feelings of having an effect on someone." While I think that "efficacy" is a more appropriate word in terms of direct meaning, I noted here that I might have preferred "agency" because "efficacy" seemed to me to carry slightly impersonal connotations, as though referring to inanimate objects rather than people.

While the top's effects on a bottom are usually quite apparent, Newmahr notes that efficacy is also a goal of bottoming:

Casting a top's demands as a need, a bottom can view her actions as the only or best way for the top to meet that need. The bottom eliminates this perceived deficit in the top, thereby drawing feelings of efficacy and empowerment from her acquiescence.

This ties in well to the concepts behind the Martyr and Indispensable Service bottoming archetypes, as well as to the Sacrificial pain discourse. That draws the question of why the Badass bottom archetype does not appear to produce the same efficacy. Is it that BABs feel no need for the efficacy element of the empowerment, due to other elements (such as "toughness/strength")? Or does BAB produce feelings of efficacy in a different way?

Competence

As discussed, a top acquires skills and must practice them, producing accomplishment and competence as rewards. As for bottoms, Newmahr notes that, "Most bottoms describe feelings of competence and success through bottoming, particularly through service."

Toughness/Strength

This is summarised easily by a single sentence from Newmahr: "Feelings of physical strength come from delivering or withstanding pain or intense sensation."

Obviously, this is the key goal of the Badass bottoming archetype, in which a competitive element is present, testing or extending the boundaries of endurance. Whether that makes the efficacy element irrelevant or not is open to dabate, as mentioned above.

- PERSONAL GROWTH -

Newmahr explains this in terms of a top's personal examination, both of hir own desires ("Ruminations about this can be unsettling, given the kinds of activities involved in SM play." - No kidding!) and the resulting self-trust (again, look at some of my other posts about this book!)

For a bottom, Newmahr limits her discussion to various kinds of testing one's limits, especially when, "...having previously cast a limit as a source of fear, discomfort or anxiety, [they] overcome this concern within and through play, and frame this experience as an accomplishment."

I think that for both bottoms and tops, the personal growth aspect can be drawn much bigger. For example, much of the technical skills or service skills covered under competence and learning can also be understood as an element of personal growth as well. More significant, however, is the sense of partnered personal growth. Newmahr's discussion casts a top's personal growth in terms of self-examination within BDSM and in relationship to it. But it seems to me that personal growth from BDSM can also be through reflection from a partner as well, and in terms of wider emotional development in ways not directly related to play. For example, my change in understanding of myself as being attractive and desirable came out of partners' responses as well as internal personal work of my own; and it does not directly relate to play as such, but is a much wider and social development.

Similarly, I think that bottoms can experience personal growth in ways other than simply testing limits and overcoming sources of fear. Examples can be in the acquisition of new skills outside of those necessary for direct play (for example, through service) and, as with tops, other emotional benefits. I know that learning to understand oneself as attractive and desirable quite independently of one's role as a bottom is a commonly reported benefit for bottoms. (Emphasis included to distinguish this effect from a contingent or conditional regard by the top, but as something sited in the bottom hirself and lasting beyond relationship status if top and bottom should separate.)

The benefits that Newmahr identifies seem to tie in with the discussion of edgeplay in Chapter 7, but the ones that I suggest probably link more closely to the discussion of intimacy in Chapter 8 as well, since they depend on seeing oneself from another's perspective through their and one's own openness (or transgression of personal boundaries, in the terms that Newmahr used).

- CATHARSIS AND HEALING -

Regardless of whether catharsis is the objective of a given scene, the physical, emotional, and psychological intensity of SM, combined with its marginalized status, generates emotional responses of an intensity that players often find cathartic. Some participants play with the express purpose of healing from past trauma

Catharsis does not have to be from something big and horrible in the past. Another commonly-reported use of, for example, a "good spanking", is to de-stress after a difficult day at work: this can work for both top or bottom in a relationship. Newmahr describes the sensation of her first flogging as being, "akin to that of a rigorous deep tissue massage." (It appears that "deep pressure massage" is the correct technical term here.) It may be argued that both the mental discipline required for good topping, and the physical discipline thereof, provide relaxing benefits for a top, just as the physical stimulation provided by a flogging or spanking or other play can provide a way to relax after a hard day, just as a massage would.

- FLOW -

Newmahr draws a parallel between BDSM and the concept of "flow" introduced by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who identifies "optimal experience" as an "end in and of itself, for its own sake." Flow, in this sense, is, "the result of attention so intense and all-encompassing that one achieves a sense of order in consciousness, against the default state of psychic entropy."

Since "flow" includes "challenge, utilization of skills, intense concentration" and "the loss of self-consciousness, goals", it is not hard to draw a parallel between this and what is involved in a BDSM scene, based on some of the other remarks in this chapter. Newmahr suggests that subspace may be a form of "flow", although I am not certain about this (for some people at least, the term seems to refer particularly to the endorphin high, which is neurological rather than psychological, and so may or may not be related to "flow").

Newmahr also says that, "Tops also experience flow through the physical act of topping; the physical and auditory rhythm of flogging, juxtaposed with the concentration required to do so safely, can be meditative." (Compare to my remarks on de-stressing under "catharsis".) I think I have gone to this space a few times, mostly through providing a spanking "just for the fun of it". I think a lot of the time, I personally tend to have my brain racing, planning out what next in a scene and worrying about loads of things, but delivering a good, hard spanking does have that meditative effect.

This also can be linked back to the concept of edgeplay explored in Chapter 7, where the idea of voluntary risk-taking based on personal skill might be understood as an endeavour to produce just this kind of focussed "altered state".

- REINVENTION AND REBIRTH -

This ties in to the question about learning and changing interests. In Newmahr's explanation, because in the Caeden community, identity is fluid, reinvention is a regular part of involvement in the scene, and "arises ... out of play, moment to moment."

Topping and bottoming identities are, "not understood as fixed for most participants. For a given individual, they change often, sometimes even day-to-day."

This is an adventure of the self, a trip to different parts of the self, that may ultimately function to integrate them."

These remarks intrigue me in particular in terms of how Newmahr casts topping and bottoming into archetypes (see earlier link). The archetypes in chapter 5 were cast as being both overlapping and temporary, performed in a particular scene rather than necessarily being carried from one scene to another. A Badass Top in one scene might be a Benevolent Dictator in another, or even a Service Top in the right circumstances; and similarly, a bottom who normally plays Indispensable Service could play Martyr or Badass Bottom in different scenes (and for both these participants, the different archetypes could overlap and appear simultaneously in a scene).

- STATUS -

This is probably the element with which I identify least, especially when Newmahr talks about "community leadership". While I am happy to take a leadership role when I believe I have something specific to offer, in very unDomly fashion my general attitude to leadership is almost one of embarrassment when I find people looking to me for it: most particularly when friends ask me what they think they should do about a romantic situation (I am at best 25% correct, although according to Robert Townsend that's not actually that bad: "Two out of every three decisions I made were wrong. ... Beware the boss who walks on water and never makes a mistake.")

That said, Newmahr has the following observations:

Social status within the Caeden SM community operates on multiple levels. Paths to high status are varied and related to identification labels, and means of status achievement are clear to most participants.

Status is either as a volunteer or as a player.

Volunteering can get a person's name recognised, which in turn leads to people feeling more confident in playing with that person; this makes it more important for tops:

Because most participants want to play soon after they enter the scene, and because bottoms do not need to become involved in order to obtain play, the result is the cultivation of tops as community leaders far more frequently than bottoms.

This is interesting because my impression had been that bottoms have been more involved in organising things in this area, but I may have developed a false impression somehow. I have noticed that bottoms can be quite politically active in that sense of community leadership.

Status as a player is obtained through achievement, variety and particular skills; it can also be acquired through playing with high-status participants. In Newmahr's Concluding Notes, she discusses how her aversion to spanking scenes led to her playing more with the highly-respected, "harder", tops, which in turn gave her a certain status.

***

Newmahr sums up these observations succinctly, thus:

SM participants gain a number of social and emotional benefits from play itself and from the community more broadly. These particular rewards are especially meaningful for people with marginal identities, whose life stories are organized around themes of isolation, loss and trauma.

Her final comment bothers me a little, just as I pointed out at the start of this piece:

Framing SM as a serious leisure pursuit shifts the focus away from the ultimately unhelpful questions about whether SM is or is not deviant sex, and allows us to understand SM as, most fundamentally, social behavior.

Again, my concern is that Newmahr studied a public play scene community, which almost by definition is a social incarnation of SM play. That does not make SM fundamentally social behaviour; it makes public play fundamentally social, which seems almost tautological as a statement. I think there are a lot of useful points about the "serious leisure pursuit" formulation, but I do feel as though it does not capture all of SM, and tends to reveal the public play focus of Newmahr's research, unless it can be shown that what vanilla folks get up to together as bonding experiences and displays, can also be shown to be at heart "serious leisure" in some sense.