This volume examines crucial questions about human sexuality through the lens of BDSM: What is sexuality? What makes an experience sexual or not? What role do communities play in shaping sexual identities? How are BDSM communities similar to and different from other kinds of sexuality and identity-based communities?

This book presents a thoughtful study of BDSM experiences in diverse communities across geographic boundaries to examine crucial questions about human sexuality. Featuring cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research, methodologies, and theoretic approaches, the chapters also address questions of broader interest around how identities are created and regulated, the ethics of research on stigmatized populations, how popular culture representations shape lived experiences, and the complex relationships among structural and personal power. Throughout, the volume foregrounds questions of meaning, taking as an empirical question rather than an a priori assumption the range of meanings that BDSM experiences have for participants.

The Power of BDSM is an evidence-based, provocative inquiry into the ethics, culture, and intersectional identities that is revealed through the BDSM practices across geographic locations for academics, scholars, and students interested in sexualities, identities, communities, inequalities, and related topics.