Feminism and Inclusivity in The BDSM Communities of Western Literature
It should come as no surprise that the BDSM literature produced by Western culture has not always been as inclusive as it is today. From the beginning, our BDSM canon — the body of our erotic or philosophical writings dealing with themes of sexual bondage, domination, submission, and sadomasochism — has been marked by a troubling and misogynistic representation of the communities that participate in this form of sexual expression. It has taken generations, but gradual changes in social attitudes have led to an ever-increasing focus on pleasure, positivity, and inclusion in the literary portrayal of such communities. By looking at these depictions within the context of contemporary feminist movements, and paralleling them with larger shifts in cultural attitudes toward differing expressions of sexuality and gender, we can track the evolution of the genre and observe a clear pattern in its process — one that will hopefully continue to both mirror and shape reality.
In terms of the West, the story of BDSM writing essentially begins with — and is inextricably tied to — the Marquis de Sade. The infamous French nobleman wrote Les 120 Journées de Sodome while he was imprisoned in the Bastille for blasphemy and impropriety in 1785. The degree of controversy it stirred can be seen in the fact that, as late as 1983, British Customs maintained a ban on certain English translations of the notorious book; yet a few short years later, in the 1990s, the same novel was honoured with a new publication as part of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, an elite collection of French canonical works. These contradictory responses — an act of censure, an act of acclaim — also show that the polarising effect of de Sade’s work has outlasted its eighteenth-century origins. Among readers, scholars, and institutions, both literary and governmental, he continues to spark debate well into the present day.
De Sade was by no means the first or only Western writer of what we now call BDSM literature. But he was certainly one of the most prolific, and, as illustrated above, remains in equal parts revered and vilified for the visceral, violent nature of his work. His writings portray BDSM communities ruled by the men they are designed to serve, men who derive sexual pleasure from torturing and often enslaving women and children. Occasionally, the abuse might be perpetrated by a woman who has taken on a dominant role, but in those cases, she is usually presented as masculinized or grotesque.
For example, we need look no further than Les 120 Journées. Its plot centers on four libertines who gather and imprison an array of victims for orgies, torture sessions, and assorted other erotic acts. Set in the remote Chateau de Silling (based on de Sade’s own castle, the Château de Lacoste), it features a rotating cast of “victims” and “storytellers” — the latter being an assortment of decrepit prostitutes, often covered in filth and missing fingers and teeth, who narrate their past exploits to provide inspiration for the abusers. It depicts a community with a highly ritualised schedule; everything, from meals to bedtimes to toilet habits, is meticulously planned and dictated by the four men.
Similar tropes appear in de Sade’s revised and extended version of Justine, ou Les Malheurs de la Vertu (1791), which has its eponymous protagonist repeatedly captured and assaulted by an assortment of BDSM-practising communities. These include an order of libertines posing as monks, a boarding school run by a sadistic headmaster, and a workhouse in an underground cave, where Justine and her fellow victims not only have to endure torture, but perform manual labour for their captors as well.
In all these scenarios and texts, men occupying positions of power — officials within educational, religious, or governmental institutions — are the abusers, and the author uses the non-consensual pain and humiliation they inflict upon women and children to titillate readers. It’s helpful to keep in mind that de Sade was as famous in his time for his anti-establishment and anti-theistic views as he was for his sexual practices; he believed that human desires and actions are dictated by our animalistic nature, and are, therefore outside of our control. Many critics and commentators, particularly in recent decades, have seen his works as a satirical articulation of these deterministic and materialistic philosophies, expressed with a heavy reliance on shock value and repetition to achieve maximum impact. The deliberate exaggeration and lack of nuance in his portrayals prevent them from being anything like a suitable model for consenting and mindful BDSM communities.
Even so, we can pick up useful insights from de Sade’s fictional libertines. They frequently claim that they were born with an inherent need to torture and dominate, and therefore should not be reproached for doing so. They insist that the BDSM communities over which they preside were created out of necessity as outlets for their natural impulses, which just happen to run contrary to the accepted social norms of their culture. This is a manifesto of personal freedom that presages many modern outlooks on sexuality.
Unfortunately, in both the sexual adventures of de Sade’s characters and in his own real-life exploits, women bore the cost of such urges. Although it was the Age of Enlightenment and the era of the French Revolution, men still held undue agency over women’s lives. While it’s true that some proto-feminist achievements took place in France during this time, including new laws around inheritance rights and divorce law that were then unique in Europe, these were focused on women’s legal and financial rights rather than their sexual freedom. Unsurprisingly, de Sade’s stories are both misogynistic and phallocentric; they focus exclusively on male pleasure and points of view. Still, despite its still-controversial nature, his writing remains a literary milestone, and has inspired and influenced the genre for centuries.
This influence is easy to spot in the writings of many authors that came after — but so, too, are the cultural shifts. For instance, Anne Desclos’s Histoire d’O (published in 1954 under the pseudonym Pauline Reage), evokes de Sade in the way it depicts BDSM communities as existing exclusively to service the needs of male doms. Yet, the story also centres and analyses female pleasure, presenting us with a woman who willingly enters said communities and enjoys her submissive role within them.
Desclos wrote Histoire d’O in a response to a challenge from her lover, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, a de Sade fan who suggested that no woman could write in a similar fashion. It follows the otherwise unnamed “O” of the title, opening with her induction into the ways and rituals of a secret BDSM society at a castle in Roissy. Upon her arrival, she is presented to the members — naked, bound, and blindfolded — and informed that she will remain there as their sexual servant. This is a consensual arrangement entered into by O and her lover René, who wishes to “prostitute” her in order to enhance their sexual and romantic bond.
For the next several weeks, O — along with other willing female submissives — is sodomised, beaten, whipped, and left chained overnight in humiliating positions. Upon leaving Roissy, she consents to become the communal property of the society, and to remain sexually available to any of its members at their behest. She is alarmed by her new submissive role, but she also enjoys, even revels in it. The novel examines her alternating discomfort and happiness as she explores this newly-revealed facet of her desires. Similar tropes notably occur in other erotic literature from this period; in Emmanuelle Arsan’s Emmanuelle (1959), for example, the eponymous protagonist’s eroticism, bisexuality, and polyamorous desires are at odds with her sincere love for her husband.
Besides the fact that Desclos’ work depicts women as having agency over their own sexual choices, there is another key difference from de Sade. Not only does she portray them as willing participants, instigators, and dominants within the BDSM community, she does so without rendering them grotesque or masculine. Toward the end of the novel, O is taken to an all-female society at a remote mansion in Samois, where she is branded, pierced, and whipped by a female dominant and has consensual, pleasurable sex with the other women.
It would be a mistake to claim that Histoire d’O represents some kind of revolutionary emancipation; ultimately, the all-female community exists solely to facilitate and prioritise the sexual pleasure of men, by “preparing” the attending women for the secret society at Roissy. The text’s feminist and inclusive impact is even further diminished with the knowledge that, in an original draft, Desclos had O ask for permission from her masters to end her own life, rather than live to face their abandonment. Even so, books like Histoire and Emmanuelle gave us women who participate in BDSM as a means of exploring — and, more significantly, enjoying — their own sexual pleasures and freedoms. They were no longer merely relegated to the role of unwilling and mortified “victim.” That subtle but unmistakable shift surely played a part in shaping the genre throughout the late 1950s and “swinging sixties”, which saw slightly more nuanced and pleasure-positive representations of the dynamics within BDSM communities.
Still, these characters experienced at least some conflict and distress alongside their pleasure. This conflicted sensibility can be attributed to the fact that Histoire d’O came on the cusp between two distinct waves of feminism. In France, the women’s movement was ushered in by the creation of the Association pour le Droit des Femmes in 1870, followed by the Ligue Française pour le Droit des Femmes in 1882. The ambitions of these organisations centred on women’s suffrage, a goal discrete from those of feminism’s second wave in the 1960s, which concentrated on sexuality, reproductive rights, and inequalities both official and de facto. The second wave critiqued traditionally male-dominated structures and practices; we can see this influence in Desclos’s decision to emphasise O’s perspective and sexual journey.
For the next step forward, we can look to the BDSM communities in Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty quartet (published 1983-2015, under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure). In contrast to the depictions of the generation before, but as a logical continuation of their tropes, Rice’s dominants and submissives are of different genders, and all of them derive erotic pleasure from both the acts and the dynamics of BDSM. These stories stand as a significant push toward a fully feminist and inclusive stance.
The series depicts a faux-mediaeval European fantasy realm, where hierarchical and ritualised BDSM is practised by the ruling elite. They exchange royal sex slaves amongst themselves, not just for their own pleasure but with the further goals of diplomacy and education; the intention is to humble young royals in preparation for their own time as rulers when they will perpetuate the same cycle.
The first novel opens with the prince of a neighbouring kingdom attempting to rescue Beauty from her slumber, just as in the fairytale. In Rice’s telling, he breaks the curse she and her kingdom are under, not with a kiss, but by raping her. As a token of gratitude, Beauty’s parents then relinquish her to the prince as a sexual servant. At his castle, she and other slaves, both male and female, are taught to submit, with doms and subs of each gender engaging in spankings, beatings, public humiliation, and pony-play. Like O, Beauty is initially appalled by the treatment she receives, but she also finds sincere pleasure in her own degradation. Her submissive desires, seen as a rare commodity, are celebrated by the palace community.
BDSM fiction of the 80s saw an arguable inversion of de Sade’s determinism. His female characters suffered at the hands of his libertines’ “natural” cruelty, and were represented as possessions — not members — of their societies. Instead, the literature now depicted female characters benefitting from the existence of communities in which they could realise and revel in their innate enjoyment of a wide range of sexual practices and dynamics.
Within the cycle of Rice’s four Sleeping Beauty novels, we can see the evolution toward an even greater notion of equality. This may be because the series emerged at the end of feminism’s second wave and continued into the third, which lasted throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. The feminists of this era embraced diversity and individualism as key elements of their activism and centred their advocacy and beliefs around intersectionality, which addressed layers of oppression and privilege within gender, class, and race. It’s telling that the series’ final instalment (Beauty’s Kingdom, 2015) dispenses with slavery as the main erotic mechanism of the realm.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of texts within the BDSM literature of Western culture, but by looking at these tentpoles of the genre, it becomes clear that we can chart the continuous impact of feminism through its history — even though its plotlines may often seem anathema to feminism as most of us imagine it. Modern feminism has expanded its intersectional approach to include and uphold trans and non-binary perspectives; considering the influence of feminist beliefs over BDSM literature to date, readers can reasonably expect that these perspectives will find more and more expression within the genre. If they do, we will come to hear more from these voices, as BDSM literature, and the BDSM communities they both reflect and inspire, moves ever further into a feminist, inclusive, and LGBT-friendly future.
Published Mar 18, 2021
Updated Feb 21, 2024
Published in Issue IX: Community
