The Culture of Dyke + Queer BDSM

Abstract

In the US and Western Europe, most BDSM communities are organized around sexual preference (along the normative lines of heterosexual, gay male and lesbian) and are rather segregated. While the gay male and straight communities have grown, differentiated and become increasingly commercialized in the last decades, a phenomenon Weiss describes for what she calls the ‘New Guard’ in the Bay Area (Weiss 2011), the dyke + queer BDSM community is so small that it hardly exists on local levels and remains largely non-profit. My interview partners were often part of informal communities rather than established groups or organizations. Only in some metropolitan areas do specific ‘women/trans only’ organizations or play parties exist. Lesbian-only spaces in general are rare and usually non-permanent (Valentine 1995), which is especially true for women-only spaces with a sexual purpose. If they exist at all, they are usually dependent upon using gay men’s or heterosexual spaces periodically. Moreover, most women’s spaces tend to be described in scholarship as asexual (Hammers 2008). Therefore, the even smaller community of dykes + queers with a BDSM interest manifests itself transnationally at annual or biannual gatherings, such as the now defunct ‘Women at Amsterdam Leather Pride’ (WALP), as well as through individual friendships and play partner networks.