What is BDSM?

BDSM is an acronym that covers several overlapping categories of sexual and relational practice: Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism. The term functions as an umbrella — a single word for a wide range of consensual activities, dynamics, and identities that involve power exchange, sensation, role differentiation, or some combination of all three.

Not every person who identifies with BDSM is interested in every element of it. Someone might be deeply invested in Dominance and submission as a relational dynamic with no particular interest in bondage or pain. Another person might be primarily a bondage practitioner with little interest in the psychological dimensions of power exchange. BDSM is a community with a shared framework, not a fixed menu that everyone orders the same way.

Breaking down the acronym

Bondage and Discipline covers restraint — physical limitation of movement using rope, cuffs, or other methods — and the use of rules, protocols, and consequences within a dynamic. Bondage can be purely physical or deeply psychological, and ranges from simple wrist restraint to elaborate rope work like Shibari.

Dominance and submission is the power exchange at the heart of much of BDSM — the consensual dynamic in which one person (the Dominant) leads, controls, and directs, while the other (the submissive) yields, follows, and gives authority over. This can be confined to individual scenes or extend into ongoing relationship structures.

Sadism and masochism refers to the eroticisation of giving and receiving intense sensation — which often includes pain, though "masochism" encompasses all forms of erotic intensity rather than pain specifically. A masochist is not simply someone who likes being hurt; they are someone for whom certain forms of intense sensation are pleasurable or meaningful in a way that is erotic or emotionally significant.

Roles in BDSM

BDSM practitioners typically identify with a role that describes their orientation within a dynamic. Dominants lead — they direct, control, and hold authority. Submissives yield — they follow, give over control, and place their trust in the Dominant. Switches are people who genuinely inhabit both positions depending on the dynamic and partner. These roles are not personality types and do not map onto how people behave outside kink contexts — many Dominants are quietly unassuming in daily life; many submissives are highly assertive professionals.

Consent is the foundation

Everything in ethical BDSM is consensual. The frameworks practitioners use — SSC (Safe, Sane, Consensual), RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink), and PRICK (Personal Responsibility, Informed Consensual Kink) — all formalise the same core principle: adults choosing together, clearly and honestly, what they want to do. Pre-scene negotiation, safe words, and agreed limits are the mechanics of that consent in practice.

The presence of power imbalance in a BDSM dynamic does not mean the submissive has less say. The submissive's consent is what makes the dynamic possible — and most BDSM practitioners will tell you that the person who holds the most fundamental power in any dynamic is the one who can end it.

BDSM and psychological health

Research consistently shows that BDSM practitioners do not differ from the general population in terms of psychological wellbeing, and in several studies report higher levels of wellbeing, openness, and relationship satisfaction. The psychology of kink is a well-studied area, and the findings consistently contradict the cultural assumption that BDSM interest signals damage or disorder.

Finding BDSM partners