TW: Bruises (and their many meanings in the BDSM community)

Did you ask to see my bruised ass? I guess not - but at least I put a TW on it. That's the interesting thing with bruises – they're a large part of what we go through and what we love in BDSM, they're always intimate but not always pretty or appreciated. They're part of the story of what we share with others and what we don't – and finding the distinction between the two. 

I’ve had a fascination with bruises for much longer than I’ve been open about kink. Especially if they went together with something exciting. Like vanilla sex when someone digs their fingers deep enough into your skin. Or a bar crawl during a blizzard when you keep slipping on ice and falling over (yes, growing up in a cold climate made me hardcore). But bruises in kink is a whole different story – because bruises in kink are a culture, and a shared language. 

I don’t bruise very easily, so when I do it’s pretty special. It takes a lot of work and a lot of fun, which was the case at Klub Verboten a couple of weeks ago. It’s not every day you get flogged with a flogger someone had for 15 years. The wave of heat, the rising joy, the doubt whether I can still handle pain like I used to, then melting into the sensation, breathing deeply, the smell of leather sofa I pushed my face into, people standing around watching – I loved it all as much as the traces it left on me. 

Whenever I get a bruise from a BDSM-related activity, I remember how interesting bruises are to study. How deep they go into the skin, which tones of red or purple, what kind of shape, how they change colour in the next few days – and how they inevitably fade. Bruises are precious evidence of fun, but also of the amusing duality of having a body: fragile but tough; resilient but perishable. Bruises are not forever, and neither are we – be it thrilling or sad or hot or simply just a fact.

Bruises, much like anything related to sadomasochism, tap into our personal histories – and no two people would have the same one. I grew up in an atmosphere that was incredibly neurotic about health and safety – the focus on keeping your body safe as a constant reminder of its fragility. Bruises, like tattoos, have over the years become for me a powerful tool of self-determination  – consensual marks of selected pleasures which prove that this body is actually strong enough to carry me through life, that it could be trusted, be my ally and my high. 

Bruises in culture are a deeply problematic topic because of their direct connection to violence. What comes to mind immediately is a self-portrait of Nan Goldin from 1984 titled “Nan one month after being battered”: the artist staring directly into the camera, bruises all over her face, one of her eyes bloodshot and swollen. A more ambiguous one is a Wes Anderson 2007 short film “Hotel Chevalier”, in which a protagonist’s lover turns up in a yellow-tinted copy of the Ritz with bruises on her arms and legs – whether those are traces of abuse or rough sex or something else we never find out. The romantic Tumblr-era photos of bruises have the same enigmatic quality – they are stories fully known only to the owner of this thigh or shoulder, leaving us forever guessing about pain, pleasure, trauma, fun, carelessness, or whatever else had happened. 

Bruises are understandably disturbing for a lot of people. In a society that has a rampant problem with domestic violence and abuse, bruises are alarming and triggering. It makes us, kinksters, sometimes wonder if we should go to the swimming pool with our bodies in the state they are – and whether it would be kind enough to people who have to witness it.

It becomes a particularly complicated question because in kink bruises acquire a completely different meaning. Sometimes it’s very hard to conceal one’s excitement. Sometimes it’s hard not to go: “Do you wanna see my bruises? They’re so pretty, and I’m very proud”. Bruises also make for the most intimate exchange – getting a picture of your partner’s bruises after a scene always feels pretty special.

Sometimes BDSM feels like a parallel reality. Sometimes it feels too good or too strange to be true. Poke that bruise under your clothes, or inspect it in the mirror. You can then quietly tell yourself, yeah I did that, I shape-shifted, I traveled between here and there, and here are the traces, on my actual skin.

Image in the text: still from Hotel Chevalier (2007).