On pleasure, belonging and filth – an introduction

Pleasure is elusive. It is a reverberation, vibrating deep within your body even when it is quiet and still.

I started writing this numerous times, and never seemed to get it right. I would start by rethinking pain, or all of the different ways that BDSM helps us to deal with the fucked-up nature of today’s world — but this is truly not the point. So I have decided to write about pleasure.

Pleasure is that tremor in the thighs.

Pleasure is touching things to understand them.

Pleasure is a way of stopping time.

Pleasure is presence.

Pleasure is power.

Pleasure is taking space.

Pleasure is dissolving into a beautiful, shivering mess.

Pleasure is when the voices in your head fall quiet.

Pleasure is discovering how certain things are elastic.

Pleasure is coming in terms with the radiant boundaries of your own body.

Pleasure is the intoxicating possibility of remapping neural pathways.

Sometimes, pleasure is a choice.

When I got involved in BDSM and kink, I discovered pleasure as something which has a history, as something directly connected to memory and belonging. I studied rope marks on my skin; I read about playing safely with whips and canes; I allowed myself to melt into erotic submission. All of these things seemed like the greatest of discoveries. And yet I knew that all of these experiences have already been lived before, that people have been doing these things for decades, long before I was born.

Throughout the recent history of the movement, BDSM practitioners have not limited themselves to the pursuit of private pleasures. They have lived openly and radically, challenged stigma and educated their communities, and redefined the ideas of sex and consent. They harnessed the political potential of sexual freedom, sacrificed and lost reputations, jobs and loved ones, and lived to the fullest.

That history has given me some context, and one more reason as to why these discoveries feel so significant. Maybe not the next morning, maybe in a week or two; maybe even without me thinking about it — but my BDSM experiences have rewritten the rules on how I can live in my body and how I am allowed to exist in our society. At the Bishopsgate Institute’s Leather and Fetish Archive, I looked through old issues of On Our Backs and Skin Two magazines, which dated back three decades. I sometimes caught myself thinking: the people who wrote these letters,  the people in these pictures — wrapped in latex, holding whips, wearing sturdy leather jackets — are now either old or dead. Then I thought: what a great way that was to be remembered. I thought about how immensely grateful I am to them for being so open and proud.

In my intimate and sexual life, people hurt me, and I hurt people. We give each other pain and other thrills based on communication, mutual respect and consent. We play games which take us very high: they sometimes involve leather belts, collars, spit, ropes or chains. When I first got excited about these things, I read a lot of books because, as a geek, that’s how I usually interact with the world. I studied the physiological side of the pain high, the Jungian archetypes BDSM taps into, and the crucial role of the leather community in LGBTQI+ liberation.

But even stripped from its historical and theoretical context, BDSM and kink allowed me so many pleasures. The pleasure of talking openly about sex and learning the language to share my desires and boundaries. The pleasure of owning my power and presence, regardless of whether I submit or dominate. The pleasure of being vulnerable. The pleasure of the most intimate connection. The pleasure of lying on my back and hoping this moment never ends.

I am a culture writer. In my career, I have written about art, fashion, film, music, photography and architecture. I wanted to find the same language for sex. I wanted to write about sex like I would cultural criticism or nature writing. I wanted to write about sex like one would write about a journey. I wanted to celebrate the fact that BDSM taught me how to respect myself, my desires and my voice. I wanted to tell the stories of people who have astonishing creative visions, and those who do important things for our community — and my own story, which comes from inside my body.

“Our culture insists on sexual uniformity and does not acknowledge any neural differences — only crimes, sins, diseases and mistakes”, visionary author Patrick Califia wrote in the introduction to the 1988 collection of erotic fiction titled Macho Sluts. “We know we are ugly before we have ever seen ourselves, and the injustice of this, the falsehood, chokes me”.

The cultural representation of pleasure is important. It is not just about what kind of sex we want: it is also about what kind of futures we imagine for ourselves, how we move through the world, how valid and beautiful we allow ourselves to feel. Being open about one’s pleasures is not a kind of freedom which can be taken for granted — but surely the one worth fighting for.

Photography by Anya Gorkova