Sexual Violence Prevention through Network Governance in Bondage Dominance Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) Communities: An Empirical Study

East Tower 

Networks play a key role in commercial exchange, where compliance with the law is determined by social norms and social capital. These "networks" consist of participants who may be concentrated geographically or even across vast geographical areas through local nodes that aggregate information and transmit such information to participants of the network. Compliance is secured through the desire to maintain individual or organizational reputation without the intervention of the formal legal system. Scholars in other disciplines examine the role that close-knit communities play in preventing intimate partner violence. However, the relationships studied in this context are almost exclusively heterosexual and normative.
This paper draws on insights from interviews with participants of Chicago's BDSM (Bondage Dominance Sadism and Masochism) community to observe the role of networks, social norms, and reputation in preventing sexual and physical violence in such non-normative relationships. BDSM practitioners form a close-knit community with regular social, non-sexual gatherings known as "munches". Practitioners attend munches to socialize and find partners with similar sexual preferences. Significantly, munches also serve as settings where information is transmitted-more "senior" members of the community serve as nodes, and information about sexual misconduct is quickly transmitted to other members. Transmission of information about sexual misconduct comes with reputational consequences, and such members may be immediately excommunicated, hindering them from finding partners in the future.
Thus, this paper argues that networks have crucial implications for addressing violence in the context of unconventional sexual practices and non-normative relationships. It suggests that those seeking such arrangements join close-knit communities consisting of others engaged in the same practices, so that they may be protected from violence, absent recourse to the legal system.