Jillian Keenan is a brilliant writer at Slate. Check out her work here.

In an article We’re Kinky, Not Crazy, she opens by saying:

The American Psychiatric Association has decided that people with kinky sexual interests (which—let’s just get this out of the way—includes me) don’t necessarily have mental disorders. That seems like good news, right? If we look up sexual masochism, fetishism, transvestism, or sadism in the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, they won’t be there! In their place, we’ll find a new list of “paraphilic disorders”: sexual masochism disorder, fetishistic disorder, transvestic disorder, and so on. The difference? To be diagnosed with one of these noncriminal sexual disorders, the person must “feel personal distress about their interest.
Simply put, the DSM V will say that happy kinksters don’t have a mental disorder. But unhappy kinksters do.

The term used for a long time by the DSM is paraphilia – defined as “unusual sexual interests”. The problem, as she identifies it, is that it’s similar to old definitions of homosexuality as a mental disorder, before GLBT activists got it removed from the manual. It lumps everything outside the norm together, and then it says if you can deal with it then it’s OK, but if you can’t then it’s a “disorder”.

But could it be that kink is actually a sexual orientation? She tackles exactly that in a separate article:

For years, I identified as bisexual because I’m sexually attracted to both men and women and have acted on that attraction. But in recent years, as I explored my own sexuality more, I’ve realised that’s not quite accurate. I’m not attracted to men or women as a group—I’m attracted to “tops,” or sexually dominant people, as a group; their gender is irrelevant. Many kinky people describe similar feelings.

This orientation doesn’t only, at times, overcome gender; it also overcomes the strong evolutionary human impulse to avoid pain. Perhaps this should go without saying, but kink hurts. It’s physically painful. (Sometimes extremely so.) Anything that can swim upstream of such a forceful tide must be rooted in something more fundamental and legitimate than merely what’s trendy.

It’s a great article. Go and read it. The paragraph that probably best sums it up is:

We don’t choose kink. Yes, there are vanilla people who, inspired by popular books or movies, choose to experiment with BDSM. (There are also straight people who choose to experiment with same-sex attraction, as anyone who went to college on a coast can attest.) And some people find BDSM later in life, don’t feel that it’s an orientation they were born with, and yet are full and equal members of the BDSM community (to the extent that such a thing even exists) in every way. But that doesn’t minimize the fact that, for a huge portion of kinky people, BDSM is not a choice, a hobby, or a phase. Kink is often so fundamental to our sexual identities that it has to be, at least in some cases, an orientation.

On this site we explore mental health issues and we explore BDSM and we explore the intersection between the two… the things that one needs to be aware when dealing with mental issues AND also being a kinkster.

But we never mean to imply that being a kinkster is a mental illness. A big fat NO to that!

There’s all kinds of people in our world, especially after Fifty Shades of Grey. There are people coming in from the “vanilla” world to try out a few kinks. There are hardcore kinksters into intense whipping and permanent slavery who devote their entire lives to the Master/slave roles. Some may have a little bit of rope and a gentle flogger hiding in their bedroom. Some kneel beside the door before their Master enters, and some may spend their nights sleeping in a real cage or on the floor.

Mental illness isn’t something we should ever turn our backs on. It needs to be explored and discussed and it can affect every type of relationship, whether that’s hetero-vanilla, homosexual, or even parent/child.

The reason why it can be even more important to recognise in the BDSM context is that BDSM activities require a long process of understanding, communication and seeking consent. And , it’s my personal belief that BDSM allows two people to achieve the ultimate intimacy, through power dynamics and all our different methods of Dominating and submitting. When pain is involved, or movement is restricted, all the intangible emotions and connections are floating in the space. Inside and outside of those scenes, mental issues are very important to understand, for both the Master and the slave (or Dom/sub or Top/bottom) to have a better, steadier, safer and healthier dynamic.

BOYDENON’S STORY

i remember when i was in kindergarden, i was already having urges to be tied up and kidnapped. i’d sneak out from my bedroom – i slept with my parents when i was young – just to have my midnight plan happen. As a kid, i planned the whole scenario. i was awake when my parents fell asleep and i knew where my parents hung their rubber bands. i turned the door knob, walked out like a sneaky thief toward the rubber bands, grabbed them and tied my hands with them.

Then i sat on the floor, feeling good but not knowing why. After a few minutes, i took off the rubber band with a sense of satisfaction, snuck back to the room and had a good night’s sleep.

When i was in primary school, i would always steal the short piece of cloth that tied the curtains. i stole almost every curtain-tie in my house, and put them under my pillow. When my parents slept, i would find a way to tie my legs up, and tie it around my mouth and i will fall into a nice blissful sleep. (i never knew if my parents discovered anything).

Once i tricked a friend into taping me to a chair. And i have many other stories to share about the deviance urges that emerged from nowhere. They started when i was just a little boy.

i had no idea why i liked those things. Not until i have discovered the whole BDSM community in the West through the internet.

The point is that, while this blog focus on mental health, it doesn’t mean that BDSM is a result of mental illness. We believe that mental health should be discussed in every field, and never stifled or swept under the carpet.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Is BDSM and kink just a diversion or hobby for you? Can you take it or leave it? Or is it a core part of your sexuality? And if it is, do you consider it an “orientation”? We’d love to hear from you.