There must be a reason why people like to do something different once in awhile. We like to go for travel after a year of stressful work, and it feels refreshing. Each time we go for a trip, it feels like our mind and body regain some sense of clarity.

For some of us who engage in BDSM, transgression is the magic pill that we take that lets us feel good, calm and, to some extent, refreshed. Why is that? Why does doing something bad, naughty, that mainstream society rejects, make us feel good?

It is more than just being a pervert and twisted individual.

Foucault wrote:

Perhaps [transgression] is like a flash of lightning in the night which, from the beginning of time, gives a dense and black intensity to the night it denies, which lights up the night from the inside, from top to bottom, yet owes to the dark the stark clarity of its manifestation, its harrowing and poised singularity.
― Michel Foucault

We engage in power in everyday life as long as we are part of the society. We drive and follow traffic rules, know that walking around in public naked is prohibited and abnormal in relation to social norms. Seeing someone hot might give us some rush of blood, but we know we can’t touch him or her. We eat at the table with certain manners, polite in the way that a civilised human being should behave.

However, who has taught us all these social rules and norms? Where did we develop and socialise into being a “civilised human being” and at the same time suppress all the animalistic natures that we were born with?

Transgression is to do something “prohibited” by society. Something that will be rejected, discriminated against or found disgusting.

But, in fact, we enjoy playing outside of those social norms. We like to do things the other way and break the rules (though because we’re sane, we stay within certain boundaries like physical/mental danger and legality). Because, doing something that is outside of the social norms and rules allows us to feel fresh about the restrictions that society places on us, and it makes us feel alive.

The existence of light co-exists with the existence of darkness, Power exists because there is resistance. To do something transgressive, as Foucault suggests, is to flash lightning in the night, and shed light on the darkness. It provides us with a moment of clarity.

In other words, we like to do bad things not because they are “bad things” themselves, but because we like to do what is “bad” in relation to the social norm.

If everyone started doing “bad things” and it was accepted as part of the social norm, then it wouldn’t be bad anymore. But all the time that we are observing the social norm, we can do something opposed to that and enjoy our little transgressive moment and flash of lightning in the dark sky.