BDSM can be safely classified as an elite sexual subculture with distinctive features and its own attributes.
Physiologically, BDSM is based on an increase in the level of a person’s sexual arousal and receiving psychophysiological pleasure as a result of a conscious violation of certain socially determined conditions or taboos, and also (although not always) as a result of performing physical actions, such as restricting mobility, striking , tickling and so on.
The historical origin of BDSM is unclear. In the ninth century AD, ritual flagellations were held at Artemis-Orthia, one of the most important religious areas in ancient Sparta, where the cult of Orthia, a pre-Olympian religion, was practiced. Here ritual flagellations were called diamastigosis and were practiced regularly. One of the oldest graphic evidence of sadomasochistic activity has been found in Etruscan burials in Tarquinia. Inside the Tomba della Fustigazione (Flogging Tombs), dating from the sixth century BC, an image was found showing two men spanking a woman with a stick and hand during an erotic situation. Other references to flagellation can be found in the sixth book of satire by the ancient Roman poet Juvenal (1st-2nd century AD) and Petronius' Satyricon, where the offender is whipped for sexual arousal. The anecdotal stories concerned people who voluntarily tied themselves up, flogged or simply beaten themselves, doing it as a substitute for sex or part of foreplay, which goes back to the third and fourth century.
The Kama Sutra describes four different types of striking during lovemaking on the permitted places of the human body to produce pleasant "cries of pain" practiced by the Bottoms.
There is anecdotal information about people who were willingly tied up and beaten as foreplay or instead of sex during the 14th century. The medieval phenomenon of chivalrous love, with all its slavish devotion and ambivalence, has been suggested by some writers as a precursor to BDSM.
Much of the BDSM ethos can be traced back to gay leather culture, which formed from a group of men who were soldiers who returned home after World War II (1939–1945). This subculture was embodied in Larry Townsend's Leather Man's Handbook, published in 1972, which details the practices and culture of gay sadomasochists in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The compound acronym BDSM contains the names of the main components of this phenomenon:
● BD (Bondage & Discipline) - bondage (binding, restriction of mobility), disciplinary and role-playing games, game submission, humiliation, punishment;
● DS (Domination & Submission) - dominance and submission - domination and submission; relations in which, as a result of a preliminary agreement, there is an inequality of partners;
● SM (Sadism & Masochism - sadism and masochism) - sadomasochism; practices associated with obtaining pleasure from inflicting or experiencing physical pain.
The appearance of the abbreviation BDSM instead of SM was caused, in particular, by the fact that initially bondage / discipline (BD) and dominance / submission (DS) were considered a subsection of sadomasochism (SM), which did not suit the representatives of these areas. Sadists enjoy inflicting physical and/or psychological pain, masochists enjoy experiencing it. But domination and submission can manifest itself in an erotic exchange of power without causing pain. Not all masochists are submissive, and not all submissives enjoy pain. Not all sadists are dominant, and conversely, not all dominants are sadists. After some discussions with all interested parties, the collective abbreviation BDDSSM was introduced, shortened almost immediately to BDSM. The appearance of the abbreviation is attributed to the early 1990s.
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