Last month, I talked about the human need for fear, where it comes from and why we still have it.  This month, I’ll talk a little bit about the result.  Next month, I’ll discuss the answers.

Getting Specific

The human need for fear pervades every aspect of our world–ever culture, every country, every context.  MadisonKink, however, deals with BDSM topics, so that’s where this article will focus.

In the past, we had monsters and devils on which to focus our need for fear.  Those creatures no longer haunt our nights, so we’ve had to find new “monsters” on which to focus.  Within BDSM, this has become the “predatory dom”, and the “unsafe activity”.  In every area of BDSM, where ever kinksters gather, you will find people warning others about the dangers of “predatory doms” that will “OMG! Rape you!” and kink techniques that will “OMG! Kill you!”

They have plenty of stories and things they’ve heard.  They will pull up stories from the internet, recall what a presenter said at a con, or quote a book by an “expert” in BDSM safety.  What they won’t do–because they can’t–is present any factual information or credible statistics to back up their scare stories.

Relative Risk

Is BDSM dangerous?  That’s an interesting question.  Certainly the things that we do have a degree of danger to them.  That’s what people latch on to.  They see the potential danger and build it up into a clear and present danger.

The Preliminary Death Data for 2010 [pdf] from the CDC gives some great data.   It lists 113 causes for death and the associated numbers for 2009 and 2010. Below are a few of the more “outlying” causes for death. I’ll average the numbers from those two years to give a more balanced view of the numbers.

And then, there are some of my favorites (from 2000 data):

Now… excluding auto-erotic asphyxiation,  Can anyone name one actual death from BDSM activities in the past 10 years?  Not something you heard about somewhere, or read on a blog, but an actual cited death.  I doubt it.  And yet, we continue to be told that what we do will kill us.    Even if you include estimated statistics on auto-erotic asphyxiation, falling out of bed still kills 50 more people every year.  Why isn’t anyone getting paid to present workshops on vending machine safety?  Or the dangers of sleeping in a bed?

A Perfect Storm

The reason people aren’t going on the convention circuit doing “bed safety” seminars is because beds aren’t “scary”; they’re normal, everyday things.    Kinksters tend to push the fact that BDSM is “radical” or “out there” or “deviant”.   They enjoy the extra thrill of doing something that is perceived as “dangerous”.  It adds to the adrenaline rush.  And it makes them prime targets for the fear-mongers.

Add to this the fact that so few people are willing to discuss BDSM in an open and honest manner, while secretly bragging about their “dangerous” activities and showing off their bruises, and you get a perfect storm for misinformation, wild-rumors, urban myths, and outright fraud.

Why, when BDSM practitioners boast that they are more educated and braver than the “mundanes”, do they willfully throw that intelligence out the door and embrace the provably-false idea that BDSM is deadly?

Simple:  The human need for fear–and the cathartic release of “surviving”.

[1] From various sources, compiled here.

[2] From slipping, tripping and stumbling