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SM (sado-masochism)
People enjoy all kinds of power games involving discipline and domination, role playing and pleasurable `torture'.
The thing to remember is not to do anything which could lead to sharing blood. Use common sense and you will not go wrong. Naturally such games should only be done with consent.
Pain
Examples of this would range from tickling (which can be feather–light or excruciating depending how and how long it is done) through screwing or fucking (which can be deeply painful pleasures), or lovebiting, to very heavy–duty sexual pain experienced in such things as flogging scenes.
The importance of this resides in the intensity and spontaneity of the sensations that arise on the borders of sexual pain. Science tells us that the endorphins released when the body experiences certain kinds of pain act as a kind of internally produced recreational drug which can give a particular kind of high. The best–known example of this is provided by the intense highs experienced by athletes.
Thus, for some people pain–related sexual games can come to be a satisfying (or even preferable) alternative to penetrative sex.
SM and pain
The reasons for this confusion over pain and SM are mainly to do with popular myths, and the fact that sado–masochism has been a political battleground for at least the last twenty years. Overlapping and competing definitions of SM abound, including political and queer ones. So, for instance, for many feminists, SM is a symbol of male aggression and is loathed. For others, it is a symbol of sexual liberation. The Operation Spanner case also focused attention on the more violent actions of the men involved, ignoring the more ritualistic and role–playing activities they took part in.
Legal considerations
Unfortunately, since December 1990, following a ruling in a criminal case, it is now illegal in Britain to engage in activities which are seen as causing any sort of physical harm or pain to a person, even when all parties involved want this to happen. Although it is not completely certain, it is likely that pleasurable `torture' would be regarded as unlawful. (However, by definition, that doesn't involve all areas of SM).
As a result of this extraordinary ruling, it has become necessary to advise questioners who engage in these activities that they may be breaking the law.
It is worth bearing in mind that the Operation Spanner prosecution only came about because the men involved kept independent records of what they did in the form of videos, photographs and letters. It was these items that the police discovered by chance which led to the investigation. Those questioners who participate in these sexual activities should, therefore, be counselled that it may not be in their own interests to keep such independent records of what they do.
This judgement contributes to the climate of censorship and denial that drives people's sexual pleasures and activities underground, and, by criminalising or marginalising them, makes them less accessible to health education and other services.
People who engage in these sexual activities need advice about how to avoid HIV transmission whilst doing them. Some may now conceal these activities for fear of prosecution and thus fail to get appropriate safer sex advice.
Safer sex education depends not only on finding safer versions of risky sexual activities (e.g. using condoms) but also on finding safer alternatives (e.g. `fantasy' sex) to those risky alternatives. People will not accept alternatives unless they find them exciting and satisfying. Since many SM activities are both safe and exciting, this judgement is potentially life–threatening if it deters some people from exploring their sexual options.
Advisers have a responsibility to their clients to ensure that they do not censor vital health information through a mistaken self–censorship.
It is worth restating that even if an activity is illegal it is not unlawful to discuss that activity for the purpose of providing information to protect people's health and lives.