The surprising connections between BDSM & Transformative Justice

& and how we can use it to be in better relationships with ourselves and each other

It was when G. told me, over our overpriced burrito, about the pleasure they felt just glancing at this gigantic elastic that was about to slap their wrist so hard that I got it. They replayed the whole scene for me (they’re a theatre kid—if you don’t have theatre friends, I can only recommend). I can still picture their face replaying with perfection, just for me, the look of both fear and pleasure, anticipating the sting, wanting the elastic to slap them just one. more. time.

“How did you even think of getting the elastic? Like, how did it even become part of the play?” I asked.

“I was being bad” they said with a smile, “so I had to get punished.”

That’s what stopped me. That’s what gave me a download.

It was the word: punished.

I already knew that pain and pleasure overlap in the brain. I knew they share some of the same circuitry, that under certain conditions they can become remarkably difficult to untangle. But this download wasn’t academic. It was somatic.

I stopped chewing and narrowed my eyes, not out of confusion but because I could feel something landing somewhere much deeper than a simple thought ever could. I could almost feel my soma rearranging itself, and I recognized the feeling immediately: pleasure. An opening. A softening. An expansion.

“Hmmmmmm,” I said, snapping my fingers. It just hit exactly where it was supposed to.

That’s when I knew there was a deep connection between pain and pleasure, between being bad and the salvation that comes from facing your shit, between Transformative Justice (TJ) and BDSM.

I want to start this essay clearly: I don’t think BDSM is inherently transformative or abolitionist. BDSM communities, like activist communities, can reproduce coercion, heteronormative bullshit, patriarchy, racism, misogyny, transphobia, abuse, and much more. This essay is not a claim that they are the same, or even particularly alike. It is a claim that both are deeply concerned with the ethics of power, pain, and pleasure, and that although they might seem worlds apart—one rooted in abolitionist politics, the other in erotic and kink communities—at their core, they are wrestling with the same question:

Before you keep readin!!!!

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