Erickson et al's “The prosocial sadist? A comparison of BDSM sadism and everyday sadism” (2021)
“The prosocial sadist? A comparison of BDSM sadism and everyday sadism” [PDF]
Historically, the medical community has viewed sadism as purely pathological (Freud, 1905; Krafft-Ebing, 1965), a perspective that held sway until relatively recently. The 1997 version of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases, for example, defined sadomasochism as a paraphilia in which pain, humiliation, or bondage is inflicted, with no distinction between consensual and nonconsensual behaviors (WHO ICD-10, 1997). The ICD-11 (2018), in contrast, defined coercive sexual sadism disorder in a way that specifically excludes consensual sadism. Likewise, it was not until the revised fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that non-pathological forms of sadism were recognized.
Sadism has been further reconceptualized as dimensional rather than categorical and as manifesting beyond the purely sexual realm (O’Meara, Davies, & Hammond, 2011; Paulhus, 2014). One nonpathological form of sadism, known as everday sadism, is defined as a pleasure-driven form of aggression demarcated by having an enjoyment of cruelty in normal, everday situations (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2013). Every sadists have lower levels of disgust sensitivity (Meere & Egan, 2017), demonstrate a willingness to harm bugs, experience reward when doing so, and demonstrate a willingness to implement unprovoked aggression toward an unknown other (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2013). Everyday sadism positively predicts time spent playing violent video games (Greitemeyer, 2015), enjoyment of Internet trolling (Buckels, Trapnell, & Paulhus, 2014), behavioural delinquincy in boys (Chabrol, Van Leeuwen, Rodgers, & Séjourné, 2009), rape myth acceptance and sexual violence in men, hostile femininity in women (Russell & King, 2016, 2017), and adversarial sexual attitudes in women (Russell, Doan, & King, 2017). Everyday sadism heavily overlaps with, while still being distinct from, subclinical levels of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, creating what is known as the Dark Tetrad of personality traits (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2013; Chabrol, Van Leeuwen, Rodgers, & Séjourné, 2009; Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Plouffe, Saklofske, & Smith, 2017).
The ubiquitous presence of sadism throughout human history and across cultures suggests a possible evolutionary origin of sadism (Paulhus & Dutton, 2016). Consistent with this, everyday sadism may be linked with having an earlier investment in mating and producing progeny abundantly, i.e., having a fast life history strategy (Davis, Visser, Volk, Vaillancourt, & Arnocky, 2019). High levels of the other Dark Tetrad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, i.e., the Dark Triad) are associated with a greater likelihood of adopting short-term mating strategies including having a higher sex drive, having more sexual partners, and being open to sex outside of a committed relationship, as well as mate poaching and being poached (Baughman, Jonason, Veselka, & Vernon, 2014; Foster, Shrira, & Campbell, 2006; Harris, Rice, Hilton, Lalumiere, & Quinsey, 2007; Jonason, Li, & Buss, 2010; Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009).
Everyday sadism expanded the construct of sadism to include nonpathological manifestations. We propose to expand the construct of sadism further to include the possibility of prosocial forms. Although everyday sadism researchers have recognized this possibility (e.g., Buckels, 2012; O’Meara, Davies, & Hammond, 2011), current findings frame sadism solely as antisocial (Kavanagh, 2020).
Rather than being pathological, BDSM practitioners tend to be well-adjusted, to have attachment styles similar to normative adults, and to possess beneficial attributes such as good communication skills and resiliency (Williams, Thomas, Prior, Amezquita, & Hall, 2017; Wismeijer & van Assen, 2013; see Brown, Barker, & Rahman, 2020; Simula, 2019b for reviews). BDSM practitioners fall within normative ranges for honesty-humility, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (as well as emotionality and extraversion; H´ ebert & Weaver, 2014). BDSM is more than ‘hot’ sex: BDSM practitioners consider sex and BDSM to be separate from one another, with the amount of overlap between the two varying considerably on an individual basis (Simula, 2019a; Sprott et al., 2020).
Portrayals of sadism within the BDSM community align with the notion of prosocial sadism. For example, Miller and Devon (1995) use the term honorable sadist to denote those who provide pain or humiliation only to consenting others in a way that respects the boundaries of their partners and demonstrates caring. Fifth Angel (2010), a self-identified BDSM sadist, describes his sadistic acts, all of which were done consensually, as promoting healing or increasing bonding and closeness with his partners. Consistent with this view, Fifth Angel’s partners describe their experiences with him as providing catharsis, self-improvement, or transcendence (Fifth Angel, 2010). Although there are occasional incidences of individuals engaging in BDSM activities for unhealthy reasons (e.g., Febos, 2010), BDSM activities typically occur within collaborative social interactions in which the activities are mutually enjoyable rather than one person receiving gratification at the expense of another (Newmahr, 2010a). Indeed, participating in a BDSM scene creates feelings of closeness between scene partners (Ambler et al., 2017) with bottoms commonly desiring more pain than tops provide (Cutler, Lee, Cutler, & Sagarin, 2020).
It is notable, however, that one of the primary exemplars of everyday sadism identified by researchers, Internet trolling, involves harassment of a non-consenting target (Buckels, Trapnell, & Paulhus, 2014). In contrast, affirmative consent, the explicit permission to engage in activities by all who are involved, is a foundation of ethical BDSM and is deeply ingrained into the BDSM culture (Pitagora, 2013; Wiseman, 1998; for a review of consent within BDSM and the distinction between abuse and BDSM, see Dunkley & Brotto, 2020).
When using the Empathy Quotient (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004), negative associations between everyday sadism and empathy are found (O’Meara, Davies, & Hammond, 2011; Sest & March, 2017) although affective empathy and cognitive empathy cannot be separated in this measure. Additionally, both Buckels (2012) and Justice (2016) found sadism to be negatively correlated with the perspective taking and empathic concern subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983).
Research on empathy levels in BDSM practitioners is limited with no known studies looking specifically at BDSM sadists. BDSM practitioners do not demonstrate differences from a normative adult sample in their levels of empathic concern for others (Hébert & Weaver, 2014). Additionally, both dominants and submissives perceive the need for dominants to be empathetic and nurturing toward the submissive, with empathy being the most commonly reported characteristic that differentiates good dominants from bad dominants (Hébert & Weaver, 2015). Similarly, individuals with high levels of coercive sexual acts had significantly lower empathy levels compared to BDSM-identified individuals and a normative group while no differences were found between the BDSM group and the normative group (Martin, Smith, & Quirk, 2016).
To verify the operationalization of self-identified sadism, BDSM sadists and non-sadistic tops rated the level of enjoyment they receive from the pain their bottom is experiencing. Sadists reported greater enjoyment from the pain the bottom receives during a BDSM scene (M = 4.34, SD = 0.87) compared to non-sadistic tops (M = 3.21, SD = 1.05), t (177) = 7.86, p < 0.001, d = 1.17.
Significant negative associations were found between everyday sadism and cognitive empathy, affective empathy, conscientiousness, honesty, humility, and agreeableness while positive associations were found with Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism.
[P]reviously observed relationships between everyday sadism and affective empathy, the Dark Triad traits, conscientiousness, honesty-humility, and agreeableness were replicated in the present study. Overall, these findings suggest support for hypothesis H1b – the concept of everyday sadism should be expanded to include both consensual and non-consensual sadistic acts. However, contrary to predictions, cognitive empathy was consistently negatively correlated with everyday sadism.
[T]hese findings suggest support for hypothesis H2b — previous everyday sadism research can be applied to BDSM practitioners using a broader definition of everyday sadism that includes sadistic behaviors directed at a consenting person. The findings also support the validity of examining the nature of BDSM sadism by comparing BDSM sadists to non-sadistic BDSM tops on everyday sadism and known correlates of everyday sadism.
These findings are consistent with Seto, Lalumière, Harris, and Chivers (2012), who found that BDSM sadists had greater subjective sexual arousal and greater phallometric response to stories depicting consensual sexual violence when compared to BDSM tops and men who did not identify as BDSM practitioners, while no differences were found when the stories depicted nonconsensual sexual violence.
There is considerable overlap between BDSM sadists and non-sadistic tops regarding the behaviors enacted within BDSM scenes. Presumably, tops (both sadistic and non-sadistic) find the activities sufficiently enjoyable and non-aversive to perform them. Alternatively, familiarity with performing the behaviors might create a sense of liking over time. A third possibility is that both BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops are, at least to some extent, everyday sadists.
As can be seen in the first two columns of Table 4, BDSM sadists did not differ significantly from non-sadistic BDSM tops on any of these traits. These results align with hypothesis H4b and suggest that BDSM sadists are not everyday sadists.
Overall, the correlations observed in the non-BDSM sample also appeared in the BDSM sample. Across both consent conditions, everyday sadism correlated negatively with affective empathy, the Dark Triad traits, honesty-humility, and agreeableness. The negative correlation between everyday sadism and cognitive empathy was significant for the non-consent condition but non-significant for the consent condition, and the negative correlation between everyday sadism and conscientiousness was non-significant in both consent conditions. It is possible that the strong norms of consent in the BDSM community might have attenuated these correlations in the consent condition, although it is unclear why this attenuation would not have affected the other correlations. Alternatively, the non-significant correlations might be Type II errors, a possibility consistent with the negative signs of the correlation coefficients. Overall, these findings suggest support for hypothesis H2b — previous everyday sadism research can be applied to BDSM practitioners using a broader definition of everyday sadism that includes sadistic behaviors directed at a consenting person. The findings also support the validity of examining the nature of BDSM sadism by comparing BDSM sadists to non-sadistic BDSM tops on everyday sadism and known correlates of everyday sadism.
BDSM sadists had significantly higher scores than non-sadistic BDSM tops on the physical subscale of the CAST and the full CAST measure when the sadistic behaviors were performed on a consenting person, but no significant differences emerged when the sadistic behaviors were aimed at a non-consenting target. These results align with hypothesis H3c and suggest that BDSM sadists are not everyday sadists.
These findings are consistent with Seto, Lalumière, Harris, and Chivers (2012), who found that BDSM sadists had greater subjective sexual arousal and greater phallometric response to stories depicting consensual sexual violence when compared to BDSM tops and men who did not identify as BDSM practitioners, while no differences were found when the stories depicted nonconsensual sexual violence.
There is considerable overlap between BDSM sadists and non-sadistic tops regarding the behaviors enacted within BDSM scenes. Presumably, tops (both sadistic and non-sadistic) find the activities sufficiently enjoyable and non-aversive to perform them. Alternatively, familiarity with performing the behaviors might create a sense of liking over time. A third possibility is that both BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops are, at least to some extent, everyday sadists.
The aim of hypothesis H4 was to provide a second test of whether BDSM sadists are everyday sadists by comparing scores on known correlates of everyday sadism between BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops. As can be seen in the first two columns of Table 4, BDSM sadists did not differ significantly from non-sadistic BDSM tops on any of these traits. These results align with hypothesis H4b and suggest that BDSM sadists are not everyday sadists. The next two columns of Table 4 display the scores on the correlates of everyday sadism for BDSM bottoms and non-BDSM practitioners. Although honesty-humility, conscientiousness, or cognitive empathy. Further, the significant differences on affective empathy were driven by differences on the personal distress subscale but not the empathic concern subscale. These results offer mixed evidence regarding whether both BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops are everyday sadists. On the one hand, elevated levels of the Dark Triad might suggest so, but the lack of significant differences on honesty-humility, conscientiousness, and empathic concern might suggest not.
No differences were found between BDSM sadists and the normative sample (M = 3.36, SD = 0.60) on levels of honesty-humility, t(109) = − 1.38, p = 0.17, or agreeableness (normative sample: M = 2.94, SD = 0.49), t(108) = 0.70, p = 0.49. BDSM sadists did have higher levels of extraversion compared to the normative sample (M = 3.29, SD = 0.57), t(108) = 2.03, p = 0.045, higher levels of conscientiousness compared to the normative sample (M = 3.32, SD = 0.51), t(108) = 5.36, p < 0.001, and higher levels of openness to experience compared to the normative sample (M = 3.37, SD = 0.57), t(109) = 12.39, p < 0.001. Finally, BDSM sadists had lower levels of emotionality compared to the normative sample (M = 3.20, SD = 0.55), t (107) = − 5.66, p < 0.001.
This study presents findings indicative of expanding the concept of dimensional sadism to include prosocial forms. When compared to others who perform the same behaviours within BDSM scenes, BDSM sadists differed only on the physical subscale of everyday sadism and only when consent was explicit, suggesting that most BDSM sadists are not everyday sadists. Additionally, BDSM sadists demonstrated levels of honesty-humility, conscientiousness, and empathic concern comparable to non-practitioners from this study and levels of honesty-humility comparable to and conscientiousness higher than a normative sample provided by Lee and Ashton (2004), while everyday sadists demonstrate reduced levels of conscientiousness and honesty-humility (although BDSM sadists and everyday sadists showed reduced levels of agreeableness). These results suggest that self-identified BDSM sadists are not, overall, everyday sadists. This conclusion should be considered, however, in the context of two additional results:
First, psychopathy emerged as the only significant unique predictor in the non-consent condition, suggesting that BDSM sadists (and other BDSM practitioners) with high levels of psychopathy might be everyday sadists.
Second, when BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops were compared to non-BDSM practitioners, the BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops showed significantly higher levels of the Dark Triad and significantly lower levels of affective empathy, suggesting that both BDSM sadists and non-sadistic BDSM tops show some tendency toward everyday sadism. However, these groups did not differ significantly on honesty-humility, conscientiousness, or cognitive empathy. Further, the lower levels of affective empathy stemmed from a lower score on personal distress. Davis (1983) describes the personal distress scale as one that measures self-directed anxiety or discomfort in stressful interpersonal situations. Consensual BDSM scenes can be emotionally and physically intense, as well as potentially cathartic. For example, fear, past abuse, or PTSD can surface within a scene, or scenes can be used to help in healing these; whether these tense moments are the purpose of the scene or they unexpectedly appear, the top needs to be prepared to support their scene partner throughout the process (Fifth Angel, 2010). As such, it is beneficial for BDSM sadists and other tops to not be hampered by their own anxiety during these stressful moments.
BDSM practitioners place great importance upon maintaining emotional, physical, and psychological safety which for tops entails practicing the technical skills necessary for conducting a scene safely, recognizing both verbal and nonverbal communication, recognizing signs of physiological or psychological distress, and learning safety measures to enact in the event of an emergency (Newmahr, 2010b). The emphasis within the BDSM community on safety, consent, and mutual satisfaction supports the idea that BDSM represents one outlet for sadists to consensually and prosocially ‘feed’ their sadism. We suggest that other activities that involve the infliction of pain within a context of safety, consent, and mutual satisfaction might also represent outlets for prosocial sadists. Within certain martial arts, for example, practitioners apply painful holds such as arm bars on a partner but only until the partner taps, at which point the hold is released. It seems plausible that some practitioners gain satisfaction from the pain they have caused but with the care and control necessary to ensure that the partner is not injured.
[T]he sadism that might be motivating some is prosocial in nature. We wish to clarify a few points here. Our first point of clarification is illustrated by a common explanation in the BDSM community that BDSM sadists have a desire to hurt another but not to cause harm. In other words, the desire is to provide intense sensation but not in a manner that will cause damage or injury. We are not suggesting that those who engage in martial arts, chili pepper breeding, etc. do so because they have a desire to harm others, nor are we suggesting that all individuals who engage in these activities are motivated to do so by sadism. Rather, these are socially acceptable outlets that may contain some members who are prosocial sadists who may gain some enjoyment from aggressing toward others – and stopping as soon as the other person indicates stopping is warranted. Second, we recognize that manifestations of nonpathological, antisocial sadism differ from manifestations of nonpathological prosocial sadism. The Internet troll or those who ‘grief’ (intentionally annoy other players) in online multiplayer gaming do so antisocially, as trolling and griefing target nonconsenting victims, presumably with the intent to harm. Finally, we recognize that not all BDSM practitioners adhere to negotiated limits and consent. In their Consent Violations Survey, Wright, Stambaugh, and Cox (2015) note that 36% of respondents reported being touched without permission at a BDSM event (both sexual and nonsexual touch) and 29% reported having their pre-negotiated limits or safeword (an agreed upon word or signal used to immediately revoke consent; Wiseman, 1998) violated in a BDSM scene or relationship.
Globally, BDSM practitioners face discrimination and stigmatization from mental health practitioners, law enforcement, court systems, workplaces, and society (Haviv, 2016; Kolmes, Stock, & Moser, 2006; Wright, 2006). With sadism portrayed solely as cruel acts committed against non-consenting victims, it is likely that this is especially true for BDSM sadists, should they be outed as such. Indeed, even within the BDSM community some individuals hesitate to identify as a sadist due to the loaded connotations implied in the name (Warren, 2000). The present results suggest that most sadists within the BDSM community enjoy enacting sadistic behavior only with consenting partners. Although the present data suggest that most BDSM sadists are not everyday sadists, this study found some reported enjoyment within the BDSM community of nonconsensual sadistic behaviors, predicted uniquely by psychopathy. Additional research is needed to ascertain if BDSM practitioners high in psychopathy are simply reporting enjoyment in the physically sadistic acts or if they would endorse actual engagement in the physically sadistic behaviors. Having greater accuracy in the ability to differentiate prosocial sadists within the BDSM community from those who are at greater risk of violating consent would allow BDSM sadists to be aware of potential risks when engaging in BDSM scenes, allowing for greater self-awareness of limits. Further, those who engage in BDSM scenes with BDSM sadists who may be at risk of violating consent would benefit from such knowledge. For example, potential partners of these sadists could make better informed decisions about where and when to engage in scenes, such as doing only public scenes where consent violations could be noted and addressed by others. Additionally, the BDSM community overall would benefit by having a deeper understanding of its members, namely, that most BDSM sadists are prosocial sadists, but some are not.
One limitation to this study is the use of convenience sampling for both the BDSM group as well as the comparison group. All responses collected from the BDSM group were derived from attendees of BDSM conferences. It is likely that differences exist between BDSM practitioners who attend conferences and those who do not ... It is possible, particularly within the BDSM community sample, that participants’ responses to the everyday sadism items were biased to present themselves positively. Two considerations suggest that this is not an overriding concern. First, the anonymity of the survey should have helped mitigate socially desirable responding. Second, the consistent correlates of everyday sadism observed across conditions suggest the validity of the data. A further limitation with the obtained sample is that most participants, particularly in the BDSM sample, identified as White. Future research should strive for more racially diverse samples.
An additional limitation for this study was the use of an unpublished everyday sadism measure with limited evidence concerning reliability and validity. We chose the CAST over other measures of everyday sadism because it is the only measure that easily lends itself to the addition of consent qualifiers. Additionally, the CAST separately assesses the physical, verbal, and vicarious components of everyday sadism, allowing for greater differentiation between everyday sadism and prosocial sadism. Furthermore, the EFA results (presented in online supplemental materials) and the consistent correlates with other personality measures observed in the present study support the validity of the CAST both within and outside the BDSM community. However, a scale that can assess sadistic behaviors done consensually or nonconsensually across all components of sadism would be of value.
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