Exploring the Surprising Connection between BDSM and Meditation

Written by Brendan Hadley
Published 18th July 2023

Whips, handcuffs, blindfolds, ropes, flogging, spanking. These probably aren’t the kind of activities you associate with meditation and mindfulness, let alone spirituality. However, those who practice consensual BDSM, as well as researchers studying it alongside mindful sex, are discovering intriguing connections between these seemingly very separate practices.

However, those who practice consensual BDSM, as well as researchers studying it alongside mindful sex, are discovering intriguing connections between these seemingly very separate practices.
Although still in its early stages, BDSM research is uncovering similarities between BDSM and mindfulness, as well as other forms of meditation, particularly in terms of heightened awareness and relaxed altered states of consciousness. The emerging evidence is starting to confirm what many practitioners have instinctively known: BDSM can be a profoundly meditative experience with psychological benefits that extend far beyond mere sexual satisfaction.
To the uninitiated, it’s easy to discount BDSM as being nothing but salacious, deranged and dangerous. By now, everyone’s got an opinion about the ’50 Shades of Grey’ trilogy: It’s trash; it’s fun fantasy fodder; it’s misogynist; it’s empowering for women; it’s silly. So, partly thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey, the general public’s perception of BDSM tends to be ill-informed, reductive, and unhealthy – worlds apart from the reality of a community that embeds enthusiastic consent, trust, and safety into practices that often involve intense but controlled pain. Thus, many influential members of the BDSM community, myself included, are quick to point out that 50 Shades is not an accurate representation of BDSM sexual practices where “safe, sane, and consensual” are the watchwords and that the term “BDSM” is broad, like the term “sports.” It includes people with highly divergent sexual desires and personae. Yet, while the 50 Shades media saturation has grown old and tiresome, one must admit that it’s compelled a societal discussion of sexual practices involving BDSM that are otherwise not broadly considered. Just because you like to be flogged doesn’t mean that you necessarily imply a preference for humiliation as well.
Early psychoanalysts, such as Sigmund Freud, pathologised BDSM as a mental illness. However, modern research consistently demonstrates that psychologically speaking, recreational BDSM practitioners are largely similar to those who do not engage in BDSM. In fact, some studies have found that BDSM practitioners exhibit lower levels of various disorders, such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, psychological sadism, masochism, borderline pathology, and paranoia. They also tend to be less neurotic, less sensitive to rejection, and more open to new experiences and conscientiousness. Furthermore, practitioners rate their overall well-being higher than non-practitioners.
As we delve deeper into the connection between BDSM, mindfulness, other forms of meditation, and pain, the benefits of BDSM become increasingly apparent, particularly in relation to stress and anxiety reduction. For some individuals, it can even be a transcendent and spiritual experience.
Although the BDSM community is not associated with any specific religious ideology, the practice shares a fundamental commonality with certain spiritual meditation traditions that involve embracing and finding peace and pleasure in pain.

Don’t Yuck Somebody Else’s Ohmmm

Cara Dunkley, a clinical psychologist from the Sexual Health Laboratory at the University of British Columbia, has spent decades researching mindfulness-based meditation training as a treatment for various sexual difficulties. Her work focuses on chronic pain during sex, traumatic triggers, and low libido. According to Dunkley, mindfulness, at its core, involves the ability to focus, sustain, and shift attention. This ability has proven beneficial for improving mood, depression, anxiety, pain, and sexual functioning. Specifically, mindful sex can help individuals redirect their attention away from negative thoughts, memories, physical sensations, and painful stimuli by accepting them without reacting, thus allowing a refocusing on pleasure. General mindfulness-based training has become an accepted treatment for managing various types of chronic pain. Dunkley’s research discovered that applying mindfulness to sex also helped individuals with chronic vaginal pain.
BDSM practitioners possess a unique understanding of how to transform pain into pleasure. Dunkley’s research explores how they achieve this, suggesting several key factors. In 2020, she published the first-ever study on whether BDSM facilitates mindfulness. Although limited in sample size, the study yielded promising results, showing that BDSM practitioners scored higher in traits associated with everyday mindfulness. Observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judgment, and non-reactivity to inner experiences are essential components of mindfulness, and each can be relevant to BDSM.
Practising the principles of mindfulness is crucial for both roles to ensure a positive and safe experience. Subs must be acutely aware of their internal experiences and emotional states during BDSM activities, as well as physical sensations, differentiating between safe pain and potential harm. Doms, on the other hand, must attentively observe the emotional and physical responses of the submissives, employing controlled focus and adjusting their actions accordingly to maintain pleasure.
The mindfulness method of observing refers to the ability to attend to internal and external experiences, like sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Subs must be very aware of their own internal experiences and emotional states in their moment-to-moment response during a BDSM activity and to physical sensations because they need to differentiate between safe pain and pain that could be indicative of real harm. Similarly, Doms must be externally attentive to the emotional and physical responses of the sub through very controlled focus and consciously adjusting their actions accordingly to keep it pleasurable.
The link between BDSM, meditation, and pain extends further. While Dunkley’s research primarily focuses on mindfulness as used in Western scientific research, other studies suggest that BDSM can have a transcendental or even spiritual appeal, similar to other forms of meditation. While numerous types of meditation exist, only a small fraction, such as mindfulness, have been extensively studied in laboratory settings. Some individuals pursue BDSM for sexual arousal, while others seek it for the thrill, deeper connections with partners, and stress relief. Some even approach BDSM for spiritual reasons. In particular, back in 2021, my own research team looked into the altered states of consciousness that BDSM activities can facilitate in both Doms and subs.

Exploring the Spiritual and Cultural Context of BDSM and Pain

For those unfamiliar with the euphoric peace of subspace or the profound connection that can arise between BDSM partners, the correlation between BDSM and spiritual practices may seem far-fetched. However, across different cultures and throughout history, spiritual rituals involving intense pain – some of which mirror common BDSM activities – have been utilised to achieve unity with a higher power or a universal force.
In medieval Christianity, flagellation, including floggings and beatings, was an accepted practice for purification, punishment, and redemption. A paper on “sacred pain” describes the ritual of Kutharatheeb, performed in certain coastal regions of India, where participants are pierced with nails, knives, and sharpened rods to enter a state of “mystical ecstasy… becoming detached from their body and fully focused on the union of their soul with God.” In fact, I’ve personally observed parallels between the relationships individuals in sadomasochistic dynamics have with pain and the psychological and physiological effects of extreme rituals like firewalking and body piercing.
Additionally, certain religious practices and philosophical traditions that centre on meditation intentionally confront pain and suffering. Notably, Buddhist monks who meditate in freezing, wintry Tibetan mountains while wearing ice-soaked wrappings have demonstrated the ability to raise their own body temperatures.
These examples highlight the deep-rooted connection between pain, spirituality, and the pursuit of transcendence across different cultures and spiritual philosophies. While the practices and contexts may differ, there is a common thread of intentionally engaging with pain to reach heightened states of consciousness or spiritual experiences.

Unveiling the Intriguing Link between BDSM and Meditation

What pain can do is focus people on the here and now, put somebody essentially in the present moment, so they’re not necessarily thinking about a deadline that’s coming up next week or any other responsibilities. So it may be that, in a paradoxical way, a normally negative experience of pain can actually, in a context of trust and positivity, turn into something pleasurable or beneficial.
This concept bears similarities to meditation, which allows individuals to escape the burdens of daily stress by enabling them to let go of their identity and obligations, simply existing as a body in the present moment. While BDSM introduces intentional pain to achieve present-moment awareness, it is pain that is welcomed and chosen. This stands in contrast to mindfulness-based therapies used for managing chronic pain, where patients do not elect or control when or how they experience pain. Nevertheless, both practices involve developing the ability to notice, accept, and ultimately release the negative emotions typically associated with pain.
Further research is required to definitively understand how subs experience the floaty, peaceful feeling of subspace. However, Dunkley suggests that a few different areas of the brain indicate a tie between it and mindfulness.
The most substantiated theory points to the similarities between subspace and experiences such as a runner’s high, hallucinogenic drug use, and deep meditation. The hypothesis suggests that during cognitively demanding activities like enduring the pain of long-distance running, less critical areas of the brain become less active.
Scenes involving pain in BDSM might increase the need for additional blood flow to more critical areas of the brain. This leads to blood being directed away from less essential brain regions, such as the part responsible for self-identity. Consequently, self-related thoughts and emotions are suspended, potentially resulting in altered states of consciousness.
If the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning, necessary for completing everyday tasks, shuts down during BDSM, it is understandable why submissives describe subspace as a pleasurable loss of time, reality, and inhibition. This also aligns with another theory explaining the cognitive benefits derived from engaging in submissive BDSM roleplay – it offers a temporary reprieve from the burdens of being a person and all the stresses and responsibilities associated with it.
BDSM can provide subs with temporary relief from the stresses of selfhood. The descriptions of it sound like a wonderful escape from the higher-level processing that we constantly engage in as individuals. The fact that someone may hold a top executive position or be a mother, the various roles that burden a person with numerous responsibilities… These temporary reliefs can potentially result in better overall functioning in other aspects of life.
While the connection between BDSM and meditation is most evident in subspace, Domspace also engages different aspects of mindfulness and spiritual rituals.
Doms need to maintain their mental clarity and abilities to ensure that what they are doing is carried out with appropriate care and safety.
However, the state of flow that I observed in ritual body piercers and Doms in Domspace still requires a strong presence in the moment. Consider the times when you achieve peak performance while engaging in an activity you have mastered, whether it be a video game, your job, or a creative pursuit. Everything else fades away, leaving only you and the task at hand.
Evidence suggests that this complementary Domspace is a mental state involving challenge, skill utilisation, intense concentration, altered sense of time, and loss of self-consciousness. Doms can enter this state during BDSM scenes that require intense mental focus or concentration. Subs may also experience elements of this state, such as intense rhythmic pain sensations.
Both parties are ‘mastering’ pain through these states that exist outside the normal circumstances of everyday life. However, they achieve this mastery in different ways. One does so by entering a headspace that allows them to surrender completely, experiencing physical suffering as depersonalised or even pleasurable. The other enters a headspace by being intensely focused on guiding the other through the experience of pain.
Despite appearances, Doms are not actually “conquering” a submissive, as the sub always maintains control and can immediately end the activity with a safe word. Instead, Doms conquer the unique challenge of being the sub’s guide through the intertwining realms of pain and pleasure.

Exploring the Pleasurable Depths of BDSM: More than just pain

To be clear, there are various other elements of BDSM that contribute to reaching these pleasurable states and may have less correlation to mindfulness and meditation.
Prior to the experience of pain in BDSM, there’s a pre-existing condition involving emotional and interpersonal relationships, a sense of control and volition, memories of past experiences, likely positive ones with that partner or activity, and a sense of security. The convergence of these factors in BDSM, including a positive emotional and interpersonal context, potential neurochemical changes from sexual arousal releasing dopamine and oxytocin, and positive anticipation of pain rather than negative anticipation, may all contribute to altered states of consciousness or mindfulness, which in turn impact how pain is perceived as pleasurable.

The Presence of Spiritual Fulfilment in Unexpected Places

Spiritual fulfilment can manifest in various forms, even those that may seem unconventional to individuals. It is crucial not to judge methods such as BDSM or ritual body piercing when practitioners report experiencing cognitive benefits similar to those obtained through meditation, such as stress reduction, mood improvement, and pain relief.

Caution and Responsible Participation

It is important to exercise caution and carefully consider the responsible participation in pain as a means of stress relief or spiritual transcendence. Dunkley and I both emphasise the necessity of consent, clear boundary negotiation, and adherence to safety protocols in BDSM activities. Without these crucial elements, BDSM activities can be misconstrued as self-harm or torture. It is worth noting that individuals who engage in self-harm through cutting describe similar psychological relief and escape from negative emotions through pain, although psychologists never recommend such behaviour.

Significant Differences and Aftercare

There are significant distinctions between self-harm and consensual BDSM, particularly regarding motivations and after-effects. Unlike non-suicidal self-injury, people engage in BDSM when they’re in positive mood states and feel good about themselves afterwards. Engaging in BDSM as a recreational leisure activity is more akin to blowing off steam at the gym or going for a jog, rather than using it to regulate severe negative emotional states. Recreational sadomasochism can be likened to a deep tissue massage – somewhat painful, yet still pleasurable, relaxing, and enjoyable. In proper BDSM protocol, aftercare is a crucial step where partners who engaged in a scene together emotionally check in on each other, often through cuddling, hugging, and discussing their feelings, ensuring they are okay, and addressing any likes or dislikes that arose during the activity. In contrast, individuals who seek relief through self-harm often report negative feelings about themselves and their actions.

The Importance of Community and Rules

Given the combination of stress relief, spirituality, pleasure, and intentional pain, it is no coincidence that activities like BDSM and spiritual traditions thrive within strong communities with strict rules.

Final Thoughts

Many important questions regarding the connection between BDSM and mindfulness, as well as the relationship between meditation and pain, remain unanswered. However, what remains evident is that meditative peace can be found in various settings – whether seated in the wintry Himalayan mountains, sipping coffee in an office chair, or suspended from bondage ropes in a BDSM dungeon.