Bondage (BDSM)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In the context of BDSM, bondage involves people being tied up or otherwise restrained for pleasure. Bondage is usually, but not always, a sexual practice. The paraphilia of being sexually aroused by bondage is sometimes known as vincilagnia.
Studies in the U.S. have shown that about three quarters of all men find the idea of bondage to be erotic; many women do as well. As with any study of sexual thoughts and behavior, the available studies are not well controlled and the best studies are now out of date.
Bondage philosophy
Perhaps the most interesting and ardent "bondage philosopher" was Michel Foucault. While it is believed Foucault had only a limited personal involvement in the practice of bondage, he wrote a number of intellectual explorations of BDSM culture. He was particularly interested in the power relations that bondage brought to the surface, and how these relations reflected upon a larger societal discourse. Of further interest was the notion of a "Limit Experience", wherein the participant attempted to navigate the line between the most intense pleasure and nearly unbearable pain. While some have derided "Limit Experience" as a perverse manifestation of the Freudian "death instinct", Focault believed bondage could provide a safe and telling environment for studying this concept.
In art
The following works show a fascination with bondage that extends into the domain of the sexual. Two icons in early modern art connected with bondage are Angelica and Andromeda. A male bondage fantasy is that of the Caritas Romana, where the old man Cimon is invariably depicted shackled or bound.
- Rembrandt, Andromeda Chained to the Rocks[1] (1630)
- Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica[2] Ingres (1819), based on Orlando Furioso
- Andromeda[3] by Gustave Doré (c.1869)
- Théodore Chassériau: Andromeda chained to the Rock by the Nereids[4] (1840)
- John Everett Millais' Knight Errant of 1870 saves a Damsel in distress
See also
- BDSM
- Bondage artist
- Bondage cover
- Bondage magazine Template:Nb10
- Bondage model
- Female submission
- Fetish photography
- Sexual fetishism
- Shibari