T'is the season for surprises. This week I got one of the best surprises you can get: a book contract for a project I had *kind-of* forgotten about. Now, don't get me wrong. I think the book, on Monsters, is a great project. I love everything about it.…
Rediscovering my roots in Cultural Analysis First, a bit of a backstory. I got my Master's degree in Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam three years ago. This program, this "discipline", was developed by Mieke Bal. Though I never had a conversation with her, by my professors…
BDSM and Religionor: the power of a well-timed CfP For some projects, it seems like the stars align. Though I've always been interested in religious topics, I had never found a way to combine religion with my BDSM research in a productive way. I had read some interesting…
If you want to stay up-to-date on the BDSM blogosphere, you should check out Elust. In their monthly post they feature some of the most interesting bloggers on the net. Below, find the 130th edition, in which my own "fantasy reality" blogpost is mentioned! Welcome toElust 130- The…
Healing narratives and BDSM discourses When I attended the 2019 Kink conference in Prague (see my take on this conference in this post) I first presented some ideas on the "healing narratives" in BDSM discourse. I had read Barker, Gupta and Iantaffi's chapter in the edited volume Safe,…
Fantastical BDSM"But how is it real?" If you ask me, one of the most interesting things BDSM theorists can concern themselves with is the fantasy-reality dichotomy. This problem is at the core of how BDSM participants communicate about their practices, and I have yet to see a satisfying…
2nd Annual Kink Conference photo: Jeremy Vaughan Photography On the 7th and 8th of March 2020, Progressive Connexions organized a conference in Prague on Kink and the Erotic. And, as you can imagine, it was absolutely amazing. In this post, I will give you some of the highlights…
BDSM and Affect Theory:"But how about feeling?" One of the most obvious and overlooked connections in BDSM studies, is the one with Affect Theory. This field's focus on relations of influence, power and emotion seems to overlap perfectly with the qualities of BDSM phenomena. However, you'd be hard-pressed…
When I was still a young and naïve budding BDSM researcher, I did not know where to start reading. Over the decades, countless researchers from a variety of disciplines have written so much on the topic! And as there is not yet a "field" to speak of, there…
VSSM Research As it is almost spring, let me tell you a story of an Easter egg. Once upon a time (about a month ago), I was reading a kink book. Yes, I know, it's surprising. Well, in that book, my eye fell on a footnote. And in…