USC BDSM club not bound by stereotypes
Trojans have started a club to educate students looking to explore the alternative sexuality made popular by the erotic book series Fifty Shades of Grey.
One of the top-selling points of USC is its plethora of student organizations. More than 850 student-run clubs with a wide range of interests such as athletics, culture, academics, arts, politics and community service, hold countless events throughout the year, including general meetings, lectures, workshops, concerts, philanthropy events, rallies and social events, on and off campus, and all are open to any Trojan.
If students’ interests include exploring their sexuality, they might find themselves at an event hosted by the USC BDSM Club, an official USC organization dedicated to helping “kinky” Trojans who want to learn about the BDSM alternative sexuality and encouraging them to practice safely.
BDSM refers to different kinds of erotic practices that involve power dynamics, bondage and role-play, among other activities. The acronym BDSM stands for bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism. The BDSM lifestyle has recently been thrust into the popular culture spotlight because of the book series — and now film — Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic romance novel by E. L. James.
The BDSM club at USC, however, is mainly focused on education, safety and exploration of the alternative sexuality via discussions, workshops and seminars.
Cherys Fair, one of the club’s founders, said that the idea for starting the club was born out of her own conversations with co-founder Cooper Surrett.
“[In talking with Cooper], I felt like I had permission to be interested in BDSM,” Fair said. “He’s just a normal college student, but he’s also into these things. It made me realize you can do BDSM and not be a freak.”
They discussed the BDSM lifestyle as freshmen and connected over the fact that there was no outlet for those interested in learning about BDSM at USC.
“We spent a long time connecting over the topic, knowing there was no community at USC,” Surrett said. “Eventually we were at a [Queer and Ally Student Assembly] leadership retreat, and the whole idea was to form new groups with QuASA. We eventually decided it would be great to start a potential member org with QuASA because it kind of fit into the queer lifestyle as an alternative sexuality.”
QuASA is under the jurisdiction of Program Board, a branch of Undergraduate Student Government. QuASA currently has seven member organizations, separate clubs at USC that request to be associated with QuASA because of a shared interest in queer issues at USC.
The BDSM club initially chose to be associated with QuASA because their interest is considered to be an alternative sexuality.
As a QuASA member organization, the club hosted a “BDSM 101” panel, which was attended by about 80 students. The group also hosted events such as a discussion about polyamory, or a relationship consisting of more than two people, and a “Make Your Own Flogger” arts and crafts event.
The club disassociated from QuASA for the 2014-2015 school year to focus more on its mission, according to Surrett and Fair, and has since hosted “The Art of Shibari, a hands-on, over-the-clothes rope tying workshop,” which about 60 students attended. The event, which was mostly advertised on Facebook and via fliers with a poster featuring a cartoon of a tied-up girl, featured a professional instructor and promised a “judgment-free environment” and “friendly knowledgeable people” to any interested Trojans, aged 18 and older.
Other than special events such as the workshop, the club concentrates on bi-weekly meetings, known as “munches,” where students can discuss BDSM, kink and fetishes in a judgment-free safe space over snacks. Seven to 10 students currently attend the discussions regularly.
According to Hannah, a member of the club’s executive board who declined to share her last name because she has not yet told her family of her involvement in BDSM, one of the goals of the USC BDSM club is to overcome the stereotypes associated with the lifestyle.
“A lot of people who find out that I’m affiliated with the club say, ‘You don’t look like that kind of person,’” Hannah said. “But I say, ‘What did you expect?’ My experiences meeting people in the Los Angeles community is that these people are doctors and lawyers and they’re in Hollywood, and they’re normal. They’re not covered in tattoos and piercings and wearing leather. They’re normal people.”
Richard Sprott, executive director of CARAS, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the study of alternative sexualities, said that the stigma surrounding the BDSM lifestyle is still quite prevalent despite BDSM’s recent attention in popular culture.
“There is this belief that somehow people are [practicing BDSM] because of abuse,” Sprott said. “Research that is out there does not find that to be the case. The number of people who are abused and doing BDSM is not different the number of people who are abused in the general population. A lot of people do also hear things sometimes from doctors or psychiatrists that there’s something wrong with them, but the research does not support that.”
According to Sprott, 10 to 15 percent of the population expresses an alternative form of sexuality based on studies conducted over the course of 60 years. BDSM is expressed as a fantasy in approximately 23 percent of the population, and it is expressed as a behavior by 10 percent of the population at some point in their lives.
BDSM means different things to different people though, Sprott said. Some people who participate in BDSM are attracted to the power dynamic, while others crave the intense physical sensations that the body produces in reaction to “impact play,” such as flogging and other types of hitting. Others, he said, have certain fetishes surrounding objects or furniture used in BDSM activities. According to Sprott, for some, BDSM is an erotic activity, but does not necessarily involve or lead to sex, a common public misconception, while others treat BDSM as a precursor to sex.
Though people have been engaging in BDSM activities for years, many keep those activities private to avoid judgment or discrimination. Hannah said she has not discussed her participation in the BDSM lifestyle with her parents or any other family members because she feels that they would not be accepting.
“They’re just not on the same page,” Hannah said.
Fair, however, has told her parents that she is involved in BDSM, but no other family members. She said that her mother was initially concerned because she thought BDSM was a “violent, scary thing,” but has not made efforts to prevent Fair from partaking in the BDSM lifestyle.
“I found it a little bit liberating,” Fair said. “To be a public face of this club means I had to face all of that and come to terms with it when I started it. At this point, I can publicly post anything I want on my Facebook page because there’s no one on there, who’s still on there, who would have issues with it. If someone in my circle was taking issue with [BDSM], I either resolved it for them or said this is a thing that’s important to me and if you can’t stop judging me then you don’t need to be here.”
Fair admits, however, that embracing the lifestyle publicly has been challenging and is sometimes awkward. She said, for example, that she posted fliers around campus to advertise for the club’s rope tying workshop one week before the event, but just a couple days later, all the fliers had been taken down. After posting them again just one day before the event, she found that they had all been removed again by the time the event was over.
Hannah said that in order to avoid criticism and preserve the judgment-free space provided by the club, the executive board does their best to keep club activities relatively private. The club maintains a “secret” group on Facebook that members must be invited to join, along with an anonymous Facebook account, which goes by the pseudonym “Tommy Troj,” that is used to advertise events in student groups on the social network. The account’s profile picture is a photo of Tommy Trojan during Rivalry Week, when the statue is wrapped in duct tape.
“Most of my friends have been accepting, but I know there are certain orgs that I’m part of that I can’t publicize the event to [on Facebook] because I would be judged,” Hannah said. “You have to be careful who you tell.”
This judgment, however, seems to be born out of a lack of understanding about BDSM. Fair and Hannah said that Fifty Shades of Grey has perpetuated many misconceptions about the lifestyle and that members of the BDSM community do not typically endorse the books and film.
Fair said that much of the books’ impact has been seen at community “dungeons,” or commercial establishments where BDSM events are held under supervision of staff. She said that after the film was released, dungeons in L.A. were “packed.”
“But people were like, ‘We don’t want these fan girl idiots in here,’” she said.
Hannah said much of the backlash against the books comes from their inaccurate representation of BDSM.
“It definitely promotes certain abusive tendencies,” Hannah said.
Sprott recommends that anyone who is curious about BDSM talk to others involved in the lifestyle and go to classes to learn more.
“The most important thing when it comes to these activities is learning to do them safely,” Sprott said. “This is where having a group can provide some added protection. Generally in my experience the people who don’t have a community have more accidents and get into more trouble.”
Fair agreed that having a place to learn about ways to safely practice BDSM, in addition to learning about communication and consent, is vital to being part of the community.
“You really have trust someone and know them and talk to them before you feel good about playing with them. A lot of communication is involved,” Fair said.
Fair, Surrett and Hannah have many plans to expand the club’s activities. The three hope to organize programing with a counterpart organization at UCLA and involve the club more in Los Angeles’ active BDSM community through mentoring from older members. They also plan to host more events, including a first aid tutorial, a workshop about spanking and another rope tying and bondage seminar; discussions about transgender identity; and more interactive munches in which club members will lead their own discussions.
“If someone finds out that you [like BDSM] and thinks, ‘You don’t look like the kind of person that would do that’ — that’s the point,” Fair said. “It’s something that normal people do and like.”