BDSM: A brief History

BDSM – you’re all on my webpage because you like it in some form or another, but do you know your history? Well, today Miss Scarlett is going to give you a bit of a history lesson so listen up, eyes to the front, no note passing and no talking in the back. *Slaps desk with yard stick* Just imagine me with a white blouse on, no bra, a black pencil skirt, nylons, some black heels and a pair of cat eye glasses. I’m your hot ass history teacher for today, so pay attention class.

The earliest known history of BDSM being performed goes all the way back to Mesopotamia (circa 3100 BC bitches) The Middle East 5,000 years ago was getting kinky AF. The fertility Goddess Inanna would whip her subjects while adorned in jewels, making them dance in a sexual frenzy until they were aroused and thrown into an orgy with one another. She was the OG Domme and what a Domme she was. She would crack her whip over them while they fucked all night long. Sounds like my type of party…

The Kama Sutra, which was written in ancient Sanskrit in India and dates back to 400 BCE-200 CE, has sections on how to slap your lover erotically (the where’s and how to’s) and also how to bite each other passionately and where to do the biting to really make it count! Of course, you’d expect the Kama Sutra to pop up in the history of BDSM, how could it not? This raunchy old book of porn teaches you how to bite the throat, armpit and thighs.

It also tells you how to use mouth play in order to spice up your relationship.

“[A woman should] take hold of her lover by the hair, and bend his head down, and kiss his lower lip, and then, being intoxicated with love, she should shut her eyes and bite him in various places […] when her lover shows her any mark that she may have inflicted on his body, she should smile at the sight of it, and turning her face as if she were going to chide him, she should show him with an angry look the marks on her own body that have been made by him. Thus, if men and women act according to each other’s liking, their love for each other will not be lessened even in one hundred years.”

Then we flash forward to 900 BC, Ancient Greece of course, where evidence of ritual flagellation was overseen by a Priestess, both men and women participated in this it seems. We all knew the Greeks were kinky, come on.

Then there is Pompeii, you remember, the city with the people who lay frozen in time in ash from the volcano? A figure after my own heart known as the “whip Mistress” was identified on the wall of the “Villa of Mysteries” – which sounds so cool – to signify the initiation of a young woman into the Mysteries.

In the 15^th century flagellation became super popular, they did this both for ridding themselves of sin and for pleasure. Seems a bit like a double whammy, since pleasure was often thought to be a sin. I can imagine they would whip themselves for pleasure and then whip themselves again for the sin of it. Haha. Though often times it was self-inflicted, there were street walkers (hookers) who were specifically known to carry out special requests and were often sought after for floggings and canings to those looking to spice things up a bit. Usually there was a “John” who carried around a slip of paper with all the names of the Ladies of the Night on it and they had a special marking next to their name if they fulfilled “darker” fantasies or “unusual” requests. This is how one knew if they could ask for a spanking from a certain hooker or not.

It was also common for them to soak their whips in vinegar in the 15^th century. Italian Philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola says there was a monk who could not enjoy his intercourse unless he was lashed with a whip soaked in vinegar first and/or during. I can only imagine the smells were not so pleasing. Ugh…

Let’s move on to the infamous Marquis De Sade who really brought BDSM into the limelight during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, with works like Justine, which was about a woman who is subjected to numerous acts of brutality throughout her lifetime. The term “sadism”, to which we owe to De Sade, was founded on the cruel, erotic, sexual fantasies written by him.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch who wrote Venus in Furs in 1869. The story details the life and obsessions of a man named Severin who desperately wants to be enslaved, punished and made to feel pain by a woman. At one point in the book Severin is whipped until he bleeds and cries, but he thanks the woman after. In another instance, he equates the pain to joy, asking for more lashes from the woman. Sacher-Masoch gave us the term Masochism, which was thought of by Psychiatrist Richard Von Krafft-Ebing, who read Masoch’s work and coined the term, and it stuck.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked, half-shyly, half-timidly.
“No,” I replied, “and even if you had, pains that come through you are a joy. Strike again, if it gives you pleasure.”
“But it doesn’t give me pleasure.”
Again I was seized with that strange intoxication. “Whip me,” I begged, “whip me without mercy.”
Wanda swung the whip, and hit me twice. “Are you satisfied now?”
“No.”
“Seriously, no?”
“Whip me, I beg you, it is a joy to me.”

The novel considered to be England’s first explicit novel, “Fanny Hill” has some 18^th century kink in it as well – this novel, which details the life of orphan Frances “Fanny” Hill, a woman who has intimate exchanges with men and women, works as a prostitute, participates in orgies and witnesses all kinds of things that are said to be “taboo”, are described in very graphic detail. Below is an excerpt –

At last, he twigged me so smartly as to fetch blood in more than one lash: at sight of which he flung down the rod, flew to me, kissed away the starting drops, and sucking the wounds eased a good deal of my pain. But now raising me on my knees, and making me kneel with them straddling wide, that tender part of me, naturally the province of pleasure, not of pain, came in for its share of suffering: for now, eyeing it wistfully, he directed the rod so that the sharp ends of the twigs lighted there, so sensibly, that I could not help wincing, and writhing my limbs with smart; so that my contortions of body must necessarily throw it into infinite variety of postures and points of view, fit to feast the luxury of the eye.

“But still I bore everything without crying out: when presently giving me another pause, he rushed, as it were, on that part whose lips, and roundabout, had felt this cruelty, and by way of reparation, glued his own to them; then he opened, shut, squeezed them, plucked softly the overgrowing moss, and all this in a style of wild passionate rapture and enthusiasm, that expressed excess of pleasure; till betaking himself to the rod again, encouraged by my passiveness, and infuriated with this strange taste of delight, he made my poor posteriors pay for the ungovernableness of it; for now showing them no quarter, the traitor cut me so, that I wanted but little of fainting away, when he gave over. And yet I did not utter one groan, or angry expostulation; but in my heart I resolved nothing so seriously, as never to expose myself again to the like severities.”

With the decline of the Catholic church in the 16^th century, brothels were a hot spot for pleasure and pain in the 18^th century, offering flagellation and other BDSM acts. At one time there was even a machine set up to administer whippings to up to 40 people at a time! I need to get me one of those baby’s! While at another brothel there was the infamous “Spanking Chair” – people were getting all sorts of kinky in old days, and that was at brothels, who knows what was going on behind closed doors in private…

Enter the 20^th century and enter sadomasochism. The 1950s brought on the gay leather craze, fetish cultures, high heels, rope, latex and a plethora of new and kinky things.

Next – Enter Bettie Page. Oh Bettie, you bad bitch. Known by many for a long time as the Queen of BDSM due to her many, many fetish and pin-up photo shoots, she was hot shit back in the day. She owned the fetish scene in the 1950s.

Jump ahead to the 1980s, this is when we start to see things like SSC – Safe, Sane, Consensual pop up into things. Informed consent and safety really became a huge deal in the 80s and things started to change a bit (for the better!) These practices are, of course, fundamental in modern day BDSM.

Established in 1980 was Usenet, which was a message board system, basically, forums. One of them was alt.sex.bondage. the first documented use of the BDSM acronym itself is reported to be from a Usenet posting in 1991. The alt.sex.bondage group became so overwhelmed with spam and useless crap that it eventually spawned alternative social networks and BAM – FetLife was born. *Angels singing*

Here in the 21^st century BDSM continues to grow and expand mostly due to technology and networking. People dive deeper and deeper into it every day. With things like munches and play parties and local Dungeons, it’s far easier to access now than ever before! Not only that, but with Google at your fingertips and websites like this on your radar it’s easy to learn with the click of a button!

Well class – I hope you have enjoyed this little history lesson. Obviously I have not covered EVERY instance of BDSM in history, but I touched upon a lot of them and many of them were important ones, so I hoped you learned a little something and weren’t thinking of my nipples under my white blouse the whole damn time 😉 If you were, make sure to go punish yourself accordingly! *smiles* And think of me while doing it!

Until next time – much love – Mistress Scarlett

Leave me some feels.