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.Įarly psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud categorized BDSM as nothing short of a mental illness. To the uninitiated, it's easy to discount BDSM as salacious, or even deranged and dangerous. Evidence is starting to support what many practitioners already innately knew: BDSM can be powerfully meditative, with positive psychological effects that go far beyond just sexual satisfaction.
Though in its nascent stages, BDSM research is finding similarities between BDSM and mindfulness and other forms of meditation, especially in the context of heightened awareness and relaxing altered states of mind. These probably aren't the kind of activities you associate with meditation and mindfulness, let alone spirituality.īut if you ask those who practice consensual BDSM (meaning bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism) - along with the researchers who study it and mindful sex - a connection between these seemingly disparate practices actually makes a lot of sense.
Whips, handcuffs, blindfolds, ropes, flogging, spanking. Because even in the time of coronavirus, March doesn't have to be madness.
#THE SIMS 3 KINKY WORLD DOMINATION AND SUBMISSION SERIES#
March Mindfulness is Mashable's series that examines the intersection of meditation practice and technology.