On August 7, 2020, Sex and Psychology published "3 Reasons People Engage in Sexual Sadism and Masochism." The column's three reasons stay on that page. This article does not invent them as paper results and does not print a study table. Separately, in ordinary language, some adults talk about sensation, power, and intimacy as possibilities. Those are ways people sometimes describe their own motives. They are not a claim that the August 7 column measured them, ranked them, or proved them.
Keep the column's three on the column
- Do not memorize three reasons and attribute them to a study you are not looking at.
- Sensation, power, and intimacy are conversation, not a results table from this page.
- A motive is not consent. The other adult can decline every reason you offer.
- Do not merge this post with the July 27, 2020 list of eight draws toward kink.
- This page does not teach choking, breath play, fire, needles, suspension, or sleep sex.
Two August-season columns, not one
July 27, 2020 asked about eight things that draw people to kink. August 7, 2020 asked about three reasons for sexual sadism and masochism. The topics rhyme. The posts are not duplicates. If you cite motives, say which date. If you only have a foggy memory of "a list of reasons," you do not yet have a citation. Open the page that matches the question. Leave the other page closed until you need it.
Sadism and masochism, in this practical article, mean giving or receiving pain, intensity, or power inside an adult agreement. That working definition is for negotiation. It is not a reprint of the column's definitions, and it is not a clinical diagnosis. Consensual BDSM is not by itself a paraphilic disorder in the DSM. Disorder requires distress or harm, including nonconsent. If you want the column's three reasons, use the link. If you want to play, use words the other person can accept or refuse.
Sensation, as a possibility people report
Some adults say they want a strong body sensation: sting, thud, heat, pressure, or the focus that arrives when a feeling is hard to ignore. They are describing a want, not publishing a finding. This page does not claim a study counted how often sensation is the lead motive. If that count exists in the August 7 column, it stays there. Your job, if sensation is your want, is to name the sensation in negotiation.
Name the tool and the area. Say whether you want sting or thud if you know the difference in your own body, and admit it if you do not. Keep one new act. Stop on numbness. A sensation that becomes numb, dizzy, or frightening is no longer the sensation you asked for. Impact is not choking. Do not "intensify" a spanking by restricting breath. Masochism in plain language can help you find words. It will not choose the tool for you, and it will not make the other adult available.
Power, as a possibility people report
Some adults say the draw is power: giving orders, following them, holding responsibility, or setting it down for an agreed time. Again, this is a report you may hear from people, including from yourself. It is not a table in this article, and it is not automatically one of the column's three. Power in a scene is pretend only to the extent you both keep the right to end it. If the power continues over money, housing, friends, or medical care without a separate sober agreement, you are no longer describing a scene. You may be describing control you did not want.
Negotiate power in plain tasks. "You pick the music and the pace for this impact, and I can stop it with this word." "I will do these two service tasks and then we are done." Open-ended power with no review is how people get stuck. Consent practices prefer a window: a start, a stop, and a moment after where both of you are peers again. If a partner says your need for power means they cannot refuse, leave. Call 1-800-799-7233 if you are not safe. Partner abuse in kink communities is the relevant guide.
Intimacy, as a possibility people report
Some adults say pain or power makes them feel close: attended to, trusted, or known. Intimacy is a hope, not a guarantee, and not a finding this page will quantify. A scene can feel distant. A scene can fail. Closeness can also arrive in a conversation with no play at all. Do not treat intimacy as something you are owed because you were vulnerable enough to name a motive.
Trust is built by doing what you said: stopping, staying inside the area, telling the truth the next day. It is not built by enduring past a limit to prove love. If you want intimacy, you can ask for a check-in, a debrief, or time together after. You cannot demand it through more intensity. Sex may be part of that closeness or absent from it. BDSM is not always sex. Say which version you mean.
Motives can mix, and they can be absent
A person might care about sensation and not about power. Another might want a power exchange with almost no pain. Another might want closeness and use a very mild ritual to get there. Another might not recognize any of these three and still have a consensual practice. Absence from this informal list does not make someone confused. The list is not an exam. The column's three, which may differ, are not an exam either.
You do not have to pick a motive before you are allowed to negotiate. "I want to try this and I am not sure which story fits" is allowed. What is not allowed is skipping the story and also skipping the specifics. Tool, area, time, stop, sex or no sex. Beginner myths say a real masochist does not need those details. That myth protects the person who does not want to be told no.
A reason is still not access
Whether the reason is sensation, power, intimacy, or an item you read on August 7, 2020, it does not create a right to a partner's body. They can find your reason understandable and still refuse the act. They can share the reason and still refuse tonight. Orientation and leisure do not change the math. Identity is not a coupon.
Do not quiz a partner until they produce a motive you find acceptable. "Why do you want this" can be curious, or it can be a trap that delays their no. Accept "because I do" and "I do not" as complete. Then either plan the act or do not. Adults only. Minors never participate, and you never explore these motives with them. That talk is not harmless, and it is not a conversation you have with minors at all.
Care, when the why hurts
Sometimes the question "why do I want this" is mixed with fear, trauma, or disgust. A column will not settle that mix. If you are in crisis, call or text 988. A kink-aware therapist can hear the question without requiring you to stage an answer. You can want sensation and still need help for depression. The want is not the treatment, and the treatment is not a verdict on the want.
If play already happened and you are injured, numb, or frightened, seek medical care or a trusted person first. Do not return to a motive essay to decide whether your reaction is valid. Reactions are information. A stop that came late is a reason to pause for a long time, not a reason to prove you are brave next weekend.
How to talk about why without faking a paper
Use a frame that cannot be mistaken for a citation. "I have heard people talk about sensation, power, and intimacy. I am not saying a study ranked them. The August 7, 2020 column has its own three reasons, and I will send the link instead of pretending I remember them." That frame is longer than a slogan. It is also honest. Honesty is the point of refusing invented results.
If you are writing a class handout, put the link in the header and put the practical motives in a box labeled "not the column's list." Students can learn both the discipline of citation and the discipline of negotiation. They should not graduate thinking three conversation words were a table of findings. If a later paper does study motives, it will have its own date, and it will not be this article.
A practical close
Read the August 7, 2020 column for its three reasons. Do not rebuild them here. If you need language for your own wants, you may consider sensation, power, and intimacy as possibilities people report, and you must say that is all they are. Then negotiate the act, or do not do the act.
Keep the July 27 eight-item column separate. Keep minors out. Keep choking out of this lesson. Keep 988 and 1-800-799-7233 in reach if the why has turned into crisis or abuse. A reason can explain a conversation. It cannot justify a hand that was not invited.
Before you play from any motive, write one sentence that would still make sense if the motive changed. "Hand, over jeans, five minutes, no sex, stop word red." That sentence does not say sensation, power, or intimacy. It says what will happen to a body. If you cannot write it, you are still in the why, and the why is not ready to become action. Stay with the why as long as you need. The August 7, 2020 column will not expire while you think, and neither will the other adult's right to hear a plan instead of a theory. Bring the plan. Leave the table of reasons on the site that actually published it.