A Reflection on “Bisexuals and BDSM: Bisexual People in a Pansexual Community”—Ten Years Later (and a Preview of the Next Sexual Revolution)

Abstract

In 2001, a case could be made that though the development of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) and the leather/BDSM communities (BDSM being an acronym standing for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) had been somewhat parallel, the pansexual leather/BDSM community had in many ways become the cutting edge in its acceptance of bisexuals. Ten years later, this article looks at recent developments (especially but not exclusively among younger people) concerning gender, sexual orientation and interest in kink as a form of alternative sexual expression. The author predicts a soon-to-arrive post-GLBT world in which the terms gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender will have faded into irrelevance and in which there will be increased openness to and acceptance of BDSM/fetish/kink activities.