Stereo-Typed 12 - Purposeful Pain: A Comparison of BDSM Participants and Individuals who Engage in Non-Suicidal Self-Injury

Anyone who engages in consensual masochism has probably encountered someone with the bias that those of us who enjoy receiving pain are actually engaging in self-harm by proxy, or that we are reenacting some sort of trauma from our past. This may be true for some people, but as a masochist who has a history of non-suicidal self-injury and childhood (physical) abuse, I know that what motivates me to engage in masochistic activities differs from why I engage in self-injury. I do not engage in BDSM because I am trying to overcome a past trauma, or harbour some latent desire to be abused. I know that what I experience when I am cuffed to a cross is not the same as when I scratch (my NSSI behaviour of compulsion). My mental state is very different when I engage in either activity. However, the association between BDSM masochistic interest and non-suicidal self-injury exists and it is still something that I encounter in clinical settings, even with the recent changes to the Mental Health Bible. As I said in