Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people are explorers, creators, and trailblazers when it comes to sexuality, gender, and family in our culture. The acknowledgement of our presence is sometimes radical for the larger culture, even when all we want to do is enjoy the same chance at a happy, fulfilling life as anyone who is not LGBT. Given that we often are outside and at the edges, it is not a surprise that some of us explore other aspects of sexuality. I'm talking here about two things in particular: leather/BDSM/kink sexuality, and polyamory and other forms of consensual non-monogamy.
There is a significant stigma attached to leather/kink sexual identities. BDSM activities are subject to legal sanctions – two fully consenting adults can still be prosecuted for assault and battery, or other charges, in many parts of the country. People experience loss of jobs, loss of children, or loss of family because they express their sexuality in safe, sane, and consensual ways. Doctors, psychiatrists and other professionals in health care can mislabel people as mentally ill because of these sexual practices and sexual identities. Even within the LGBT community, people with leather/kink sexual identities are not always treated with respect.
There is also a significant stigma attached to consensual non-monogamy. People who have open relationships, or multiple committed relationships, or create other forms of families that do not follow the monogamy paradigm of the larger culture are often sanctioned by the larger culture. Their ability to commit is questioned; their difference in forming relationships is seen as a symptom of some unresolved emotional trauma or deficiency in character. Even within the LGBT community, people who practice consensual non-monogamy are not always treated with respect.
A lot of the stigma and prejudice is due to ignorance. Where there is ignorance, people and institutions will fill in details based on unfounded assumptions – assumptions that the different family structure or the different sexual identity is immoral, dysfunctional, sick or just wrong. The LGBT community knows this happens; we know it in our bones.
The antidote to ignorance is knowledge. The LGBT community also knows that coming out and letting people know us changes prejudicial attitudes, views, and beliefs. But sometimes we need a more powerful antidote – scientific knowledge, born of careful and thoughtful observations, comprised of ideas grounded in facts. When it comes to leather and polyamory, we need scientific knowledge in order to speak with authority about questions of mental health.
When working with any vulnerable community, it is important to make sure that the population under study has a voice in scientific investigation. These community-based research efforts come in many forms, but the idea is that the people being studied have a say in how the research is conducted, and have a stake in making sure the results actually benefit the community as a whole. This idea of a true partnership between academics and the BDSM and poly communities is the foundation for a new effort: the Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities.
CARAS is dedicated to the support and promotion of excellence in the study of alternative sexualities, and the dissemination of research results to members of alternative sexuality and research communities and to the general public. We use the loose term "alternative sexuality" because we don't want to limit or prejudge what counts as sexual identities or communities – however, we only work in areas where we have community support and expertise. Right now, that is the leather community and our developing connections to the poly community.
One source of inspiration for the idea of CARAS comes from queer history – the research studies of Evelyn Hooker, Ph.D. Hooker published the first empirical research that tested the dominant psychiatric viewpoint that homosexuality was a mental illness – her results showed no difference in mental health between straight and gay men in the general population (previous studies had relied on comparing gay men in mental institutions or incarcerated gay men to heterosexual men – because institutionalized gay men were the only gay men these researchers could get access to). Eventually her research findings were a powerful part of the decision by the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder in the official manual for diagnosing mental illness.
Why is research on consensual non-monogamy and on leather/kink sexuality important to the larger LGBT community? It is important because some in our community practice BDSM and practice polyamory. They are part of us; we explorers are part of the great diversity of the LGBT community. There is another important reason, though. BDSM and consensual non-monogamy cut across sexual orientation. These aspects of sexuality and models of family allow the LGBT community to build bridges to straight communities. BDSM and polyamory are foundations to build strong coalitions around the larger concepts of sexual freedom, human rights, and the ideal of dignity for all people.
In this day and age, we still grapple with the tactic used by those who war against sexuality – the tactic of using images of leathermen and leatherwomen to argue against all LGBT people, the tactic of using polyamory or consensual non-monogamy to argue against marriage equality or acknowledgement of our families as "real" families. How do we respond? I invite all of us to respond with the facts, with knowledge based on science. I invite all of us to support research on polyamory and BDSM sexuality.
Richard A. Sprott, Ph.D., is the executive director of Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities. More information is available at http://www.caras.ws.