Abstract
Giving and receiving pain are common in the practice of BDSM (bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, and sadism-masochism). Playing a submissive role during BDSM practice weakens both the behavioral and neural empathic responses of female individuals to others' suffering, suggesting that long-term BDSM experience affects BDSM practitioners' empathic ability. This study further investigates whether physical restriction during BDSM practice also modulates individuals' neural responses to others' suffering. We measured neural responses to others' suffering by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) in female submissives while they viewed painful and neutral expressions in sexual sadistic/general social contexts under ball gag Blocking and Relaxed conditions. The neural responses recorded during 92–112 ms (N1), 132–172 ms (P2), 200–340 ms (N2), early late positive potential (LPP, 400–600 ms), and late LPP (700–1,000 ms) were included in the analyses. Compared to the relaxed condition, when a ball gag was used to prevent facial muscle movement and facial mimicry, the N1, early LPP, and late LPP responses neural responses to others' suffering were inhibited. The moderation effect of ball gag blocking on the N1 and early LPP amplitudes was positively correlated with the subjective feelings of facial muscle stillness, and the blocking moderation effect on the late LPP amplitudes was positively correlated with subjective feelings of humiliation. This study is the first neuropsychological investigation of the transient BDSM-related physical restriction effects on BDSM practitioners. These findings suggest that physical restriction (via a ball gag) during BDSM practices increases the wearer's facial muscle stillness and sense of humiliation. This physical restriction inhibits both early automatic responses and late controlled processes in response to the suffering of others.
Highlights
BDSM, which is a combination of the abbreviations B/D, D/S, and S/M (Fedoroff, 2008), is common in all social segments and is practiced by both homosexual and heterosexual individuals
We found that female submissives showed lower trait empathy scores and subjective pain intensity ratings than the controls; the empathy trait in male BDSM practitioners did not significantly differ from that in the control group (Luo and Zhang, 2017)
The first criterion for choosing the BDSM practitioners was that their answers to the following two questions were “yes”: Do you like BDSM practices? Have you ever engaged in BDSM practices? We divided the BDSM practitioners into the dominant group (Doms), switch group (Switches), or submissive group (Subs) based on their subjective reports of their roles
Summary
BDSM, which is a combination of the abbreviations B/D (bondage and discipline), D/S (dominance and submission), and S/M (sadism and masochism) (Fedoroff, 2008), is common in all social segments and is practiced by both homosexual and heterosexual individuals. Many BDSM practices involve the exchange of physical or emotional pain (Wismeijer and van Assen, 2013). Frequent exposure to paininflicting situations affects individuals’ pain perception and influences their perception of the pain of others (Cheng et al, 2007). These subjective responses to other people’s suffering, known as empathy for pain (Batson, 2011), play a key role in prosocial behavior and function abnormally in multiple disorders, such as psychopathy and borderline personality disorder (Soderstrom, 2003; de Waal, 2008; Harari et al, 2010). Event-related potential (ERP) studies have revealed that compared to non-painful stimuli, the perception of painful stimuli applied to others modulates the amplitudes of both the early and late ERP components in the frontocentral and centroparietal areas (Decety et al, 2010; Sheng and Han, 2012; Han et al, 2016)
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