Overview

Representations of consensual sadomasochism range from the dark, seedy undergrounds of crime thrillers to the fetishized pornographic images of sitcoms and erotica. In this pathbreaking book, ethnographer Staci Newmahr delves into the social space of a public, pansexual SM community to understand sadomasochism from the inside out. Based on four years of in-depth and immersive participant observation, she juxtaposes her experiences in the field with the life stories of community members, providing a richly detailed portrait of SM as a social space in which experiences of ""violence"" intersect with experiences of the erotic. She shows that SM is a recreational and deeply gendered risk-taking endeavor, through which participants negotiate boundaries between chaos and order. Playing on the Edge challenges our assumptions about sadomasochism, sexuality, eroticism, and emotional experience, exploring what we mean by intimacy, and how, exactly, we achieve it.

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9780253222855

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Reviews

Newmahr's decisions to use passages of creative representation to convey 'felt' experiences, as well as to use her own body as an instrument of intellectual inquiry to such an extent, bring a sense of depth and presence to the book that is often sorely lacking in such work. Katherine Frank, author of G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire A fascinating, well-written, carefully researched book that illuminates a subculture about which we know very little... Never before have we had research that is so close to the community, that allows us inside this community's behavior, rationalizations, understandings, and lived experiences. Patricia Adler, co-author of Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction An important contribution to the fields of crime/deviance and sexuality. Leon Anderson, author of Deviance: Social Constructions and Blurred Boundaries

Author Information

Staci Newmahr is an ethnographer. Her work plays with intersections of risk, eroticism, and gender. She is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology at Buffalo State College.

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