Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy - Pasta blanda

Representations of consensual sadomasochism range from the dark, seedyundergrounds of crime thrillers to the fetishized pornographic images of sitcoms anderotica. In this pathbreaking book, ethnographer Staci Newmahr delves into thesocial space of a public, pansexual SM community to understand sadomasochism fromthe inside out. Based on four years of in-depth and immersive participantobservation, she juxtaposes her experiences in the field with the life stories ofcommunity members, providing a richly detailed portrait of SM as a social space inwhich 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 onthe Edge challenges our assumptions about sadomasochism, sexuality, eroticism, andemotional experience, exploring what we mean by intimacy, and how, exactly, weachieve it.