Leather is thicker than blood: Identity formation among organized SM practitioners in New York City

The organized BDSM community in New York has existed in its present form since the late 1960s. Since that time, it has developed its own set of rituals, customs and modes of dress, which are used to encourage unity and promote a group identity. New people entering this particular subculture, which has taken on neo-tribal overtones, are slowly educated in the ways of the group up to a level commensurate with their abilities and interests, as well as by what is deemed appropriate to their sexual and gender orientation.; In this dissertation I describe the pathways through which individuals learn that the SM community exists, and through which they enter into it. I also describe how this identity becomes inscribed onto the body and mind through clothing and attitudes that allow people to partake of a ‘hidden universe’ that is parallel to, and in some places intersecting with, the larger ‘outside’ world of home, family, and work. I also describe how members learn to hide a potentially damaging identity from others who are uninformed about the realities of the SM world, while still managing to identify other members of the group.; Through the use of excerpts from SM-related material, profiles, and information gleaned through over ten years of fieldwork, I am attempting to do what others who have studied this subculture have never done before—to explicate the full scope of identity formation within organized SM culture in the New York City area. Using the classical ethnographic method of spending years in the field with informants under all kinds of circumstances, I hope to have provided as full a picture as possible of gay, lesbian, and straight SM subsets within the New York area between the years of 1991 and 2000.