Bound to be Free - On India's BDSM community

Bound to be Free

Bound to be Free

Chinki Sinha

New Delhi

On the bed of stones she lay for a long time. Ants bit into her skin, but she wouldn't move, or even scratch herself. She was forbidden to. In this time and space, she had consented to give up her freedom of choice.

He had told her to not move until a butterfly came and sat on her body.

It must have been an hour. Maybe more. She can't tell. But finally a butterfly landed on her. She had completed her task. There were more orders from the man she refers to as Huzoor. Tasks given to a sub by the dom. A game of power, a way of entering the fantasyland. Sex could be part of it. Sessions could be online or offline. There could be multiple partners. The realm of desire is unbound. Fantasies could be outrageous to many. It could mean subversion, or perversion.

It was behind a cottage on top of a hill somewhere in Karnataka. They had gone for a session there. They met soon after she joined the BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism) community, and was referred to him by a friend. She knew he would take her on many journeys.

"It was a beautiful place," Parvati (name changed) says. “He was watching me all the time. I had surrendered to him.”

She is 49. She has fought for many causes. She is a feminist, an activist, and many other things. But she won't judge herself for her fantasies. Those exist in a different realm. A place where desire is supreme. Fantasies could convert into reality. Perhaps only for a short while. Almost nothing is taboo, and pain is sought after.

But unicorns aren't so outwardly. They have a reference in reality. They have the bodies of horses. Only an imposition of a sole horn is the only fantastical element, I say.

“It is fantasy within reality,” Parvati says, and smiles.

Parvati had been eager when she first joined the underground online community. She was called a 'slut' because she was lusting for experience. It isn't about who you 'play' with. The people are mediums. The psychic space where you want to be is what matters to her, she says.

She has never bothered about personalities. The person would cease to matter in that moment. Beyond a few questions, she would not want to seek more details. Nor divulge more. For the adventurous, the journey mattered.

"Take me on a journey," she says. “Push my limits.”

When a man told her "I love you" while they were in the middle of a session, she didn't know how she would handle it. For long, love was kept out of the community's interactions. That he was playing with her mind is what she eventually figured. He vanished, but she is now thinking about love and kink reality. Why is love kept out of role play?

"Because love is love. It is up there," she says. “It is sacrosanct. There are many in the community who are in love, many more who want to be in love. But now some of us are discussing this. Perhaps love can be part of role play."

On one of the walls at her house, there is a painting by Baaraan Ijlal, a Delhi-based painter. A man, who is wearing a coat, and sports a moustache, is holding a kneeling man in a public toilet. There could be a lot of ways to tap into the layers of this painting. The man in submission is poor. His shirt sleeves are torn, and his eyes are open wide, almost in wonderment. The other man is bending with his eyes closed, holding the poor man gently. Domination and submission. The rich and the poor. A man with another man. The urinal in the background, and the tiled wall of a public toilet are part of the plot.

“Isn't that interesting,” Parvati says. “It is about us. Hence, it is here.”

One of the major issues with BDSM is its inherent lack of equality. In India, it is a stigma. Some perceive it as a psychological disorder. In such a lifestyle, there is a master or a mistress, and there is a slave. There is dominance, and there is submission. Choice, freedom, and other such things are willingly suspended. That you could get hurt is a possibility, although according to Parvati, this is extremely rare given the care taken about safety. Besides, in this ritualistic space, consent is important. There are safe words, and limits are discussed before a session.

***

Pain is real. Everything else could be fantasy. But there are contracts. Written or spoken. The problems of the 'vanilla' (a term used to denote everything non BDSM) world don't exist here. But discussions about kink exist in a small space. Its education and its articulation, a few would say, is an elitist activity in India. Because so many still aren't online. They aren't part of networks. They don't have access to the community.

Yet, Parvati, says she believes everyone is kinky.

“Love bites are an expression of kink,” she says.

***

When Parvati, one of the spokespersons for the Kinky Collective, speaks, her eyes have a faraway look to them. As if she didn't exist in the time and place. A cigarette dangling from her hands, she embarks on a journey of her experiences that she equates to junoon, a state of intensity where surrender and collapse is a spiritual experience. One that eluded her for so long.

“Intensity is when nothing else matters,” she says. “It is about timelessness. It is not the pain. It is about surrender. The intensity has been enabled by this person but they don't matter in the end.”

She says she is a late bloomer. At 35, she heard a young woman articulate about the rights of the LGBT community, and instantly fell in 'lust' (not love she clarifies) with her. She chased her. They had a relationship. At 46, she figured she was kinky, she says.

That evening, she isn't feeling well. It is getting cold in the city already. Wrapped in a shawl, she slumps in a sofa, an ashtray by her side. The photo exhibition called Bound to be Free, a first in India by the Kinky Collective, is now on its way to other cities. They dared to do it because creating awareness and dispelling myths about BDSM is important for a lot of reasons.

***

Around five years ago, Parvati was in Brighton with her girl friend and other friends, and they decided to go to a fetish ball. The party, her first such event, was in a basement club, and she was cold. They hadn't turned on the heaters to save on the costs. They were huddled together when man walked in with two women. They were gorgeous. The man sat in a couch near her. The other woman sat next to him, and the third sat on the floor, and rested her head on the man's lap. Then, on the woman's thighs. Her face didn't twitch. It bore no signs of humiliation. It was a deeply moving sight, like poetry. The power flow was interesting.

She was watching them. The expression on the woman's face as she lay her head on the man's lap as he began to pat her was peaceful. As if she was in complete surrender. She was his pet. Beer had spilled on the floor. The man took off his coat and spread it on the floor so she wouldn't get wet.

“That was surreal,” she says. “Loss of dignity. That's what so haunting about it.”

The collapse of ego, the beauty of surrender, she adds.

We are at a friend's house. There is a bottle of wine, and she is comfortable talking. That image stayed with her. She would have her first BDSM session much later.

“Everyone has a fetish,” she says.

But these are difficult conversations. She is nervous about me. I am an outsider, and I have already made my first error. I asked her about the 'paraphernalia.”

“We don't call it that. Those are tools,” she says. “You are welcome to see those. It is about the mastery of senses.”

But BDSM isn't just about tools, and costumes, and role plays. Those are just stereotypical notions. It's not about sex even.

***

At the Abadi Art Gallery in a tucked-away lane in Lado Sarai, there are 40 photographs on display. These have been taken by members of the community. Much could be tagged as BDSM stereotypes – stilettos digging into a man's throat, blindfolds, whips and bodies, melting wax, leashes, and other such representations.

The point is to shatter the notion that BDSM as anti-women and misogynist.

There are women Dominants. There are male Submissives. It is essentially about power flow, she says. Gender isn't of consequence here.

In a hazy photograph, she drinks milk from a bowl. Someone says that's the reward. There are rituals, he says.

There's more to it. She was playing the role of a dominant's puppy. She is in other photos. As a domme (a female dominant), with her stillettos digging into a man's throat. In another, she has her feet on top of a man, who has prostrated himself. A cigarette in her hand, she is laughing.

There are other photos. It is just a hall with a small terrace. These photos aren't every explicit. They aren't shocking. But for the uninitiated, it is all very strange. Almost surreal to know that those that are in the photographs are in the room. That it is not a still from a movie. That reality ad fantasy can co-exist.

Like the face of a woman wrapped in cellophane. Or the dog collar in a woman's neck in a car. This is in Delhi. Because beyond the dog collar, you could spot a CNG auto rickshaw. There is one of a man with wax being poured on his back. Pleasure in pain.

“No gain without pain,” someone says, and chuckles. 

For many, it is erotica. It is what turns them on. That it is. But it much more than that, I am told.

There is a cage, and a woman's steel heels, and a whip in a picture. There is a man inside the cage. You can't see him. But the heels are in focus, and so is the whip.

I later see the cage at her place. She has two dogs. At one of the collective's gatherings, they had played a game. It was just for fun, and a man had gone inside the cage. It hadn't been easy. It meant squeezing oneself into a cage on all fours over iron mesh.

Outside on the terrace of the art gallery, Parvati sits dressed in a black skirt, and black stockings. This is the first time in the country that a kinky photo exhibition is being held. The photographs have been taken by the members of the community. It is a traveling exhibition and will be shown at Bangalore, and Kolkata among other cities.

Over 150 people came for the exhibition, she says, but not hardly any from the community. In fact other than the organizers, only six have come from the community.

“They are afraid,” she says.

For three days, the photos hang in this space. It is not easy to be seen in this space. Associations of a wrong kind in a society that doesn't understand such fantasies can belong to those that live routine lives, go to work, have families, and do everything else.

***

The fact that Parvati can speak about the collective, and their photo exhibit is a liberating feeling for her. There is a certain relief in coming out. Like when she figured she wanted a woman.

“I would think about her, and it was like my bed was on fire,” she says. “I had to come out to my mother. This had to be the bravest thing I had done, and I moved out of the house. People are very paranoid about the media. There is a history of fear in the BDSM community,” she says.

But perhaps now is the time for Kink (even if not kinksters) to come out of the closet, she says.

Fifty Shades of Grey, with all its pathologization, broke the silence about kink. But she and other members of the community in Delhi had burnt the book at a fund raiser party for the exhibition. A photo with the shreds of the book and rose petals hang at the exhibition.

“BDSM is about consent. Consent is sacred. We have rules,” she says.

At workshops which can be held only in people's homes, the members meet to discuss issues, and to do skill sessions – training in wax play, whipping, or tying with rope. You can't whip in the stomach. That could hurt someone, she says. Certain things are off limits. Like paedophilia.

“But isn't that desire?” someone says.

“Where is the consent there?” she responds.

It is not only about dispelling myths, she clarifies.

“Those outside the community can learn from us about consent. As someone who has been part of the women's movement for 30 years and fought against violence against women, I have learnt a lot about consent after joining the BDSM community in which consent is not assumed, it is proactively sought and given, negotiated. Even more importantly, what makes it powerful and real, is that it can be withdrawn instantly and unconditionally. Limits are spoken about, and they are pushed.”

Parvati doesn't like the term 'lifestyle' because she has never been comfortable with labels. BDSM community, she says, is an often misunderstood sexuality. Much like the LGBT community.

“I feel differently about identity. Everyone has experienced power in sex, the wrist being held if even for a moment, or rough sex.... I believe this is a sexual orientation,” she says.

Whether the time is approaching when kinksters can come out, not be branded as perverts, and not be forced to lead double lives, is hard to say. This is their first photo exhibit. The collective has only 21 members. There is an online underground community, but not many see it belonging to a realm or even needing activism.

***

After joining the online BDSM community, Parvati went out into the garden at her mother's house. She had stayed the night over, and there was a tall iron grill, and a creeper wrapped itself around the grills. She went out in the morning, placed her hand on the arrow-shaped grill, and stood there. Thereafter, she took a photo, and that was her profile photo on the networking site for a long time. She says she felt like the vine – dependent.

That she is a feminist, and an activist is incidental. She is that and this. It is not as if that is reality and this is fantasy, she says.

“This too is real, but it's my erotic reality...” she says.

And in that spectrum, she lives. Shuttling between this and that.

For her, the magic happens when she plays with intensity. She says it is much like Hindustani classical singing which she is learning. It has discipline, and that allows for creativity.

“When I first came into this, I was a sub in a hurry,” she says. My friends in the community told me to slow down so I did. But after I met the first dominant who I knew I could trust and within 12 days, I was on my way to Rishikesh for a session. It is about trust and faith. That we have in abundance.”

While there are safe words and defined limits, Parvati says she usually doesn't play with too many limits. One that is not negotiable is that she wouldn't eat meat.

As she stubs yet another cigarette, she speaks about one her most intense journeys of pain. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's dhamal played in the background.

“It was all very hypnotic. My dom (short for Dominant) in that session was a sadist and very experienced. In my journey of pain, I went into a kind of space that was trance like. In the community, we call it the sub space,” she explains.

She defines this space as consisting of nothingness.

“It is still and calm. I didn't want him there then. In my state of collapse, I wanted to be alone,” she says.

But she insists that aftercare is very important in the community. That's one of the things they speak about in their meetings.

Is there pleasure after all?

“For me, its difficult to call it pleasure. It is just the pain, and the intensity of the moment. It is not that I don't dread these sessions. Yet if the whipping stops, I am disappointed,” she says. “I am definitely turned on.”

Parvati has a reason beyond the terminology and articulation of BDSM.

“I want to cease to exist,” she says. “That is the only thing in life,” she says. “It is a spiritual journey to me. It didn't happen with meditation. We are just mediums for power flow. It is like singing. How to best let the notes flow. It is the trance.”

Some of her sessions were very ritualistic. Some pushed her own boundaries in a way that she felt liberated in the end.

Like after one of the sessions, a dom asked her to send him her photos everyday. She felt the fear. She was never comfortable taking her own photos, but she did.

“That's how a dom understands you. They release you, empower you,” she says.

With another dominant, it was about dancing. He asked her to do a striptease in front of him. She rehearsed, wore a pink sari, and danced to the beats of a song from Bollywood.

“It is wonderful to not have a choice,” she says. “If I am a good sub, I will let you take me on any journey.”

***

Much of reality is fantasy, she says. She is reserved, and speaks softly. It is like she has measured her words, and then doles them out one by one.

“BDSM helps me to distill out parts of fantasy within reality,” she says. “I long for a daddy figure. But it isn't incest. It is not about debunking my feminism. The fantasy here is about unconditional love. That daddy doesn't exist. Even if he did, he couldn't rule me in that way. In my BDSM, I want it. I can even get it.”

But kink isn't a new deal.

“You only have to look at the kamasutra. The articulation of it could be. But speaking about such issues requires courage of a different kind,” she says.

Even in her own work in rural areas, she knows she can't speak about it.

She can talk about instances where she knows of people in lower middle-class settings who are kinky. But for now, those are off limits. Maybe there will be a time when there would be open conversations. For now, it is best to tread slowly. It is not elitism, she intervenes.

In one of the sessions, her ear drum was injured. She was told to tell the doctor it happened because she fell down. But she had wanted to tell the truth. But it could have been misconstrued.

“We want to speak to mental health professionals. Why should we make up stories. Awareness needs to be there,” she says. “This isn't perversion. We have a meeting coming up soon with some doctors to discuss this.”

***


As a child, he would pull out the ties of the bolsters at his grandfather's house and tie himself to the french windows in the old house. It was a child's play. His parents were only concerned he should not hurt himself.
 He would pretend he had been captured, and he loved the feeling of being in bondage.
 

“Maybe I didn't know the terminology. I have been into it from a very young age,” Aditya (name changed on request) says over the phone.
 

He is a lawyer based out of Kolkata, and is one of the founder members of the Kinky Collective that was set up in 2011 though he has been closely associated with the community for more than ten years now. As an experienced member of the community, he says he supports new members who joins the BDSM lifestyle, a term that is widely used by the community, but certain members feel it is not representative of something that isn't an acquired taste, but is at the core of who we are. Much like homosexuality, and its articulation in terms of many saying it is just an acquired lifestyle, and a choice.
 For many years, Aditya thought something was wrong with him or he was diseased because he was kinky. Those were pre-internet days. He couldn't discuss it with others. He was worried about perceptions, and stigmatization. 
 

“I used to think I was the only one in India with this disease. I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with sexuality. I though the rest of them were in America. I was almost in my late 20s then. In 1998, I had my first computer and internet through a dial-up connection. The point is that there was no exposure to media. At the time there was no pornography to tell me about it. So accept from my example this is natural in human beings,” he says.
 

The first time he was inducted into the network was when he received an email from someone asking him whether he was into BDSM, and he first thought it was a spam. However, he did reply to it, and was pleasantly surprised to see a response the next day from a woman in Bombay who was compiling a list of those that were into BDSM, and establishing a community of sorts so they could discuss issues and network to find willing partners.
 

“In 2003, I travelled to Bombay and at that point of time. I met others like me. It was real. It was fun,” he says.
 He hadn't been practicing it in his personal relationships because he was afraid of the reaction. But he did mention it to his partner that if she was tired of him teasing & disturbing her, she should tie his hands. That did the trick. The other felt the surge of power, and they would make out. But it was introduced carefully. He would never say he was into self-bondage.
 Aditya identifies as a polyamorous, gender fluid and a switch, who can be both dom and sub. But he has a primary partner while he also plays with others, and he says he keeps all his relationships transparent with all his partners. 
 In college, a friend of his had once confided in him that she was turned on by a scene in a film that had Jaya Prada being dragged by the villain to get raped while her husband was tied up.
 

“She wasn't enjoying sex, she told me. I said something was wrong with her and said she should go and see a psychiatrist. I thought both of us had this disease. I want to apologize to her now and tell her that it was alright to fantasize. We never met after college. This was in 1992-1993. Over the next 10 years, I kept things within myself and I suffered. In 2002-03, I had my first session. Pain was an amazing experience. This lady used to say she could take a needle through her nipples. When I was very ill and was hospitalised and the nurse would come to administer injections. I had this fear of injections but that conversation helped me gather courage. When you are in pain, the mind shuts down and you tend to run away from it. Here, pain can be pleasureable too. I felt I could be brave,” he says. 

“Just like bungee jumping is not for everyone. Or like the game of chess is not for everyone. It is just a choice that people make. That's why there are a variety of choices. The problem is we are comfortable laughing at anyone different. It is a misogynist culture.”
 

Over the years, Aditya has become an experienced member of the community but feels there is still a lot to learn. He feels there is a need to disseminate information even within the community about safety in a session, respecting the limits and use of safe word. 
 

“For the first timers, it is important that it is done right. Someone who wanted to have a session with me. She started with a list of 50 hard limits. Over a span of six months, we had negotiations and long discussions. When she met me recently, she only had four hard limits. If one has to push the limit with a newbie, it should be in the conversation, not directly in the session. It might leave a scar if things go wrong. Let them take the conscious call beforehand by understanding the pros and cons,” he says.
 

In a BDSM context, which the members say is based solely on consent, sex is not presumed. In marriage sex is presumed, he says.
 

“In India a man can't be charged for raping his wife. In the kink community, consent is important. If you don't abide by the rules, you can earn a bad name. The community will denounce you,” Aditya says.
 

For instance, he says one of the rules is to have a safe word. That is agreed upon by the people prior to a session.
 

“The sub goes into a state of mind when they feel devotion and complete submission. You want to feel overpowered. Until you use the safe word, you can't be released. Otherwise, it may just imply that you are enjoying the helplessness,” he says. Just like any other relationships in the society, “Abuses could be there too.”
 

Aditya is a switch. He can be a dominant or a submissive partner. He says he enjoys both equally.
 

“As a submissive there is this sensation of giving up control. I don't want to sound religious but if you take up Bhagwad Gita, Krishna shows the Vishwaroopam avatar to Arjun and says give up all religion, give up all thoughts, and surrender yourself at my feet. This is ultimate surrender. I am for my domme's pleasure,” he says “and will enjoy my sub doing the same for me”.



There is the need for clear understanding articulation between the play partners. The fear is good. It is a way of looking at things. It releases chemicals in the brain, which is a high in itself, he says.
 

“The fear is not of being exploited, or of being abused. It is not a negative fear. The fear converts into a sense of surrender. I am ready to take what you give me. That is the high. Even an ordinary person can do it. When you take a fight you give your consent to hand over your life at the hands of the pilot! Similarly we are constantly surrendering in daily life, in many things,” Aditya says.
 

There are ways to look at it. There could be love, or there could be only sex or a session in isolation. Surrender is also being vulnerable. There is trust, and there are conversations.
 “It is an extremely volatile situation. The chances of falling in love with the dominant are quite high. Because you stand naked in mind and physical. The dominant takes you on a journey. You survive the fall, and when you are done, you are empowered. You overcome fears. There have been marriages within the community. For me, I have a problem with love. Trust and faith are more important. Love is merely a collection of feelings. You make it sound holier than thou,” he explains.
 Someone fell in love with him once after a few sessions. When he declined he advances, she became violent. She started saying things about him, he says.
 “Being a male is also very vulnerable. If I tie up a woman, and she has rope marks and we have sex, and she says rape, then I am done for,” he says.


In this underground community, there is a fear of being recognized, and then of being outed to others that might perceive of kinks that could include flogging, whipping, and other things, as perversion, a mental disorder. International researches have shown that a person practicing BDSM is in no way different from anyone else. They are not perverts. According to Aditya, the only form of perversion is when something is done to someone without their consent. What is apparently violent is not always violence. He gives the example of boxing. 


“Thereafter, we formed this group. Kinky collective was formed in 2011. Even papers were presented on BDSM in academic conferences in 2010 . There were some of us that thought we should take the cause forward. You are bringing someone out of the cocoon so they can have clear meaningful lives.
 “It is willing suspension of disbelief, Samuel Taylor Coleridge has said. It is not real,” he says. “If in the mind of the protagonist it becomes real, how do you distinguish between consensual and abusive relationship. This is not real.”
 

But in this world where there is a need to be invisible, and yet find willing partners, the community helps. 
 Some are monogamous, and others are polyamorous.
 

“The question comes from the perspective that we think everyone is monogamous. The dynamics could be fluidity. One could do multiple sessions but there needs to be clarity and transparency. The most dangerous emotion is jealousy,” he says.
 In this articulation of BDSM, there are justifications to self. To simply say it is erotic is not enough. Aditya says he had a session with a woman who came from a conservative background, and he wanted to push her limits, to liberate her, and to set her free.
 He inserted Ben Wa balls in her vagina, and together they went to a mall.
 

“She could have had an orgasm right there,” he says. “Only we knew she had these in her vagina, and she felt free that she could be out in the open and be so naughty without anyone knowing of it. I was controlling her. It had been done by me. It is about knowing a person,” he says.
 

In another instance, he had an exhibitionist as his sub, who was comfortable wearing a dog collar to a queer party.
 “I was holding her collar, and dragging her. There were interesting reactions. This was an act of dominance in public space,” he says.
 

***


 Parvati says she would rather not show her face in the photos. These are reasonable fears.
 But she has dared to speak out. That's enough. 

She has withdrawn her name from the piece. As an afterthought, she says.

"Now you know why there is paranoia," she says.