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| THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO COMPLETED AND PUBLICISED THE QUESTIONNAIRE. This survey was about sexual beliefs and interests, personality and lifestyle. It set out to test some of the existing theories and research regarding development and intrapersonal characteristics among adults with an active interest in sexual sadomasochism. These included demographic details, trauma history and coping responses, guilt, shame, empathy and antisocial traits. FINDINGS Evidence was found for a range of ages of awareness of SM development, from early in childhood to well into adulthood. About 2/3 participants identifying as Submissive/Masochistic were female, compared to around 1/2 Versatile/Switch participants and approximately 1/3 Dominant/Sadistic participants. It was difficult to distinguish between people with and without an interest in SM on many of the measures. More participants with an interest in SM had experienced at least one trauma than those without, but rates of trauma were in keeping with the general population. The vast majority of people with an SM interest did not describe trauma as influential in SM development. Also, more trauma in the SM group did not correspond with higher rates of dissociation or escape-avoidant coping. The only exception to this was a high rate of repeated self-harm among Versatile/Switch participants and further research would be required to make sense of why this might be. The Sadistic/Dominant participants as a group differed from the rest of the sample in having lower shame scores and higher antisocial trait scores. All the groups (both with and without an interest in SM) scored similarly for empathy. There was a small minority of people (40) who admitted to forcing others into sexual contact. This group showed a high level of diversity indicating that it would be difficult to predict who would fall into this group. The group comprised men and women, both with and without an interest in SM. There was a wide range of scores for guilt, shame, empathy and antisocial traits in this group. CONCLUSIONS SM development may have a number of different influences, and theories that SM interest is a response to childhood abuse were not well supported by this study. This study does NOT find support for the idea that an active interest in SM is psychopathological in and of itself. | ||
| Emma Vanter Clinical Psychology Unit Western Bank SHEFFIELD S10 2TN Email:enquiries@smsurvey.co.uk Copyright © Emma Vanter 2010 | ||
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