**This event is open to those of the Stanford community ONLY**
❗️There will also be lunch with the speaker on Tuesday, April 28th @12:30pm in room 51A❗️
Since the days of Athenian democracy, the preeminent value of the West has been “freedom,” which is construed as the opposite of slavery. Yet, for many Western practitioners of BDSM—that is, Bondage-Discipline/Dominance-submission/Sado-masochism--submission to conditional enslavement and humiliation by a trusted person provides relief from status anxiety and other worries of the world. Moreover, it is particularly appealing to the freest and the most highly accomplished citizens.
What are we to make, then, of the increasing popularity of BDSM, including shibari, among highly educated Chinese and Taiwanese young people, who avow that “freedom” is not an indigenously Chinese value, so BDSM provides no such relief for them? What benefit does submission to ritualized erotic enslavement and humiliation yield for Chinese and Taiwanese practitioners of BDSM?
