Understanding BDSM: An Interview with Safiya Darling, the Los Angeles "Sexpert"
- Julio Rocha
- Dec 11, 2023
- 2 min read
In Los Angeles, queer sexperts and educators like Safiya Darling are working to deconstruct misconceptions that people have about the BDSM and kink communities. Through teach-ins, community panels, podcasts, or tiktoks, Safiya hopes to impart insight about what the culture has to offer on topics including sex positivity, pleasure, and even community connectedness.
“Almost everything is a fetish,” Safiya boasts. “There’s a belly button fetish. There’s a fetish for people who get turned on by thunderstorms,” watching people bounce on trampolines, licking eyeballs, and even a fetish for statues. If someone were ever eager to discover what kink has to offer, Safiya would be their go-to. With 13 years of experience participating in the LA scene and frequently hosting “leather parties”, Safiya is eager to convey a more nuanced understanding of the community, emphasizing its potential to challenge social norms about pleasure and engender broader conversations about autonomy and empowerment. Safiya articulates the frustration that many of the fem folks she’s come across feel: for “people with uteruses, for people with vulvas” we are taught that our bodies are only meant to be an instrument for procreation… Participating in kink and BDSM allows you to be able to do something that is just for pleasure…So enjoy it and do it and do it often.” A transman in one study explained, “The more you try different things, the more you learn about what you actually like and don’t like, which leads to a deeper, authentic understanding of yourself.” For fem and/or queer folks, it appears that the self-discovery associated to engagement with the community can be empowering; someone might even argue that the community produces the kind of resistance to heteropatriarchy that can become socially productive or culturally transformative.
BDSM (Queer) Community Building
Plenty of cis-heterosexual people perform more eccentric expressions of sex and pleasure through kink, though folks under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are more likely to push their boundaries and explore the world of kink and BDSM at higher rates than cishet folks. It’s helpful to understand all BDSM as a queer practice. In the words of Jane Ward, “straightness is not most productively defined as the absence of homosexual sex but as a fetish for heteronormativity and a deep feeling of being at home within heterosexual culture.” Following this logic, practices of pleasure and power within BDSM and kink communities are non-straight because they challenge images of heterosexual, normative, reproductive sex. It’s no surprise that queer people would feel at home within BDSM spaces. Studies show that queer participants of kink community describe feelings of community connectedness; most notably, “acceptance and belonging” as well as having “safe haven from heteronormativity” was reported. Chosen family is a fundamental aspect and recurring theme within queer culture, and avid participants like Safiya can attest to this dynamic within the BDSM community. Safiya recalls that during the pandemic her fellow kinksters were the folks who supported her the most, even uniting to feed the homeless and provide stocked PPE and handsewn masks to those in need.
As Safiya continues to make efforts toward education and providing spaces for folks to feel sex positive, she emphasizes that kink can be “for the people who want to be able to feel like they’re part of something bigger.”
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