Review of Sensuous Sadie’s book:
Spiritual Transformation through BDSM
Stories and Submissions from Fellow Travellers

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Review by TammyJo Eckhart, Activist, Author, Educator & Reviewer

thetammyjo@gmail.com
http://www.kiva.net/~teckhart/ 

Many of you may be familiar with Sensuous Sadie’s column and writings about her personal journey in BDSM. If you are, then you know that for her much of what drives her is spiritual in nature. She is certainly not the only one, so in this book she has interviewed and selected the work of 31 people who have written about and practice BDSM as part of their spirituality.

Spiritual Transformation through BDSM is organized into eight categories of spirituality that people practice or traditions they draw upon when they do BDSM. Each category then offers reprints of one of the articles each spiritual practitioner has published as well as a profile of that individual, often an interview with Sadie, and answers to three key questions she asked to start all of us thinking about the topic. The single problem I have with this book is that not everyone in it answered the three questions and gave an interview. It just threw me a bit to have so much information about some people compared to others.

Section one looks at "Eastern Traditions" and how BDSM can draw upon them. Six people are profiled and interviewed and their articles reprinted in this section. Unlike the others in this book, Sadie herself contributes four pieces, and again, that diversion from the pattern threw me a bit. Other authors in this section include Matthew Styranka, Mim Andronica, Rick Umbaugh, Stuart Norman, and William Henkin.

Seven individuals appear together under the header "Earth Centered." The authors here were more familiar to me through their other work; they include Daddy Bob Allen, Jack Rinella, Patrick Califia, and Sybil Holiday. They are joined by Mistress Damiana, Raven Caldera, and Rory Doulos, whose last name is especially cool to me as a Greek historian.

"Judeo-Christian" approaches to spirituality and BDSM includes six individuals. I was previously aware of Chris M. and Hardy Haberman but enjoyed the introductions to Master Alan, Rebecca Brook, and Skian McGuire. I was disappointed that there was no article from Justin Tanis, who is profiled and interviewed and answers the three questions.

From a personal perspective I found Chris M.’s "Going Deeper: Topspace, Bottomspace, and Sado-Erotic Ecstasy" the best article in the entire collection. Maybe I’m a picky person, but when I hear people describing subspace, I never think that their description fits the term "submissive" but instead sounds like "bottom" — I read this article as a confirmation that they are indeed separate mental spaces.

I’m not clear on what "Traditional Wisdom" is, frankly, but six individuals are included in this category. Arim Reddog has only a reprinted article here, and Fakir Musafir lacks a reprinted piece. Everyone else has all four pieces of the pattern — profile, three questions, reprint, and inteview — Cléo Dubois, Deborah Addington, Joseph Bean, and Ron Vogel. Again I was aware of most of these individuals before this volume.

The final category, "Unaffiliated," offers another six individuals. I know the works of Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy, but was pleased to get to know Anne Turney, Sloyd, and Vladimir Kozicki. I wish we could have had more information about Dorothy C. Hayden, but her article speaks well for her.

Spiritual Transformation through BDSM is a good, if massive at 593 pages, collection of several important articles about the connection between spiritual or religious practice and SM. Not all the articles are of the same quality, but that reflects the individuals who wrote them and probably my own limits as someone who does not see her BDSM as spiritual. Thank you, Sensuous Sadie, for collecting these for all of us to read and think about.

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Copyright 2008
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