Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission and Sadomasochism (BDSM) From an Integrative Biopsychosocial Perspective: A Systematic Review
BDSM interests are shaped by many personal and social factors. Research does not support reducing them to one cause, disorder, or past event.
Orgasmaphoria editorial perspective
About this source
A broad model is useful when it replaces one-cause stories about kink. It should not become a new way to search for what supposedly caused a person's interests or to medicalize consensual behavior.
Why it matters: This source demonstrates that kink is shaped by learnable community practices, negotiation, and wide variation. That helps readers separate consensual BDSM from abuse and replace stereotypes with better questions.
This source is cited in:
Purpose and scope
Bring together research on BDSM interests and participation using a biopsychosocial framework.
Published BDSM research available to the review authors across biological, psychological, and social domains.
Findings or central themes
The literature describes BDSM through interacting biological, psychological, and social factors. Much of the available evidence was descriptive, and evidence for proposed underlying causes remained limited.
Strengths
PRISMA-guided synthesis across several research domains with public full text.
Limitations
The underlying studies were often small, descriptive, self-selected, or unable to establish causes.
Do not use this source to claim: Diagnosing practitioners, proving why one person has an interest, or treating limited associations as causes
Citation and access
Nele De Neef, Violette Coppens, Wim Huys, Manuel Morrens (2019). Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission and Sadomasochism (BDSM) From an Integrative Biopsychosocial Perspective: A Systematic Review. Sexual Medicine DOI: 10.1016/j.esxm.2019.02.002
Open access
External sources may change, move, require payment, or have different privacy practices. This library record is educational context, not medical, legal, or emergency advice.
