The other day, when I was in the chat room, BDSMtourguide mentioned something I found rather interesting. He said - he's not aware of any black people in the bdsm community.

Now, firstly, I want to make it very clear that while I certainly may have many faults, wasting my time worrying about how much, or little, melanin someone has in their skin is not one of them.

A quick search, of black bdsm on google, reveals literally dozens of porn sites featuring hot black bodies. Hallelujah! I tell you, there' s definitely no shortage of images of sexy black men on the net! Maybe this can be largely attributed to the idea that black men have larger penises and are therefore more sexual? But, more importantly, are these images created for blacks and coloureds or whites?

It's interesting to note dominance/submission and traditional power exchange has played a significant role in African history. Here are a couple of examples:

The West African Malinke tribe's religious belief was the worship of a spirit named Mama Dyumbo who protected their village and kept their women in a state of submission. Whenever a woman was disobedient, her husband would mimic the deity by donning makeup, masks and elaborate headpieces and then drive the woman out of their home for a communal whipping. What an intriguing, and primitive, combination of D/s, cross-dressing, s/m and voyeurism that must have been.

Within the matriarchal society of the Tuareg, of Northern Africa, women enjoyed freedom of choice in sexual involvement and often entertained male visitors when their husbands were absent. The tents and furnishings were the personal property of the women alone. Today, Tuareg men still are required to wear veils that conceal their entire face excluding their eyes. Oh, yes, the very peak… the very essence of femdom!

In the past , in America, the ability of coloured people to survive under the cruel conditions of slavery and be able to retain internal strength, fortitude and resolve was an amazing feat. People tend to gravitate towards others with a similar history. They feel most comfortable with people who have had the same experiences and harships. Since the majority of slaves were non-consenting, and since their forefathers suffered such a horrific past, maybe participating in this kind of lifestyle doesn't have quite the same appeal?

Still, I'm sure there are kinky coloured people out there, but is the number of white men and women to black men and women, involved in BDSM, proportionate to the population at large?

Obviously some coloured people must enjoy BDSM play, but is there a predominance of dominants or subs when compared to whites? Psychologists from Freud onwards theorised that many people who act out bdsm play are engaging in a type of self-therapy—a healing of sorts. So, bearing that in mind, do coloured people simply prefer to play dominant/submissive games with other coloured people, rather than non-coloureds? If so are they perhaps, to some degree, ethnocentric about their sexuality?

Words like 'slut' and 'bitch' are very derogatory, ordinarily they would never be used, however in the heat of bdsm they can be red hot. So would blacks use words like "nigger" during humiliation play?

And, is interracial bdsm the edge of edge play? Is it a bit taboo, especially to many middle Americans? Is that why we don't see or hear much about it?

Finally, I want to reinterate that I'm not a racist. I don't discriminate against people because of their colour, sex, or religion. Quite simply, TG's remark got me thinking about the possible differences (sexually) and reasons for them, between coloured and non-coloured groups.

Oh, and, I really didn't mean for this post to so long, but I guess like Topsy— it just grew. *ss*

Alex