Publication Date

2026

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Sagarin, Brad J.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

The BDSM community has become an increasingly popular subject of study in relation to consent culture; however, the bulk of this research has been qualitative and lacks comparison to non-BDSM practitioners. The theory of planned behavior was used to design a measure comparing consent culture across 668 BDSM practitioners and non-practitioners. As predicted, the relationships specified by theory of planned behavior was replicated for both BDSM practitioners and nonpractitioners. Contrary to predictions, no significant differences were found between BDSM practitioners and non-practitioners for norms or behavioral intentions; however, BDSM practitioners reported significantly higher perceived behavioral control. Within the BDSM community, attitudes, norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions for verbal consent communication were significantly higher for BDSM play than for sex, showing the relevance of context for consent. The predicted unique effect of the social norms of the BDSM community, in addition to the norms of friends, was not found; however, friend and community norms were highly correlated, which may explain the lack of significant effect for community norms. In addition to planned analyses, exploratory analyses regarding age, gender, consensual nonmonogamy, BDSM role, and consent education were conducted. Contrary to prior literature, no gender effects were found; however, age and BDSM identity interacted across attitudes, norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions such that they remained relatively stable for BDSM practitioners but decreased with age for non-practitioners. Overall, these findings support the BDSM community’s culture of consent, which warrants further exploration for improving consent education, particularly focusing on perceived behavioral control.

Extent

96 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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