Removing the Gag to Talk About BDSM; Literary Journalism's Effect on Destigmatizing BDSM Stereotypes

Kinky. Exciting. Sensual. Perverted. Secretive. Mentally Ill. Each of these words describes BDSM (bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, and sadism-masochism) and its stereotypes. The community and its members have been stigmatized because of their sexual and atypical nature. In the past decade, BDSM has become more mainstream with accurate and inaccurate media representations. Because of its emergence into the public eye, journalists have taken to exploring and, as a result, demystifying the topic. Compared to traditional journalism, literary journalism is better able to destigmatize BDSM. Its subjective style and personable approach can expand the audience's knowledge and empathy toward the subject. Academic journalism articles on the BDSM community provide an open discussion, thus lessening its stigma and stereotypes.

Literary Journalism began as a shift from the normality of typical journalism to follow a style more akin to that of novelists or biographers (Wolfe, 1973; Hartsock, 2002). Tom Wolfe describes it as "like a novel" because it's precisely that, but not exactly a novel (Wolfe, 1973, p. 9). Literary journalism combines a book's stylistic writing and a newspaper article's reporting. The stylistic report allows a literary flair to otherwise bland…