Exploring BDSM in Iceland and how it fits into the larger queer community
What is BDSM? Typically considered sexual preferences and practices that include elements of control, submission or pain, it stands for bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism. It’s kink, it’s control, it’s an exploration of sexual desire. It’s pleasure and pain and pleasure derived from pain. It’s role play, power exchange and humiliation. It’s intimacy and sex.
If you’re blushing right now, you’re not alone. BDSM remains taboo for large swaths of the population – even within the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s a sexual preference. But is it an orientation? Is it queer? What is BDSM really?
“The last chair of the organisation and I, we’ve had this conversation I don’t know how many times,” says Margrét Nilsdóttir, chairperson of the Icelandic BDSM Organisation, when asked for an official line on the practice. “It’s always the question that is asked in every interview and every time we’re being talked about, but it’s so hard to define it. It’s so different for everybody.”
For some, Margrét says, gesturing to herself and her fellow board members, Jón Thoroddsen (Nonni) and Katrin Íris, there’s no question that it’s an orientation. “Some people really burn for it and have it as a very intrinsic part of themselves,” she says. “But it can also be something you do to spice up your sex life or whatever. So I think first you have to kind of split [those groups] – BDSM as an orientation and BDSM as stuff you do. Because the acronym alone only stands for the stuff you do. It’s not really descriptive about the reasons why we do it.”
“We have sometimes tried to define BDSM as everything you do that is sexual or for sexual, romantic or intimate purposes that is outside the box of what is considered ‘normal.’” Margrét explains. “And that box is expanding a lot.”
A tumultuous union
Both the “stuff” being done and the reasons for exploring BDSM have seen the global community embroiled in debate every time Pride month – internationally in June, but August here in Iceland – rolls around. As the “love is love” messaging of international Pride festivities works to ensure marches are “family-friendly,” conversations around the presence of kink, BDSM, nudity and other expressions of sexuality at Pride are reignited annually.
Art Bicnick/The Reykjavík Grapevine
Pearl clutchers question the harm being inflicted on children exposed to pup play gear, harnessed or collared individuals, or the odd bare bottom at Pride parades. While Iceland is often spoken about as a forward-thinking and open society, it hasn’t escaped the debate about the appropriateness of BDSM at Pride or within the larger LGBTQIA+ community.
Though an official entity since 1997, the Icelandic BDSM Organisation became a partner association of Samtökin ‘78, the national queer association, in 2016 in a vote bookended by drama and heated debate.
“Conservative groups talk about ‘slippery slopes,’” says Nonni about the larger debate around the inclusion of BDSM under the Samtökin ‘78 umbrella, “but respectability politics are a slippery slope. I think that’s really important to remember.”
The board of BDSM in Iceland first expressed interest in affiliating with Samtökin ‘78 in 2015, but the association was concerned it would cause turmoil within their core community and instead advised the board to take some time to introduce itself and its motivations to the larger queer community.
“We took that advice and tried to reach out, talk to people and explain our position that basically we just wanted cooperation and formal inclusion, seeing that many of us were already queer in other ways and that kink has been a part of the queer community since, well, since forever,” recalls Margrét, who was a board member at that time as well. Indeed, kinksters and the BDSM community have been active in the queer rights movement since Stonewall.
The board’s application at Samtökin ‘78’s 2016 general meeting was successful – albeit briefly. Once their inclusion was publicised, a group of older LGBT folks, who Margrét says had long been inactive within the community, took offence and turned to technicalities in the queer association’s charter to deem the general meeting – and, by extension, the vote about BDSM in Iceland’s affiliation – null and void.
So a second vote was held and again the BDSM group was admitted, though by a smaller margin of support. The vocal opposition still did not let up and managed to force a third vote.
“It was the biggest general meeting ever,” Margrét says. “People were angry and friendships were falling apart – it was horrible. But in hindsight it was also cleansing, as there had been an underlying bitterness that hadn’t been addressed for years which was now in the open, with us caught in the middle.”
The third vote was also in favour of the BDSM group’s affiliation with Samtökin ‘78. It has stood since.
Nonni recalls that a number of people who had initially been opposed to the inclusion of BDSM within Samtök ‘78 came around rather quickly and some even approached Margrét about their change of heart. Margrét even recalls one older gay man raising his hand at one of those fateful general meetings to ask whether BDSM’s affiliation meant the community could finally talk about sex again.
“You know, [many Samtökin ‘78 members] were so tired of the white-washing and ‘love is love’ and all that,” Margrét shares. “The message that ‘we’re just like everybody else,’ and taking all the sexual energy and the queerness out … That had been the discourse for so many years that people were feeling bored. So many people were relieved when BDSM came to Samtökin. It was like a breath of fresh air – I had heard that verbatim.”
“Having this big latex-clad elephant in the room forced people to kind of admit that queerness is not just ‘love is love,’” Margrét continues. “Queerness is being disturbing.”
Fortunately – for the entire queer community – BDSM has since been formally and warmly welcomed by Samtökin ‘78. Since being brought under the umbrella of the queer association, the Icelandic BDSM Organisation has enjoyed fruitful and supportive cooperation, using Samtökin ‘78’s headquarters for their meetings and workshops, being included on a recent placard on queerness in Iceland, and marching in the annual Pride parade – the group’s theme this year is “BDSM is the thread that binds us together.” Expect a lot of red rope.
Knowing yourself
Asked how long they’ve known they were kinky or into BDSM, Margrét, Nonni and Katrín all express that they were born aware of their preferences and their needs and requirements for sexual and emotional fulfilment.
Art Bicnick/The Reykjavík Grapevine
“I was born,” Nonni says of how he got into the lifestyle. “I actually grew up, went through puberty really late, so that was around 17 or 18. But before that, I knew there was something special – probably since I was five-years old.”
Katrin shares that she became sexually active at a fairly young age, but it wasn’t doing anything for her. “I thought for a long time that I was asexual, because I was like, ‘wow, this is so fucking boring. What the fuck is this?’ And then I met a guy who was a lot older than me, and he showed me all these different things. I was like, ‘Whoa! This is me! This makes sense.’”
“Because I just thought everything I was doing was bad,” she continues. “And I was hurting myself for masturbation – you know, self harm and doing horrible things. I needed this more experienced person to be like, ‘it’s okay, this is a thing.’ I realised then there’s nothing wrong with it, but it took a few years to really settle in.”
Margrét and Nonni both share the experience of being intrinsically drawn to power dynamics and hierarchies from a young age. Nonni is a submissive, while Margrét describes herself as “the greediest type there is of sadomasochist.” They would scour libraries when younger, looking for history books that detailed slavery and other unbalanced power dynamics, drawn to the domination detailed in the accounts. It was very much an exploration done in secret.
“I thought this was something I was taking to my grave,” says Margrét. “I was not going to share this; it was just fucked up. I knew of something that was called ‘BDSM,’ but that was just horrible and disgusting. I didn’t want to go there, so I was really trying to distance myself from all that. I just envisioned latex and ball gags and the gimp from Pulp Fiction. I thought it was depraved, evil – without even knowing anything about it.”
That changed when she found herself at an event with some friends of a friend who were open about being kinky, discussing the dynamics of their own relationships. “I was like, ‘Holy shit, they’re just doing that and they’re still good. She’s not an evil person? This is working for them and they’re happy?’” She continues: “I talked to him privately about it – he was the first person I basically told.”
Advocating for community
Now firmly owning their identities and sexual and romantic orientations, the board members head up efforts to advocate Iceland’s larger BDSM community, leading workshops, hosting events and ensuring a balanced and accurate public discourse about the community and their values.
“We are kind of trying to define BDSM for ourselves,” Margrét says of the organisation’s public relations and outreach efforts. “Popular culture has kind of made one image and we’ve tried to correct that a little bit.”
“And then there’s the advocacy for kinky people that might be facing discrimination – like a public defender – because people are afraid to speak up and say something,” she continues. “It used to be that you could make fun of kinky people and nobody did anything about it. Nobody came and said, ‘Hey, this is not okay.’ So we’ve kind of been that entity.”
Art Bicnick/The Reykjavík Grapevine
The BDSM in Iceland board has had to be particularly active in recent months with broader conversations in media and parents’ groups about sex education in the schools and the inclusion of conversation about choking and the young person exploring what feels good and what they enjoy.
Nonni says it’s at times like that when he loses the day on social media, following the discourse and dispelling myths about BDSM. “That has happened a couple of times when we’ve just had to be everywhere, following everything and just answering a lot of shit.”
Luckily, for members of the BDSM community who may find themselves discriminated against for their orientation or lifestyle, the law is on their side.
“I contacted [Jafnréttisstofa, the Directorate of Equality] a few years ago to ask them, theoretically, if a person would be fired from their job for being BDSM oriented, would that be considered on the same grounds as being fired for being homosexual or another sexual minority group,” Margrét shares, “and I got a clear ‘yes’ on that.”
“Well, we are protected by law, but we don’t necessarily know that we are protected by law,” Nonni interjects, comparing prejudice against BDSM to treatment of other queer groups. “We don’t really face the same kind of discrimination … There are groups in society that are really against this, but no one’s gonna beat you up for holding hands or whatever. It’s different.”
Still, Nonni shares that he has seen people’s BDSM orientation or lifestyle used against them in child custody negotiations and other legal matters, either by shaming the orientation during negotiations or threatening to expose a person’s orientation if certain demands aren’t met.
By advocating for the community at large and educating the public about what BDSM actually is – and isn’t – the organisation takes the sting out of the accusations that are sometimes flung to inflict shame and social damage.
“If you’re not proud and out enough to kind of step up, people are going to keep thinking ‘Yeah, so it is disgusting. If it wasn’t disgusting, you wouldn’t be hiding yourself. So you must be ashamed,’” Margrét explains. “So I think it’s, I think it’s vital that we take control of what is being written about us … We have to have a say and a voice – and that doesn’t happen unless we step up.”
Keeping things safe and consensual
One defining feature of play parties and informal gatherings – called “munches” in the BDSM community – in Iceland is their distinct lack of drugs and alcohol. The use of substances is actually something that surprised Katrín about the BDSM scenes in other countries in which she has played.
“When I went the first time to Torture Garden, it was my first big event and people were getting shit faced,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘whoa, is this allowed? There’s no drink limit?’ They have dungeon monitors looking out for people, but they’re not asking ‘Are you intoxicated or are you on drugs?’”
She explains that the entire experience was fine until the wee hours of the morning when the event was ending and “a lot of men were getting desperate.” It was then that she was being grabbed and picked up by men with whom she had engaged in consensual activities earlier in the event. A dungeon master had to intervene.
“He said, ‘girl, just get out of here.’ Up until that I was just fine. I was alone most of the night. I had played some sadomasochistic games, which was fine. But the clinginess at the end of the night was too much because people were so drunk.”
“The mentality at parties [in Iceland] is if you’re going to have a drink, you’re going to do it after you play,” Nonni adds. “And if you’re only there for observing, I think it would be frowned upon if you’re drinking more than a couple.”
The drinking culture may differ at privately-hosted parties, but even in those settings intoxication isn’t the norm. “That’s mostly newbies,” Katrín adds. “Mostly new people that maybe drink too much at those private parties.”
Whether or not substance use is happening at BDSM play parties and munches, other factors can impact the safety of participants. Namely, if someone in attendance is an abuser. Because, despite what some rampant discourse about the BDSM community projects, the acts being engaged in and the power dynamics being consensually explored are not abusive in and of themselves.
“It’s all based on consent,” Margrét explains. “Consent is the key there. Because, you know, sex without consent is rape. So, hitting a person without consent is violence. With consent, it’s just you hitting a person.”
As in every other interpersonal dynamic in the world, abusers can find ways to inflict abuse on another. This is also the case in BDSM relationships, where an abusive individual is perverting what is meant to be a mutually consensual and fulfilling relationship into something that is solely about satisfying their own wants or needs. But abuse and BDSM are not two sides of the same coin.
“These abusers, they might very well be kinky as well,” Nonni says. “I mean, they can present themselves as part of the community. But there’s this No True Scotsman thing often going on, like if you’re into BDSM, you can’t be an abuser because they are mutually exclusive. But that’s a naive take.”
Consent occurs with communication. “I think it lies in communication and the intent of the game,” Katrín says. “I think the whole thing is non-abusive when both agree to it, and both are ready to commit to [addressing failures] if they happen. Usually, they don’t happen. But I go into the scene knowing, this could hurt me and this could happen, but I trust myself, I trust my partner. So I’m willing to take the risk. And I know he will be there for me if something happens.”
However, the presence of abusers within the scene has kept some from participating actively. One person who spoke with the Grapevine under the condition of anonymity shared that they have not participated in official parties or munches out of fear their abuser – who was also convicted – was still participating.
As Margrét explains, “people have turned to us and said ‘I don’t feel safe in those events, because my abuser is there and can something be done?’ And it depends on the host that is hosting the event, because we cannot, as a board, say ‘you cannot allow this person at your event.’ It’s a grey area even to kind of tell the host that a person is an alleged abuser.”
“But if a victim of abuse decides to press charges and if that would evolve in such a way that our testimony would be worth anything, then we would engage.”
Diving in
With BDSM in Iceland hosting formal workshops and get-togethers around ten times per year, there are plenty of entry points for BDSM-curious or currently BDSM-closetted individuals to explore the community.
“I think it’s a very good community [in Iceland],” Nonni says. “I’m listening to podcasts and I’m reading stuff on FetLife and it seems that a lot of communities are sort of fractured, or they’re very exclusive. And I think we have a very welcoming community. I think there’s a lot of people who feel welcome. Even if they’re just kind of kink-adjacent. They just kind of feel welcome within the BDSM community.”
“I think that’s true,” Margrét adds. “I think a lot of people are drawn to the BDSM community, not because they’re so overly kinky, but because of the acceptance and inclusion.”
All three agree the best way to be involved is to attend an event and engage others in conversation. They warn, however, that it’s sometimes less sexy than people anticipate. “Why are they talking about Star Trek for hours?” Nonni jokes, with Margrét adding “ I thought there was kink. Why are people talking about Dr. Who and My Little Pony?”
A tribe found
Whatever misperceptions are floating around about BDSM in public discourse and popular culture and no matter if the inclusion of BDSM groups in Pride events continues to spark debate and sow division, there’s no denying that those four letters are part and parcel of the identities or lives of countless people around the world, including an estimated 4,000 in Iceland.
Art Bicnick/The Reykjavík Grapevine
As Margrét concludes, “I have never experienced this kind of belonging to any group. I’ve always felt like an alien or an outsider or like I could not really let people see me. I thought if people could see how crazy I was they would run to the hills.”
“Then, getting into the BDSM community, it was instantly my tribe. I just looked around and had this connection with people that I never felt – a kind of belonging to something bigger than myself, which was huge for me; almost spiritual. It was a really big thing for me. And I think I never lost that kind of sense of solidarity with this community.”
With files from Rex Beckett
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