BDSM and Christianity

Found this picture of a tattoo of St. Teresa of Avila from Trinity the other day, and it reminded me that medieval Christianity produced a whole lot of writers and thinkers that, looking at it from my perspective, articulated and understood the masochistic experience in ways far more eloquent than anywhere else I've seen it. St. Theresa. John Donne. It's no accident that the BDSM community has glommed on to a lot of the symbolism and implements of the period, most notably from the flagellants.

And while the masochistic and submissive experiences may be different, I don't think Christianity's kinship to kink is accidental. There's a lot of places you can take Far from it: I don't believe that I would be submissive if I had not been raised Catholic. Fundamentally, Christ made submission noble, and made the submissive a hero.

My supreme role model bore his love in tribulation and his purity in agony, his suffering was virtue and the ultimate expression of his all encompassing love was to die on the cross. If the height of my romantic ideal became one who was willing to suffer for the good of their beloved, it has much to do with this narrative. If we English speakers correctly group together so many different concepts under "love," it should not surprise us that caritas can morph into philia can morph into eros.

My savior preached the nobility of service and the excellence of humility. Despite being the stainless man, who embodied all the virtues and having the essence of the divine within him, despite being the perfect human being, Christ was not too proud to get on his knees and wash his disciples' feet.

More importantly than that, the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The world is turned upside down by the divine revelation; the wisdom of the mighty is the folly of God. The downtrodden can take the mantle of righteousness.