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Playing on the Edge

Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy

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Playing on the Edge

By: Staci Newmahr
Narrated by: Susan Marlowe
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About this listen

Representations of consensual sadomasochism range from the dark, seedy undergrounds of crime thrillers to the fetishized pornographic images of sitcoms and erotica. In this pathbreaking audiobook, ethnographer Staci Newmahr delves into the social space of a public, pansexual SM community to understand sadomasochism from the inside out.

Based on four years of in-depth and immersive participant observation, she juxtaposes her experiences in the field with the life stories of community members, providing a richly detailed portrait of SM as a social space in which experiences of "violence" intersect with experiences of the erotic. She shows that SM is a recreational and deeply gendered risk-taking endeavor through which participants negotiate boundaries between chaos and order.

Playing on the Edge challenges our assumptions about sadomasochism, sexuality, eroticism, and emotional experience, exploring what we mean by intimacy and how, exactly, we achieve it.

©2011 Staci Newmahr (P)2019 Redwood Audiobooks Anthropology Human Sexuality Sociology Mental Health
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Critic reviews

“This is a very good book and a first-class example of what ethnographic research can and should look like.” (Criminal Justice Review)

“A ground-breaking book...captivating and ethnographically dense.” (Ethnos)

“Playing on the Edge...is an exciting sociological contribution to academic explorations of SM, providing an empirically rich window into a rarely seen SM community.” (Sexualities)

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Profile Image for Rob

interesting perspective

well written and developed, the writer clearly took part in the community, but her work feels to analytical at times, which drew me out of the story and discussion

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