BDSM: The dangers and delights of games people play

Rita de Brún sought the views of some therapists as she looked at the dark world of sadomasochism and BDSM

The fervour, with which the world awaited the recent release of the movie version of E L James’s 50 Shades of Grey, cast a light on the growing social acceptance of that which has long been a dark and largely taboo subject.

The demand for and controversy arising from Pauline Réage’s erotic novel, The Story of O, did precisely the same almost 50 years ago, but both works pale by comparison with the writings of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade and Leopold Ritter Sacher-Masoch — for whom the terms sadism and masochism were coined.