Coming out [into homosexuality or kink] transmutes what is loathsome or unimaginable into something valuable and nourishing – garbage into gold, sickness into bread. This is an inherently terrifying experience because it means disobeying the voices of social disapproval (and often self-hatred as well) to risk becoming a more honest, but not necessarily happier or safer or more beloved, person. – Patrick Califia, Speaking Sex to Power; Cleis Press, San Francisco, p.162

Mostly thanks to the internet, a plethora of information is now available about the practical side of BDSM. If you want to know how to tie your first knot, you have hundreds of websites and a dozen or so published manuals to help you. However, there are very few resources about the psychological side of coming out into kink.

Even the use of the term "coming out" is sometimes controversial, but there is also no real alternative. Whatever you choose to call it, the process of transition from sexual "normality", however threadbare and frustrating, to kinkiness, however exciting and fulfilling, is not a straightforward one.

For some people self-acceptance does come relatively easily, but for a significant number of others the process is not so simple – take the domme brought up to be passive, the executive who fantasises about submission, or the feminist who discovers a desire to be beaten. Even if the individual in question can make peace with him or herself, resistance and rejection from horrified family and friends can produce further self-doubt and turmoil. And while it is widely accepted that newly out gay people need support to feel good about themselves, there are very few places kinky people can turn for encouragement.

The kink community is still young, and of necessity defensive. If we show weakness, the unspoken reasoning goes, it will be used against us by people who want to prove we're just sickos. Unfortunately that concern is justified, as continuing attempts to criminalize or "cure" us show. But it results in a subtle pressure on anyone who isn't completely comfortable with their kinks to either put up or shut up, because they're letting the side down and spoiling the public image of out and proud, well-adjusted pervs. Ultimately that weakens us, because it makes it harder for people to cross the already perilous bridge from irreproachable "normality" into a visible and vulnerable minority identity.

Most of the places kinky people gather are dedicated to entertainment, which is probably as it should be. Who wants to air their innermost doubts between the interrogation scene and the St Andrew's Cross at a club? It wouldn't be appropriate. And munches, though they're intended to be a halfway house where newbies get to see that pervs aren't monsters after all, are casual, often noisy and smoky, social events rather than a forum for debate.

Ambivalence about kink can sometimes be raised in private, often with friends made at those same clubs and munches, but there is a public silence on the subject. As a result, a beginner surfing the net for BDSM resources could easily get the impression that every kinky person springs fully formed, either from childhood or a kind of dormant vanilla stage, into the ideal poster perv. We might wish it was that easy, but it isn't, and any pretence otherwise subtly diminishes us.

Tensions between personal desire and a kink-hating society don't vanish overnight just because an individual has made contact with the kink community. You can be left in the strange and lonely position of having your BDSM activities a dirty secret from work and family, and your ambivalence about those same activities a dirty secret from other kinksters. Mere repetition of a pride message isn't going to overcome that.

So if you've got the requisite collection of how-to manuals and browser bookmarks but are still having trouble reconciling your kinks with your upbringing or beliefs, are there any useful resources out there? While finding portrayals of BDSM in contemporary culture is easy, if you are looking for positive, accurate portrayals you suddenly have a very short list indeed.

That short list is below – and almost all the material is American! Please notify Unfettered if you find something else that would be appropriate for this category, particularly if it is British.

Books

(mostly available via Amazon, Coffee Cake and Kink or Gay's the Word)

A Defence of Masochism by Anita Phillips. This books is an adaptation of the author's PhD research. It gives BDSM a respectable social and historical context.

Beneath the Skins by Ivo Dominguez Jr. The only book I know of which directly addresses the difficulties of coming out into kink.

Leatherfolk, edited by Mark Thompson. This primarily concerns the gay scene but is full of fascinating and inspiring detail.

Skin Deep by John R. Gordon. Includes a positive fictional representation of a (gay) masochist!

Speaking Sex to Power and Public Sex by Pat(rick) Califia. Califia is a famous SM pioneer and a very readable writer. These are books about how to be whatever the fuck you are, and feel good about it.

The Kinky Girl's Guide to Dating by Luna Grey. This book is relaxed and funny and, as well as giving good advice, also presents kink as a normal part of a girl's life.

When Someone You Love is Kinky by Dossie Easton and Catherine Lizst. An obvious inclusion. It's very gentle, some say too gentle, but there's no shame in needing to start somewhere.

Places

Coffee Cake and Kink

Apparently a shaman once told them the cafe has positive energy, and it does. Unlike a munch or a club, you don’t have to do anything at CCK. You can just sit there, sip coffee and enjoy an implicitly accepting atmosphere.

The Chicago Leather Archives and Museum

On the other side of the world, but it's nice to know it exists.

Internet resources

Type "BDSM resources" into Google and you will get a plethora of sites offering advice on the practicalities of everything from branding to pony play, but I've only found a couple of pages specifically devoted to the art of keeping your mind as well-oiled as your whip.

Sex therapist Gloria Brame on self-acceptance

Revise F65 This is a campaign site ("The purpose of the ReviseF65 project is to delete Fetishism, Transvestism and Sadomasochism as psychiatric diagnoses from the International Classification of Diseases published by the World Health Organisation") and as such concentrates on political activism. However, it has a section of professionally-written articles which make the case for BDSM as a healthy expression of sexuality.