Tweens increasingly into BDSM

It just occurred to me while reading this installation of Seattle BDSM Misstress Matisse's column "Control Tower" that CNN's recently reported "choking game" shows that BDSM is alive and well in suburbia.

Children have likely been playing the "choking game" for a long time, Connecticut-based child psychologist Dr. Lawrence Shapiro told The Associated Press.

...Gabriel loved the sensation, his mother said.

"It was almost like a drug," she said. "They crave it; they crave the high that they get from the lack of oxygen."


(CNN)

Most types of BDSM aren’t life threatening...

But breath play—limiting or denying someone the ability to breathe, either by suffocation or strangulation—is unquestionably the type of edge play with the highest potential for harm and the lowest controllable margin of safety... Cutting off someone’s breathing can make them have a heart attack, and there is no way to really know if that’s just about to happen. Watching your partner closely, or telling them to signal you if they’re about to pass out, will not prevent a disaster.

...Pretty much everyone who does breath control mentions that it increases the intensity of their orgasm. That’s why some of those breath control deaths happen when guys (and a few women) strangle themselves while masturbating. They think they’ll be able to stop in time. But you can’t reliably know if you’re about to get into trouble, any more than a partner would. And passing out alone, with a noose around your neck? Well, I hope you checked the “organ donor” box on your driver’s license.


(Control Tower)

So, BDSM in suburban tween bedrooms? Or is it just another jump-rope game? You decide!