Why Christian BDSM?
Many kinky believers find that BDSM is fully compatible with a healthy, monogamous Christian marriage. BDSM provides a helpful framework for communication and safe, consensual exploration.
BDSM is not recommended for all Christians, but safe and responsible BDSM has the potential to enhance intimacy and strengthen marriages. These three core values are essential: Consent, Communication, and Compassion.
Thinking Critically
Unsure why any Christian would engage in BDSM? Historical Christianity provides a framework for seeing some aspects of BDSM from a different perspective. The “Other Resources” page includes helpful links to secular How-To guides.
Does the Bible have anything to say about BDSM? How about sexual immorality within marriage?
How does the asceticism and self-flagellation of historical clerics compare to discipline in BDSM?
From fuzzy handcuffs to chains and rope, where exactly should married Christian couples draw the line?
Many roles are possible in “power exchange” relationships, including Dom/sub and Master/slave.
C.S. Lewis described pain as God’s “megaphone.” When can painful experiences be positive?
The secular BDSM community has produced several helpful books, blogs, and video guides.
Reactions and Testimonials
“Our faith has been become the cornerstone of our BDSM marriage. We started our journey long before 50 Shades made it a little more mainstream. For 23 years we have enjoyed varying degrees of of BDSM based on what was possible and healthy at the time, given our family dynamic. We are not interested in anything that violates our Christian beliefs. We put Christ first in our monogamous, porn free Master/slave marriage. If it’s not something we can talk to God about, it’s not something we feel we should be doing. I’ve prayed about our choices for years. I believe He has kept us on the right path at the right time, all the time!”
Heidi / Idaho
“I am a strong woman w/ a stubborn and strong personality, and often women like me are just looking for and wanting a stronger man that’s why we may choose this lifestyle soft core bdsm – I don’t need a man I was marred 28 years and recently divorced. I found someone perfect for me and we are in love. I didn’t know he was into kink until it was too late I already fell for him.”
Jenniin / Georgia
“I told my Dom the first time we played, when I took off my clergy collar, that my primary submission was and would always be to God. I have struggled with the very few acts of submission he has asked for, at least at the beginning, but most have gradually become fulfilling to me.
As a priest, my life is built around service. There is no question I have sometimes given more than I should have. As a result, service to my Dom can feel either familiar and good, or like further exploitation. It’s certainly highlighted my discernment about what is Godly service or even sacrifice that I’m called to, and what is not.”Iris / California
I’ve been married for 15 years and have had 4 children. I have been chronically and severely ill until a recent hysterectomy/ mass excision. With healing I’ve found peace in submission and soft/mild bdsm. After years of pain I am free to feel in a different way. A way practiced in a loving marriage with a believing husband. I feel blessed and grateful for healing and freedom to love my husband now. I believe that acts of any consenting nature that are kept between a husband and wife only and edify the marriage are permissible…and therefore the marriage bed undefiled.
Rebecca /Texas
“Don’t, unless you have, look up sadist in the Dictionary; it will give you a wrong idea of me. I suspect the Marquis de Sade was really unpleasant, but in our moral England it’s so difficult to find out. Eccelin da Romano was probably one, & perhaps Tiberius, & perhaps that Urban who read his breviary outside the torture-chambers. Whereas I wouldn’t hurt a fly unless it made it perfectly clear that it liked it. And then only a little, and then only for the conversation.”
Charles Williams
Oxford, UK
Share Your Experience
For Christians who worry that their own kinky desires are sinful, it helps to hear that others have successfully found ways to engage in BDSM as Christians. Share a little bit about your story and your perspective. Some responses will be posted publicly.
Do You Disagree?
Feel free to share your thoughts and objections, but please include scriptural references (or external resources) to support your claim.
Include your email if you’re open to follow-up questions. Examples of the strongest arguments may be shared on this website. Thank you for taking the time to engage with an open mind.
Recent Blog Posts
Eventually, this will be a space for book reviews and other helpful tips that don’t fit with the primary pages. The arguments against BDSM also deserve consideration.
Website Under Construction
Similar websites have been attempted in the past. TaskMaster created christian-bdsm.org in the 1990’s, and his work was preserved and continued by Sir Gardener in the 2000’s at christiansandbdsm.com. Although they’re no longer active, both sites are still partially accessible through the WayBack Machine at web.archive.org.
Your support and encouragement is essential in making this project a success. There’s a real need for reliable resources in a topic where pornography and unrealistic fantasies dominate the search results.
