At the APEX

By Bobbi Dugan

When Arizona Power Exchange (APEX) members shop for play things, they prefer Home Depot - which they call the "S and M toy store" - or the Dollar Store.

"You can get really neat things there," one member said, exhibiting his tiny plastic clothespins.

Other than unique shopping habits, the adherents of bondage and discipline and S/M (BDSM - for the purpose of this article S/M is used to cover all behaviors and interest with the lifestyle), seem much like Uncle Joe and Aunt Martha. They go to work every day, pay taxes, raise families and, to prevent raising community eyebrows, keep their leisure activities to themselves. S/M (also written SM, S&M) comes from the word sado-masochism, defined by the Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia as: "A term used in the study of psychological disorders, is actually a composite of term for two forms of disorders, sadism and masochism. Both terms derive from the names of writers whose works depict such behaviors: the French Marquis de Sade, and the Austrian Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Sadism is the derivation of pleasure from inflicting pain - including psychological pain, when the victim is another human being. Masochism, in contrast, is the derivation of pleasure from being subjected to physical or psychological pain. The pleasure involved in both sadism and masochism usually has a strong sexual component."

"The Marquis de Sade was not an S/Mer," APEX member Master Carla said hotly, while reading the Grolier definition. "This person doesn't know what he's talking about."

It appears few "straight" people do. S/M is an underground culture, much as the gay culture has been for the past 2,000 years. In common with gays, S/Mers feel misunderstood, maligned, and persecuted.

While there are no laws preventing consensual S/M activity, society frowns upon it. We learn in kindergarten that if you hit another person you are a bully. If you accept being hit, you are a wimp. Either way, you are bad.

S/M can't be reduced to anything as simple as hitting or being hit. In his book SM 101, A Realistic Introduction, Jay Wiseman defines S/M as "the knowing use of psychological dominance and submission, and/or physical bondage, and/or pain, and/or related practices in a safe, legal, consensual manner in order for the participants to experience erotic arousal."

One word in Wiseman's definition stands out. "Safe."

"You don't want to kill the person you play with," Carla explained. "You might want to play with him again!"

Wisemand recommends that neophyte S/Mers join organizations such as APEX. At APEX, which is located in west - central Phoenix, strongly written rules are enforced to prevent injury.

The Apex dungeon is designed to provide maximum pleasure with minimal chance of physical damage.

The dungeon actually is a huge warehouse -- type room decorated to mimic a medieval castle. Scattered about the APEX dungeon are "play stations."

There is a St. Andrew's cross, where players can be tied helplessly, to await pleasure. A beautifully crafted leather sling hangs - even more erotic in its emptiness than it ever could be hold a "victim." There are the requisite whips and bindings.

Interestingly, they do not appear dangerous or morbid. The "toys" have been loving hand-crafted by skilled aficionados. They are clean and pristine.

Master Vincent, one of APEX's bloodsports experts, demonstrates piercing at one play station. His piercee is Boomer. They obviously like and trust each other. You to trust someone, Boomer says, to let him stick a needle into you.

Vincent dons latex gloves. He opens a sterile package, picks up a new needle and examines it. He explains universal precaution to his audience. As he talks, he gently strokes Boomer's arm. When he finishes the lecture, Vincent slides the needle through the flesh of Boomer's upper arm. Boomer flinches and then looks at Vincent and smiles warmly. Vincent smiles back.

In another area of the dungeon, an instructor explains how to use nipple clamps with out causing injury or excessive pain. He suggests you test a pinching device (such as the tiny plastic clothespins) on the web of skin between thumb and forefinger, before trying it on sensitive nipples.

Whipmaster Bob demonstrates flogging. He swishes a many - tailed flogger through the air, as he cautions where it is safe to hit someone, and where it is not.

"Don't get near the kidney area," he reminds his audience. "The upper back is good. The buttocks are good. Stay in those fleshy areas. Avoid the lower ribs."

Whipmaster Bob passes his whip collection around for inspection the lashes are made of soft leather. No doubt a blow from them would sting. It's hard to picture them breaking the skin or doing serious damage, but they could if not used properly.

Throughout the rest of the dungeon, dozens of people watch demonstrations, mingle and talk.

"We talk a lot at APEX," Carla said. "it's like a Tupperware party with whips and chains."

Other than a lot of leather wear and body piercing, APEX members reflect a cross-section of American society. They are male and female, young and old, gay straight, bi and transgendered. There is a variety of skin colors, classes, sizes and types of people. One lady looks like she just got off work as clerk at Kmart. Another appears to have posed for the cover of an S/M fantasy comic book. The talk together earnestly. Perhaps they are exchanging recipes. There is conversation, laughter, and hugging in the dungeon. No sex is taking place.

While S/M probably is always erotic, it isn't always sexual. Often scenes are played out without any sexual activity involved. S/M is more about psychological pleasure, than it is about physical behavior.

The physical trappings - giving and receiving pain, bondage and gagging, piercing, hanging, kneeling, pinching and whatever else fertile minds can conceive - is secondary to the mental and emotional dramas acted out by participants.

You hear S/Mers talk a lot about dominants and submissives. The submissives, or "subs" as they are also affectionately known at APEX, receive pain and/or humiliation. They get whipped and stuck with needles. They are gagged and bound. They obey orders. They kneel at the feet of their Masters.

They enjoy every minute of it.

Carla calls her sub, David, her "boy", rather than slave. "Boys have a little more freedom, " she explained somberly.

When I reached to touch the heavy chain and lock around his neck, she cautioned, "No. You don't touch someone else's property."

David looks at her the same way he does outside of APEX - with absolute devotion. The will marry soon, but they don't have sex. David is a straight man, Carla, a lesbian.

Of course, S/M people usually behave differently when at their jobs or visiting families back in Oshkosh. The man kneeling before his Master in the APEX dungeon could in corporate upper management, yelling orders when he goes to work the next day. Interestingly, S/Mers sometimes switch roles, with dominants becoming submissives, and vice versa.

It is impossible to generalize about S/M. There is a wide range of behavior; Everything from "slap and tickle" where a married couple wrestles in the privacy of a bedroom, to couples who live in a Master/slave relationship every moment of their lives.

In out democratic society, where we insist on personal equality, dominance and submission makes us uncomfortable. We wonder, "how did these people come to enjoy this?"

"Sometimes people are working out something from their past," Carla explained. A person who was Physically and emotionally abused as a child might become a slave, because he/she associates pain with whatever love and comfort did occur.

Conversely, an abused child might grow up to be a dominant, acting out childhood fantasies of giving someone else a whipping, for a change.

In Carla's case, she was born with physical problems that necessitated many surgeries and medical procedures throughout childhood.

"I was taught pain was good for me. I was taught it would make me better," Carla said. She has been attracted to pain since.

Even though he didn't have a name for it at the time, Vincent also was fascinated by S/M as a child.

"I used to run around playing with ropes," Vincent confessed. "I put Barbie in bondage. I knew it was a part of me."

People who suffer a great deal of pain in childhood often learn to rise above discomfort. They discover they can mentally leave the physical body that is experiencing the pain and go to another place.

The ability to have such an "out of body experience" has been sought by mystics and religious visionaries throughout human history. Often pain is used by religious sects in a search for Nirvana. Such experiences also seem to be a positive byproduct of "edgeplaying" S/M activity.

Edgeplaying S/M is when people get into giving and receiving serious pain. Here the players are drawing close to a dangerous situation. S/M can be dangerous, because there are people who cross over the line into what APEX members insist is not S/M.

There are people who are not satisfied until they have maimed or killed another being. And the activity is performed on helpless victims, not consenting partners. Sometimes these criminals go looking for their victims in places such as gay leather bars, where they know S/M people like to hang out. They try to get one alone - to cut him off from the herd, so to speak.

This is one of the reasons organizations such as APEX exist. Members are taught, never go home with someone you don't know. If you do set up a scene with someone new, let a friend know where you are. Arrange to call your friend at a certain time. If you don't call on time, instruct that person to phone the police.

"APEX is an educational support group, not a dating club," its orientation material reads. "Safe, Sane and Consensual" is its motto. The organization was co-founded 10 years ago by Mistress Catrina and Bert. Mistress Catrina said they talked about the idea for a long time, but didn't know how to get things started.

"We were determined that Arizona would have a safe place to come, to grow and play," Mistress Catrina said. They sought advice from an S/M club in another state on how to organize and advertise the venture, then finally took the plunge.

How does one advertise to start an S/M club?

"We advertised in the Arizona Republic," Mistress Catrina said, laughing at her daring. "We said we were going to have a party for people interested in D/s (dominance/submission) relationships. About 80 people came!"

It is estimated between 7 percent and 14 percent of the population has been involved in S/M activity. Many more people have a fascination with it.

"To see the prevalence, just look at the public's interest in movies, books and other artistic expressions with S/M as the dominant theme," APEX points out on its website.

However, often the S/M depicted in movies and comics is exactly what give S/M a bad name.

"It's time that the S/M community organized to oppose the representation of nonconsensual, brutal material as S/M. If we see such material in magazines, books, movies, or elsewhere, we should confront it for the damaging fraud it is... S/M is S/M. Violence is violence. No connection whatsoever exists between the two. " Wiseman writes.

For years, S/M was classified by American Psychiatric Association as a paraphilla, defined as: Recurrent, intense sexually aroused fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors generally involving 1) nonhuman objects, 2) the suffereing or humiliation of oneself or one's partner, or 3) children or other nonconsenting person, that occur over a period of at least six months."

In other words, S/Mers were pigeon-holed with child molesters and practitioners of beastiality.

More recently, the APA has amended its Diagnostic & Statistical Manual to acknowledge, "A paraphillia must be distinguished from the nonpathologiacal use of sexual fantasies, behaviors, or objects as a stimulus for sexual excitement in individuals without paraphillia. Fantasies, behaviors, or objects are paraphiliac only when they lead to clinically significant distress or impairment (e.g., are obligatory, result in sexual dysfunction, require participation of nonconsenting individuals, lead to legal complication, interfere with social relationships)."

"Basically, it says we now have the right to self-define ourselves and if we don't feel we have a problem with how we are, then we are not sick," said Mistress Catrina.

Most people think of S/M as another kinky way to have sex. APEX members will tell you it is another way to have a relationship.

To them, the lifestyle involves love, trust, the exchange of personal power, and a more exciting way to experience eroticism.

"Our love maps are just slightly different than the majority of people," Mistress Catrina said.

Since those love maps are formed with people are small children, S/Mers cannot change their orientation anymore than gays can. What's more, they don't want to. "Vanilla" relationships hold no attraction for them.