How Not to Become a Dominatrix: Moral Panic in the Supervision of a Social Psychology Dissertation on Heterosexual BDSM

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article draws on standpoint theory, social psychology, psychoanalysis, and gender studies. Perversion is understood here as an insult aimed at controlling the (sexual) freedom of women, especially women conducting academic research on nonconforming sexualities. The author recounts the moral panic that accompanied her supervision of a Ph.D. on female domination in heterosexual BDSM. This dissertation was defended several years ago and is now published, thus allowing a retrospective reading. The candidate was rapidly identified with her research object by other professors and students in the psychology department, which aroused strong emotional reactions when she performed as Mistress Tarna in a Berlin dungeon. The author analyzes the consequences of this moral panic on the supervision of this academic work and questions the place of affect in both ethnographic fieldwork and the interactions between a Ph.D. supervisor and student.