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Imagine a vanilla person visiting a BDSM club for the very first time. Already a little nervous upon entering, she watches as a woman in impossibly high heels leads her man around by a dog leash.

Then our tourist turns her head to see another man, in leather, stick pins into the flesh of a half-naked lady – and the crowd: Everyone is just smiling!

To our visitor, BDSM would seem so extreme, so utterly bizarre. But is it actually conservative?

** WARNING: The following may read like a rambling college freshman essay. **

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s set up our definitions. First, by BDSM, I mean two things:

• BDSM fantasy, as commonly depicted in erotic fiction
• BDSM reality, as played out in the club, bedroom, library basement, etc.

Next, what do I mean by conservative?

To be clear, I am not referring to any contemporary political movement – and certainly not to those in the US who advocate small government, free trade and biblical values.

Nor do I mean resistance to new ideas. This cognitive definition is way too broad and could easily apply to a communist bureaucrat in China who still glorifies the Revolution.

Rather, I mean certain values and practices associated with 18th-century European traditionalist conservatives and these are:

• Hierarchy, class, tradition, service, sacrifice, severe punishments, etc.

Now, let’s get back to BDSM fantasy.

Think of all the erotic movies, books, etc. that set your libido afire: Did any of them feature Ronit, a dimwitted 33-year-old waitress, trading spatula smacks with Yossi, an out-of-work car mechanic with three kids and an overdue mortgage?

Of course not.

In fact, I have yet to read a single BDSM story about a pair of fun-loving switches. There is always a dominant and a submissive.

Next, the male dominant is an intelligent, well-groomed and affluent man (baron, tycoon, lawyer, etc.). He must be aloof, aristocratic – not busy fighting for city homeless shelters.

The dominatrix, his female equivalent, has an equally high social status, but in a pre-feminist sort of way: she is young and beautiful, perhaps a narcissistic model or actress.

The submissive endures manual labor or sexual service or both. And, of course, there are uniforms to be worn and rituals to be obeyed. Punishment is harsh and humiliating.

At this point, you have to ask yourself: Does any of this – the social order, the shackles, corporal punishment, etc. – sound liberal?

But what of femdom, you ask. At the very least, is this not a rejection of patriarchy?

Maybe.

It might also be a tool used to justify the traditional social order – like when a slave is made king for a day, then goes mad with his newfound power and is finally executed at the end of his short reign, thus demonstrating to all that the real monarch is good.

This is exactly the point of “Venus in Furs.” Severin’s masochistic love affair with Wanda is a disaster. Once more, it is used to justify his later domination of women.

Now, for the sake of argument, let us agree that BDSM fantasy is conservative. What of the games we play as real human beings and not as characters in a book or film?

This is where the issue gets fuzzier.

Some things we do are clearly sacrilegious, trampling all over tradition – for example, when women dress up as fetishistic versions of nuns or soldiers (neither of which is a popular outfit in Israel, for obvious reasons).

Other behaviors only seem radical.

For example, a dominatrix who dresses up her male sub in women’s clothing is, on the surface of it, humiliating him. But she might also be unconsciously reinforcing the patriarchal notion that women are less than men.

(Notice that there is no female sub equivalent of sissification in maledom.)

Now, as far as BDSM hierarchy goes, it is consensual and negotiated – hence, not a real class system. Furthermore, it exists only at a one-to-one level. Not all the subs wait in the corner of the club, on bended knee, just to meet the demands of any and all dominants.

So in conclusion, where does that leave us? I’d say that, except for the gender supremacists, who really do think in terms of caste and 24/7 people, who blur the lines of fact and fiction, BDSM folk are just modern liberals playing at old-time, hyper-sexualized, cruel aristocrats.

During these games, we sometimes reinforce our own social order, and other times we distort it. Or so it would seem to me.

*** I’d like to thank all the people who have contributed ideas to this piece.