L&R July 2017 Magazine

The controversial 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality, which brought these issues to
the attention of academic feminists, is often regarded as officially launching the feminist
sex wars.
1990s
In the 1990s feminist scholars continued to research and apply different feminist
academic frameworks to the questions of sexuality and BDSM in an effort to find a way
to bridge the gap between the two groups. Hopkins, in 1994 applied critical analysis to
the feminist viewpoints against Sadomasochistic acts. She takes each argument put forth
against BDSM practice by women and answers it from within a feminist framework. In the
end, she points out that the issue is not as concrete as feminists may try and paint it and
that they may need to examine the concepts in more detail. In 1995, Teresa Hornsby
also applied feminist frameworks to the subject of BDSM and came down on the side
that the two were not contradictory. Hornsby went further to examine whether or not
violence itself was only a masculine activity.
2000s
After 2000, advances in technology were opening up the world to more people and
BDSM started coming out more and more in popular culture. Maneesha Deckha applied
a postcolonial feminist approach where she suggests treating BDSM as a cultural
practice as a means to put to rest the divide between feminists and BDSM practitioners.
She came to the conclusion as did those in the 90's that perhaps a more in depth look is
needed to determine if feminist viewpoints on BDSM hold up under closer scrutiny. In
addition, Deckha did some work on the concepts of consent and the legality of BDSM.
[11] Specifically addressing the question on whether or not women can give consent and
whether BDSM activities should be