Information literacies of self-identified sadomasochists: an ethnographic case study

The purpose of this paper is to present findings on the way in which self-identified sadomasochist apply their information literacy skills, and to analyse those applications in the context of existing research on information literacies (IL).

The paper is based on the author’s two decades of ethnographic work within a national-level sadomasochist community, supplemented by interviews with 30 practitioners and an extensive literature survey.

Sadomasochists avoid the social stigma associated with their activities by developing highly refined ILs. Central among these is the ability to learn from other practitioners by reading and interpreting their actions as “texts.” They furthermore stockpile potentially useful information for later use. Their ILs not only make sadomasochists more skilled in their practices, but also provide them with safety.

By examining its subject community, the paper develops the ideas of embodied information literacy, currently strongly associated with workplace learning, to the hobby and lifestyle sectors, as it deals with a particularly corporeal set of ILs. This radical example allows scholars to conduct research on the ILs other communities of practice, in which the activities may be less obviously corporeal, but the literacies just as based on embodied interpretation and the reading of others’ activities as texts.