In this lively ethnography, anthropologist Margo Weiss studies the pansexual BDSM community in the San Francisco Bay Area. She became active in the Society of Janus, a large organization of BDSM practitioners in the South Bay, mainly composed of white, reasonably well-off, and otherwise primarily heterosexual participants. Weiss finds that BDSM practice is not as transgressive as the participants imagine, nor is it simply reinforcing of older forms of social domination. Instead, through an analysis she calls performative materialism, she shows how fantasy play depends on pre-existing social hierarchies, even as it also participates in a commodification of desires.

Techniques of Pleasure is a vivid portrayal of the San Francisco Bay Area’s pansexual BDSM (SM) community. Margot Weiss conducted ethnographic research at dungeon play parties and at workshops on bondage, role play, and flogging, and she interviewed more than sixty SM practitioners. She describes a scene devoted to a form of erotic play organized around technique, rules and regulations, consumerism, and self-mastery. Challenging the notion that SM is inherently transgressive, Weiss links the development of commodity-oriented sexual communities and the expanding market for sex toys to the eroticization of gendered, racialized, and national inequalities. She analyzes the politics of BDSM’s spectacular performances, including those that dramatize heterosexual male dominance, slave auctions, and US imperialism, and contends that the SM scene is not a “safe space” separate from real-world inequality. It depends, like all sexual desire, on social hierarchies. Based on this analysis, Weiss theorizes late-capitalist sexuality as a circuit—one connecting the promise of new emancipatory pleasures to the reproduction of raced and gendered social norms.

"[A] fascinating, sophisticated, and original look at the ways in which we might begin to rethink how we view alternative iterations of expressions of sexuality. ...I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in areas of sexuality, critical race theory, gender studies, biopolitics, and even discourse analysis." - Peitho

"“[A] useful scholarly monograph on how once perversions of the select have become indulgences of the many. . . . Techniques of Pleasure is at its best when Weiss describes what goes on at gatherings of consenting adults engaged in semi-public and non-commercial fetishistic S-and-M role-play. To her credit, she includes extensive quotes from practitioners she meets along the way. Ethnographers have the eyes and ears of an explorer.”" - The Brooklyn Rail

"“Techniques of Pleasure is an important theoretical and empirical contribution that moves beyond the existing analyses in feminist and queer theory that depict SM as either inherently sexist or inherently transgressive. Building on both these theories without discarding their core assumptions, Weiss demonstrates how SM can be both sexist and transgressive, often at the same time. Beyond the empirical focus of this book, Weiss contributes to the broader literature on late capitalism’s impact on bodies, sexualities, and subjectivities.”" - American Journal of Sociology

"“Researchers and teachers of popular culture may use this book to counterbalance the recent upsurge in media depictions of BDSM, particularly the strain of erotic fiction known as ‘mommy porn,’ which uses BDSM imagery to reinforce heteronormative ideals… It is a complex subject, worthy of the meticulous treatment Weiss offers.”" - International Social Science Review

"“Techniques of Pleasure...is a landmark study of the BDSM 'scene' in San Francisco...Weiss succeeds admirably in producing a work that is conceptually rich and ethnographically engaging.”" - Current Anthropology

"“Weiss offers a nuanced reading of sex, power, consumption, and subjectivity that makes Techniques of Pleasure a major contribution to new theoretical work on neoliberal economic processes and the anthropology of sexuality and gender.”
" - American Ethnologist

"“Margot Weiss’ sociological approach to the formation of sexual desire is breathtakingly smart and powerful, and should be required reading for any serious scholar of sexuality henceforth.” " - Contemporary Sociology

"“[A] vital, if controversial, contribution to the body of writing and theory on BDSM.”" - Bitch

"“The analysis of these circuits is quite fascinating and could be expanded outside the BDSM scene to explore sexual fantasy and performance in any affluent, educated, tech-savvy culture. Recommended to readers interested in human sexuality.”" - Library Journal

"“In its analytic candor, both generous and unflinching, Weiss’s book is an appropriate entrée for anyone wishing to engage with contemporary BDSM communities — nestled within the larger queer academic trend of critiquing neoliberalist ideological formations of liberated selves and others.” " - GLQ