Abstract
Public images and private lives often do not match up. Indeed, social life is premised as much on what is not shown as it is on what is revealed. Concealment, deception and the blurring of truth and fantasy can be fundamental for social life. Advertising services in the Australian sex industry, as with advertising many other services and products, relies on appealing to a market by blurring truth and fantasy. This is even more pronounced in the realm of professional Bondage and Discipline (BD), where service providers cater for a niche market that revolves around fetish, role play and mind games. In this paper I look at the public perception of those offering BD services, with newspaper advertisements providing the most visible medium by which opinions are formed of this underground group of professional players, who are generally included as part of a city's sex industry. I also examine the blurring of truth and fantasy in order to cater for a relatively small group of individuals, where competition is high and repeat business is essential to earn a living.
Author Information
Angela Mary Wilson, Curtin University, Australia
Paper Information
Conference: CITY2016
Stream: Culture, Popular Culture and Cultural Studies
This paper is part of the CITY2016 Conference Proceedings (View)
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