Overview

Please Scream Quietly is the collective autobiography of the BDSM subculture, showing how it teaches members to cherish their kinky identities and experiences. Using a wide variety of information collected by a self-identified kinkster and professional sociologist, it tells th...

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9781538168752

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Reviews

"Entertaining and informative, Julie Fennell's Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink is an exemplary work of carnal sociology. Deeply researched and chock-full of social scientific wisdom, the book offers a rich and illuminating introduction to kinkster subculture in the United States. Read it for Fennell's insights on sexuality, gender, and culture. Teach it if you dare! --Laura M. Carpenter, associate professor of sociology, Vanderbilt University Fennell provides an up-close view of kinky culture, but does so using a sociological lens. Her description of how a sociologist looks at the world (like Sherlock) is spot-on. We are trained to make the familiar strange and I believe Fennell does a wonderful job at doing that. --Amanda Fehlbaum, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, Youngstown State University Fennell's work is invaluable--too often, as researchers, we leave out the fact that sex and pleasure are fun and enjoyable. Fennell expertly captures the emotionality and sensuality of BDSM. Fennell's position as an insider is an asset and she directly engages in discussions of positionality and how this can inform scholarly work if one maintains a critical subjectivity. Her recognition of the inherent value of subjective experience in the study of sexuality is novel and, quite frankly, necessary. The work is bold and engaging and grounds her subjective experience within the scientific and empirical literature, while maintaining a writing style that is engaging and inclusive. This book can easily appeal to a wide audience. Fennell addresses some of the most important issues in BDSM and kink: safety, consent, and the shame and stigma that has plagued the community due to the pathologizing of these behaviors. Her raw and honest analysis of perceptions and experiences adds considerably to the knowledge on BDSM, kink, and sexuality. --Karen Holt, assistant professor, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University I really loved the writing style of this book. It was engaging, accessible, and easy to read, without being simplistic. It was like having a really smart friend explain the BDSM scene. The author said that she was aiming this book at a more popular audience, and I think she succeeded at writing a book that can appeal to lay people without sacrificing intellectual rigor. --Jennifer Whitmer, associate professor of sociology, gerontology, and gender studies, Stanislaus State University Julie Fennell's engaging semi-autoethnography, Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink, explores the mid-Atlantic kink community with nuance and depth, challenging the ways that outsiders and academics have been biased in their treatment of kink culture and calling us forward into new transferable models of research, consent, and responsibility. --Amy K. Milligan, Batten Endowed Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Women's Studies and the director of the Institute of Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding, Old Dominion University The author takes you step-by-step into the Scene, offering an intimate portrayal of why, when, and how self-proclaimed ""kinksters"" engage in the Scene, as well as interrogating what is ""normal"" and ""kinky"" when the lines between them are blurring rapidly. --Elizabeth Miles, assistant professor of Asian studies and gender and women's studies, Kennesaw State University This book gets high marks for originality and authenticity. The author fills a gap in the BDSM academic literature by conducting fieldwork from an insider's perspective. Please Scream Quietly is methodologically sound and a great book for students in human sexuality, gender, and intimate relationships courses, BDSM researchers, or anyone who wants to gain insight into this interesting community. --Heidi Lyons, associate professor of sociology, Oakland University While other texts de-sexualize and make ""stuffy"" or boring the topic, this book is a frank and honest look at the community in which the author is situated. --Kimberly B. Dugan, professor of sociology, Eastern Connecticut State University"

Fennell's work is invaluable - too often, as researchers, we leave out the fact that sex and pleasure are fun and enjoyable. Fennell expertly captures the emotionality and sensuality of BDSM. Fennell's position as an insider is asset and she directly engages in discussions of positionality and how this can inform scholarly work if one maintains a critical subjectivity. Her recognition of the inherent value of subjective experience in the study of sexuality is novel and, quite frankly, necessary. The work is bold and engaging and grounds her subjective experience within the scientific and empirical literature while maintaining a writing style that is engaging and inclusive. This book can easily appeal to a wide audience. Fennell addresses some of the most important issues in BDSM and kink - safety, consent, and the shame and stigma that has plagued the community due to the pathologization of these behaviors. Her raw and honest analysis of perceptions and experiences adds considerably to the knowledge on BDSM, kink, and sexuality.--Karen Holt, Michigan State University Julie Fennell's engaging semi-autoethnography, Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink, explores the mid-Atlantic kink community with nuance and depth, challenging the ways that outsiders and academics have been biased in their treatment of kink culture and calling us forward into new transferable models of research, consent, and responsibility.--Amy K. Milligan, Old Dominion University The author takes you step-by-step into the Scene, offering an intimate portrayal of why, when, and how self-proclaimed kinksters engage in the Scene, as well as interrogating what is normal and kinky when the lines between them are blurring rapidly.--Elizabeth Miles, Kennesaw State University This book gets high marks for originality and authenticity. The author fills a gap in the BDSM academic literature by conducting fieldwork from an insider's perspective. Please Scream Quietly is methodologically sound and a great book for students in human sexuality, gender, and intimate relationships courses, BDSM researchers, or anyone who wants to gain insight into this interesting community.--Heidi Lyons, Oakland University Fennell provides an up-close view of the kinky culture but does so using a sociological lens. Her description of how a sociologist looks at the world (like Sherlock) is spot-on. We are trained to make the familiar strange and I believe Fennell does a wonderful job at doing that.--Amanda Fehlbaum, Youngstown State University I really loved the writing style of this book. It was engaging, accessible, and easy to read, without being simplistic. It was like having a really smart friend explain the BDSM scene. The author said that she was aiming this book at a more popular audience, and I think she succeeded at writing a book that can appeal to lay people without sacrificing intellectual rigor.--Jennifer Whitmer, Stanislaus State University While other texts de-sexualize and make stuffy or boring the topic, this book is a frank and honest look at the community in which the author is situated.--Kimberly B. Dugan, Eastern Connecticut State University

"The author takes you step-by-step into the Scene, offering an intimate portrayal of why, when, and how self-proclaimed ""kinksters"" engage in the Scene, as well as interrogating what is ""normal"" and ""kinky"" when the lines between them are blurring rapidly.--Elizabeth Miles, assistant professor of Asian studies and gender and women's studies, Kennesaw State University While other texts de-sexualize and make ""stuffy"" or boring the topic, this book is a frank and honest look at the community in which the author is situated.--Kimberly B. Dugan, professor of sociology, Eastern Connecticut State University Fennell provides an up-close view of kinky culture, but does so using a sociological lens. Her description of how a sociologist looks at the world (like Sherlock) is spot-on. We are trained to make the familiar strange and I believe Fennell does a wonderful job at doing that.--Amanda Fehlbaum, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, Youngstown State University Fennell's work is invaluable--too often, as researchers, we leave out the fact that sex and pleasure are fun and enjoyable. Fennell expertly captures the emotionality and sensuality of BDSM. Fennell's position as an insider is an asset and she directly engages in discussions of positionality and how this can inform scholarly work if one maintains a critical subjectivity. Her recognition of the inherent value of subjective experience in the study of sexuality is novel and, quite frankly, necessary. The work is bold and engaging and grounds her subjective experience within the scientific and empirical literature, while maintaining a writing style that is engaging and inclusive. This book can easily appeal to a wide audience. Fennell addresses some of the most important issues in BDSM and kink: safety, consent, and the shame and stigma that has plagued the community due to the pathologizing of these behaviors. Her raw and honest analysis of perceptions and experiences adds considerably to the knowledge on BDSM, kink, and sexuality.--Karen Holt, assistant professor, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University Entertaining and informative, Julie Fennell's Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink is an exemplary work of carnal sociology. Deeply researched and chock-full of social scientific wisdom, the book offers a rich and illuminating introduction to kinkster subculture in the United States. Read it for Fennell's insights on sexuality, gender, and culture. Teach it if you dare!--Laura M. Carpenter, associate professor of sociology, Vanderbilt University I really loved the writing style of this book. It was engaging, accessible, and easy to read, without being simplistic. It was like having a really smart friend explain the BDSM scene. The author said that she was aiming this book at a more popular audience, and I think she succeeded at writing a book that can appeal to lay people without sacrificing intellectual rigor.--Jennifer Whitmer, associate professor of sociology, gerontology, and gender studies, Stanislaus State University Julie Fennell's engaging semi-autoethnography, Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink, explores the mid-Atlantic kink community with nuance and depth, challenging the ways that outsiders and academics have been biased in their treatment of kink culture and calling us forward into new transferable models of research, consent, and responsibility.--Amy K. Milligan, Batten Endowed Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Women's Studies and the director of the Institute of Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding, Old Dominion University This book gets high marks for originality and authenticity. The author fills a gap in the BDSM academic literature by conducting fieldwork from an insider's perspective. Please Scream Quietly is methodologically sound and a great book for students in human sexuality, gender, and intimate relationships courses, BDSM researchers, or anyone who wants to gain insight into this interesting community.--Heidi Lyons, associate professor of sociology, Oakland University"

Fennell provides an up-close view of the kinky culture but does so using a sociological lens. Her description of how a sociologist looks at the world (like Sherlock) is spot-on. We are trained to make the familiar strange and I believe Fennell does a wonderful job at doing that.--Amanda Fehlbaum, Youngstown State University I really loved the writing style of this book. It was engaging, accessible, and easy to read, without being simplistic. It was like having a really smart friend explain the BDSM scene. The author said that she was aiming this book at a more popular audience, and I think she succeeded at writing a book that can appeal to lay people without sacrificing intellectual rigor.--Jennifer Whitmer, Stanislaus State University Julie Fennell's engaging semi-autoethnographic, Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink, explores the Mid-Atlantic kink community with nuance and depth, challenging the ways that outsiders and academics have been biased in their treatment of kink culture and calling us forward into new transferable models of research, consent, and responsibility.--Amy K. Milligan, Old Dominion University The author takes you step-by-step into the Scene, offering an intimate portrayal of why, when, and how self-proclaimed kinksters engage in the Scene, as well as interrogating what is normal and kinky when the lines between them are blurring ever rapidly.--Elizabeth Miles, Kennesaw State University While other texts de-sexualize and make stuffy or boring the topic, this book is a frank and honest look at the community in which the author is situated.--Kimberly B. Dugan, Eastern Connecticut State University

Author Information

Julie Fennell holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Brown University and a B.A. in Sociology and English Literature, summa cum laude, from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Her academic specializations are gender and sexuality, and she is a tenured Associate Professor of Sociology at Gallaudet University. Her 2015 article with Robert Evans of cracked.com on BDSM has received over 2 million views, and a follow-up cracked.com article in which she was interviewed in 2017 received over a million views as well. An academic for-the-public talk that she gave locally on BDSM in 2015 was recorded has received over 10,000 views on YouTube; she will be giving a presentation on polyamory to the same organization in the fall of 2018. Dr. Fennell’s co-authored earlier research on withdrawal (coitus interruptus) which was published in the academic journal Contraception in 2009, also received widespread public attention, with discussions in media outlets around the world, from jezebel.com to the New York Times. In addition, she has published a sole-authored article on men’s and women’s roles in contraceptive decision-making in the highest-ranked journal in gender studies, Gender & Society; two other articles in Contraception; a co-authored commentary in the highly ranked Journal of Sexual Medicine; has published academic articles on BDSM for the sociology magazine The Sociologist and the journal Sociological Forum, with a forthcoming article in Sexualities; and a methods piece on her BDSM research for Sage Research methods. In preparation for writing this book, Dr. Fennell embarked upon an intensive period of in-depth participant observation in the mid-Atlantic BDSM scene beginning in January 2012. Throughout the summer of 2012, she traveled throughout the mid-Atlantic region, conducting interviews with 70 people who identified as kinky. She also observed dozens of small kink parties and several days-long kink events. Then in April 2017, she conducted a large-scale internet survey of kinksters with more than 1600 respondents. The BDSM scene is unusually appealing for an internet survey, as virtually all people involved in it are members of a single social networking website, FetLife. In addition to her academic study of the Scene, Dr. Fennell has over seven years of personal experience in the D.C./Baltimore BDSM scene. She remains a well-established figure there as a kinky performer, blogger, and presenter. In 2015, she was the recipient of the BDSM organization Black Rose’s highly regarded Jack McGeorge Award for Excellence in Education for her work in and about the community. She continues to teach BDSM in many parts of the U.S. and in Canada. Having lived in “the Lifestyle” (as kinksters sometimes refer to their lives in the subculture) for many years herself as a self-identified kinky polyamorous pansexual “slut,” Dr. Fennell brings an insider’s intimate understanding to her writings about the Scene. She discussed some of her experiences in Elisabeth Sheff’s (2015) anthology Stories from the Polycule (Thorntree Press).

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