tOuch Kink
(Canada/USACosta Rica, 76 min.)
Dir. Todd “Max” Carey
Program: Les Fantastiques Week-End Du Cinéma Québécois
According to a study cited in Todd “Max” Carey’s documentary tOuch Kink, 33% of people are kinky or kink curious. One would think that number would be higher, but many people do not associate common aspects of their intimate activities, such as fuzzy handcuffs, light spanking, or lingerie, with the world of bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM). This disconnect allows the negative stigma around all things kink to thrive over time.
Aiming to take a sledgehammer to the wall of misconceptions surrounding the kink community, Carey’s documentary strives to breakdown barriers through education. Inspired by January Seraph, an internationally renowned dominatrix who approached Carey with the idea, the film explores the history and myths of kink. Seraph herself notes in the film that people often assume that she is cold or does not have loved ones simply because of her profession.
Many of the individuals Carey speaks with, ranging from dominatrices to submissives to leather workers, echo similar complaints about how outsiders view them. Much of this stems from a lengthy history of society labelling any form of sexual exploration, that did not fall under religious doctrine, as something that was aberrant. As the film highlights, BDSM was considered a sexual deviation in 1962 and a psychosexual disorder by the 1980s. While the popularity of the best-selling book Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James made it chic to discuss in the mainstream, the portrayal in that book further perpetuated problematic stereotypes.
Similar to other media representations of the community, James’ book continued the dangerous narrative of damaged souls and abuse being key drivers for those who participate in BDSM. Furthermore, it displayed a lack of true understanding in regard to the importance of consent in the community. As tOuch Kink goes to great lengths to show, consent is one of the four important pillars to a successful BDSM encounter with the others being negotiation, play, and aftercare. While pleasure is the goal, it should never come at the expense of someone’s safety.
Taking viewers into play sessions, conventions, and seminars, Carey shows just how important safety and education is to the community. As one leatherman points out in the film, the most valuable piece of advice he received when learning how to use leather in BDSM was that “all you need is compassion.” This sense of caring for fellow individuals within the community often runs contradictory to the heartless portrayals that outsiders often provide.
Carey’s film understands that the best way to build the bridge of understanding is to show that unlike a fetishism, which fixates on a singular thing, the world of kink it vast and does not fit into only one box. Whether talking to seasoned individuals, such as dominatrix Mistress Evilyn, or following a novice like Grace, a sales rep who arrives at a dominatrix convention with preconceived notions but slowly becomes more open to the community, there are several avenues the film ventures down
While an informative work, tOuch Kink is surprisingly tame given its subject matter. Carey’s documentary is so concerned with bringing a sense of earnest legitimacy to the BDSM world that it plays its too safe in both the way it presents the facts and its visual aesthetics. Considering how colourful some of the Individuals are, and the racy nature of the subject matter, the film’s overall approach is rather drab.
The clinical way that Carey’s film unfolds makes its depiction of pleasure feel oddly sterile. The academic style the film employs inadvertently streamlines both the highs and lows of BDSM. Scenes of play carry the same conventional texture as the ones where individuals lament about being isolated from loved ones who refuse to educate themselves about the world of kink.
Although the film’s own aesthetics would have benefitted from stepping outside its own comfort zone stylistically, there is still plenty one can learn here. At its core tOuch Kink is a film about acceptance and understanding. The documentary is a reminder that we all have a kinky side and need to be more comfortable embracing it.
