As Mainstream Interest in Kinky Play Skyrockets, Leading BDSM Educators Begin Teaching Online Courses to Adults Worldwide

Pompano Beach, FL, February 01, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Whether it’s a little light spanking and bondage in the marital bed, a cross-dressing session with a professional dominant, or heavy discipline at a fetish club, mainstream visibility and interest in various forms of BDSM play has exploded in recent years… along with a vast amount of misleading, incomplete, and sometimes dangerous information being propagated in cyberspace and the media. This concerns many leading BDSM instructors and authors (yes, there’s an entire educational subculture devoted to these things), some of whom are now teaching their topics to consenting adults worldwide in a new e-learning institution called Power Play Academy.

“One of our main audiences are ‘bedroom players’ who want to add more creativity to their erotic repertoire or get a better understanding of their own desires,” according to Ava Durga, Provost. “People see Lady Heather on CSI or read some stuff online and it strikes a chord within them, or they want to learn a new technique, and they begin to experiment on their own.” This isn’t a tiny group of oddball perverts: researchers estimate that the number of people interested in some form of BDSM play (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) ranges from 5 to nearly 50 percent of the US population, with 10 percent a commonly used figure.

While live expert instruction is available through hundreds of local educational events, regional conferences, and professional dominants, stigma and finances prevent most people from pursuing these avenues and they are left to their own devices. Often the worst that happens is disappointment or unintended minor injuries to the body, the psyche, or the ego. But these experiments can also go horribly wrong. One recent incident near Philadelphia resulted in two deaths when a committed couple engaged in breath control (aka erotic asphyxiation), a seemingly harmless but highly dangerous form of “edge play” that even many seasoned kinksters refuse to engage in; the woman died and the distraught fiancé hung himself.

Even the best books and DVDs (and not all are) are studied in isolation without personal guidance and human interaction. “Our students get both: instruction and mentoring from some of North America’s leading BDSM educators and authors, and intelligent discussion with classmates from all over the world, but done in the privacy of home with the convenience of a self-paced online course.”

So should such “perversions” be brought out of the shadows and into an academic-like environment? “What is so wrong with consenting adults wanting to play make-believe in the bedroom or learn different types of mental and sensory stimulation for their mutual enjoyment?” Durga says. “Take a sweet-natured woman whose husband has confided that he’d like to be dominated. She doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know what to do, is maybe a little weirded out, and every FemDom image she’s ever seen has been the stereotypical uber-hot, hyper-aggressive, latex-clad 20-something Amazon bitch wielding a bullwhip. But she loves him enough to give it a go, and enrolls in an online FemDom course where she develops her own style and begins to understand his desires. Hubby gets a helluva surprise on Valentine’s Day, she feels great about her new skills, and they start enjoying a new dimension in their relationship that can last the rest of their lives. How could anyone not see that as loving and inspiring and beautiful?”

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Power Play Academy is an online educational institution offering interactive e-learning courses in the BDSM arts from some of North America’s leading lifestyle and sexuality educators and authors. For more information and a virtual tour of the online classrooms, visit Powerplayacademy.org or contact Ava Durga, Director/Provost, ava@powerplayacademy.org or 954-235-7226