Structures of Desire: BDSM in the Science Fiction and Fantasy of Samuel R. Delany

Abstract

If one were to list the twentieth century’s most influential science fiction and fantasy authors, the name “Samuel R. Delany” would certainly appear on that list. Delany wrote groundbreaking SF&F from the 1960s through the 1980s, and he remains a powerful writer and an insightful literary critic to this day. After William Moulton Marston, Delany was the next major American science fiction and fantasy author to explore kink in his writing. Like Marston, Delany is a scholar as well as an author of popular fiction. While Marston used psychology and comic books to promote his version of BDSM, Delany used literary criticism and (mostly) prose science fiction and fantasy. Delany’s revolutionary fiction presented consensual BDSM as an ethically valid lifestyle. Meanwhile, his interviews and essays gradually began to advocate kink as a philosophy. While Marston envisioned BDSM mainly in heterosexual or lesbian terms, Delany’s vision incorporated the theories and practices of gay leathermen. Delany thus provided science fiction and fantasy with a broader, deeper and more complex understanding of BDSM.