“A curious thing about race play is that it is pursued by people of color but often consumed by whites. The BDSM community is largely white, so those watching a public scene are more often white people. The community itself is not free of racism. Chupoo sees this evidenced in the men who approach her. “I get more white sub[missive] men hitting on me than anything else,” she says. They’re hoping she’ll be a big, black dominant woman. “It’s their thing. It ’s their racist fantasies of what black people are.”

Bond has had similar experiences but he and others note that the white people they do race play with are not racists. “Truth be told, you have to get a white woman to like you before you can get her to beat you or call you racial names, ” he says.”