I found a website that had this explantion on BDSM and thought it may help explain a bit for those out there that have no experience with the terminology and are curious.
The soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm FAQ list:
What do B&D, S&M, D&S, "top", "bottom" mean?
The easy part first: B&D = "bondage & dominance" or "bondage & discipline." S&M = "sadism & masochism." D&S = "dominance & submission."
Some people enjoy submitting to another person, placing themselves under the power of another, in a sexual context. It can be a very hot thing for someone to say to you, "I'm yours. Use my body for your pleasure." This is D&S; one person is dominating, the other submitting. Slave/master, harem girl/sultan, boy/daddy, student/schoolmistress. D&S is an erotic power game, where both people are getting off--one on the thrill of controlling, the other on the thrill of being controlled. This is also where the terms "top" and "bottom" come in; the top is, roughly, the dominant; the bottom is, roughly, the submissive.
What do tops and bottoms do with each other? Well, one good possibility is they have lots of hot sex. Another possibility is the top ties the bottom up in some manner, which directly and physically puts the bottom at the top's mercy, and then the top plays with the bottom, teasing, seducing, frustrating, and hopefully finally satisfying. This is a bondage & dominance sort of game. Some people enjoy playing with punishment--"You've been bad and now I have to tie you up and spank you!" That's bondage & discipline for you.
Then there's the sort of game described by S&M--"sadism and masochism". Whips, canes, nipple clamps, all the wonderful things that are designed to cause, in greater or lesser degree, pain. It can be a powerful thing to submit to someone else who wants to hurt you; it's a fantastic gesture of trust. And as will be discussed later, pain is not really pain anymore in an S&M game; it becomes overwhelmingly intense stimulation, which when administered by a skilled top can bring a bottom to entirely new heights of ecstasy.
Sometimes the D&S aspect becomes secondary to the sensual trip; you don't have to enjoy obeying another's commands to enjoy being tied up and whipped! And of course, pain (whether light or heavy) is only one sort of sensation; there are many others, and all of them can be lots of fun to play with.
This sort of trip, merging pain and pleasure to create an amazingly powerful experience for the bottom, is sometimes known as SM: Sex Magick. The precise definitions of B&D, S&M, whatever, don't matter so much as do the experiences they point towards. All these areas, as you can see, overlap and intermingle in many many ways, but for me they all meet in the single concept of Sex Magick: taking a fantasy and turning it into reality, creating a magical space in which your desire can come to thrilling life!
Just so it is totally clear at the outset, NONE OF THIS MATERIAL ADVOCATES ANY KIND OF NONCONSENSUAL BEHAVIOR. What I am describing here is a variety of ways for lovers to enjoy one another, if and only if they both want to, and both give their consent. Anyone who claims that this information is in some way advocating nonconsensual, criminal acts is hereby charged with having failed to read and understand what I am saying. When I use the term "SM" in this FAQ, I refer specifically to consensual behavior.
Created 10 August 1995, last updated 31 July 1997, and copyright by Rob Jellinghaus.