BDSM and money survey – what did people say their income was?

This is the fifth article about the results of the BDSM and Money Survey. I asked people to say which income quintile they were in. 457 people answered this question.

General

The black line on the chart below shows the level you’d expect each bar to be at if the respondent’s answers had been similar to the distribution of income in their country of residence. If the bar falls below or above this line it shows that the respondents to the survey were more or less likely to report a particular level of income than the population as a whole.

So, BDSM & Money respondents are slightly less likely to fall into the lowest income group and slightly more likely to fall into the second lowest income group.

Gender

Male respondents to the BDSM & Money survey were much less likely than the population  to fall into the lowest income group and much more likely to fall into the highest income group.

Women were less likely than men to fall into higher income groups and more likely to report lower incomes – I believe this reflects continuing income inequality across populations. Women respondents were most likely to report being in the £13,000-£20,000 (£11,000-$29,000) band.

Tops earn more (and less) than bottoms

I looked at income distribution broken down by BDSM orientation (Tops/dominants, switches or Bottoms/submissives) . A similar proportion of all orientations appear in the mid income group as you would expect from the population as a whole.

Broadly, a similar proportion of switches fell into  each income group as the population, with slightly fewer being represented in the second highest income group.

There were distinct differences when it came to those who said they were either tops/dominants or bottoms/submissives.

Tops/dominants told us they were less than half as likely to fall into the bottom income group than the population as a whole. So, this group was less likely to say it was really poor. However, tops/dominants were not more likely to say they were rich! They are pretty close to the 20% expected population in each group except the second lowest income – where they are 7% (roughly a third) more populous than you would expect. This quintile contains 21% of male tops/dominants (pretty much as you’d expect) and 38% of female tops/dominants – way more than you’d expect.

Bottoms/submissives on the other hand are about a quarter (25%) more likely to say they are in the poorest income group – but they are also the most likely to say they are in the top income group too (23%). Gender makes quite a difference: 24% of male bottoms/submissives say they fall into the top income group. as against 18% of women.

The dataset

457 people answered this question 305 were UK residents, 124 from the USA and 28 from other countries. Otherwise, the sample split down as follows:

A note on quintiles

I used US and UK government data to work out five income groups into which 20% of the country’s population would fall. The first group represents the lowest 20% of incomes, the 3rd represents the 20% of people whose income was grouped around the midpoint (median) and the 5th represents the group with the highest incomes, starting at either £43,000 (uk) or $62,000 (US). so the data above shows how much less or more likely the respondents to the survey said they were to fit into their national income groups, split into 5 equal bands. If the survey sample had been completely similar to their national demographic then each band would contain 20% of the respondents.

These figures are likely to have changed since I started the survey. I’m aware UK mean income has dropped significantly.

Other BDSM and Money Articles

BDSM and Money – first results

I’d rather have a pizza with my kids in Ibiza – priorities for spending

BDSM as a spending priority – Female Tops or Dominants rate it as more important

Tattoos and piercings – who has spent money on them

 

The BDSM surveys

• BDSM and Money Survey
• BDSM symbols of ownership survey
• Safewords survey
• BDSM and Education Survey
• Fetish Dressing – from styles and relationships survey
• Multiple Relationships – from styles and relationships survey