For 300 years artists have used S&M to portray changes in social dynamics. From Sade's libertine princes and kinky peasant girls to Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, sex, violence and role playing have masked deeper anxieties about domination and submission between the classes. This talk will look at a few examples of this trope from the late 18th century to the present, asking what its endurance can tell us about sex, class and violence in our own period of economic transformation.