Current sociological research looks at the actual practices and meanings within the "Master/slave" (M/s) subculture today.

: Slave-Boys for Sexual and Religious Service by John Pollini examines the portrayal of male-male sexual service in Roman and Greek art, providing a deep historical context for these power dynamics. Modern BDSM & Subcultural Studies

: Too Filthy to be Repeated: Reading Sexualized Violence Against Enslaved Males on Cornell University's Africana library analyzes the visual record of male-male sexual violence during the Trans-Atlantic crossing. Visual & Artistic Representations

Scholarly work on this topic typically falls into two categories: the historical reality of sexualized violence against enslaved men and the modern queer subculture's use of "slave" imagery.

: Academic analysis like Black and White Bodies in the Gay Art of the Twentieth Century discusses how his art represented social power imbalances, including depictions of Black men in subservient roles.