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Bondage, Discipline, Sado Masochism

You aren't alone...

  

"No paradigm, regardless of what you call it – feminism, humanism, spaghetti-ism – is a good one for you if it stops you from being happy. Or makes you ashamed of who you are. True empowerment is about exploring all the parts of yourself that give you joy."

Rosalynde

 

 

Common Fantasy.

Many studies have found that, when asked anonymously, the most common fantasy women have is some form of being forced, taken, dominated, or used sexually. At the same time, none of these women actually want to tbe forced, taken, dominated or used sexually... unless they choose the person, time and place. You see the delimma? So does most of the (very large) BDSM community, and they have been dealing with it, often with great success for years and in large numbers. If you have those fantasies, you are not alone, you are not strange, you are not wrong. And if you are careful, you can enjoy that experience without being hurt... well... not hurt in ways you don't want to be... you see the delimma.

Bondage / Discipline / Sado-masochism: A sexual lifestyle

There are, in this world, quite a large number of people who really do enjoy being tied up, spanked, etc... and there are people who really like being told what to do in bed; people who are pleased to be able to please others. You can have whatever opinion you like as to why that would be. It may be that this is a way of comming to terms with and controlling fear of a prior abuse. Or their bodies may just happen to be wired up that way. These people are called submissives or masochists or, in extreme cases, slaves. At this point, some readers are thinking "that is weird" and some are thinking "i know, but i'm probably the only one." To the first group: Please respect the decisions of consenting adults. To the second group: you are NOT the only one, there are many, many people just like you.

And there are people who enjoy the challenge of finding and pressing the right buttons in a masochist and pushing them just hard enough, but not too hard, so that the sensation of pain becomes more pleasurable than pleasure. And there are people who enjoy being in control and thinking up new, exciting, and challenging activities for "their" sub. They do NOT EVER rape or force others to do things they don't want to do. These are called Dominants (Doms), or Masters / Mistresses, or just "Sir" and "Maam", unless you want a harder spanking, missy!

And there are people who enjoy both sides of the above. They are called Switches and are said to be on Top when acting as a Dom and on bottom when acting as a sub.

The real world

Now, there are, in the world, people who have been abused (horribly), raped, hit, or molested. They sometimes need to find a way to live with the fact that someone they loved did this to them, and so they may try to see those actions as a form of love. And there are people, sadly, who rape, hit, abuse, molest, etc... for what ever reason. These acts, all of them, are not what BDSM is about. People who are into BDSM are very sensitive about any comparison. There are people who will claim to be Doms or whatever but who are not consentual as those in the lifestyle are. There are people who claim to be subs but are, in fact, professional victims and whos consent can not be trusted. Buyer beware.

For years, S/M was classified by American Psychiatric Association as a paraphilla, defined as: Recurrent, intense sexually aroused fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors generally involving 1) nonhuman objects, 2) the suffereing or humiliation of oneself or one's partner, or 3) children or other nonconsenting person, that occur over a period of at least six months." In other words, S/Mers were pigeon-holed with child molesters and practitioners of beastiality.

More recently, the APA has amended its Diagnostic & Statistical Manual to acknowledge, "A paraphillia must be distinguished from the nonpathologiacal use of sexual fantasies, behaviors, or objects as a stimulus for sexual excitement in individuals without paraphillia. Fantasies, behaviors, or objects are paraphiliac only when they lead to clinically significant distress or impairment (e.g., are obligatory, result in sexual dysfunction, require participation of nonconsenting individuals, lead to legal complication, interfere with social relationships)." So, as long as it does no harm, it is not foul.

BDSM does not always involve pain (B=bondage, D=discipline) but pain is central to the S&M part. Avoiding injury is critical to the survival of any creature and the sensation of pain is the primary signal of injury. But humans have both an animal brain and an ability to think at higher levels. We don't need the agony of pain to understand that we should avoid injury. If you fall over and hurt your knee, the damage is done, but you are no longer in danger, why must it continue to hurt? I know that I shouldn't fall now.. so why must the sensation continue to be unpleasant? In fact, pain does NOT need to be a negative feeling. Many people come to associate pain with accomplishment, hard work, physical training, successful medical treatment, atonement / release of guilt, or even just having pleased a loved one. Even without external pressure, learning to control pain and put it to better use (as pleasure) is the ultimate mastery of our bodies.

It may well be that BDSM is a way to turn bad experiences or desires into something that is positive, loving and fulfilling. It is true that a lot of submissive were abused and that a lot of Dominants have a need to control. But there are also a lot of stable, long term, happy relationships in the BDSM lifestyle. Many people will think of BDSM as a kinky way to have sex, we think of it as one more way to have a relationship. More importantly, since it is really difficult, if not impossible, to change who we are, BDSMers really miss having this in their life. "Vanilla" relationships are just not attractive.

The little joke the universe has played on us:

The rather amazing thing is that after an entire life of being told that men should NEVER hit a women, and that women need to be respected in positions of control, there are just a lot of women who wish their husband, friend or lover would be a little (or a lot) rougher in the bedroom. Yes, women should NEVER be hit, and they should be in positions of power, and they do deserve respect and equality... except when they specifically ask to be spanked, tied up, called dirty names, or force fucked. Let us be clear: Not all women want that, even the women who DO want it, only want it WHEN they want it, and then only with the specific people who they want it with. This is a very narrow, highly qualified area. no... means... NO!

The need for communication:

it may well be that communication is more important in the lifestyle than in any other type of relationship. And it can be... interesting... because many words have more than one meaning. For example, during a spanking, the sub is being "hurt" (and loving it) but spanking too hard might "hurt" the sub (and cause real pain). To make sure that there is no misunderstanding, "safe" or "stop" words are used. If the sub says that word or words, the Dom knows something is wrong and stops instantly.

Safe/stop words/phrases

dr_mabeuse says: "My own position on safe words is like what some people say about guns: better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

Some interesting safewords:

It can happen that a sub, even an experienced one, can know the safe word and be afraid or even simply unable to use it. Making sure the sub knows there is no shame in stopping can help prevent this. Practicing what will happen when a safe word is used can also help. In a few cases, this has really caused serious problems. It is a good idea to keep some sort of conversation going to ensure that no one gets carried away in the throws of passion. For anyone who hasn't experienced it, a good session can take a sub to places angels fear to tread.

MB says:

"When I start with a sub who is not in the lifestyle, a sub who doesn't know for sure that s/he is a sub yet, I don't discuss safe words. There are so many things to talk about that it can build expectations/excitement to an unreasonable level if I spend the time on all of it. There are other things that must be explained like the need for communication, the necessity of the sub to constantly show or tell Me what they are feeling. The important point is this: They already have a safe word or two: "no" or "stop" or anything like that. And, of course, I listen for it, stop instantly and back away. Later on, we talk about it and decide if the sub needs to use those default safe words as unsafe words, so to speak, in order to feel better about the things they are allowing Me to do. If that sounds strange, understand that many subs find a release if they can tell themselves that they tried to tell Me not to; that they did protest and were overridden.
 
Agree or not with my approach; one suggestion I must make and hope it will be considered: Any negative word is a stop word. Start with all of them and only make them unsafe words if you need to.

a sub says: "i had an unfortunate misunderstanding with a non-verbal stop word once... i was tied up and gagged and was told to squeeze the ball hard if it got too much, unfortunately i didn't see the soft ball beside me and he ended up curled up in pain for much of the evening... But it worked perfectly as a safe word... have never seen play stop so fast."

The "big" secret

If you think about the above, the subs are actually in control. The Doms are carefully feeling out the subtle messages and acting on them to excite and please the sub. The sub can stop it at any time, and must give some sort of signals as to what is good and what is not. Notice: "Good" means good for the sub so that might be very "bad"... very bad indeed. *smile* Now, the subs do serve and please their Masters or Mistresses in turn and the Doms decide which way the sessions will go, but in the end, subs stay with Doms who choose a pleasing path and Doms stay with subs who can find joy in the path. They choose.

Safety

There are several important points to being safe when getting involved in BDSM.

History

Most people think of deSade when they think of the history of BDSM, but there have been a lot of other authors who wrote and popularized the subject.

Titles:

See also:

Questions: