Reply To: Stockholm Syndrome Culture….

[Matt]

Hi Belle,
So many things to say. First is that BDSM is not for everyone all the time. It can involve some fairly psychological play and if anyone involved isn’t ready for that, it’s probably not going to go well.

I wandered onto a BDSM forum

Was it Fetlife? I’d recommend Fetlife… it’s huge and diverse and people are generally friendly.

Anyway, on to other comments. A common meme is that the sub has all the power. This is inaccurate. Both parties should ALWAYS be consenting adults. Typically, the sub’s limits are the limiting factor but there’s no reason the dom couldn’t also have limits.

One of the men offered to be your mentor. Usually this means they want to help you figure out what you want and help you find it. Usually this means not engaging in BDSM play with you.

Wandering into the BDSM world feels exactly the same, with a fisad of supposed “consent.”

If that consent is a facade to you then yes, BDSM would be very uncomfortable. Most people take their consent very seriously.

BDSM is not for me. It is too much like all the bullshit nonsense and abuse I spent the last 3 years trying to get away from.

Did you speak to any women? You said at the start that you wanted to understand the dominatrix thing… you really need to talk to at least one. I’d add onto that, you need to talk to at least one each of a submissive woman and a submissive man.

And now onto some more general comments: I feel like you are stuck in the “women are submissive” crap that your religious upbringing instilled into you. This is true in general, but is demonstrably false if you talk to individuals. Have you considered putting yourself in charge? There are people (men/women/anything in between) in the BDSM scene who you could flog mercilessly and they would turn around and worship the ground you walk on (as an example. Substitute with whatever you are into). Likewise from the submissive point of view, whatever it is you are into there is almost always someone else into it too. I think I might of recommended it to you before but look up Ending the Sexual Dark Age. It’s a podcast by a couple in the BDSM scene aimed at clearing up the misconceptions around BDSM and sex in general. It’s well worth the listen if you are trying to understand BDSM.

I don’t think I’ve really covered why people who do this sort of thing do it. As I said earlier it’s inherently psychological and so naturally, there’s an almost infinite number of possibilities of examples I could use to explain it, none of which will make any sense except the few that resonate with you. I won’t go into it here and now as it’s personal and my post is probably long enough already. PM me if you want to chat about it though.

Anyway my point is this: BDSM may not be for you at the moment, and that’s ok. I’d still suggest you get it figured out so that you can provide your clients the service they are looking for.