“We knew going in that [running a dungeon] would never make a profit, and that’s proven to be true…. But you just can’t close it…. A person about once every four to five weeks will breach the door of the dungeon… they’ll walk in three or four feet, and they’ll just lean against the wall and start crying. And you look at them and go ‘I know what this is’…. That person now realizes that they’re not a freak, and they don’t need to be locked up for the way they think and for the way they feel…. When you’re changing people’s life like that, you just can’t stop.”
-Master Cecil in an interview for the Erotic Awakening podcast
I was a baby kinkster, attending my first real event: a weekend of kinky camping. I know, jumping in the deep end. I never was good at moderation….
Anyway, a couple friends (a power exchange couple) had been poking at me to attend an event for months and had graciously agreed to truck in from out-of-state to be my security blankey for the weekend provided I get my ass out of my hidey-hole. On the last day, we had a lovely scene together during which, at one point, the subby half of the couple was bottoming to the other two of us. The Dom handed me a flogger and told me to let loose. So I did. I found myself floating in a state of strange excitement. She moaned in pain, and I cackled with glee.
When we were all done and everyone was cuddling up for aftercare, my subby friend looked at me and said, “I don’t like her. She laughs. She’s scary.”
Over the next few months, I tried playing with a few more people, and the comments continued. “You’re mean.” “You’re scary.” “I don’t think I could play with you.”
Each time, I smirked. But afterwards, I worried. The comments were joking, but only halfway. Those groans of pain, the moments when the cries burst through my partner’s walls, the visible struggle to take what I needed to give them… they hadn’t just made me laugh.
They made me wet.
Like, wring-out-my-panties wet.
What kind of fucked in the head was I? Sadist. I couldn’t even accept the label, and for months softened it to “sadistic tendencies.” I felt like I’d wakened a monster under the floorboards of my mind, sleeping for years, now stirring. How far would it go? How big was it? How ugly? I didn’t want to harm people. I didn’t want to be that thing. Sadists were sickos on crime shows who went on torture sprees and left a trail of bodies, not 20-something girls who wanted sexy fun times.
I tried to talk to people about it, and they were perfectly friendly and willing to swap stories. It helped a little, but the other sadists were all men between the ages of 38 and 50, and all of them seemed to be perfectly OK with being the monsters they were. They couldn’t really help much.
I gave up. I stopped playing for over a year. I just couldn’t bring myself to touch that part of me. I was perversely proud of it, because, hey, who doesn’t enjoy having a dark, mysterious side? But I was also deeply, gut-wrenchingly ashamed.
Fast forward a few years. At another kinky camping event. Across the campfire was this gorgeous girl I’d never seen before. I was definitely attracted, but she was all dressed up high fem, complete with makeup, so I thought for sure she was straight.
I know, I know. Book, cover, no judge. Lesson learned.
Understand, I’m hopeless when flirting with a woman I find sexy. As long as I thought she was straight, I could keep my cool. Then I found out she was bi. And a masochist. Awkwardness to herp-de-derp levels.
To this day, I don’t know how I negotiated that one. My brain refuses to recall my own awkwardness, so the next thing I remember is being in a rather poorly heated hot tub and feeling like a 18-year-old boy staring at his first pair of boobs. Only I was pinching the nipples as hard as I could and the look on her face was pure bliss.
Afterwards, curled up in bed, we were exchanging breathy complements. She said, “I love your evil laugh.” And I melted.
Over the next year, we played every couple months. I insisted on strict rules of consent to ease my fears of being a sicko, but there was almost no such thing as too far for her; she would nearly cum when I pushed her and made delighted yumming sounds at the bruises I left on her body.
There are stories about priestesses who would use sexuality as a method to heal worshippers’ souls. She was my healing. She saw me at my most monstrous, and her eyes glazed over in happy, breathless bliss. I’m still not entirely comfortable with the monster under my floorboards, but we’re starting to have a conversation.
So. This is the part of the post where I summarize what the fuck I was talking about.
- When coming to grips with a new kink/fetish/preference, find people who are like you and talk to them. Online, in person, whatever. You need to know that you’re not alone.
- If your kink/fetish is attached to hurting people, the way mine is, impose strict rules of consent on your play. You need to know that you are not a bad person.
- Find a partner (casual or otherwise) who thinks that that kink/fetish/whatever is the hottest thing since Tabasco sauce. You need to know that you are sexy just the way you are.
