Mistaking Love for BDSM
People confuse sex with love all the time; they also often confuse BDSM with sex. Neither of those statements should come as much of a surprise to anyone. What might come as a surprise to many readers is the fact that, sometimes, people confuse love for BDSM, or confuse BDSM for D/s. Let’s take a look at a few examples of how those scenarios can occur.
Ian and Natalie were both in their late twenties when they were married, and it was a second marriage for each of them. They each went into this marriage determined to avoid the mistakes of their past marriages, and to do whatever it would take to make this one work. Things went swimmingly for the first couple of years. Then, one night, Natalie awoke at 3 A.M. to find Ian’s side of the bed empty. Curious, she got up and walked down the hall, where she saw Ian in the den, masturbating to internet BDSM porn. Her immediate emotional reaction was as if she’d caught him cheating with another woman. She felt betrayed and inadequate. Physically, it was as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. In that moment, Natalie feared that everything that she believed about her relationship with Ian might be a lie. She was, in a word, devastated.
They fought until the sun came up. Finally, exhausted and angry and frustrated, they called a truce and pretended to sleep for a few hours in separate rooms. When they spoke again, it was with cooler heads, and Natalie asked Ian the questions that had kept her awake. “Why couldn’t you just tell me that you liked that kind of stuff? Why did you have to keep it a secret? I am your wife, for crying out loud. You’re supposed to be able to tell me shit like that!”
Ian stared silently into his coffee. Finally, he looked up from his thoughts and said, “Do you remember when we first began dating...? That time we went into that sex shop and checked out all of the kinky toys?”
Natalie nodded. How could she forget? They’d had great fun poking fun at some of the crazy things they’d seen in there, and drooling over some of the more interesting items and outfits. In fact, she had even gone back to the store a few weeks later, by herself, to purchase a naughty French maid costume. She later surprised him with it during their honeymoon, since she had always enjoyed role-playing and dressing up in sexy outfits. Suddenly, she realized where he was going with this. While in the store, Ian had taken her to the aisle where the whips, floggers and paddles were displayed, and casually asked her what she thought. In retrospect, her answer must’ve caught him completely off-guard.
Natalie had been physically and emotionally abused as a child, both by her natural parents and, later, by her foster parents as well. She grew into adulthood equating BDSM with abuse, and seeing the leather implements arrayed as they were in the store brought on a flood of unpleasant memories. She told Ian that she simply didn’t understand how anyone could willingly submit themselves to that kind of abuse, and characterized the men who were into BDSM as a bunch of “misogynists and closet wife-beaters.”
Oh god, she thought, I did this to him. I had no idea he liked that stuff. He was trying to tell me, and I wasn’t listening. Instead, I went on a rant, basically calling him a woman-hater and abuser. Jesus, how could I have been so incredibly stupid?
They kissed and made up. Ian promised that he would no longer sneak off in the middle of the night to masturbate to BDSM porn, and Natalie promised to keep an open mind about BDSM play and to give it a try in the bedroom. Their marriage seemed to be back on the right track again.
There was just one little problem. In Natalie’s heart of hearts, the kinky play that Ian loved so much still felt like abuse, and never failed to trigger a flood of painful memories from her abusive childhood. Even so, Natalie not only participated in the kinky BDSM play, she encouraged it and pretended to enjoy it because she loved her husband very much and wanted desperately to make him happy. And for a little while, it very much did.
Ian had been so thrilled by his wife’s decision to try a little BDSM in the bedroom, he probably missed a lot of the little telltale signs of the deception, at first. But as their experimentation became more elaborate and daring, he started noticing the kinds of things that only a husband knows about his wife. He had always loved the way Natalie’s body reacted physiologically when she had an orgasm. Her face, neck and upper chest always flushed crimson red. Her nipples instantly hardened. Her heart pounded. And there was one more thing that Natalie herself didn’t know about; you could literally see and feel her pussy and ass going through a rapid series of tight spasms, repeatedly clenching and releasing, again and again, faster than could ever be accomplished through conscious effort. Once Ian began paying attention, he realized that Natalie had been faking her orgasms since they began experimenting with BDSM. What Ian didn’t know at the time was that, now, it was Natalie who was sneaking out of their bed in the middle of the night to masturbate to vanilla porn!
When Ian confronted her about the phony orgasms, she admitted everything. She told him that she was just trying to make him happy, and working to keep their marriage strong. She had felt that, because she loved him so intensely, she ought to be able to enjoy BDSM with him through sheer force of will. She had decided to simply ignore the fact that the BDSM play actually made her nauseous, stirred up awful memories, and gave her nightmares. Ian explained to her that he can usually tell when she isn’t enjoying herself, and knowing that made it next to impossible for him to enjoy himself, since he didn’t really consider himself a much of a sadist. Instead of pleasing him, all Natalie had accomplished was ensuring that neither of them was having any fun.
Ian and Natalie set aside the impact play and bondage for the time being, and decided to focus instead on some of the kinks that Natalie did enjoy. She loved being sexually submissive, enjoyed dressing up in kinky costumes, had developed an interest in puppy play, and had always been bi-curious. While doing some research on pet play, she came across an online reference to a local BDSM munch group which had several members who were into pet play, too. She contacted a few of them, and was invited to an upcoming munch. Ian and Natalie soon became members of the group and became friends with some experienced and knowledgeable folks who were able to mentor and guide them in their exploration of the lifestyle. One of those people was a delightfully charming submissive named Gabrielle.
Eventually, Ian and Natalie came to love Gabby and invited her to move in and join them in a D/s poly relationship. Natalie had always considered herself a submissive, but had never realized that it could be possible to explore that facet of her personality and her relationship without having to deal with the “whips and chains” that she had always associated with submission and despised. Gabby shared Ian’s love for impact play and bondage, and she also shared Natalie’s love of cosplay and pet play. Having Gabby in their relationship seemed to fill voids in both Ian’s and Natalie’s lives, and Gabby was positively giddy in love with the two of them, as well.
It is unfortunate that Ian and Natalie’s experience is not all that uncommon. There are many people in the vanilla world who, like Natalie, are all too eager to equate BDSM with abuse. Prior to these events, Natalie was also unable to separate any notion of D/s from BDSM, which prevented her from exploring her submissive side for fear of being exposed to the aspects of BDSM which she found disturbing. She also falsely assumed that, because her love for Ian was strong, that she would be able to power through her deep distaste for impact play and bondage. Finally, to top off this menagerie of misunderstandings, Natalie had assumed that, because Ian enjoyed impact play as a Top, he must be a sadist. She understood that sadists derive their pleasure from the pain and suffering of others, and so her own internal logic told her that her lack of enjoyment of their kinky activities was irrelevant, as long as she was making him happy. But, of course, she wasn’t. Their tale is a lot like one of those classic O. Henry short stories, full of profound misunderstandings and ending with a strangely ironic twist... except their story has kinky sex toys and ends with a hot threesome.
Mistaking BDSM for D/s
A wise person once said that ti
me exists in our universe in order to keep everything from happening all at once. It’s extremely rare to find lasting love, great sex, a hot D/s dynamic and awesome BDSM all in the same afternoon. Most of us would be overjoyed to experience just one of the four in any given day, and frankly, that’s usually the way it happens. Whichever one you begin with, you should do your best to avoid assuming that it’s going to be a “buy one, get the other three free” kind of a day. It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in the excitement of the moment and, because we desperately want it all, we sometimes can be a little too quick to believe that we have it all. Unfortunately, wishing doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Vicki was a bright, vivacious twenty-one-year-old whose fairly extensive BDSM experience was relatively unusual for someone of her age. She belonged to three different local fetish groups, and attended munches or kink events at least a couple of times each week. When she wasn’t attending socials or being a rope-bunny at play parties, she was working as a nude vid-cam model, running a blog about boobs, advocating for fetish and LGBT rights, watching bondage porn, or making friends in BDSM chat rooms. She loved practically every aspect of BDSM; there was almost nothing that she wouldn’t try as a bottom. She enjoyed spanking, flogging, whipping, paddling, rope play, needle play, breath play, knife play, pet play and more. In fact, she was voraciously hungry to try new and exciting forms of BDSM play, which is how she met Mark.
Mark was a forty-five-year-old sales executive who had been invited to do a fire-cupping demonstration for one of the local fetish groups, which is where he became acquainted with Vicki. Mark was a Dominant who had just come out of a D/s relationship which had lasted several years. He had just gotten back into the dating scene and was interested in meeting new people, so when Vicki volunteered to be his “cupping bunny” for future demonstrations, Mark readily agreed.
They quickly became very close, and before long, they were practically inseparable. Within a month, they were making plans to move in together, and even the normally taboo topic of marriage began to pop up occasionally in their conversations. They were honestly just as surprised by their whirlwind romance as their friends and families, and would often punctuate their discussions with, “This is crazy; seriously crazy!” But it all felt so wonderful, they decided to just go with it. Six weeks to the day after they met, they arranged to be joined in an intimate collaring ceremony which formalized their relationship as Master and submissive. A few weeks after that, they began looking for a house. That’s when things began to unravel like a dollar-store sweater.
Vicki had always loved being in constant contact with her Master, and often called or texted him throughout her day just to tell him that she missed him, or to ask him for his opinions on various topics or routine decisions she needed to make. Once they found the perfect rental house and began making preparations to move in, she had even more reasons to touch base with him. In just one afternoon, she would call or text Mark a dozen or more times, asking such questions as: Do you like beige curtains, or blue? What kind of rug should I get for the master bathroom? Should I buy a garden hose, or do you already have one?
At one point, she even felt compelled to ask him what color panties she should buy and, frankly, Mark enjoyed making those kinds of decisions for her. After all, he was a Dominant, and that’s what Dominants do. Perhaps that’s why, at the end of a long day punctuated by over a dozen calls from Vicki, Mark was surprised to learn that she had failed to mention that she had gotten her tongue pierced. Mark was livid over the fact that he hadn’t been consulted. After a thorough dressing-down, he ordered her to remove the stud immediately. She tried, but was unable to do it. He instructed her to have the stud removed at the piercing salon the following day. She tearfully promised to do so.
The following day came and went, with no discussion or action on the tongue stud. A few days later, Mark asked Vicki about it. She explained that removing the stud so soon would have been “too painful,” but promised to have it done on Saturday, which was her day off. The weekend passed, once again with no action being taken on the tongue stud. Mark said nothing at the time, but was beginning to have serious doubts about the sincerity of Vicki’s promises and her understanding of what was at stake. Those doubts were magnified exponentially just a few days later when Vicki cheerfully announced, to Mark’s complete surprise, that she had bought a puppy. This was something they had discussed earlier; a fact that Mark decided needed to be brought up.
“I thought we agreed that this was not a good time to get a puppy,” he growled, “Our budget is strained, we’re both going to be at work all day long, and we don’t even have any furniture yet.”
If Vicki could sense his irritation, she gave no outward sign of it. She bounced and squealed in her excitement, “I know, Master! But just look at him! Isn’t he adorable? And he was only $250!”
Mark lost it. For the first time ever, he raised his voice at her. He railed at her for failing to consult him on the piercing, for breaking two solemn promises to make it right, and for violating their agreement to wait on a pet until they were settled into the new house. His angry tirade was so brutal, she shook and sobbed uncontrollably for hours afterward. The next day, Mark and Vicki apologized tenderly to each other, and each promised to try harder to understand the emotional needs of the other.
A wary calm settled over their relationship for the remainder of the week, until an innocuous evening discussion reopened their still-tender wounds. Vicki had been experiencing some minor, yet terribly frustrating mechanical issues with her car, and had been hinting that perhaps it was time to trade it in for something a little more dependable. As she paged through the automotive ads, she asked, “What do you know about auto leasing, Master?”
Mark gave her the run-down on how leasing worked, the costs involved, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of leasing, as opposed to purchasing. He followed that up with, “My guess is, considering your age, low credit rating, and income level, you probably won’t qualify for auto leasing. I’d advise you to buy.” Vicki looked up from automotive advertisements and said, “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”
Mark was dumbfounded by what he’d just heard. “Excuse me?” he said, “Perhaps you should consider carefully what you’re saying, and how you’re saying it. I don’t think you have any idea the path you’ve just put yourself on.”
Vicki was angry and undeterred, however. She continued, “No, maybe you need to consider how harsh and uncompromising you can be. You think you’re always right and, granted, you usually are. But I’m sick and tired of having it rubbed in my face whenever I screw up. I should be able to make mistakes without you making a big deal out of it or saying I told you so. You need to be more understanding, you need to show a lot more compassion, and you need to stop acting like a jerk.”
Mark pondered her words and her emotional state for a moment before replying, and when he did it was with quiet resignation. “I’m sorry, but it is not your place to tell me what I should do, how I should feel, or how I should act. If holding you accountable for your own promises is harsh, then I guess I am harsh. But when you screw up, it’s my job to let you know that you’ve screwed up and to apply some corrective action. That’s not rubbing it in your face. That’s called accountability and discipline.” He continued, “You say I don’t understand what you’re going through, but you’re wrong. Admittedly, it took me a while to figure it out, but I now know exactly what you’re going through. Part of the reason why this has been so hard for you is you’re simply not suited for it. You may be a wonderful bottom, but you’re a lousy submissive. It’s just a shame that we’ve both had to go through so much pain before figuring that out. I’m sorry, but this relationship is going nowhere I want to go. You are released.”
And with those three simple words, it was over.
Lessons Learned
I hope you are able to glean something from each of these three case studies that will help you to either avoid making a similar m
istake or, at the very least, recognize when you or your partner have started down a similar path. It is easy to believe that this sort of thing can’t happen to you, but it can and it probably will at some point in your life. If you’re very lucky, once will be enough.
So, let’s recap. BDSM shouldn’t be mistaken for sex. Sure, BDSM is sexy as hell, but then so are a nice pair of red stiletto pumps. There are three possible scenarios when it comes to your stilettos and sex: (1) You could wear your stilettos without having sex. (2) You could have sex without your stilettos on. And (3) you could have sex with your stilettos on, preferably at my house, and bring a camera. BDSM is a lot like those stilettos. You can have BDSM without sex, sex without BDSM, or you can have both. I recommend option three.
Love shouldn’t be mistaken for BDSM. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you will enjoy BDSM activities with that person. Love can encourage you to try new things and perhaps even push the boundaries of what you’re willing to tolerate. But love isn’t going to change how you feel about pain, humiliation, or hard limits on things that squick you out.
BDSM isn’t D/s. There are many who attempt to weave D/s into even the acronym, but there is a difference, and the difference serves a valuable purpose. BDSM is what you do. D/s is what is in your head and heart; it is what governs your relationship dynamic. A Top may not be a Dominant. A bottom may not be a submissive.
Knowing those simple truths can save you a lot of heartache.
My Two Cents on Sex, Love, and BDSM
I think D/s is sexy.
Perhaps I find it sexy because it is how I express my love and how I want someone to express her love for me, in return. Some people express their love with kisses and caresses. I express mine through a D/s relationship dynamic; not that there’s anything wrong with kisses and caresses, too. For me, the gift of submission from my partner is the purest expression of love that I can imagine. Loyalty runs a very close second.
Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook Page 34
