What Is Up With BDSM? I Don't Get It and I Know That I Never Will But Please Try.

In My Humble Opinion
1

The thread title should be mostly self-explanatory. However, BDSM always throws me off in terms of fetishes. Some people even claim that it isn’t sexual. A male can pay a skilled dominatrix to beat them and torment them without any sex at all. I have been in several physical fights in my life including a couple of women and it was not a fun experience.

Like I said, different people like different things but this one never made sense to me but help me try to understand why this is attractive to so many people? My wife would happily beat the hell out of me physically given the right circumstances and me the same but that is more of a matter for law enforcement rather than fetish material in my mind.

2

You know how some people like horror movies, even though being afraid isn’t particularly nice? Sad movies, too. Some feelings that are normally unpleasant can be pleasant when experienced under controlled circumstances.

Now, why that is, or why some people like it while others don’t, I don’t know. Just thought I’d get that metaphor/perspective out there.

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Mistress Matisse is a dominatrix who has a column in one of Seattle’s alternative newspapers. You might find some of her material illuminating.

The link above is to her blog, not her professional site, so it should be reasonably SFW. If you want the column archives, they should be linked from the blog, or you should be able to find them here.

4

In the immortal words of The Divinyls: There’s a fine line between pleasure and pain.

The Dominant/Submissive thing is, I think, just roleplay.

IANIBDSM

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It’s about control. I think at the base of it is that some people have trouble letting go in their life. And sex does require a certain loss of control. So they give that control to somebody else.

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That depends on the people involved. I’ve known people who had 24/7 Master/slave relationships, and their relationships worked well for them. I can’t really speak further on that, since I don’t really “get” M/s either – for me a good part of the appeal is in the contrast from my “public” (work, going to store, etc.) life. Didn’t freakalette do a “Ask the slave” thread a couple months back?

Also, despite my need for that contrast, it’s not “just roleplay” for me either. It’s a way of relating to my love partner that’s more deeply emotionally satisfying. I do expect to be an equal partner in life and relationship decisions that affect both of us. I expect to be able to have “out of role” conversations about what we both want from our relationship and our sex life, and to have my needs balanced with his. However, for non-critical decisions, I really like to be cared for, to be gently taught, to be guided, which is what submitting represents for me. It’s not something I want to “turn off” the second I walk out of the bedroom. If we’re waiting in line, and he puts his arm around my waist, I want us both to have an awareness that I Am His in a very concrete way.

I derive a great deal of emotional pleasure and arousal from pleasing my partner. This plays into both my submissive side and my dominant side. If he’s happy when I’m submitting to him/pleasing him, I’m happy. If he’s happy when I’m dominating him, I’m happy.

I feel safe when I am able to trust someone so much, that I can completely turn over control to him for a period of time, and once we’re done, nothing has fallen to shit or become a giant disaster because I wasn’t minding it. This is the only aspect of my life where that’s even potentially true. It’s very freeing.

There’s also subspace, which is an altered state of consciousness. Honestly, it’s very hard to describe. The only thing I can really relate it to is if you’ve ever experienced an ecstatic spiritual state – it’s very similar. If you haven’t… well, I can describe it as becoming very small, at the same time my mind becomes so expansive that I can see the entire universe, but I have a feeling that’s not going to make any sense to someone who hasn’t experienced it. In a way, it’s stepping out of yourself and merging into something greater/bigger. These are all really inadequate descriptions.

I also enjoy various forms of pain play (floggers, biting, other things). I don’t describe myself as a masochist because I don’t experience pain as pleasure and I don’t get off (as in sexual arousal or orgasm) from it. What I get from it is emotional release. Physical pain allows me to process emotional pain – this is true to the extent that my emotional balance suffers if I have no one around to give me a good beating every once in a while. I end up crying at the end of an impact scene, but not from the physical pain. I cry because of the emotional release. It feels like a literal washing-away of all the anger, hurt, frustration, stress, and other emotional crap that continually builds up inside. I have no idea why this works for me this way, beyond “I’m wired this way.”

I don’t know at this point if I’m a sadist or not. I don’t have a lot of experience on that side of things, and I still have a bit of a horror of the idea of actually hurting someone else, even if I know they derive pleasure from it and I’m not harming them. So I don’t know how much of that is social conditioning and how much is it just doesn’t appeal to me and never will. I do like to assert control over someone, though. It’s a power trip and one of the rare times I’ll indulge my ego (since I feel that inflated egos in Real Life are generally Very Bad Things… this indulgence has a distinct context and a time limit), and yeah, I get off on it. In general, though, I can satisfy my need to be in control by asserting myself/standing up for myself in Real Life contexts like work. With submission, I really can’t – see above re: things falling to shit if I’m not minding the store.

A lot of this just comes down to “that’s just the way I’m wired,” same as how I prefer redheads to blondes. Why do I like redheads? I dunno, I just do.

Please note that I am only speaking for myself, here. Anyone you ask is going to have a different answer as to what they get out of it.

7

Oh, another point – if you sting the skin, say with a flogger, you heighten the tactile sensitivity of it. This can have certain obvious advantages in terms of sex. :smiley:

8

I was prepared to come in here and try to describe BDSM, but think Kaio did a fantastic job of giving an explanation for the average “layperson.” giggles at intentional pun

If you want in-depth, both my ask the slave thread and the subsequent Pit thread have lots of info from myself and other BDSMers.

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One difference is that it’s not about real violence. It’s play. The only people I know about who take it to extremes where it could be mistaken for real violence or torture are fringe players, and they’re getting off on the potential risk as much as the acts.

You can think of it like a rape fantasy, which is far from rare for women. Being actually raped would be pretty horrible. But acting out a rape scenario, where she has control even though it appears that she doesn’t, could be quite fun for her. With the stereotypical dominating CEO who likes to get tied up and beaten by a dominatrix, the appeal is in the contrast and relinquishing control.

I only did a bit of experimenting with the scene years back. I quickly found out that I don’t like bottoming. It’s not like it’s traumatic for me, I just can’t submit. It makes me angry and want to fight back rather than relax into it and have fun. I understand why other people might like it, but I can’t get into it. So, it might be that you don’t get the submissive part of it. On the other hand, I definitely got off on being the dominant.

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I’ll just add that it doesn’t have to be 24-7 at all; it in fact can just be a bedroom thing.

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This is worth reiterating. In BDSM play, all parties involved have consented, and if anyone changes their mind mid-scene, there’s a safeword so the revocation of consent is crystal clear. (And yes, Doms can and do safeword too.) Care is taken for safety concerns, and while the goal may include pain, it doesn’t include harm – i.e. no serious injury, no permanent damage, physically or psychologically. There’s a common saying in the scene – you can’t play with your toy if you’ve broken it.

With genuine violence, the attacker doesn’t even ask for consent. The victim certainly hasn’t given it. The attacker doesn’t care about safety and is actively seeking to harm someone.

Although I don’t necessarily agree that only edge-play could be mistaken for violence. If an outsider doesn’t understand what’s going on between me and mine, seeing me being paddled and screaming “FUCK! I hate you!” and then dissolving into wracking sobs can look like I’m really being hurt. In actuality, it’s exactly what I need and I’m in a much better emotional state afterward.

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This thread from a couple years back goes into some of the appeal of BDSM. I don’t have time to compose a complete post right now, unfortunately, so I’ll take the lazy way out and grab some links from that thread.
On the role of endorphins in BDSM. Which is why the right kind of pain at the right time can make me giggle like a maniac.
A Wikipedia article on “good pain.” I’m going to go out on a limb and say nobody likes all pain. Most people prefer some forms of pain over others, and I’ve never met anyone who got off on stubbing their toe! When discussing BDSM play, pain is often broken down into “thumpy” and “stingy.” Thumpy pain is felt in the muscle - try punching your chest, that’s thumpy pain. Stingy pain is felt in the skin, like a slap.
I know I’ve linked to my blog here before, but here is a post I wrote about semantic issues within BDSM (dominant vs. top vs. sadist). If you find the terminology confusing, you’re not alone.
Here’s a great post from Anastasaeon emphasizing that enjoying consensual BDSM does not equate to enjoying abuse.

Sometimes fighting back is the point of the scene. “Take-down” scenes are ones in which the bottom fights back, with the eventual goal of being overpowered by the top.

Which leads me to another point: Although bottoming and submitting often go together, it’s not always the case. My boyfriend enjoys submitting but not bottoming; he’ll let me flog or spank him a little because it’s something I enjoy, but any scene where I’m the Domme is going to focus on dominance and submission, not sadism and masochism. When he’s topping/dominating me, the scene will include all of those, because I enjoy receiving pain as well as being submissive to him.