(0r, How did we get like this?) It is my belief, (and that of current psychiatric thinking,) that true and lasting fulfillment comes of identifying one's deepest psychological needs, as an individual. Needs that are not met, can turn into negative obsessions that can take a lot of energy and seriously detract from the quality of life. It is important to identify your needs, and find a way to get your them met in a safe, sane, consensual and positive manner. Sexual needs are the strongest force in nature.
We are nature's most complex creatures, why should we be surprised when our sexual needs take on complex forms, far beyond what is required for simply reproductive purposes?
A look to nature provides all manner of weird bird dances and fancy feathers that are equally superfluous to procreation. Nature's infinite variety.
We have tried to civilize our sexuality through repression, and on the news every night we find out how well that isn't working.
Wilhelm Reich was the first psychiatrist to take Freud's theories literally and say explicitly that most neuroses are caused by Judeo-Christian sex repression. Worse, Reich insisted that these neuroses are direct causes of racism, sexism, rape, violence and warfare. Sexual repression, he concluded, is public enemy number one and should be fought as vigorously as polio and cancer.
( From R. A . Wilson's `COSMIC TRIGGER')
We know that most sexual responses are programmed in early childhood. How we respond, what excites us, what turns us on, is not something we decide for ourselves. It happens too early to be self determined. It's not a choice we make, it's just who we are.
It is a common misconception that an orientation towards BDSM is caused by childhood abuse, but this is a prejudicial cliche. An idea left over from outdated psychological ideas. Statistically, the majority of BDSM enthusiasts had normal childhoods with no abuse whatsoever.
Sexual orientation is determined before the age of 5, and Dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, are sexual orientations. (BDSM)
BDSM is not a mental illness, but many social prejudices against it remain in society, promoted by erroneous ideas. That is the focus of my activism. They key to healing prejudice is education, and that is part of why this website exists.
At one point in recent history, anyone who masturbated was thought to be mentally ill... and we still live in a world with many prejudices against forms of alternative sexual expression.
Homosexuality in men, is thought by some scientists to be a result of unbalanced hormones in the pregnant Mother. We know that some gay men have physically female brains. Some studies indicate that women under stress during a critical time in their pregnancy, produce adrenaline for their own survival, rather than the testosterone their baby fetus needs to become male. It is not a complete explanation tho, because some gay men do not exhibit feminine qualities.
It is my belief, that Dominance is a genetic trait. There is an expression, "Leaders are born, not made". The history of Royalty shows a human instinct of selective breeding for Dominance, leadership.
I can often tell a lot about a persons D/s orientation by looking at the bones of their face. In palmistry, someone with long slender hands and delicate bones is considered to have the mark of royal blood, whereas someone with thick short fingers shows a worker's ancestry. Similarly, Dominant faces are likely to have a delicate bone structure, like a Faerie Princess... where submissives tend to look sturdier. Lady Di looked Dom, Fergie looks sub. I hasten to add, these are generalizations. I have met many folks whose appearance and orientation contradicts these observations.
Sexual orientation is *not* something to be fixed, or cured or changed. It's just who we are, how we turn out. How God-dess made us. No-one is really certain what the determining factors for sexual orientation are.
Wwe know very little about the cause of the root patterns of sexual orientation. However, individual fetishes, and erotic roleplay interests often can be pinpointed to spring from life experiences.
It's the old nature/nurture debate. How much of personality comes from DNA, and how much comes from culture and upbringing? Sexual orientation seems to come from nature, but fetishes come from resonant life experience.
A fetish is usually defined as sexual attraction towards an object, rather than a person.
I am amazed at how many men have a fetish for garter belts, who have never actually seen a a real live woman wearing them. Men's magazines have trained them from an early age, to believe women in garters are sexy.
What we focus on, will grow.
I encourage people to vary their fantasies and sources of erotica, within their sexual orientation, simply because I have seen folks who focus all their energy in one thing, they end up boring playmates, with a "one track mind". Their mind gets programmed into a single groove of erotic focus, and after a while nothing else works for them.
If being spanked by a woman in leather turns you on, Kewl!
If being spanked by a woman in leather is the *only* thing that turns you on, then I think you need to get out more... variety is the spice of life.
The "Governess" or "HeadMistress or Master/student" roleplay variant of corporal punishment is usually referred to as "English" style. Simply because corporal punishment was practiced in schools in England until fairly recently. School discipline at the hands of a Teacher was where many English Masochists first discovered their sexual orientation, and the fetish roleplay grew out of that environment.
I have met men who have a rubber fetish from a childhood memory of old fashioned rubber aprons that Mother wore when changing their diapers. For them, the feel of rubber carries an association of being loved, accepted and cared for.
All kinds of incidents may trigger a fetish to be born in the mind.
A parent tells a child: "I spank you because I love you. (The pain and humiliation I am inflicting is a gift of love.) Believe me, it hurts me worse than it hurts you. (I suffer for my love for you.)
I'm only doing this for your own good." (Inflicting pain on you is a sacrifice I make because I love you and want you to be Good.)
And the child does believe, and so a "love map " is established in the unconscious.
Whether the map tells the child to show love by spanking others, or to receive love by being spanked themselves, depends on the natural orientation of the child.
Or a child is caught masturbating and punished; thereafter, there is a psychological connection between pain and humiliation and sexual pleasure, or of pleasure and guilt.
Or, perhaps, a child is caught wearing Mom's panties!, an innocent enough activity for a curious child, trying on different kinds of clothes, perhaps no sexual connection is present at the time, but after there's punishment, and the obvious sense of mothers embarrassment, the experience becomes memorable.
Hot Buttons are created, and fetishes are born or activated. You can try to repress them, or reprogram them, but it's not likely to be successful.
Or you can explore them with someone like me.
Some individuals, may equate a feeling of helplessness where they are bound, with the helpless state and unconditional love they experienced as a small child.
The bondage is evidence of love, of their cherished slave status. Locked up like a prized possesion, not to be stolen or ever allowed to wander off.
I have discovered a statistically significant number of bondage enthusiasts were caesarian births. They did not experience the constriction of the birth passage, being born, and seem to be unconsciously trying to complete that missing experience.
In her autobiography," Whips and Kisses", Psychologist, Professional Dominatrix and switch spanking enthusiast Mistress Jacqueline says that although she never was spanked as a child, the emotional abuse she received made her wish for physical punishment instead. She feels she enjoys receiving spankings as a gesture of affection because of this.
She is a ProDom, but privately a switch submissive seeking a Master.
I think how a child responds to events like a spanking, depends on the natural orientation of the child. A submissive child will accept punishment as fair, obey and feel loved. A Dominant one will rebel against it, and refuse to be controlled.
I was spanked as a child, and I hated it then, and won't allow it now. I don't switch. Anybody who even pats my ass is likely to get punched, as an immediate bodily reflex action before I even know what I've done. My Dom body defends itself, autopilot.
Heaven and hell are a relative thing. Very individual. Ask anyone.
As a natural and exclusive Dominant, for myself being treated as property, chained up and spanked sounds like my idea of hell.
I need to be in control of myself, my own destiny, pleasure, pain, comfort and wellbeing at all times. I like to get my own way, be free to move as I please, and I enjoy the company of people who also like for me to get my own way.
I don't even like clothing that restricts my freedom of movement. Mt gorgeous leather jump suit's tight sleeves do not allow me to raise my arms very far over my head, and even this simple restriction drives me to take it off after a few hours wearing.
For my slaves, being bound is an intense delirium of ecstasy, fear and pleasure and anticipation as they wait to see what I have planned for them. They enjoy the feel of the ropes or leather binding them, and enjoy struggling to feel the constriction better.
It is like a child in the womb kicking. It is an "I love you" to the very core of their being.
My Dominance is centered around getting reactions from people, watching them change. I enjoy poking people's buttons.
As an actor and comedienne, the audience reactions were my bliss. Making people laugh, making them cry. Before that I was a hair stylist, and had the power to change someone's self-image. Years before I discovered my Dominance, I was into Punk Rock fashion, deliberately shocking.
I am a provocative person, and I really cannot help it.
When I was growing up too many people told me "Stop acting like you think you are so special". It frustrated me immensely, coz I didn't know what they were talking about. If I had been able to identify the "specialness" they spoke of, I'd have cut it out mercilessly as a wart, so I could fit in with the crowd and not be "special" anymore.
The japanese have an expression, "The nail that sticks up, gets hammered down". Being special was not fun.
I spent a lot of years trying to shape myself into something that would fit in with the crowd, and it never worked, no matter what I did. It was miserable.
I read one day, "In God's eyes we are all special". It gave me permission, to be myself. Since trying not to be special had never worked, I decided to go the other way, and celebrate my uniqueness... stop trying to follow the herd, and find out who I really was.
Soon after, I discovered my Dominance... my natural leadership abilities. It became clear that Goddess had not made me to follow the crowd... but to lead it.
I discovered my sadism, and had to take a good long look at where punk rock fashion had drawn it's inspiration from. What was it really, that I liked so much about leather and chains? I was drawn to the BDSM world, where I would find my counterparts: those who preferred to follow, and were willing to admit it.
I found a place where my "acting like I think I'm so special" was celebrated, cherished, and named: Dominance. I came out, and I came home, I found the place where I belonged.
A position of strength is a position of acceptance of ourselves, and of others as they are. Not necessarily who we'd like them to be, or how we think we should be. For themselves.
Unconditional love and acceptance is a quality of spirit, an ideal to strive for. The first step is learning to love oneself unconditionally, to accept and cherish all of the kinks and foibles, talents and beauty that is you. All of the life's experiences that combined to make you who you are, even if you have not found forgiveness for the experiences and they are painful memories... they are a part of you, and the shaping of you, so accept them. Guilt occurs when self image and actions do not match up. ("I'm not the kind of person who would DO something like that!!!")
Well, if you did, then you are. Get over it. Change the action, or change the self image, and guilt goes Poof! Do your sexual needs conflict with your self image? The sooner you reshape your self image to make room for accepting your sexual needs, the sooner you will be accessing the creative power of your fulfilled self, free from guilt..
We must remember that at one point, homosexuals, and people who practiced masturbation were considered wholly deviant and possibly possessed of demons.
Your unique sexual desires and needs make up an important part of your core personality. They are you. Reject them at your peril. Accept them for happiness and fulfillment. Sadomasochistic and Dominant/submissive behavior is no longer considered a mental illness. This is an example of how far this infant science has progressed. There is now an understanding that you simply can't argue with what turns you on.
What you do with it though, how you share it, that's another consideration altogether.