Influences
» BDSM Psychology
It is with shame that I confess to having read The Leatherman’s Handbook on the year of publication. The shame is that it would be years before I’d act on what I learned. But - back then - you perhaps cannot imagine the amazement with which I greeted the knowledge that the images and appetites that had surged through me since childhood were shared and - ! - practiced by others. People played roles! Voluntarily and consensually.
Years later on the internet in the days before the web on usenet (now best known as Google Groups) I learned much about BDSM as it had come to be called. The experiences of otherwise ordinary people gave me purchase on the first steps of thinking about sadomasochism realistically. Er, ok, semi-hemi-demi-realistically.
Since then I’ve read books on d/s and s&m. Midori’s Wild Side Sex was lots of fun. But I’m not sure if any book or any website did more than refine my understanding and expand my inventory of exciting torments. Usenet was the most valuable learning source of all.
You must have found a book, person, group or website that opened your eyes to the possibilities of realizing your BDSM hungers and needs.
What were they? What difference did they make in your life?
Fetish Meme.
Comments
I didn’t so much find BDSM as I was brought into it.
When it happened it was one of those, “oh, duh, THAT makes sense” moments. He suggested that I read Different loving. From there, on my own, I read a bunch of others: SM101, screw the roses send me the thorns, etc.
As far as the fiction side of things… In my opinion, nothing tops the Marketplace series.
Posted by: ScorpioGirl | January 29, 2008 10:19 PM
Believe it or not “the story of O” when I was 12.
After that I was being lucky in getting hands on training from various relationships.
The major educational source for me was through a friend I had with a gay man who became my mentor. He let me borrow his books and more education on the history through his leather friends.
Posted by: Mz. Carmen | January 30, 2008 6:58 AM
I will freely admit that while I probably have always had some personality tendancies that leaned toward expressions of dominance, it wasn’t until I started working in the phone sex biz that something happened on a personal level for me.
Prior to that fateful day I took my first “Mistress” phone call about three years ago, I was more than a litle ignorant about what BDSM was really about. People who knew me in my daily, personal and/or professional life would easily characterize me as a “nice girl” and what would a nice girl know about all of that? The irony was/is that I’d spent most of my work life in the human services profession and was no stranger to “serving” others or even feeling powerless in my line of work. So, now I have this opportunity to be creative and sexual and play on the other side of the fence so to speak. As ignorant as I initially was, I found that engaging in phone sessions in the dominant role proved to be a necessary and possibly even cathartic balance in my life. And it was through learning and talking to submissive clients in this medium that got me awfully curious about what it would be like to play like that in real time. I still consider myself a relative novice when it comes to the art and practice of BDSM, but now that I’ve gotten a taste with a delightful submissive play partner, I also know I can never look back.
A fascinating book that has really opened my eyes in terms of the psychology of sadomasochism is called “Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism” by Thomas Moore. I highly recommend it. Moore disects the works of the Marquis De Sade and talks about how perhaps there is an inherent need in all of us to explore our darker side.
Posted by: Miz Ava | January 31, 2008 12:53 AM