Let’s talk about BDSM

In a box hidden under my bed I have the following items:

–       1 ball-gag

–       1 pair of nipple clamps

–       1 butt plug

–       1 bottle of lube

–       1 vibrator

–       1 set of ankle-wrist doggy-style restraints (for the curious)

–       1 ring-gag (ditto)

At this point, you will probably have made a number of assumptions about me. These will probably also be largely untrue. Let me help you out with those.

1) People who like BDSM have something wrong with them

Pulp Fiction is a great, definitive film. Fifty Shades of Grey is a shitty porn book. What do they have in common? Well, despite their strikingly different backgrounds as figures of cultural impact, both Quentin and E.L. would have us believe that in order to enjoy the integration of ball-gags, horse crops or just some good old control-and-submission dynamics into your sex life, you have to be depraved or deprived in some way.

So the archetypes range from sympathetic (the sensitive, dark and emotionally scarred Christian Grey) to downright monstrous (the infamously rape-y Zed), but the basic message is this – if you like getting freaky, you’re really just kind of fucked up on some level. This kinky-equals-sexy-fucked-up-moral-deprivation shit can stop right now, because a) it is getting kind of boring now and b) you know what, it’s actually quite offensive and hurtful. We’re not sickos just because we get turned on by different shit than you do, OK?

It’s time to lift the gag on BDSM.

I have never been physically or sexually abused in my life. My family is a healthy, middle-class, traditional nuclear unit. My life problems are really boring and predictable (currently, how will I get a job after I graduate and how many May Balls can I afford). Guess what – I just like being spanked and choked in bed. What I like in bed has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of my life.

2) People who like BDSM look like they like BDSM

I have long dark wavy hair, I think brogues are really stylish and I have a fondness for tight red jeans. I sit comfortably at the boring and absolutely unremarkable end of the Sidgwick Site fashion scale. I don’t even look remotely enigmatic or angsty, try as I might. Absolutely nothing about my appearance communicates a taste for being whacked across the backside with a wide leather belt. I repeat – what I like to get up to in bed has no bearing on the rest of my personality.

So, no – I don’t actually have any piercings or tattoos, freaky blue hair, Doc Martens or a taste for death-metal-screamo-gnasher-punk-rock (not that there’s anything wrong if you do, OBVS). We aren’t some easily categorized, safely marginalized clump – we’re scattered among you. We might be your sister, cousin, bezzie mate, parents or DoS. And that’s really, absolutely fine. Promise.

3) People who like BDSM like pain and/or torturing people

I don’t actually like pain.  I don’t think anyone actually likes pain – your basic biological programming would have to be all wired wrong for that to even be possible. If you come up to me in the street and punch me in the face, I’m not going to magically orgasm. Like pretty much all of sex, it’s psychological. It’s not so much actually being choked or having my hair pulled as the idea of being choked or having my hair pulled. No man is ever going to make me come just by belting me – sure it’ll get me going, but I still need good old-fashioned stimulation to finish me off just like anyone.

Tools of the trade.

It’s also an unfortunate failing of etymology that there is only the one word, ‘sadist’, which is applied to both loving, caring people who just like a bit of freaky action and genuine, fucked-up psychopaths who enjoy causing real hurt and damage. If my boyfriend ever thought I wasn’t enjoying what was being done or was experiencing real pain and discomfort (as opposed to the sexy kind), he would be absolutely horrified. OK, so he partly gets off on it because of the power trip and the masculine ego boost from being in control – but in a funny way I’m in control. His enjoyment is entirely dependent on me enjoying myself too.

4) There’s a really definitive line between freaky and non-freaky

You know what? You’re all weird. Especially in bed. It just so happens that my particular weirdness has earned its own special cultural label and set of connotations. OK, so maybe it is a bit less common, but essentially I’d argue I’m pretty normal. And like I said, we can’t be clumped together into a uniform mass.

There are also fetishes I find really fucking weird and a bit scary. This makes no sense to me, for example, while this (NSFW) looks both silly and really uncomfortable – though I entirely respect and support your right to be into it. There is no typical ‘kinkster’, just like there is no typical ‘vanilla’ person.

I often struggle with even labelling myself as a part of the BDSM community, just because so much baggage seems to come with it. I don’t really get latex bodysuits or leather gimp masks, and a lot of people you might call BDSM-ers wouldn’t get why I derive so much sexual pleasure from, say, being made to drool (that’s right, drool). There are some seriously hardcore, majorly freaky people out there that would laugh at the idea of ‘BDSM’ being applied to the lame little spanks I receive.The fact is ‘BDSM’ is just a term applied clumsily to a vague, lumpy, loose body of characteristics and tropes – no one really has a clear definition of what exactly it is. And I suspect nearly everyone has a bit of BDSM in them. Who doesn’t find the idea of rough, passionate sex really rather hot? And who hasn’t tried being tied to the bedposts out just once? (If you haven’t, by the way, you really should.)

5) BDSM is dangerous

There are some seriously fucking stupid people out there, especially post-Fifty-Shades, who are just ruining it for everyone. I’m referring to people like this Swedish bundle of genius, who tied up his girlfriend before essentially beating her to death. History has also seen a string of auto-asphyxiaphiliacs found dead with belts around their necks and their hands around their dicks, making us all look like lunatics. In reality, anyone who did even the most basic research into BDSM would find a community (both online and in real life) anxious to stress that safety is most definitely first when it comes to being kinky. For instance, our Swedish friend would have found that it is standard practice when doing anything remotely risky to institute a safe word (or safe signal if you’re into gags), which is something the person being hit or choked or tied up or whatever can say if something is wrong or if they just don’t like it and have it completely stop. And if the person doing the hitting or choking or whatever ever ignores this word or signal or doesn’t look out for it, then you are basically Satan. It is Not Fucking Okay to do this.

Contrary to what some people believe, the BDSM community is so crazy on risk-management I think you might be more likely to die having normal sex (there is a chance our Swedish friend did know all of this but it slipped his mind after he got drunk and high on synthetic coke, which is apparently a thing). There is a safe way to spank someone, safe way to tie someone up, a safe way to choke someone. I’m all for getting freaky as hell (obviously), but get freaky as hell sensibly.

Warning: use with caution.

Which brings me to my conclusion. We need to start talking about this shit more. I recognize the irony of me stressing this while publishing anonymously – but frankly I think my parents (not to mention the boyf’s) would appreciate being spared enlightenment. But this is partly my point – we don’t necessarily need to broadcast to everyone we know every little detail of our sexual lives and preferences all the time, but we need to make it OK to talk about sex more in all its weird, wonderful forms, and to talk about it in a variety of ways. So we’ve come a long way as a society, but we’re still not at the stage where sex is being celebrated as a normal, natural part of human life, from birth to death. And this leads to all sorts of problems: from kinky Swedes beating people to their mistaken death to making it easier for paedophiles to pressure victims into keeping things a dirty little shameful secret.

Sex is good. Sex is great, whether you like it with whipped cream, horse-crops, urine or nothing at all thanks. And we’re only going to make it more great by embracing it, and embracing it fully, in all its fucked-up wonderfulness.