We spoke to a final year who’s part of Belfast’s underground BDSM scene

I met Mark* not long into my first year at Queen’s. He was slightly older than most students, having taken two gap years and now in his final year. He had only recently moved out of halls however, and the first time we spent an extended period in each other’s company was in Autumn. We ran into each other near Botanic and he invited me to come to Elms with him to pick up a package that was sent to his old address by mistake. So it was while  we were standing in line that Mark told me the package he was waiting on was a riding crop.

He chuckled to himself as he awkwardly took it from the receptionist, the plastic packaging barely covering the object’s true identity. I thought it was a funny situation but didn’t expect anything more. Fifty Shades of Grey had made bondage pretty popular, most people have dabbled. But as we walked back to his house Mark told me how how bad a representation Fifty Shades was, and how deeply he was involved in BDSM. Mark was a prominent figure in Belfast’s underground sex scene.

At his house he showed me his equipment. In a leather bag hidden at the bottom of his wardrobe was everything from ropes, handcuffs, vibrators and nipple clamps to an electric shock kit and a bull whip. Recently I asked Mark if he would like to talk about his experiences, and he agreed, thinking it might be a good way to promote the scene. The BDSM scene is a very private one but Mark gave me a glimpse into a world happening under most of our radars.

Mark told me that from as young as he remember he had a fascination with BDSM. When he was a kid he use to learn how to tie ropes, and knots, never understanding his interest. It was at puberty he realised it was sexual. “I was about fourteen,” he said “and like a normal fourteen year old I was searching through PornHub. One day I searched ‘tied up porn’ and from then it’s always been a thing for me.”

Mark’s interest in bondage grew for the next few years, on his own. He watched porn, bought magazines, read erotica. But when he reached eighteen he wanted to find if there was anyone else out there that shared his interest. He found a website called Fetlife.com.A site for people into all levels of so called “Kink” with over three million users.  If you have a fetish, you can bet you’ll find someone on Fetlife who shares your passion.

Mark realised early on that he was a dominant. He wanted to be in control of the sexual encounters he had. To be the master inflicting pain and pleasure on his partner.

Mark was excited to find a community that shared his passion, but he found it hard at first to make friends. “It’s not like Facebook. You don’t know anyone on it, and they have no reason to trust you.” But he began reaching out, sending messages and trying to make friends. Mostly, he did this by asking for advice. “I would always ask the prominent members what equipment they’d recommend. People are wary of your intentions at first, but everyone likes to act as a mentor. I found if you respected the elders so to speak, it was easier to become part of the group.”

A leash

The first thing he bought was a £10 bondage kit from eBay. It came with ropes, handcuffs, a blindfold and a ball-gag. All black, all leather. It was cheap, but more than enough to start him out.

It took Mark a while to gain a foothold in the scene. “I had been on Fetlife for about five months before I had my first encounter,” Mark told me. “She was twenty three years old at the time, and I pretended to be older than I was . We went for coffee and then went back to mine. I tied her up with a rope and poured candle wax on her as she sucked me off. We didn’t have sex, but it was the most intense sexual experience I’d ever had. It was incredible.”

Not long after his twentieth birthday, Mark decided to meet up with a group from the site. They met at an undisclosed location, keeping it social at first.  These types of meetups are a staple of the kink scene, letting everyone get to know each other and build trust in a safe group environment. Though sex is a common undercurrent to the interactions, Mark told me it’s wrong to focus on it. ” They keep it quite reserved at meetups,” Mark told me, “they’re always keeping an eye on what the people are like. Making sure that everyone can be trusted, trying to weed out anyone creepy, who just thinks they can get easy sex.”

“I actually didn’t like it at first. I felt looked down upon because I was young. Some of the older people there looked at me as inexperienced, almost as if I wasn’t worthy.” But undeterred he continued in the scene. As time went on he found that new, younger groups were popping up. There’s been a big influx of university students to the scene in the last few years. And they’re a lot more open minded and accepting.

What even is that?

I asked Mark how much he’d spent on kink in the five or so years he’d been properly involved. “Around £110 pound on equipment. That’s not that much when you see everything I have. And there’s no one my age in Belfast with as much experience as I have. At least I’ve never met them.

This isn’t even quarter of what he has

At the time of writing, Mark has three subs. Three women who treat him as their master in their sessions. “Last week I took one of them to a forest at the edge of the suburbs. I hog tied her and whipped her, then I tied her to a tree and fucked her.” He told me about a technique he uses on girls after the first few times they play together. “I tie her leg to a collar, which I then tie to her neck. So if she moves her leg, she will choke herself. Then I put a vibrator in her, so she wants to move. Then she sucks me off and any time she stops I hit her with the riding crop, making her move and making her choke herself.” Some of the very submissive girls liked it when Mark humiliated them, or used the shock kit to inflict pain.

It sounded pretty intense. Mark was careful to emphasise the nature of the sex as a play fantasy. “The most important part is after care. Degradation, humiliation, telling someone you own them is all fun when part of a shared game, but you don’t want to make anyone actually believe that they’re not worthwhile afterwords. Sometimes it’s cooling them down with a wet towel and making sure they’re okay, other times it’s as simple as watching TV or a cuddle.”

I asked Mark if there was anything he wouldn’t do. “I’m a dom,” he said, “So I’m always the one who decides what happening. Though in a way the sub is the one with the control, they decide where the boundaries are.” He himself would never be in to being dominated, nor would he be in to having any of the things he does, done to him. “It’s just not my thing, when you join the scene you begin to find out what you like, what turns you on, what you’re comfortable with. And usually you can find someone you match with.”

And for anyone interested, I asked Mark the best way to get started. “Make a fake email and with that, make a Fetlife account. If you don’t like it, you can forget both. Spend time on your profile, the more work you put in the more people will want to get to know you. For guys, no dick pics. It gives across a bad message. Have patience with it, as good things take time, but they will come. But the most important thing to remember is do not treat it like a dating website. It isn’t and there are better places out there for that sort of thing. You have to treat it as a friendship and educational website. That way you can get involved in the scene and if you want, take things further, but this should not be your primary objective.”

So if you think you’d enjoy Belfast’s BDSM scene, you now know how to start. If not, nice talking to you grandma.