Culture and BDSM

one of the topics that fascinates me is the influence that culture has on personal BDSM practices. how has your upbringing, specifically the culture you were raised in, influenced your practice of BDSM?
some examples just to throw out there are:

Fire cupping or simply cupping is a form of traditional medicine found in many cultures world-wide. It involves placing cups containing reduced air pressure (suction) on the skin. It is known in local languages as bahnkes, bekam, buhang, bentusa, kuyukaku, gak hoi, hijama, and many other names.

the use of different regional tools as forms of beating instruments

the Domination vs. Machismo in Latin cultures

the traditional 50's housewife and servitude....

i could go on, but what i am more interested in is how this effects your practices

not sure if this is what you are looking for...I enjoy spanking very much, however, as a child the wooden spoon was the tool of choice for spanking at home and I can't even imagine using one to be spanked with now for sex. It just horrifies me. I actually never even buy wooden spoons for use in cooking either.

Wierd, I know. I am pretty damn sure it's a "hard limit" for me and my husband feels the same way.

I was raised by my grandparents, and, for all intents and purposes, they were the "typical 50's husband and wife", and being "the perfect little housewife" idealism was something my grandma shoved upon me when she found out I was pregnant. "You have to do it this way", "Make sure this is done before this time of day", stuff like that. I hated it. MAN, did I hate it. When we were vanilla (or at most, exploring our kinks before returning to vanilla), I simply couldn't do what she envisioned for me... too much teenage rebellion still in my veins. When I came to accept my submissive side, I found that what she taught is now natural to me.

I don't know if anyone's ever seen it, and I haven't a clue where to begin to look for it, but floating somewhere on the net is a pic from an article in the 50's about how to be a good wife... in today's society, it would be considered highly sexist (considering quotes like "Ask him how his day is before you begin to even mention yours" and "Have dinner prepared and set before he gets home")... but in my eyes, I don't find it so odd. ...He's been at work all day, while my days are fairly mundane (and his boss is worse than my mother in law); and I can appreciate how nice it is to have a hot meal waiting for him the moment he walks through the door. I've seen it twice... once vanilla (to which I bemoaned how sexist it was), and once as a sub (to which I now consider most of it sage wisdom)...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall... I have become my grandmother after all.

neci_please_me said:

one of the topics that fascinates me is the influence that culture has on personal BDSM practices. how has your upbringing, specifically the culture you were raised in, influenced your practice of BDSM?
some examples just to throw out there are:

Fire cupping or simply cupping is a form of traditional medicine found in many cultures world-wide. It involves placing cups containing reduced air pressure (suction) on the skin. It is known in local languages as bahnkes, bekam, buhang, bentusa, kuyukaku, gak hoi, hijama, and many other names.

the use of different regional tools as forms of beating instruments

the Domination vs. Machismo in Latin cultures

the traditional 50's housewife and servitude....

i could go on, but what i am more interested in is how this effects your practices

Click to expand...

I lived in a very warped and deranged household whose center is a passive aggressive neurotic.

On the surface, the consummate housewife, whose existence revolves around dinner.

Look at what's actually going on, and the entire family were enslaved to her neuroses.

My natural disinclination to submit myself, sublimate my wants, and do things for others were amplified by this environment, to a roaring fuck, never.

Ravenwind said:

but in my eyes, I don't find it so odd. ...He's been at work all day, while my days are fairly mundane (and his boss is worse than my mother in law); and I can appreciate how nice it is to have a hot meal waiting for him the moment he walks through the door.

Click to expand...

I dont see cooking for my man as submissive act. I understand it can be one but for me it is just matter of love and respect. I was far from being submissive in either of my marriages and I cooked in both for simple reason that I had more time, more experience and even more love for cooking.
The kitchen is my kingdom and I am proud of it and of what I do there.
My husband and even my kids and my parents will use every other part of my apt without asking but they very humbly ask if they can use something in my kitchen. And nothing feels so good for my ego than praises I get for my meals. Maybe I am old fashioned

Um. I'd never been able to share my kitchen with anyone other than my kids, when I was teaching them how to cook.

Until I met my partner. No problem now. Kitchen-sharing is the deepest expression of love.

sb2009 said:

not sure if this is what you are looking for...I enjoy spanking very much, however, as a child the wooden spoon was the tool of choice for spanking at home and I can't even imagine using one to be spanked with now for sex. It just horrifies me. I actually never even buy wooden spoons for use in cooking either.

Wierd, I know. I am pretty damn sure it's a "hard limit" for me and my husband feels the same way.

Click to expand...

i have a similar phobia with rubber bands... they are pretty much a no no.... they scare the shit out of me still.

Netzach said:

I lived in a very warped and deranged household whose center is a passive aggressive neurotic.

On the surface, the consummate housewife, whose existence revolves around dinner.

Look at what's actually going on, and the entire family were enslaved to her neuroses.

My natural disinclination to submit myself, sublimate my wants, and do things for others were amplified by this environment, to a roaring fuck, never.

Click to expand...

part of my childhood was similar, after my mom was laid off from her job. i went in the opposite direction, always wanting to make everyone happy for a while - never feeling like i could. the need to please to avoid confrontation. i started to realize a little later that there were some good traits in her that i really admired, like the German order and extroversion that i shied away from.

StrayKat said:

I dont see cooking for my man as submissive act. I understand it can be one but for me it is just matter of love and respect. I was far from being submissive in either of my marriages and I cooked in both for simple reason that I had more time, more experience and even more love for cooking.
The kitchen is my kingdom and I am proud of it and of what I do there.
My husband and even my kids and my parents will use every other part of my apt without asking but they very humbly ask if they can use something in my kitchen. And nothing feels so good for my ego than praises I get for my meals. Maybe I am old fashioned

Click to expand...

i love this!

Ravenwind said:

I was raised by my grandparents, and, for all intents and purposes, they were the "typical 50's husband and wife", and being "the perfect little housewife" idealism was something my grandma shoved upon me when she found out I was pregnant. "You have to do it this way", "Make sure this is done before this time of day", stuff like that. I hated it. MAN, did I hate it. When we were vanilla (or at most, exploring our kinks before returning to vanilla), I simply couldn't do what she envisioned for me... too much teenage rebellion still in my veins. When I came to accept my submissive side, I found that what she taught is now natural to me.

I don't know if anyone's ever seen it, and I haven't a clue where to begin to look for it, but floating somewhere on the net is a pic from an article in the 50's about how to be a good wife... in today's society, it would be considered highly sexist (considering quotes like "Ask him how his day is before you begin to even mention yours" and "Have dinner prepared and set before he gets home")... but in my eyes, I don't find it so odd. ...He's been at work all day, while my days are fairly mundane (and his boss is worse than my mother in law); and I can appreciate how nice it is to have a hot meal waiting for him the moment he walks through the door. I've seen it twice... once vanilla (to which I bemoaned how sexist it was), and once as a sub (to which I now consider most of it sage wisdom)...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall... I have become my grandmother after all.

Click to expand...

my mom used to tell me that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. it is so true.

StrayKat said:

I dont see cooking for my man as submissive act. I understand it can be one but for me it is just matter of love and respect. I was far from being submissive in either of my marriages and I cooked in both for simple reason that I had more time, more experience and even more love for cooking.
The kitchen is my kingdom and I am proud of it and of what I do there.
My husband and even my kids and my parents will use every other part of my apt without asking but they very humbly ask if they can use something in my kitchen. And nothing feels so good for my ego than praises I get for my meals. Maybe I am old fashioned

Click to expand...

I'm the same way. I guess I even equate the act of dinner and the act of control to a large extent.

neci_please_me said:

part of my childhood was similar, after my mom was laid off from her job. i went in the opposite direction, always wanting to make everyone happy for a while - never feeling like i could. the need to please to avoid confrontation. i started to realize a little later that there were some good traits in her that i really admired, like the German order and extroversion that i shied away from.

Click to expand...

I went through this for a long time, till I was about 23. I had begun thinking about jumping off of things for the first time in my life and decided maybe some help was in order. When I finally saw that the game was, in fact, a zero sum game in which I would *never* actually please these people, it was very liberating.

I didn't have to please anyone.

What a thought.

Netzach said:

I'm the same way. I guess I even equate the act of dinner and the act of control to a large extent.

Click to expand...

ahhhh yes. if you don't like it, there's always PBJ.
for some reason they always want the hot meal.

Netzach said:

I went through this for a long time, till I was about 23. I had begun thinking about jumping off of things for the first time in my life and decided maybe some help was in order. When I finally saw that the game was, in fact, a zero sum game in which I would *never* actually please these people, it was very liberating.

I didn't have to please anyone.

What a thought.

Click to expand...

i am a huge fan of jumping off into the free fall. painting did that for me before sex did. just a canvas, paint and endless possibilities. i think that is part of why i am so drawn to BDSM - there is a jumping off involved. a falling and trusting. whirlwind of emotions. heightening senses - or lack there of. i realized that i can choose the people i want to please, and when i do it is a gift, not a need for affirmation.

I was not raised in a culture at all. My mother very rarely ever cooked. I have absolutely no memories of her spending time in the kitchens of any of the many houses or apartments we lived in. We did not sit down at the table to eat a home cooked dinner at around the same the same time every night like all the other family's seemed to do.
In fact I only remember sitting around a table eating dinner one time in one house and that's only because my older sister had tried to bake bread. So were eating that and I complemented her by announcing that it was the best dough I ever tasted. She burst into tears, everybody screamed at me, there was an uproar and my cat Mr. Whiskers... used the opportunity to run into our room, grab my new hamster out of it's cage and run past the table with it's little fat legs and head sticking out of his mouth. Oh the trauma!!

Anyways, my mother did not know how to cook or clean or run a household or take care of a man or how to teach us to do any of those things. Because she was never taught. Born to an alcoholic mother who had the constant habit of dropping her and her little brother off to stay at various friends and relatives homes, then not showing back up to collect them for god only knew how long...months and months on end sometimes even a year or so. This left her free to drink, carouse around and follow her male companions.

Neither my mother or her children were raise in any type of domestic culture. Nor were we raised with any adult males around who needed care and feeding

Wow I really went off rambling there...I will think on this more...I know it did and still does affect me greatly but it was not a culture.

When I first started to read this, I really thought I would post that how I was raised had nothing to do with my subservience, at all. Both of my parents worked, and, if anything, my mother was the one who wore the pants in the family. However, the more I thought on it, maybe it has everything to do with how I was raised. Even though my mother worked full-time, most nights there was a homemade dinner waiting at the table (or on the stove, staying warm) for my father and myself. My father was the one who did the 'man' work, such as mowing the lawn, building and repair work, etc. My mother was the one who did the cooking, cleaning, laundry, all around making sure the house ran from day to day without falling into a state of chaos. She essentially catered (and still does) to his whims. He, in turn, goes out of his way to do little things for her, as a surprise. He'll send her flowers for no reason, he'll buy her silly little presents, just because he knows she'll never buy something for herself that she considers unnecessary. After having my own child, I've come to realize that I want to be the one to take care of my man, and my family. So, essentially, I believe that is where a good bit of my need to be a sub comes from, from having watched the dynamics of my own family. (Although, certainly not the sex part. I can talk to my mom about sex, I just don't want to picture my parents having sex! Ew, ew, ew. I walked in on them a few times, and it was a few times too many! Although, I am glad to know, in a disassociated way, that they have a great sex life.)

StrayKat said:

I dont see cooking for my man as submissive act. I understand it can be one but for me it is just matter of love and respect. I was far from being submissive in either of my marriages and I cooked in both for simple reason that I had more time, more experience and even more love for cooking.
The kitchen is my kingdom and I am proud of it and of what I do there.
My husband and even my kids and my parents will use every other part of my apt without asking but they very humbly ask if they can use something in my kitchen. And nothing feels so good for my ego than praises I get for my meals. Maybe I am old fashioned

Click to expand...

I rarely cook, but when I do I am an absolute tyrant in the kitchen. There's a part of me that actually feels bad for the girls when they have to deal with me at these times. For the most part, they've learned to prep the area how I like it, and to be near enough to hear me holler when I need something. Otherwise they stay out of the way. I like it like that.

And, yeah, I love the praise I get from a good meal. I don't think it's old-fashioned per se. There's just something soul-satisfying about providing for those you love, especially when it is done with something as comforting and expressive as cooking.

I'm sure culture has a lot to do with kinkiness, and a lot of other stuff, but have never been sure how mine affected me.

I was raised by my mother. My father was in Germany between the ages of 2 and 4 and split when I was 5. Both my parents are recovering alcoholic/addicts, but they weren't recovering at the time. I'm the oldest, and was very much like another mother to my sister (15 months younger than me). We moved a lot. I say I'm an army brat, but it's a lot more complicated than that. My dad got out of the army when I was 5 - we moved cause mom was sure that things would be better at the next place, wherever that was. My mom worked, and is a tyrant. The only thing she and my dad have in common is a nasty temper, and a determination to have it there way. Which is why they're divorced. lol I wouldn't even say I was a submissive child, but more of a bottom topper. If I wanted something badly enough, I'd just go around my mom to get it. I was sneaky and a liar. I know, however, that I was physically, emotionally, and verbally abused. Not because I remember, but cause I've been told. I only have vague recollections of this and that, and none of them are the worst of what happened.

I wouldn't say that K and I have a typical '50's relationship, cause with my health (and his love of cooking) quite often he ends up doing the 'womans work', but that's how I'd like it to be. When I'm healthy that's how it is. Except for the cooking - he really likes to cook and is much more patient and creative in the kitchen than I even want to be.

I don't know. I am not typical of someone with my background. Statistically I should have been a teen mom, a drop out, a junkie, and an abusive relationship waiting to happen. My mom says that she didn't raise me, God did, cause I'd have never turned out as well if she had.

Ravenwind said:

I was raised by my grandparents, and, for all intents and purposes, they were the "typical 50's husband and wife", and being "the perfect little housewife" idealism was something my grandma shoved upon me when she found out I was pregnant. "You have to do it this way", "Make sure this is done before this time of day", stuff like that. I hated it. MAN, did I hate it. When we were vanilla (or at most, exploring our kinks before returning to vanilla), I simply couldn't do what she envisioned for me... too much teenage rebellion still in my veins. When I came to accept my submissive side, I found that what she taught is now natural to me.

I don't know if anyone's ever seen it, and I haven't a clue where to begin to look for it, but floating somewhere on the net is a pic from an article in the 50's about how to be a good wife... in today's society, it would be considered highly sexist (considering quotes like "Ask him how his day is before you begin to even mention yours" and "Have dinner prepared and set before he gets home")... but in my eyes, I don't find it so odd. ...He's been at work all day, while my days are fairly mundane (and his boss is worse than my mother in law); and I can appreciate how nice it is to have a hot meal waiting for him the moment he walks through the door. I've seen it twice... once vanilla (to which I bemoaned how sexist it was), and once as a sub (to which I now consider most of it sage wisdom)...

Mirror, mirror, on the wall... I have become my grandmother after all.

Click to expand...

This is a horrible story. It's the sort of thing that makes me think you were brainwashed into being a sub, rather than choosing it with no coercion or external pressure, as is the ideal in the community (I think).

bruisedangel said:

When I first started to read this, I really thought I would post that how I was raised had nothing to do with my subservience, at all. Both of my parents worked, and, if anything, my mother was the one who wore the pants in the family. However, the more I thought on it, maybe it has everything to do with how I was raised. Even though my mother worked full-time, most nights there was a homemade dinner waiting at the table (or on the stove, staying warm) for my father and myself. My father was the one who did the 'man' work, such as mowing the lawn, building and repair work, etc. My mother was the one who did the cooking, cleaning, laundry, all around making sure the house ran from day to day without falling into a state of chaos. She essentially catered (and still does) to his whims. He, in turn, goes out of his way to do little things for her, as a surprise. He'll send her flowers for no reason, he'll buy her silly little presents, just because he knows she'll never buy something for herself that she considers unnecessary. After having my own child, I've come to realize that I want to be the one to take care of my man, and my family. So, essentially, I believe that is where a good bit of my need to be a sub comes from, from having watched the dynamics of my own family. (Although, certainly not the sex part. I can talk to my mom about sex, I just don't want to picture my parents having sex! Ew, ew, ew. I walked in on them a few times, and it was a few times too many! Although, I am glad to know, in a disassociated way, that they have a great sex life.)

Click to expand...

Not in the lifestyle, but I agree with your post. I love taking care of my husband and my family and our household runs the same way.

graceanne said:

I don't know. I am not typical of someone with my background. Statistically I should have been a teen mom, a drop out, a junkie, and an abusive relationship waiting to happen. My mom says that she didn't raise me, God did, cause I'd have never turned out as well if she had.

Click to expand...

thank you. i needed to read this.