what first made you think there was something else?

[where]

by which I mean sex wasn't just straightforward, or that there was a counterculture or that people did interesting stuff secretly and that society doesn't approve?

was it a wayward relative? a book? a film?

 

[where]

For me it was listening to the velvet underground. songs of drugs and whips and obsession... It made me realise that there was a dark underbelly somewhere.

 

[midwestyankee]

I remember a cheesy porn "novel" that included a scene in which a woman was made to drink piss from her lover's cock. That caught my attention in ways that I didn't quite comprehend for a while but it also made me see that classic James Bond-style seduction wasn't the only train that left the station.

 

[where]

I remember a cheesy porn "novel" that included a scene in which a woman was made to drink piss from her lover's cock. That caught my attention in ways that I didn't quite comprehend for a while but it also made me see that classic James Bond-style seduction wasn't the only train that left the station.

when I got a bit older, I bought a copy of Appolinnaires "les onze mil vierges" (that may not be spelled right) and found myself getting really turned on by some parts of it, including what for me were pretty extreme sexual stuff. I couldn't bring myself to finish it though.

I think I might be ready to now.

 

[midwestyankee]

when I got a bit older, I bought a copy of Appolinnaires "les onze mil vierges" (that may not be spelled right) and found myself getting really turned on by some parts of it, including what for me were pretty extreme sexual stuff. I couldn't bring myself to finish it though.

I think I might be ready to now.

Haven't read it but from what I've heard and seen, it's a worthy choice. Would you be capable of reading the original? That sounds like a great way to rebuild one's French literacy.

 

[where]

Haven't read it but from what I've heard and seen, it's a worthy choice. Would you be capable of reading the original? That sounds like a great way to rebuild one's French literacy.

good god, no! my supervisor suggested I read Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge in the original because the translation sucked. I have some basic spanish and that's it.

 

[Netzach]

For me it was listening to the velvet underground. songs of drugs and whips and obsession... It made me realise that there was a dark underbelly somewhere.

Rollerina. She's still alive and you can look her up - basically a drag queen on skates who was a minor NYC celeb in the seventies and early 80's. I remember seeing her when I had to have been about 8 or 9 and my mother explained to me that she wasn't a lady but a man dressed as a lady and I thought that was the oddest coolest shit on earth. Plus I loved to roller skate and she was good at it! But the sense of "there's something uncool we don't really discuss" pervaded that explanation, and stuck with me. It was kind of like when I asked about Jesus, very "here it is, but we don't really believe in that"

The Velvet Underground has a lot to answer for, as well as the Halloween parade, but Rollerina really made me sense that something else could actually go on on the most basic levels.

 

[taborgirl]

Simple maternal rebellion.

My mom told me that sex could only be between a man and a woman and only for procreation. She also told me that I had to be a Christian and believe in Jesus, which I haven't believed since the age of four. So if you're told to believe that and you don't, you don't believe in vanilla sex being the only thing.

The first time my fiance dominated me I felt complete and I've been at peace with myself since.

 

[DVS]

I knew I was different at a very early age. I didn't even know it was sex. I didn't know what sex was. I had strange bondage thoughts when I was somewhere around 7 or 8. It's a long time ago, so I can't remember for sure.

I've said it before, I spanked my first female behind when I was 12. She was 10. And about that same time, I did some mildly sexual things with a few of the neighborhood girls, but we had no idea they were sexual. The girls were just as interested as I was. I wasn't forcing them into anything.

There was some bondage, but not anything you'd call planned or educated. There were no handcuffs, no jute ropes, etc. I did get my hands into their pants, and they allowed it. I must have had a certain charm, even back then.

Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do, once my hands were in their pants. It just felt like something I wanted to do. I do remember feeling the shape of their asses. Can you imagine that coming from me? and while it was mostly a time of confusion I think I did at least have a subconscious plan of attack. I desired only females and I wanted to touch their asses.

But when I think back, I knew jack shit about why I enjoyed it. And the girls seemed to also enjoy it. If I'd had any resistance at all from them, my sexual education would have begun later. I remember one instance that I had a girl in our house, and we were on the floor, behind the couch. The girl's mother was also there, visiting my mother.

I guess we were being too quiet for our own good and we got caught. I think both mothers giggled a little and the neighbors went home. I thought sure I was going to get into trouble, but nothing was ever said about it. I'd guess this was about 1961 or '62. It was a time when adults were embarrassed about adolescent interests.

As the years went by, I knew I was different, but, I had nobody to confide in. I had nobody to ask questions, no reference material. Computers and the Internet were to be invented far into the future. I don't remember exactly when, but I was able to purchase semi or light porn magazines before I should have. I guess the term "porn" wasn't yet defined. It was still called dirty magazines. Nor was "delinquency of a minor" seen as a big problem.

My early education was from those magazines. There were stories and there were pictures. I still had to improvise the plots and imagine the women in the pictures in a different way, but I was able to figure out that what I had been toying with had a name. And the words bondage, spanking, domination, etc. were how sex was defined for me.

I still didn't know that sex caused babies. Shit, I didn't even know the basics about the act of conceiving. I just knew about bondage, spanking and domination. It wasn't until I was in the 7th grade that I found out about making babies. By that time, my masturbatory fantasies were well defined.

And when I found out about the baby factory, I didn't connect my fantasies with it. Bondage, spanking and domination had no connection, from what I could tell. I was more informed than many kids my age about some things, and totally naive about other things.

It would be a few more years, before I was able to connect them into the big picture. By that time, the girls were older and wiser and didn't want to participate in my fun. From their reluctance and basic lack of interest I could tell I was different. I was called a pervert by some and just weird by others and I really couldn't disagree with them.

Things got better as the years went on. As the women got older, they also had desires and thankfully, I met some with similar desires to mine. And that's how it all began for me.

 

[Stella_Omega]

by which I mean sex wasn't just straightforward, or that there was a counterculture or that people did interesting stuff secretly and that society doesn't approve?

was it a wayward relative? a book? a film?

Always. I knew from childhood that my fantasies were going to get me into trouble if anyone found out about them, and in fact, it's been a real struggle in my life to open up and tell anyone about them. I still don't do it easily.

What I'm having trouble with these days are the people who seem to think that society SHOULD approve, and want to parade their Walmart-purchased bondage gear into the office or something, who approach something exceedingly transgressive as if it were part and parcel of their privilege. It's... scary.

Or is it merely irritating, that what I anguished over in my deepest darkest nights is now laid out, codified, and sold in cute little kits and "how to" articles in Cosmo?

 

[YourCaptor]

I think BDSM simply just takes into account that part of human nature that wants to provoke a response from others. Church sex, or vanilla sex, or whatever you call it, it’s made out to be some weird coming together in a hug deal, and then doing some sort of orgasmic caressing thing whilst vibrating together. Let’s face it, in the real world you’rd pissed off about something, nobody ever remembers what, and she shuts off your TV, and you rip up her decaprio poster, and then she screams “you got a tiny dick”, and then you go “well choke on it bitch”, and then you end up fucking and breaking the nightstand, again.

If your fine with the idea that sex is often aggressive, and you roll with it, it’s not far to go to BDSM.

 

[where]

Rollerina. She's still alive and you can look her up - basically a drag queen on skates who was a minor NYC celeb in the seventies and early 80's. I remember seeing her when I had to have been about 8 or 9 and my mother explained to me that she wasn't a lady but a man dressed as a lady and I thought that was the oddest coolest shit on earth. Plus I loved to roller skate and she was good at it! But the sense of "there's something uncool we don't really discuss" pervaded that explanation, and stuck with me. It was kind of like when I asked about Jesus, very "here it is, but we don't really believe in that"

The Velvet Underground has a lot to answer for, as well as the Halloween parade, but Rollerina really made me sense that something else could actually go on on the most basic levels.

I had to google. he has a bit of a dame edna look going on which is cool. In the UK just about all the comedy we were exposed to as kids consisted of men in drag. whilst some of them were undoubtedly gay most of them were just following a traditional variety format, so when you did see someone who was a bit camp it seemed kinda 'normal'. I don't think I ever really got that wo/men liked dressing up as wo/men for kicks or because they had a different gender identity to their sex identity until I was much older. when I was 17 I had a friend who was going through F2M reassignment and I recall being pretty confused by it.

Simple maternal rebellion.

My mom told me that sex could only be between a man and a woman and only for procreation. She also told me that I had to be a Christian and believe in Jesus, which I haven't believed since the age of four. So if you're told to believe that and you don't, you don't believe in vanilla sex being the only thing.

The first time my fiance dominated me I felt complete and I've been at peace with myself since.

so if your mum had been completely radical and queer, do you think you might have ended up ultra straight?

I knew I was different at a very early age. I didn't even know it was sex. I didn't know what sex was. I had strange bondage thoughts when I was somewhere around 7 or 8. It's a long time ago, so I can't remember for sure.

I've said it before, I spanked my first female behind when I was 12. She was 10. And about that same time, I did some mildly sexual things with a few of the neighborhood girls, but we had no idea they were sexual. The girls were just as interested as I was. I wasn't forcing them into anything.

There was some bondage, but not anything you'd call planned or educated. There were no handcuffs, no jute ropes, etc. I did get my hands into their pants, and they allowed it. I must have had a certain charm, even back then.

Unfortunately, I didn't know what to do, once my hands were in their pants. It just felt like something I wanted to do. I do remember feeling the shape of their asses. Can you imagine that coming from me? and while it was mostly a time of confusion I think I did at least have a subconscious plan of attack. I desired only females and I wanted to touch their asses.

But when I think back, I knew jack shit about why I enjoyed it. And the girls seemed to also enjoy it. If I'd had any resistance at all from them, my sexual education would have begun later. I remember one instance that I had a girl in our house, and we were on the floor, behind the couch. The girl's mother was also there, visiting my mother.

I guess we were being too quiet for our own good and we got caught. I think both mothers giggled a little and the neighbors went home. I thought sure I was going to get into trouble, but nothing was ever said about it. I'd guess this was about 1961 or '62. It was a time when adults were embarrassed about adolescent interests.

As the years went by, I knew I was different, but, I had nobody to confide in. I had nobody to ask questions, no reference material. Computers and the Internet were to be invented far into the future. I don't remember exactly when, but I was able to purchase semi or light porn magazines before I should have. I guess the term "porn" wasn't yet defined. It was still called dirty magazines. Nor was "delinquency of a minor" seen as a big problem.

My early education was from those magazines. There were stories and there were pictures. I still had to improvise the plots and imagine the women in the pictures in a different way, but I was able to figure out that what I had been toying with had a name. And the words bondage, spanking, domination, etc. were how sex was defined for me.

I still didn't know that sex caused babies. Shit, I didn't even know the basics about the act of conceiving. I just knew about bondage, spanking and domination. It wasn't until I was in the 7th grade that I found out about making babies. By that time, my masturbatory fantasies were well defined.

And when I found out about the baby factory, I didn't connect my fantasies with it. Bondage, spanking and domination had no connection, from what I could tell. I was more informed than many kids my age about some things, and totally naive about other things.

It would be a few more years, before I was able to connect them into the big picture. By that time, the girls were older and wiser and didn't want to participate in my fun. From their reluctance and basic lack of interest I could tell I was different. I was called a pervert by some and just weird by others and I really couldn't disagree with them.

Things got better as the years went on. As the women got older, they also had desires and thankfully, I met some with similar desires to mine. And that's how it all began for me.

as well as sleeping UNDER my mattress, my friend and I used to make up bondage and piss drinking rituals with each other as part of a 'new' religion we had made. I don't think that I thought of it as deviant in any way, it was just like playing. and I recall boys putting their hands down my knickers and never doing anything. I wasn't even aware that they should be doing anything more!

Always. I knew from childhood that my fantasies were going to get me into trouble if anyone found out about them, and in fact, it's been a real struggle in my life to open up and tell anyone about them. I still don't do it easily.

What I'm having trouble with these days are the people who seem to think that society SHOULD approve, and want to parade their Walmart-purchased bondage gear into the office or something, who approach something exceedingly transgressive as if it were part and parcel of their privilege. It's... scary.

Or is it merely irritating, that what I anguished over in my deepest darkest nights is now laid out, codified, and sold in cute little kits and "how to" articles in Cosmo?

Do you think that society should stay disapproving of the counter-culture then? if so, is that because if it becomes the 'culture' then it looses its radicalism or because sometimes and some parts of the counter-culture should remain repressed because if everyone did it, there'd be anarchy?

I think BDSM simply just takes into account that part of human nature that wants to provoke a response from others. Church sex, or vanilla sex, or whatever you call it, it’s made out to be some weird coming together in a hug deal, and then doing some sort of orgasmic caressing thing whilst vibrating together. Let’s face it, in the real world you’rd pissed off about something, nobody ever remembers what, and she shuts off your TV, and you rip up her decaprio poster, and then she screams “you got a tiny dick”, and then you go “well choke on it bitch”, and then you end up fucking and breaking the nightstand, again.

If your fine with the idea that sex is often aggressive, and you roll with it, it’s not far to go to BDSM.

hmmm, I used to initiate a lot of rows for the angry make up sex that came afterwards, I never really thought of it as a germ in my interest in bdsm. I always thought my route into bdsm was more practical, but you may have a point.

 

[Cattypuss]

I've never "got" tribalism or belonging or counter-culture. I have always seen myself as an individual and an outsider, to boot (I always felt like an outsider in my own family, even, from a VERY young age - for a hundred and one reasons).

So for me EVERYTHING around me was (and mostly still is) "other", whether it was mainstream normality or minority oddity.

I can't remember when or how I first realised that "kink" existed out there, but I would have been quite young - early teens probably.

ETA I speak French (I have a French degree) but to my shame I've never heard of the onze mille vierges. Off to google it now...

edited again to add - oh! Apparently it's the onze mille verges, not vierges. Never heard of that, either!

 

[Netzach]

Always. I knew from childhood that my fantasies were going to get me into trouble if anyone found out about them, and in fact, it's been a real struggle in my life to open up and tell anyone about them. I still don't do it easily.

What I'm having trouble with these days are the people who seem to think that society SHOULD approve, and want to parade their Walmart-purchased bondage gear into the office or something, who approach something exceedingly transgressive as if it were part and parcel of their privilege. It's... scary.

Or is it merely irritating, that what I anguished over in my deepest darkest nights is now laid out, codified, and sold in cute little kits and "how to" articles in Cosmo?

This is the schism between kink-as-queer and kink-as-heterosexuality-8.1

I don't know exactly what the line is. I think there are a few men sticking their stuff in XX girls who still do it with the sensibility of fringe or outlaw. (and in this I mean the circumspect non-overt edge of self protection which the marginalized all have to wear) And vice-versa of course.

Maybe they play harder than everyone else or maybe they're given to looking at worst case scenarios with clearer eyes. Frankly I gained my edge that way from being in sex work - the assumption that everyone isn't going to be OK with your shit wherever you go, like a hair color or a little badge you can't take off.

You just move through the world a little differently. If you think your perversion is just another variant of a fun saturday night, you'll smile at the office when those little ribbings and innuendos that people play with come up. If you are queer-kinky you will leave as quickly as you can.

 

[Chiara_searches]

I think I did the dodge and weave thing for far too long. I would see a hint of something else and run back to a "safe" corner to avoid thinking about it. Then repeat. It wasn't until I left my marriage that I diligently set about defining what was "better" for me. I realized that those retreats to "safe" were actually quite damaging to my spirit. I'm still defining what "something" means to me, but in the process I have recognized wisps of submission since I was in my late teens.

 

[neci]

it's always been like this. from the beginning. pain mixed in with the sex. humiliation mixed with desire. i just react to it. try to keep it tended and weeded. watered. i've never quite understood "normal" sex. this is my base line. something else is soft touches.

 

[CaresseDArcy]

by which I mean sex wasn't just straightforward, or that there was a counterculture or that people did interesting stuff secretly and that society doesn't approve?

was it a wayward relative? a book? a film?

For me, the thing that was most responsible for the beginning of that was a book... Women on Top by Nancy Friday. I was in the library with a friend, we had been dropped off to study and she came across it. We thumbed through it amongst the stacks and she ended up 'borrowing' it without her card. We stashed it at my house, as I had more hidey holes and that was a book the library never got back . I still harbor some guilt about that after becoming a librarian.. hehe.

That book had a little sample of something for everyone and really, though corny, I think it helped save me. It not only helped me realize that there was SO much more out there then I knew but also that the thoughts and feelings I had were okay, actually more than ok. It was the catalyst for paving a path to learning not to be ashamed of my own desires.

 

[KoPilot]

Lots of little things that just sort of snowballed.

I got kicked in the cunt during a fight once when I was 7 or 8 and after school told my mom that it had felt good. I got scolded pretty good.

When I roleplayed as a kid, I always knew something was up with me wanting to be the animal sidekick.

And when I hit puberty, I realized that something was really up when all I wound up reading was rape, sex-at-knife-point, sex-with-monster (etc.) stories online and all I ended up writing was, in retrospect, M/s stuff. (In addition to the above things too.)

I think Tool's "Prison Sex" got me thinking* as well.

*read: hot and bothered

 

[where]

Tool's "prison sex?" *goes to see if google is my friend.*

its interesting that most people responding seem to associate the question with sex, perhaps not surprising since we're on lit.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

Weill it *was* sex that flipped my switch, but looking back, I realise that I was always generally the people pleaser, the one who let whoever I was with decide what we were doing. Be it tea parties and cubby houses, or trips to the movies or dinner.

It wasn't that I had no opinion, I just preffered someone else to decide, and thought that would make them happier. Eventually I found people for who that was actually true! Heh

 

[shy slave]

It always fascinates me how people find this way of being and how it works for them. Every dynamic seems different.

I always 'knew' there was something more within an orgasm but could never grasp what that was.

It wasn't until 2005 a vanilla boy friend gave me some website addresses (including here) saying he thought I may be submissive.
Previously had only heard of BDSM in Benny Hill type terms.
It was real revelation. Realised what had been missing was a mix of pain, pleasing another person in a way I had never experienced, and a mental submission.

In the past year have come full circle, whilst there were so many positives, the negatives were in the rest of my life.
Found I struggled to be assertive at work and worried constantly about other people.
Have made a conscious decision to put many Ds aspects aside. It's healthier for my own state of mind.
I have no regrets about the past 7 years and no regrets about moving forward again.
I already miss some of it but, as yet, not enough.

 

[Stella_Omega]

<snip> Do you think that society should stay disapproving of the counter-culture then? if so, is that because if it becomes the 'culture' then it looses its radicalism or because sometimes and some parts of the counter-culture should remain repressed because if everyone did it, there'd be anarchy?

No, I think that society DOES disapprove, and to think it "shouldn't" is like thinking that dogs shouldn't bark. Or trees shouldn't grow upwards. I can't help feeling that it speaks to a sense of entitlement and center-of-the-universe-ness.

But here's Netz to put it all into perspective;

This is the schism between kink-as-queer and kink-as-heterosexuality-8.1

I don't know exactly what the line is. I think there are a few men sticking their stuff in XX girls who still do it with the sensibility of fringe or outlaw. (and in this I mean the circumspect non-overt edge of self protection which the marginalized all have to wear) And vice-versa of course.

Maybe they play harder than everyone else or maybe they're given to looking at worst case scenarios with clearer eyes. Frankly I gained my edge that way from being in sex work - the assumption that everyone isn't going to be OK with your shit wherever you go, like a hair color or a little badge you can't take off.

You just move through the world a little differently. If you think your perversion is just another variant of a fun saturday night, you'll smile at the office when those little ribbings and innuendos that people play with come up. If you are queer-kinky you will leave as quickly as you can.

Yes, this SO MUCH.

 

[BiBunny]

Part of me always knew. I was smart enough to keep it to myself, though. Then, when I hit the Internet, I got the confirmation I needed.

 

[shy slave]

For me, the thing that was most responsible for the beginning of that was a book... Women on Top by Nancy Friday. I was in the library with a friend, we had been dropped off to study and she came across it. We thumbed through it amongst the stacks and she ended up 'borrowing' it without her card. We stashed it at my house, as I had more hidey holes and that was a book the library never got back . I still harbor some guilt about that after becoming a librarian.. hehe.

That book had a little sample of something for everyone and really, though corny, I think it helped save me. It not only helped me realize that there was SO much more out there then I knew but also that the thoughts and feelings I had were okay, actually more than ok. It was the catalyst for paving a path to learning not to be ashamed of my own desires.

Nancy Friday - found that book in a charity shop. Thought I was buying a book on post war feminism, which I was, sort of!

Loved the book though

 

[Emerald_Lilly]

For as long as I can remember I wanted to serve and give up control to someone else. My daydreams through most of my teenage years were of being kept (against my will) as a sex slave. I felt that it was wrong to feel as I did and so kept it buried. Once, when hubby and I were playing when we were first married he used his belt on me and it was like a switch was thrown. He was very uncomfortable with the idea that I wanted and needed pain and control, so again I tried to buy it. My voracious reading habit ended up leading me to The Story of O and the Rice's Sleeping Beauty series. I read everything similar I could get my hands on. Again I started to think there was something wrong with me so I tried to bury it. Quite a cycle actually .... it wasn't until I found Lit (about 8 years ago) that I started to accept that I didn't have to meet someone else's view of who I should be (I am actually still trying to accept that *sigh*)