My Long Journey Into Kink
Growing up in a normal family, in a normal suburb with a middle of the road normal life I realized in my very early teens I liked belts far more than I thought others did.
This is my story of over half a century of self discovery, acceptance, then embracing that I am kinky.
As a test of my acceptance, I can now write, ‘Yes I am kinky. I have a leather fetish and have regular BDSM sessions with a dominatrix who puts me into bondage then gives me corporal punishment. I need it.’
It has taken more than a few decades to be able to write that.
The Early Years
With nothing published in media or print, zero exposure to it in an era when BDSM was taboo, I found I liked belts far too much. And leather. I enjoyed tying myself up with them and had my first orgasm when tied up. At my early age and in my ignorance, that was a difficult time.
I’d never heard the term bondage, but I found years later I had been practicing self-bondage.
Corporal punishment was not at the front of my mind, ‘it just was there’ deep inside me. Later I was to read about it, and it became more prominent.
As the years passed, self-bondage became my secret passion, something I did as often as able.
University, work, family life kept me from taking this further. I would just tie myself up occasionally and that would slake my needs as I then felt them.
That First Walk Of Seven Yards
At a traumatic point in my life I went into therapy where this aspect of my secret me came out. For the first time ever.
Imagine my surprise when these admissions were met with acceptance and the suggestion that they did not make me less than I am, would hurt no one else, and wonder that I had not done it before.
Against all my preconceived thoughts and inhibitions cemented into me by decades of denial I tried it. I had my first BDSM session. Walking in off the street to knock on the door was the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
Then the session itself was more than fabulous. It transformed and transported me.
In my first ever visit to a dungeon I felt I had come home, a feeling that I still get over 15 years later.
Evolving Within BDSM
In my early years I could never have discussed my BDSM desires, needs, fetish, kink. Call it whatever you like. It was a total secret.
Then after my first session I became more comfortable discussing it with a therapist (a huge step in itself).
After that I came out to my wife about my needs. We reached a concensus that it is part of me and that it helps me significantly. I have my sessions and she accepts they do not come between us, rather they help me love her all the more.
The BDSM has evolved also. Initially it was all about self-bondage and nothing more. I got my pleasure from that. Then in my first professional session I received corporal punishment only to find that it worked so well with bondage. It transported, it shifted my consciousness.
As the years passed, I found that the corporal punishment aspect became more dominant. I collected implements for corporal punishment, belts, straps and tawse and take great pleasure from their use on me.
Now I find I look for new experiences in the bondage and corporal punishment arena. I find myself looking for new implements. I spend time thinking about changes to my BDSM sesions that can enhance them.
Self Discovery and Acceptance
Acceptance was to become the most difficult thing in my life, and at many levels. To gain acceptance is to gain true freedom and release.
I had to accept this need in me, I had to accept it did not take away from other aspects of me. I would still be the loving husband, father, son that I had always been. I just had this something extra.
My upbringing made that difficult. BDSM was a taboo subject, something whispered about if at all so that anyone admitting to it was akin to admitting to being a pervert.
To this day I feel that, but it is far less.
Guilt Is the natural enemy of happiness. It makes acceptance impossible. Until I could get past feelings of shame and guilt, I could never be truly happy. I know that now. I know also that my guilt had no basis in fact.
Honesty is difficult. Self discovery works best with honesty. Trying to understand myself and being honest about my needs is difficult. This can make acceptance impossible when denial get in the way.
The Enduring Journey
Over more than fifteen years of having regular BDSM sessions and learning more and more about myself, I realize my journey will never end.
Part of me does not want it to end. I still find it exciting, fulfilling and oh so necessary. Sometimes I rail aganst these needs, but then when they are slaked, the reward is a kind of release and happiness I can get nowhere else.
I will forever feel its calling as it is part of me.
I recognize the mistake in saying I had ‘buried’ this need. To bury is to suggest something that could be singled out, isolated, treated as an entity. Rather, this need is within me, a slice of my psyche that I had been in denial of.