One persons BDSM is another persons porn or filth or depravity, and quite often a secret delight. You name it. The issue with coming out to BDSM is to define what BDSM means to you – and then of course dealing with the consequences of a revelation to a significant other. It is not easy!
Before You do - ask these questions
For me, coming out took decades and only happened at a time of great personal stress. Sure, it worked for me but it is not something I would recommend without answering some basic questions.
Why are you doing it now? Why not yesterday, or last week, or next week?
Why are you doing it at all? Write the reasons down. Do they make sense?
How will it change the people you tell? Are they open minded, will this come way out of the left field for them and challenge their perceptions of you? Will you be the only kinkster in your group, then what assumptions will that provoke?
What are you going to get out of it? Yes, you must be selfish and admit to yourself just what pluses there are in this for you.
Coming Out Has Its Perils - Expect Confusion
First of all, I do not recommend you come out to a significant other, to friends and colleagues you are into BDSM – unless you are absolutely sure of the outcome. That is totally and absolutely your choice and your concern and your responsibility.
Remember – what is once said can’t be un-said and can’t be un heard.
Then when you do say that you have “this thing I like which is a bit kinky,” that leads to further discussions. Expect to be questioned more and more. If someone cares for you, that is only natural.
The confusion comes when someone who has previously seen you as “normal” suddenly finds you have this kink that seems so illogical to them. Trying to explain what it is that you get out of it can be near to impossible.
Trying to define to someone else just what it is that BDSM is for you can be challenging. Oft times images are far stronger or better than words.
HOLD OUT YOUR HANDS – she says. Then I do for the tawse to do its work. This is an image that tells so much and also can be truly scary to someone not into the BDSM thing.
“You really get that?” I got asked, and then “but why?” and then the reasons that are invented are amusing. “Was it something in a previous life?” and “is it that you’re gay?” and “were you abused as a child?”
Trying to explain that my kink is just something in me, something innate, something necessary that calls to me just wasn’t enough for a very long time.
Disclosure As A Necessity
I can only write from personal experience, and from the depth of my own upbringing in kink-unfriendly times.
Disclosure became a necessity for me. Denial for more than 3 decades really did build an awful tension.
In a time or marital trauma I disclosed to my wife. I had to. She could see I was emotionally struggling and that the end of the marriage was a distinct possibility. She thought the fault was hers or that the marriage wasn’t working.
In some ways she was right. It wasn’t working because I had this need and was repressing it and keeping it a secret. It was the marriage because I felt trapped and could not indulge in my needs.
But it was me. I had not had the strength or honesty to disclose and in the absence of information, she was also a pressure cooker of emotions and fears. All this was spiraling out of control.
Disclosing was immensely difficult. It took hours and hours to explain that I had this need. That I needed it. That it was part of me and not as a consequence of her behavior or some age old trauma etc.
Extremely important was also to point out that my special needs did not take away from my love for her and the family or make me a bad person. I was and will be the same old me, just with a few extra kinks I’ve admitted to that have always been there.
Her fear of change and a sense of loss was very real. Working through that was necessary, with lots of reassurances.
Time helped immensely. We worked on the issue, talked it over. Sex outside the marriage was huge thing and a marriage breaker for her if this was included in me seeing BDSM mistresses. For me that was not an issue as sex is not part of my sessions.
Over The Years
The huge benefit of coming out to my wife is that she understand me far better. Should that not be the case in a marriage?
The whole cheating thing is all dependant on how you define it.
When my moods are low or ‘needy’ she knows I need to have a session and usually fairly soon.
While I feel guilt in doing it, it is vastly easier for her knowing.
She also runs interference for me telling family and contacts a cover story.
So, yes, disclosuure has made it hugely easy.
BDSM And Cheating
This was a sticking point for my wife. If I wanted sex with mistresses she and I would have struggled to stay together.
It is cheating because even without sex in BDSM sessions I am doing something so personal to me while naked, with another woman. It is something so deeply personal-intimate which should only be with a partner in my old-school upbringing view.
It is not cheating because there is no sexual element, no intimacy, no erotic touching etc. The mistress is doing something my wife can’t get involved with and the mistress is relieving a tension that helps in the marriage. Plus my wife knows about it, I am honest, I am not keeping secrets – and honesty and keeping secrets are the first step in cheating.
I like to think there are similarities when when I see a female doctor, or a female nurse or psychologist. I can tell them intimate things, or get medically examined, I am also not cheating.
You need to be the judge of all that.
Few if any mistresses I’ve seen would have permitted sex. Sure, hand relief is available and they are I presume happy with that. I’ve been offered it maybe 3 times in 16 years but I’ve always said I couldn’t look my wife in the eyes if I did that. Even that felt wrong.
In my first ever session I really felt that I was cheating. Taking off my clothes and allowing her to interact with me (meaning to give me corporal) with me naked felt vastly wrong. It felt like I was cheating, yet there was zero intimacy of any kind.
Over the years this has relented. I can be naked chatting to the mistress after the session and there is still no intimacy. It is just part of the session and not a danger to the marriage.
Where To For You?
May I suggest you think it through, take your time, evaluate benefits and consequences. Be sure of yourself.
I am a huge fan of writing things down, making lists, weighing up decisions.
Then with important things, wait a few days and re-evaluate. Look at it with a fresh mind.
What is once said, can’t be un-said. Are you comfortable with this.
The number one priority is “you” – how are you going to feel, feel better, be happier?
Doing something like this in haste just feels vastly wrong.
Either way, I hope it goes well for you. Life is a journey we should take pleasure from, be a peace with and happy free, to be free to live and love as suits us.
‘Trikki