BDSM Diary

THE BEGINNING – BDSM where have you been all my life?

Go power up eight chainsaws and attach them to the tentacles of an octopus. Imagine the carnage. Fish heads everywhere, brutalised dolphins, orcas hiding in the Mariana Trench. My brain works a bit like that. A pink blob where chaos rules, thoughts spinning like knickers in a hurricane tangled up on a windmill. Yes, I know, I’ve overloaded the metaphors, but it was that bad. No escape from an oscillating madness.

Or, at least, I thought there wasn’t, until I read a quote from Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. So I set off in search, at that stage I did not know what for, but eventually I found something, and with it, I got a lot closer to peace of mind. And how did I do it? I let go, completely and utterly. And where was this peace? In the world of kink and fetish. Realising my sexuality, and the incumbent desires, was the start of a journey that’s been intense, funny and massively rewarding and I’m still on it. Nirvana? Not quite. Self awareness? Most definitely. Satisfaction? Oh Yes! This is the story so far...

LOST IN THE DARKNESS

I’d always been repulsed by anything and everything connected to BDSM. A playground for disgusting perverts, those with minds full of dirt and deviance, a dark army of warped and wicked people. I felt this way until I was 50, yes I liked to occasionally spank a girlfriend, but only as an integral part of good old vanilla sex. It had the official seal of approval from all of the major churches, as long as you were married, and, an important ecumenical addendum, married to the person you were doing the vanilla with. A lot of dusty old churchy folk seemed to forget that bit as soon as they’d taken vows. Easy gig though, they give in to temptation and then the imaginary friend forgives them for it. A no lose isn’t it? (Christians. Stop reading immediately or you’ll burn for eternity in a place that doesn’t exist)

You see, I’m already drifting, like an abandoned yacht rolling round Cape Horn. I’m being blown into one of my favourite rant zones – the horrors of the brainwashed cultish world of religion. No, that’s for another blog entirely. In this one I will focus on my winding, wobbly, and at times amusing journey from appalled bystander to a fully fledged BDSM apologist. Other people have the bruises to prove it.

It took a year of chaos, and a year of recovery from that chaos, before I finally realised that BDSM was my calling, part of my DNA. My evangelical like terror for anything to do with it was, it turned out, denial. This is how that all changed, and I’ve shrink wrapped the story for reasons of brevity.

I met a girl, her name was Rebecca, and, like me, she was a mountain runner. We met after a race and our first date, as you do, was a 6 mile run through the mud and heather of the fells. We chatted between lung rattled gasps, laughing freely. Rebecca was, as you might expect, very fit. A sleek and toned body, but how dare you suggest that I let her run ahead of me so that I could stare at her ass. I’m not that sort of boy.

Towards the end of the run, as we jogged through dappled shapes in the pine forest close to the car park Rebecca, out of the blue said, “Do you have any interest in Sado-Masochism? When I was younger I was big into the lifestyle” I had a lurching feeling, as if someone had let an epileptic hamster loose in my bowels. I remember thinking, “Oh God no. She’s one of those sick deviants. Just when I thought I’d met the perfect partner”

However, I tried to play it cool. I really did have the hots for Rebecca. We were together for a year but for me, mentally, it was an horrific 12 months. I tried to deal with Rebecca’s BDSM past, and the many times she referred to it. In bed we didn’t indulge, at my request, which Rebecca respected, but she did love to show and tell.

She had performed in BDSM porn photo shoots, and had been to many dungeon style torture clubs. Rope play, St.Andrew’s crosses, whips and chains, and even knife play, which made me feel sick. Rebecca had been a submissive to a number of Masters, often travelling many miles to see them to satisfy her voracious and super kinky appetite.

We did have a great sex life mind you, but outside the remits of hardcore BDSM and much more inside the restrictive confines of vanilla. There was one kink that we did share that I felt was allowable within my sexually rigid ‘principles’. Rebecca loved outdoor sex, and so did I. She also loved being chased and I loved doing the chasing. We were both mountain runners after all and we took advantage of our fitness, knowledge of the local mountains, and our zest for the outdoor life.

I would ‘release’ Rebecca into the hills. We were both good navigators. We would pick a route and I would give her a decent head start. The plan was that Rebecca would hide somewhere and then text me a six figure grid reference (a 100 metre by 100 metre square on the map) My job was to find her, and if I did I’d get to fuck her, roughly, without mercy. I didn’t know it at the time but this was really a form of CNC (consensual non-consensual sex) Rebecca, of course, knew exactly what we were doing, but didn’t spoil her fun by telling me.

Once, I found her at a remote farm, in a large shed full of dairy cattle. I grabbed her, ripped off her tight skin hugging lycra pants, and fucked her doggy style against a milking machine. I suppose we should really have done it cowgirl. We upped the ante a bit and I was soon looking for dangerous locations to fuck, places where we might be caught. We once shagged in a neighbour’s garden, in their summerhouse, while the entire family ate their tea round the dinner table a few metres away, “Another sausage darling?” That was fun.

I began to fall in love with Rebecca but ruminations about her past were absolutely tearing me apart. I was continually visualising her in different BDSM scenarios, like being gang banged by strange men while chained up in some dank dungeon.

This would have been a fantasy partnership for a lot of people into sado-masochism, but for me it was horror. Purely to protect my own mental health, I finished the relationship after a year. My brain was full of hugely negative looping thought trains, ripping through my mind like white noise.

It took me another year to get my thinking back on track, but while that was happening I attempted a little self therapy and asked myself the question, “Why does BDSM horrify me so much?” I read an article on exposure therapy and persuaded myself to give it a go. I absolutely hated it, genuinely, but I forced myself to look at some gentle BDSM porn. A woman in handcuffs, basic fare.

Honestly, it was like building tolerance to ice cold water but I listened to my inner voice and soon the nausea settled to be replaced by a stirring. As time passed I slowly began to realise that this had all been a buried need hidden in the more remote corners of my soul.

I’d once asked Rebecca why she thought she was into this stuff. Her answer took my horror to a new level. Rebecca’s Father had been imprisoned for the abuse of young girls in the Far East. He was arrested through the same investigation that tracked Gary Glitter, and Rebecca’s Dad served time in prison. Rebecca was one of four daughters but, God love her, while she did have her suspicions, Rebecca had no memories of any abuse from her Father. The same could not be said of her sisters and the impact on the family had been seismic and massively destructive.

Rebecca felt that her submissive sexual nature may have born during this phase in her life. The brain’s function is amazing and, emotionally, it often works in unexpected and sometimes bizarre ways. But, ultimately, many of those patterns are designed to protect. Rebecca craved being restrained and controlled in a sexual way, yes, but with BDSM this was always in a safe, consensual and trusting place.

But why was I like this? Actually I’d known all along. A man I trusted, a man who I thought loved me, had sexually abused me at school. He was my R.E. teacher, and a Vice Principal. An elder in the Presbyterian Church (of course he was) This man was, eventually, having abused around a hundred boys, arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. He served three, and conducted bible classes from his cell. Internally, as an eleven year old child, I vowed that no one would ever control me again, and no one did, but it cost me several jobs and relationships. I was a very angry and depressed man for most of my life.

I hated the part of me that now saw an outlet through BDSM, but I craved it at the same time. Giving in to that craving was part of my journey to recovery from sexual abuse. The bible tells us not to give in to temptation. I’m sorry God, but I don’t agree. Now that I’ve met a significant number of people in the BDSM community I know that some of them have followed a similar path through abuse and into recovery. Allowing full sexual expression (with consenting adults of course) really can be the most wonderful and freeing experience.

Through my own DIY exposure work I realised that it was the control I craved. The Master, not the Slave. Did I want to inflict pain? Yes I did. Did I want to restrain, bind, blindfold and gag women? Yes I did. Did I want to hurt them? No, I most certainly didn’t. The only form of BDSM porn that excited me was when the women (I’m heterosexual) were clearly enjoying their torture. They were getting a massive sexual rush. I wanted to be the man bringing to them, and controlling that euphoria. I suppose I’d categorise myself as a nurturing sadist.

The persona of LogansRun63 was born, the handle I use on F*tLi*e. Anonymity, except within the BDSM community, was vital for me. I had a high profile life elsewhere. At first I dipped tentatively into a pool that was still murky enough to make me queasy, but I was sure that I would grow into it. This was something that I really wanted to do. These posts contain stories from this journey. I’ve tried to bring as much humour to my writing as feels appropriate, because there were plenty of situations which made me laugh, and my partners laugh. You see, BDSM isn’t dark and dirty at all. Yes, we are all deviant perverts, but isn’t that the fun? (All names have been changed)