quote:

ORIGINAL: Bobkgin

This is a question I ask all who apply to me.

Over the years, whenever I was dating, I've heard a lot of different and interesting stories.

Here's mine:

When I was young, there was a TV program called "I Dream of Jeannie" starring Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman.

Hagman was an astronaut: Major Nelson.

Eden was a Genie.

Jeannie kept insisting that she was Nelson's property, that he was her "master". That she lived to serve him and grant him whatever he wished.

For some reason known only to the vanilla world, Nelson hated the idea and wanted Jeannie to assert herself and be, in essence, a 'liberated' woman (that is to say, as liberated as audiences and TV censors of the '60s would permit).

While the storyline unfolded such that Jeannie ended up more assertive and married Nelson in the end, most of the series was about how much she wanted to help her Master, and how sad she was whenever he wouldn't permit it.

At the time I was too young to know anything about BDSM. But as I look back, I can see that would have been the first time I was exposed to a Master/slave relationship that did not seem inherently evil (for before that, the only knowledge I'd have had of slavery was from American history).

But I can see from the patterns in my life that, in a sense, I am seeking my own Jeannie: eager, willing, playful, happy, loyal, loving, obedient, ever-present, and able to work her own kind of magic.

So I attribute my interest in BDSM to "I Dream of Jeannie". Thank you Sidney Sheldon and Barbara Eden.