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anamericaninfife -> RE: Coming to terms with your sadism (10/20/2008 2:21:15 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: moonvine
Hi folks,
I went to meet with a dominant who lives a good distance from me. We met at a restaurant and had a nice enough meal. After we ate he started saying things along the lines of BDSM is bad, wanting to go to church, not wanting to be a sadist because it was evil, etc.
I used to be a therapist and some of the things he was saying were really troublesome to me in terms of his mental and physical well-being, so I stuck around a couple of hours and chatted with him. There are some other things in his life that seem to have him in crisis mode which I was able to handle better, but I don't really know what to say about sadism other than "It is ok to be the way you are." Somehow I don't think that this will be the message he'll get at church.
The only thing I can really think of is recommending a therapist from the Kink Aware Professionals list if there is one in his area, but I am not at all sure he'd go.
Any advice?
Personally, I think I'd need more information to give you a legit opinion. Was this indeed a first time meeting? You don't say that in your post, though it seems a time or two in the thread that was assumed. I think that how much of a relationship you have with this person would say a lot about whether or not it was or was appropriate for him to open up to you. If it was a first time meet up and he hit you with all of this stuff, he may not be crazy but he does have some very clear insecurities about his sexuality (i.e. his bdsm proclivities). If you've been talking to him for months online and he felt like he could open up to you, then perhaps that has something to do with it. What seems odd, though, is if you did meet this guy online and you drove to see him and all of that, and he did come out to meet you, that he then, just as things were seeming to move in a positive direction, that he freaked at that particular moment. Don't get me wrong--I'm not inferring that you necessarily were there offering any sort of play or scene, but if I had a sub or slave drive to meet me and have dinner, a spiritual confession of sins would be the last thing on my mind.
That said, I also find myself wondering how much experience this man has with bdsm. Is he new to bdsm in general? The whole thing sort of sounds like a religious teenager who has sex for the first time and then feels guilty about it after the fact. I'm sure that his feelings of guilt regarding bdsm are not unique. The bottom line, of course, is that we all have to work out our spirituality in our own way, and if this guy has a major guilt trip, then there may not be that much you can do about it--there are a LOT of people that have feelings of guilt associated with sex in general, so it's surely not too out there to imagine that this man has feelings of guilt associated with sadism. But, he's got to work that out on his own, with whomever's help he requests--a pastor, priest, mentor, or, if he asks for it and you want to give it, then your own help.
I do see your point with the comparison of his struggle with the struggle of someone who is a closet homosexual, though, and I think that it would be good for him to chat with someone who has shared a similar struggle. Did you meet him on here? Does he read these message boards? I'm willing to bet that folks could interact with him through this forum in a way that would be healthy for him. It could be easier for him to do that than it would be to go see a counselor or whatever. And, of course, if he opened up to folks here, got a few introductory opinions and what have you, and he still found himself wanting to seek help elsewhere, then he certainly could still pursue that avenue as well.
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