quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

She did not state that in her opening post, so I was assuming that the "broken" thing was about submissives to the general and not a specific case... most submissives I have seen here and elsewhere do not seem "broken" to me, and in fact I think that it takes a strong person to consensually submit, not a weak one.. in my opinion it IS wrongheaded to think that being submissive=broken... I have read this assumption more than once. I did not look at the orientation of the poster before I responded, I based my reply on the information in the OP, nor did I assume it was about the OP.. it is about a "theory"..

Not long ago people into WIITWD were considered mentally deranged, deviant, and in need of psychiatric intervention. I do not like the word "broken" to describe my orientation...You may differ babygirl/estring... that is what forums are for.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ownedandcollared
however, taught to have something of a casual disregard of those who label themselves "switches" because they don't know themselves well enough to know who they are.

quote:

ORIGINAL: eyesopened

i grew up in the late 50s early 60s in a pretty typical household where there were such things as "a man's job" and "woman's work" and no one got their undies in a twist over such things being said.  i grew up in the last phases of an era where the roles between the sexes were well defined.  i am a submissive.  i have never been abused in any way.  my thoughts about bondage and control began at a very early age, pre-pubescent, but didn't turn sexual until after i was a teenager.  Where these thoughts and feelings came from i have no real answer but i always assumed i was just born this way.  Is that possible?  Or does there need to be some event that is a trigger, some epiphany?

quote:

ORIGINAL: LuckyAlbatross

quote:

ORIGINAL: ownedandcollared
however, taught to have something of a casual disregard of those who label themselves "switches" because they don't know themselves well enough to know who they are.

And I'm sure that some people are taught that there are magic pussy trolls that will bite off penises of men if they have sex before they turn 21.

Doesn't mean it's anything close to reality.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ownedandcollared

i have heard conjecture that slaves and subs often come into the lifestyle because they are "broken" by past abuse and seek it out because of the control and structure, as well as the parts of it that would have been labeled as abuse at one time in her/his life. Theories that i have heard say that they do this because it gives them some kind of control and choice over a situation where they had no choice in the past.


i will admit to the structure and control part. i don't know that the second part is true.

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

There is a lack of common sense and weird people all over the internet

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

You are correlating odd people to abuse, there are abused people in all walks of life, in real life, next door, down the street, at work, at almost every bar. The question is, what does abuse have to do with it? Does the inability to have a longterm relationship stem from abuse? Haven't people always been abused? Are people just talking about it more? Is that even what this thread is about?

If you want to discuss the inability to prove if someone's abuse makes them submissive, fine.. lets discuss it. Above I spelled out some of the factors of determining the correlation of abuse and BDSM, but I left one out, you have to ask people if they feel that being abused led them to being a submissive. And are we talking only sexual abuse, or are we talking verbal/emotional/physical abuse... because that 35% answering this poll maybe talking about their mom beating them with a belt, and not their uncle molesting them. The percentages of all these types of perceived abuse are way higher than sexual abuse stats.

Again, it is very hard to theorize, to prove or disprove, and to think someone is "broken" because of their sexual orientation and lifestyle choice is a strong word.

Again, if someone said you were broken inside because you are a dominant, you would probably respond to that assertion the way I have responded to this thread.. never mind the OP and her opinion of switches as people that do not know themselves (all I can say is OMG to that).