• when I was a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed tickle and butt-slapping games with my girlfriends
  
• in junior high, I grinned like a maniac when the tall kid in gym class started sparring me with me on the fly
  
• I enjoyed wrestling with my (now ex) husband
  
• the time I realized that I could have managed the platelet related, accidental shot of saline straight into my arm (instead of into my vein) had I been braced properly for it.
  
• as I was facing divorce, I got taken to Beyond the Edge Cafe a few times. I finally saw an amazing scene there that made me realize that BDSM didn't have to be all strutting menace and showing off
  
• my first flogging happened shortly after my divorce was final, with a lover who was visiting for the weekend. It felt like a good back treatment, and sexual contact was mixed into it
  
• the first time I ever consensually hurt someone else
  
• the first time that I ever consensually hurt someone else and enjoyed it
  
• the one time I reached orgasm during a beating
  
• Years later, while waiting for the bus to work the day after a serious working over, I looked around the neighborhood I was waiting in and thought, "I lived through that."
  
• the time I scared a -- comparitively -- veteran kinkster by trying out a toy at their master's table with permission. They hadn't been prepared for me to hit myself with it very hard, and jumped. "Why did you do that?!?" "I wanted to see how bad it'd be."
  
• the first time I voluntarily hurt myself during sex with my Daddy, soley for his pleasure
  
• the first time I managed to continue giggling through someone hurting me as punishment for the giggles
  
• the first time I ever thought, "I could do that, but Daddy doesn't want me to" without any pause or silliness.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MastaMale

ok from what I have read the start of the bdsm lifestyle is about...

conscious intent

or

there isnt really isnt a bdsm lifestyle.

ok I can understand the conscious intent but there isnt a bdsm lifestyle kind of throws me off. Then if this isnt a lifestyle what is it?

But for others. myself included, I do not see it as a lifestyle, simply because the term BDSM is so broad, its just too complex to narrow down to be a specific 'way'.  I didn't just wake up one day and go - "and today, I am mostly going to be a BDSMer" (that's for the  Fast Show fans out there)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PonyGroom

I don't think there is a bdsm lifestyle.  I think the definition of the term is so squishy soft and arguably sweet that no one should swallow it. It's just that unpalatable.

During this next ten to twenty years, you will see mainstream sexuality swallow up a lot of what some today consider "bdsm". If you look back along the time line to The Joy of Sex, and then to Screw the Roses Send Me the Thorns, you can see this trend.

At one time, if you said "I am in the lifestyle", that meant you were a swinger. Then it came to mean alternatively that you participated in group activities doing some sort of alternative sexual practice without also engaging in intercourse. Now it seems "I have been in the lifestyle ten years" can mean all sorts of things: 1) I only count the years since I became 18,  2) I count from the time I first tied myself up in my own bedroom 3) I count the time since I went to my first munch or attended my first party  4) I count the time since I first broached the subject in a conversation with the woman who was at the time my new girlfriend -- and a few other measures.

Just what I see from my perch,

Tim

quote:

ORIGINAL: childofpain


i think i am a lucky girl, i received my first Master when i was 16. He saw it in me, sat me down and explained it to me...i agreed that that was the person i am. i have lived in heaven ever since. i know most will not agree with me, but as long as i am happy what others think will not bother me.