Very worried that current bdsm is caused by past abuse

[duktig flicka]

Thank you all so much for your kind and insightful comments. You were all very helpful. I'm actually hoping to carry out some research on this far too neglected subject once I get to grad school.

Mobius, Emma Peel kicks much ass. Now quit turning me on.

jaeangel, you're not rambling, hon. I'm so sorry for what happened to you. If you need to talk about it at all, please let me know.

[masterkurt]

I read this thread with utmost interest and would share most of the analysis made and things that have been said. Real abuses in real life offend us all, especially if carried out against children and minors....

As far as my personal experiences are concerned, I did not come across any case of submissive woman with a story of abuses and mistreatments in her past.... on the contrary, my female submissive partners seemed to all come from very caring and loving families and their desires of submission and abuse seemed very a personal matter. On the contrary, I met a few women with a past of abuses and they were not inclined towards submission at all.....

This is just a very scarse statistic and may be non significant at all. On the other hand I do not have a suitable knowledge in psicology to find out a cause-effect relation in the familiar history of my submissive partners and their masochistic inclinations.

Having said all this, I could not avoid considering the events we read in duktig flicka's autobiographical flash also under a different perspective....

Couldn't it be possible that her latent submissive desires and masochistic inclinations have been, at least to a certain extent, the CAUSE and not the consequence of the peculiar way she lived certain events of her life?

The ballet world, for instance ..... certainly a very demanding environment, but is it really such that pupils are willfully constantly abused and that every man in that milieu is a sadist and " every female destroying herself to please them" ?

If this was true, only truly submissive and masochistic females would stand and survive ballet schools and become professional dancers.... (I have to look for a dancer) ....

Personally I also don't believe that an adult, kept prisonner against his will and submitted to non consensual BDSM practises may ever develope a turn on for being jailed and disciplined ...

My 2 cents of wisdom could be so summarized:

If you find SM play enjoyable and you feel it enriches your sexual life, without causing you stress or guilt feelings, just go on practising it (in the usual recommended safe and consensual way)

If you think that your interest for BDSM is connected with your history of past abuses and that you still suffer from psycological wounds connceted with those events, then, do not try to use BDSM as some kind of do-it-yourself treatment. Rather look for professional help to look into yourself and to find a way to overcome those ghost from your past.

[mythicat]

The ballet world, for instance ..... certainly a very demanding environment, but is it really such that pupils are willfully constantly abused and that every man in that milieu is a sadist and " every female destroying herself to please them" ?

If this was true, only truly submissive and masochistic females would stand and survive ballet schools and become professional dancers.... (I have to look for a dancer)

I studied dance here in America for most of the 14 years between ages 5-19 (primarily modern and jazz, just 1yr ballet) and it was a universal joke across all genres of dance that to be a dancer you HAD to be a masochist!

But in America, we do it to ourselves. If I'd had a teacher who was abusive I could easily have found another. Whereas in a lot of the rest of the world, the choices are fewer. In some places athletics are practically a form of slavery where the parents ship the kids off to training facilities and hardly ever see them again. In some places, as brutal as training can be, it's the only chance at a life above the poverty level and if you have the talent you'd be a fool to squander it. And sometimes a love of dance is just undeniable and you do what you have to in order to make it your life. As for the trainers, they don't always have much choice either. When the state runs your program, you have a lot of pressure on you to turn out stars as efficiently as possible. Plus that's the way in which they were probably trained themselves, it's all they know. If they didn't have it in them to work their students hard, they'd likely soon be trying to find other work. And what else would they be qualified for?

[Mobius]

Not to make light at a very bad situation. With your dancers back ground you can always get work. Legitably and non legitable. You could always dance in the review from any thing from broadway to ice capades. You can be a model at trade shows and the like. Non legitable you can make huge bucks as a stripper.

[BDSM_Tourguide]

Have a look at this thread for more information about your concerns.

[BDSM_Tourguide]

In fact, you're not even close to being alonve. Many people have kink, submission or domination fantasies because of things occuring in their past.

I did a poll in a group I used to run for BDSMers in Houston, TX. In this poll, it was determined that every single one of the submissives in that group was abused at some point in their lives by someone that they loved or trusted.

However, the mystery remains. Would they have led a "normal" life had it not been for their abuse, or would they have found BDSM anyway? Who knows? All we can do is offer our opinions and our support to those that have had this tragedy befall them.

[mythicat]

However, the mystery remains. Would they have led a "normal" life had it not been for their abuse, or would they have found BDSM anyway? Who knows? All we can do is offer our opinions and our support to those that have had this tragedy befall them.

Saw a documentary recently that highlighted a study in which they were able to determine that by as soon as I think 9 months, infants had already developed a social interaction style. (They didn't know for sure if it was permanent or not.) If I remember right, the researchers believed it had to do with a combination of inherent personality + whether or not the child had developed a healthy attachment to its mother...not too withdrawn OR too clingy.

So if you're going to try to solve that mystery, you might just end up going back as far as the womb!

But I don't personally believe it can be solved. There's plenty of evidence that sub's (and Dom's) have a frequent history of abuse, but there's also plenty of abuse victims who aren't kinky at all. And for that matter, it's hard to find anyone anywhere who didn't have SOME kind of trauma in their life at some point. I can't think of anyone I know. That's just life. And even if nothing bad ever did happen to you, wouldn't THAT be boring and make you want to seek out some exciting perviness???

[mythicat]

Not to make light at a very bad situation. With your dancers back ground you can always get work. Legitably and non legitable. You could always dance in the review from any thing from broadway to ice capades. You can be a model at trade shows and the like. Non legitable you can make huge bucks as a stripper.

Sure, til your body falls apart. Even Jackie Chan is doing more acting than fighting these days! lol You can only perform for so long before the wear and tear on your body wins out. Or you're simply too old to hire. Or, like in my case, an injury ends things even sooner, leaving you without enough of a resume to teach. And it also left me with an inability to work on any kind of stage, legit or otherwise. (Which is probably a good thing, or else I would have been tempted. ) So what happens then? Well, in my case I had other skills and opportunities. Not everyone is so lucky.

[duktig flicka]

masterkurt, I'm actually very surprised that you seem to have met dancers who weren't very unstable. Are you sure they were professional ballet dancers? Professional ballet academies admit you when you're a child, you are there literally all day from morning to night. You are not allowed to go out and be social, you are not allowed to date. I had hardly ever met a straight guy until I was 18. For dancers, the treatment I described literally all they know.

I don't, however, think it's fair to say that dancers are masochists. I don't know anybody who didn't hate the way we had to live. It's just that dance is absolute euphoria, to the point where you see dancers with blood squishing in their pointe shoes and they literally haven't even noticed. The more depressed you make a dancer, the more she'll need to dance and the more beautiful her dancing will be. This is exactly why Balanchine "revolutionized" the ballet industry to ensure that dancers were depressed and anorexic. He was very frank and open about that.

mythicat, another dancer! Very nice to meet you! Actually, I'm trying not to give away my identity here, but I'm American. I've only been in Sweden for the past few years. That kind of thing doesn't exist in Sweden, the people before profit attitude is very strictly enforced. Are you still dancing for fun? I hope so, it's so good for you.

[mythicat]

I dunno...I think once you go from "I take dance lessons after school on Wednesdays" to "I spend 2-3 hours training everyday, 4-6 on Saturdays, and club dancing when I get the chance"...that you've crossed a line into compulsive self abuse. Make it ballet and you've gone further over the line. Make it professional ballet school and I'm sorry, but in my book you're hardcore whether you got off on it or not! lol

But yeah, it's worth it. I still have chronic pain. I still dance for fun. I could be in a wheelchair and I'd still spin myself around in circles.
I don't regret it at all.

Hello, my name is Mythicat, and I'm a compulsive dance addict.

[masterkurt]

duktic flicka wrote:

" I'm trying not to give away my identity here, but I'm American. " ....

Ok, this is good news .... I was feeling too depressed about your english, too fluent for any foreigner

Hmmm ... but in this case you learned ballet in USA .... not in Soviet Union, and this contraddicts mythicat who stated:

"But in America, we do it to ourselves. If I'd had a teacher who was abusive I could easily have found another. Whereas in a lot of the rest of the world, the choices are fewer...."

Excellence can be achieved only thru hard work and sufference, not only in ballet, but true passion drives you ahead (the love for ballet in your caes, for horseback riding in my case ... it's slowly killing me ) ... so I cannot really accept your fresco of ballet schools as "lagers" and theatres of phisical and psycological abuse on children and young people.


I have met many girls who frequented ballet schools. Most just as a hobby...
(One of them has been my girlfriend when we were in our twenties and revealed herself as a passionate slave). Another went over to a professional academy (Ia Ruskaya in Rome) and became a professional dancer and earns good money now, even if she never became a top dancer. I know with certainty that she had strong submissive tendencies, already before starting her ballet studies, as she confessed them to my sister.

My sister herself started ballet (in very early age) at the ballet school of the Vienna Opera House ... she enjoyed it a lot and small girls like her (she started at 4-5 years of age) were treated in a lovely way.... Though, my sister and me used to play master and slave when we were children and carried our plays up to when we became teenagers..... she was very submissive and masochistic, but was never mistreated, neither in the family, nor at the ballet school.

Some year ago I met a swiss submissive woman ... she was very submissive and strongly exhibitionistic .... can you guess? she was also a dancer (even if not as first profession) ... she told me about her excitement one time that she set up a modern ballet where she danced in her nude .... (a serious modern ballet, not some lap dance ... )

Perhaps there is indeed a relation between submissive tendencies and ballet, but, in my experience, the submissive inclination was always pre-exsisting and I never found records of abuses.

I also met a male who had been a professional dancer .... he was straight, rather dominant .... he started dancing casually, went on because he loved it and also, so he confessed, because there was plenty of females and scarse competition in dating them (many male dancers were not really masculine).

So ... possibly girls with submissive tendencies are very attracted by ballet (and by strong discipline)... perhaps it satisfies both their masochistic and their exhibitionistic dreams.... Perhaps for the same reasons you can find a certain percentage of neurotic women (and anoressic girls) in this milieu .....

But, if this is true ( my statistics base on a much too little population), then, dear Flicka, you could feel resured .....

Go ahead and enjoy the pleasures of BDSM without any anguish or anxiety .... with the right partner, of course.


Post Scriptum:
If you ever plan to visit Florence or Pisa ....

[duktig flicka]

Sorry to argue with you, but do you really think that 3-year-olds take up ballet because they understand what it's going to be like for them and the idea makes them hot?

[Uvas]

Mobius,

The name of that book is "Perfect Victim".

The girl was truly submissive. Even at the guy's trail, she didn't act upset or angry at the guy.

[Locked Advantages]

From my opinion

I hear many people telling me most vanilla friends that I have saying I go for BDSM since I haven't had the best childhood or that I was raped....but honestly I know what I am....that is intelligent, strong enough to submit, but I also learned from situations that made me stronger I won't let myself get into that type of situation that I've been in once again. I was just reading some of the responses here...BDSM might be somewhat from my childhood, but I don't do it because I've been hurt...I do it because the submission is a part of me. With my former dominant it gave me more confidence. I think when people tell me its from abuse, that is from ignorance on their part...all I know is what I desire and love about myself

Sarah

[spankinsue]

Sarah,

I know that for me bdsm is not related to any "bad" history. I had an idyllic childhood. Totally normal. Very vanilla. I married the only guy I had slept with at 20. We were happy for 17 years and had fun playing with bondage and spanking etc. I am a very take charge type of woman. It's great to have someone you can trust enough to give over your fate to. Personally I don't think you can have such a great dom/sub relationship unless you are pretty well adjusted. To be able to trust like that takes faith in yourself and the other person.

In my job I see alot of really messed up people, and I can say with complete certainty the people on this site are much happier and well adjust than average.

[lillianskye]

I just wanted to add a thought here.

IT seems to me that it would make more sense that if a person is born with a presdispostion to being submissive, that would make them more valunerable to abuse. Aren't abusive people amazingly empathic when it serves their purpose of manipulating others? ISn't that why society refers to molestors as "sexual predators"? They just know a child that wants to please authority figures, and they know what buttons to push to make that child do what they want. Even in physical abuse or verbal, the same scenario is playing itself out. The abuser has to find a person who is valunerable enough to take the abuse. In childhood, it is a lot easier, because ALL children want to please authority figures and ALL children are extremely weak in comparison to adults. (I mean inregards to influence from adults.)

I think the reason why so many BDSMers struggle with this very question is because most of us became "aware" very early. I don't think (at least personally) that it is the abuse itself that messes with a person's head, it is the extent of your understanding about what is REALLY going on. ie the abuser's motivations, awareness of the manipulation, awareness of induced guilt by the abuser, etc....

The point I am desperately trying to make is the more intelligent, the more passsive, the more aware a child is the more susceptible that child becomes to abuse. In my dealings with other like minded people, I have found that the above criteria is very common among the BDSM community.

The reason I believe people are drawn to BDSM is because it fulfills sexual arousal on many many different levels. The more aware of yourself you are, the more levels a sexual partner has to "touch" to truely satisfy.

[alura]

Since i've been intensely discussing this with someone on the board for about an hour and a half now, I'd have to give you hazzzahs on this observation!
Makes perfect sense. We're walking, talking, breaathing radars.

I just wanted to add a thought here.

IT seems to me that it would make more sense that if a person is born with a presdispostion to being submissive, that would make them more valunerable to abuse. Aren't abusive people amazingly empathic when it serves their purpose of manipulating others? ISn't that why society refers to molestors as "sexual predators"? They just know a child that wants to please authority figures, and they know what buttons to push to make that child do what they want. Even in physical abuse or verbal, the same scenario is playing itself out. The abuser has to find a person who is valunerable enough to take the abuse. In childhood, it is a lot easier, because ALL children want to please authority figures and ALL children are extremely weak in comparison to adults. (I mean inregards to influence from adults.)

I think the reason why so many BDSMers struggle with this very question is because most of us became "aware" very early. I don't think (at least personally) that it is the abuse itself that messes with a person's head, it is the extent of your understanding about what is REALLY going on. ie the abuser's motivations, awareness of the manipulation, awareness of induced guilt by the abuser, etc....

The point I am desperately trying to make is the more intelligent, the more passsive, the more aware a child is the more susceptible that child becomes to abuse. In my dealings with other like minded people, I have found that the above criteria is very common among the BDSM community.

The reason I believe people are drawn to BDSM is because it fulfills sexual arousal on many many different levels. The more aware of yourself you are, the more levels a sexual partner has to "touch" to truely satisfy.

[whippedcream]

The closest I ever came to being abused as a child was by a doctor who insisted on accompanying me into the pee-in-a-cup bathroom and insisted on holding the cup and wiping me (much more than was necessary) despite my telling him that I always did that myself. It grossed me out, but I was embarrassed so I only told my parents I wanted a new doctor because he smelled bad.

However, I've been kinked ever since I can remember. One of my best friends when I was really young was kinked too. We tied up Barbies and played Countess/slave with them. We fast-forwarded Disney movies to the "good parts," like in Sleeping Beauty when the prince is chained up. My parents yelled at us when they discovered our "Wedgie Machine," which if I recall correctly was made from a jump rope, but I didn't know that our games were unusual until I discovered that my other friends all refused to play them. Soo... my own experience has led me to believe that while abuse may play a role in some people's discovery of odd sexuality, other people have just always been that way.

[Kaori-san]

I had a strange childhood, not abusive... really the opposite...

As I was growing up my mother and father were both lovely when I was young, but then they moved me to another school, forcing me to be in an all girls school after a mixed one. I hated it, and wept every night when I was 8. Then, as I got older, about 14-16 my mother moved towards christianity and turned very strict (protestant). At first I didn't mind, but when she began to be at church all the time I stopped wanting to please her. Her strict beliefs turned me away from that faith and I began to hate having any part of it. She went through my books and such and threw away anything thing she though could be anti-christian and so I stopped reading at all, for fear she'd realize I wasn't christian, as she checked the backs of all the books I read (I didn't want her to find out I wasn't and force me to church all the time... I knew she wouldn't accept it). Then I turned to writing as an outlet, I wrote sci-fi/fantasy stuff, all innocent, just a way for me to do something, with reading gone (something I loved). She soon found out about this, and banned me from writing anything again... I started to draw and paint, and went on to do art GCSE, but my mother hated the stuff I drew, as my art was non-christian according to her. So I got no praise.. but she could not stop me from doing it at school of course.
I did well at arts, but got no support from my family, and convinced myself I was terrible at it, even after getting A grades at school. My mother and father wanted me to be a doctor, but I hated that, and wanted to be a vet, but they didn't support me at all and I had to organise everything for myself in order to get into University while all my friends parents helped them along.
My mother started to read books about "boundries" in her life, and my father and her drifted appart as she didn't sleep in the same bed as him, and argued all the time. They never got divorced, but to be 15 and to be constantly hearing your parents argue is worse for me.
I started to count down till I could leave home and be free to live a life I wanted, but when I was 16 things got really bad. My best friend was a wiccan, I didn't care at all about that... it's just another religion, however my mother found out. She banned me from seeing her again, and since my other friends were Muslim, I stopped being friends with them too.. so at school I had no friends to talk to, for fear my mother would find out if they weren't christian.
I ended up crying a lot in private, and slit my arm (I can't slit my wrists, I hate it), it made me feel bette. No one ever found out, and very few even know I ever did.
I never had a boyfriend, as my mother only let me go out with 'good christian boys form church' but I wasn't going to date them. I hated myself for many years after. My family ignoring me, and only paying attention to tell me what I was doing wrong, with no friends or a loving family.... I still hate having anything to do with christianity (I don't mind if others are though, but personally I could never step foot in a church). I lived a very oppressive life through my teenage years, with no attention, something you really seek as a child. So, I went to rock concerts and festivals and got drunk and such when I was 15-17... and was always in trouble... with my parents fighting constantly...

Sorry for rambling.. I had to get that out...

I have to say, my need to be dominated doesn't come from that, I think it's almost that with a Dom I can be cared for.... A Dom orders you what to do, and you will inevitably get attention.. this could be a link with me childhood... I'm not sure. I drifted towards being a sub when I was about 13 though...... before the christianity set in... so maybe not.. I'll never know.

I think it depends on past life and what you are like anyway, a mix of both, which all lead to who you are. Ballet (as mentioned before) could make people either a sub, because of it. Or, as said above, you might already be a sub, and thats how you lived through it. Of course, the forcing to be a sub could make you hate being one, and make you a dom... it can go either way..

[allalone46]

Karori-san. I think that this is one of the reasons for this page. And if it isn't or wasn't, well so what.

[Kaori-san]

Karori-san. I think that this is one of the reasons for this page. And if it isn't or wasn't, well so what.

Thanks

[kinkeeamee22]

back when i first started having sexual relations, i didnt understand what all the hype was about sex. sure it felt good, for like a minute. and the thrill of being caught was kinda cool, but i just didnt understand it. Even with people i cared for, and thought I loved, it was just an act. I wanted it to mean something, be more than just something to do. When me and my now husband started with some light bondage it was something i would look forward to, it was more than just sex, it was being able to trust someone so completely that you could submit to them. There was a meaning in it for me. So, i think that yea, abuse could have led you down this road, but not in a bad pyscological (spelling is so wrong eh?) way. Think its just your way of letting someone you love know that you can trust them that much. Abuse henders up the trust issue. You trust someone not to hurt you, so you let your significant other take control to work out your trust issues...that make sense? because someone broke ur trust once with abuse, you put yourself forward testing trust with your bdsm life kind of.
im just rambling now...lol
thats just my 2 cents.

[NightDaughter]

I often think if I'd not meet my first BF and been raped by him would I ever have gotten into this lifestyle? The answer I will never know, becuase it happened and here I am.

I left for a time becuase I got the courage to do so, but I came back becuase for me it was the only lifestyle sexualy speaking that I new about and was in most regards comfortable with.

I meet a person, who I though I could trust will all my heart, but that trust was broken many times (I'd found myself in yet another abusive relationship).

I will say that knowing that you have it within you to find a relationship which is abusive is a good step towards learning to take steps to keep yourself safe. Knowing your past and getting help in regards to it does help (though finding a kink friendly therapst can take time as I found out - took me 6 years before I found someone to talk to).

Stay strong and you will find that the lifestyle can heal you when you find that person who is right for you (at least that I what I believe).

Take care

[imadom]

The sub I used to have (which I mentioned in my bdsm life section) has very low self esteem. She was or so she said, abused by her ex-husband. It got to where she did not seem to think she could find a job so had to prostitute herself at which point I really started to have enough. I don't know if that has anything to do with what makes a sub a sub, but I guess there's all kinds of reasons. We can't just get rid of it. As a dom, I have tried that myself because of the hurt it has caused me. I can do vanilla but not for long. It's like swiming against the tide. Be yourself.
IMADOM