i told my Mum about my interest in BDSM fairly recently. She is pretty liberally minded and frankly it felt wonderful to share something so important WITH someone who is important to me. (it may be also worth mentioning that we generally have no problems talking about sex etc anyway). i told her she could ask me any questions she liked, which she did and which i tried to answer honestly. She seemed a little dazed with it all at first but later said she really appreciated me sharing it with her and she felt privilaged that i had. My Dad is a whole other kettle of fish, he'd have heart failiure if he knew! i say this not only through, well, his probable embarrassment but i beleieve he would have a problem with me submitting to any man, ever. (long story for another time).

i don't think there's anything wrong with not telling people, sometimes it's best not to share every element of oneself with someone, we do this automatically when we modify elements of our behaviour with various different people...i do think though that if it's at all possible to share stuff with people, you should definately do it, certainly when i joined these forums i felt a strong sense of 'hey, all these other people are like this too' (yikes!) and to tell someone who already knew me was cool too.

sl