When did you know?

[SubmissiveDoll]

To answer the question...

When I was middle school/high school age, I used to fantasize about being submissive to a man. It was rarely sexual. Usually standing near him, and being obedient.

Often it would be images of mobster styles, the women that would stand behind the gangsters.

[Remia]

I actually never though I was a sub until very recently. I met my mistress, and within a few days we became very close, and then out of the blue, with no provocation, I asked her to be my mistress, and she accepted~ <3 I was just suddenly aware that this was what I wanted, and was so completely clueless about the topic that I didn't even know the word 'mistress' and used 'master' instead *^^*

[subcurious63]

desdemona, i am so glad that you started this thread. i feel as if i have always known. i was only 7 years old when i saw an image of a little girl, tied naked to a tree crying. i wanted to be her, the feeling was so overwhelming that i can still clearly remember the image, and how i felt at that moment. To know that feeling of helplessness. i have also always fantasized about being taken. i imagined being kidnapped, bound, spanked, and used. i spent many years afraid of my thoughts and feelings...never allowing myself to share them with another living soul (not even my best friend), until a couple of years ago when i found an alternative dating site, and found that i was far, very far, from being alone in my thoughts and feelings. i have learned to embrace my dark side, and my perversions...it is who i am.

i was also like restrainedNtrained, and was always the one that was serving, and getting used...still find it hard to say NO...although i am learning.

i have often wondered how others knew as well...what was that moment, was it an image, or something someone said or did? It really is cool to find out how others realized that they were submissive or Dominant.

[sayuna]

I actually smiled when I saw the thread... certainly a bit of reminiscing! Intersting to see a lot of posts saying tendencies started from when they were young. For myself, I can remember when I was in the early teens, I liked to roll up in the quilt - so its a tight coocoon - then have a bit of a struggle
Certainly don't remember it being sexual (well, not when I was young anyway).

Then I came across the internet during my uni days... and along with it anime (or hentai). Strangely enough, I thought those cute cartoon characters being tied up a turn on (even those crazy tentacles!) Bless the Japanese for their wicked imagination.

Good to see there's an expert on psycology on the forum (thanks for your post SubmissiveDoll) - so its genetics over environment huh? Hmmm, I wonder if it always manifests itself sexually/physically... I for one have been much more turned on by the fantasizing and imagining, as opposed to the reality, which unfortunately has been quite uncomfortable / embarrasing the very few times I've dared to try. Ah, well, a forbidden fruit it remains then - maybe which is why it looks ever so tasty. Hats off to those who have tasted and found it to their liking.

[PetJulie]

It was sort of strange for me. I've always been a very dominant, abrasive person. One would think I'd have turned out to be Dominant.

But when I began to be sexually aware, I didn't fantasize about dominating others, as I do in the rest of my life. I fantasized about being dominated.

As I became sexually active, I kind of did the same thing. I always dated really vanilla people, but I would try to sort of nudge them into tying my up or otherwise "holding the reigns." It didn't usually work. I found myself "topping from the bottom."


And then I met my Master.

He had some experience with BDSM, both as a Dom and a sub, but tended strongly on the Dom side. I picked up on it the first night we were together, and from there out, it just fell into place. It seemed so natural and so instant. Click.

Most people would think it strange that someone like me, someone so dominant and independent and devoted to my unfettered freedom, would be submissive. But it sort of makes sense to me. I am an all-or-nothing kind of person, and anyone who can earn ALL of my respect is entitled to everything I have to give. I trust him with everything, from my life to the inner sanctum of my mind. And in return, he guards that very carefully.

It's freeing to not have to be the strong pillar of mental/emotional stone that I am in most of my life. While I enjoy managing things and am good at wielding that sort of power, it is even more satisfying to be able to let it go.

It is like we are the same person. Damn! I have always been the dominate person in the relationship but I always tried to get people to dominate me.
I just get sick of being the one to tell someone how to get sexual pleasure or how to give me pleasure. I have finally found someone that is willing to tell me what to do and I actually trust him enough to let him do it. I have had some bad experiences in my life but I was finally ready to give it another shot because of my Master. Since the first day I met him, we have had a connection. I was not sure what it was about him that made my heart beat faster and made me get wet. His personality was just what I was looking for. The nice part for me is, that he does not have to be that way to me 24/7 we are friends as well. There is a time and a place for it and we stick to that because I have to be Dom some time for some things. If I weren't, my life would not go well. I just wanted to respond to your post because it connected well with what I was feeling. Thanks for sharing!

[Mairead]

I'm very independent and opinionated in real life. I take charge and lean to the dominant side. I started discovering my sexuality relatively late. I was so very innocent in high school. I didn't even look at internet porn/erotica until my second year of university.

When I finally took that step, I quickly realized that my eyes kept being drawn to the images of women in bondage. The feminist side of me freaked out at that, but eventually I got curious enough to look at the bondage pictures more closely. Once I finally let myself look, hours went by in a blink while I just kept looking and looking. I think I even stayed up all night, realizing what possibilities were out there. That's when I started to learn about bdsm, and realized that what I'm looking for is a man who I love and trust enough to give him complete control of me.

Through the beauty of hindsight, I realize that I must have been hardwired to be drawn to being submissive. Years before I even knew about the existence of bdsm, I remember seeing a TV commercial. It was for one of those "true life" crime dramas that made everything seem so overly dramatic. There was a woman saying how the girl had died "with her mouth stretched around a ball". My immediate thought was "maybe she had liked the ball part and then things went too far". Anyway, the point of this paragraph is that without being aware of the existence of the lifestyle, I was already thinking in these patterns.

[susan-D]

I think my “submissive” feelings have always been inside me, early in life I had no idea of the meaning of word, let alone what those feelings were. I was the one in playing games that always volunteered to be the one captured. It gave me funny feelings to be tied up, I even remember a feeling of disappointment when I wasn’t. I never wanted to choose what to play but always hoped it would something that had a “victim” in it.
I became very confused and felt very misunderstood during my early school life and that caused me to rebel against almost everything. It was only in my late teen that I stated, with a great deal of help, to understand all the mixed up feelings inside me that found my place in life.
I believe now, I have always had a submissive nature and that I am a natural submissive.

[StormKat]

If you'd asked me even 2 years ago if there was any submissive part to my nature, I would've just laughed. In the childhood games others have mentioned, playing with my cousins & neighborhood boys, I was always the hero, the leader. Even when I was captured & tied up, within minutes I'd get myself free & turn the tables on the bad guys. In sports & martial arts, I'd of course take direction from the coaches & instructors, because I wanted to improve my skills, but I was still the leader within the team. I'm a very alpha person, taking charge of team projects in grad school, leading both my direct reports & other people at work to resolve issues & get things done.

I was completely unprepared to find myself in a situation where I wasn't in charge, just totally blown away. A bunch of people from work went out for happy hour & I ended up the last one there except for this guy from another department I knew casually. Once we were alone, his whole demeanor changed & I suddenly realized I was sitting across the table from a very alpha male. I had chosen the bar, the table with easy access to 3 exits, the seat with my back to the wall, so I was still feeling pretty comfortable. In short order, I was nervous & jumpy, so uncharacteristic for me. When he caught me glancing over my shoulder at the back way out, he smiled, leaned forward & looked me dead in the eyes as he said that I'd never make it, he'd have me before I hit the door. I was lost...

It took him a year to bring me to the point where I'd submit to him without putting up a fight & even longer before I'd admit that I liked it. I don't know where that submissive streak came from, it's still something that surprises me & that I don't understand. I don't know if it just took someone even more alpha than I am to bring it out or if there's anyone else that could invoke the same reaction in me since he's moved away.

[hopperboo]

When he caught me glancing over my shoulder at the back way out, he smiled, leaned forward & looked me dead in the eyes as he said that I'd never make it, he'd have me before I hit the door. I was lost.

*Sighs dreamily.*

[angela_shy]

*Sighs dreamily.*

ditto

[pyxzie]

I've always been the kind that just follows and goes with th flow. I just never really knew this lifestyle exsited till about 8 or 9 months ago. I have never been a leader. I have been in management positions and was never realy happy. (The money was good) I would much rather be the one who is given orders what to do and I do it. I just finally made a connection.
I use to have a continuing dream that started when I was 16/17. I always just brushed it off as a weird dream. (Not saying anything about the dream. Finally putting it on papper ) Maybe I'll post it.

[Electrum]

Oh, good discussion guys. I think this is a really interesting question that for me dosn't have a clear answer. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20...so when I look back to my very earliest sexual thoughts and fantasies I now realize that they all revolved around my being controlled somehow, weither it was being tied up, kidnapped, etc. it was always there.
It's difficult for me to pin down when I "knew" what the implications of those fantasies were though, there was never a point when I "discovered" I was a submissive. Because I've always had those feelings as far back as I can remember, I think my understanding of what they meant evolved very gradually as I was growing up.
The first time I heard of BDSM and dominants and submissives as labels was when I was 9 or 10 and my mother gave me THE big talk, explaining sex, in all its many forms.
Of course my understanding of actual BDSM practices and lifestyles changed over the years as I got older and curious-er and searched out more details, but I think of that as a very organic process.

[Ex.Ballad]

Yay! my first 'real' post

I've read a lot of people in different places here saying they came from a very strict household... I did not. I was a complete wild child; my mother practically encouraged my whims and my father couldn't bring himself to crack down on me, and i learned pretty quickly that i could misbehave and get away with it by being a darling for an hour or two once he blew his top. No one could stay mad at me, which was good news for me because I got myself into all sorts of trouble at school.

this also worked pretty well with boyfriends, too. one day i tried this on a guy i was seeing and got a smart spank for it. Never thought i'd ever be so happy to NOT get my way!

i wonder, though, if the way in which i DON'T want 'to be on top' but sometimes put up a bit of a fight for it (with the hopes that i'll lose...) is that fairly common? Is it unusual, particular to me? could it be explained by the fact that i didn't have much discipline as a child and so i'm always trying to provoke it out of people?

i strongly identified with peter pan and robin hood as a child: girl role models in the eighties were completely lost on me. for all that, however, i turned into a heck of a princess as an adult >.< all my games involved the daring adventures of Me and my inevitable capture at the bad guys' hands:
"so, you've taken our orb! where've you hidden it!"
"it'll take longer than you've got to beat it out of me!"
"we shall see!"

never wanted to stop playing that game. i just found extra ways to play it i guess...

[wonderworld]

I have to say, of all the posts I have read, this particular one brought to light a lot of relief, enlightenment, and laughter!! I, too, was unable to properly play cowboys and indians... As I was always hoping someone would capture me and tie me up. A few times I did it myself....

For me, I have been so trained to "vanilla think" that I never even correlated my childhood fantasies to my adult craving for power exchange. For me, it is so wild how many actions, that I was never even cognizant of, fit together under my personal "submissive" label.

Just to clarify- I'm am not laughing AT anyone I am laughing with myself... only on this site would I be giggling about this stuff and reveling in it!! Thanks!!!

[jubes]

I'm one of those people who have always known on some level, even before I knew the terminology. When I was young enough to be reading the Black Stallion books (maybe 8 or 9), I would pretend that I'd been abducted, held prisoner, and tortured. I would even tie myself up in bed. I would read any children's/young adults lit that had any measure of pain or punishment in it, and imagine myself in the character's place. When I was 16, I came across a copy of Exit to Eden at a garage sale, and devoured it in one night. It was like the author (Anne Rice) had guessed all of the fantasies I'd never even known I had, and wrote them down. I've never been able to be part of a 'normal' relationship since.

[dirty knees]

An older cousin gave me "The Story of O" to read when i was about 14. i knew after that i wanted to be O!

[rsjankowski]

i think i learned it a bit at a time, but the real realization dawned on me when i was 19. and i snooped around in my dads box o porn, and read a book with some bdsm themes, after that i wanted to have slavegirls of my own to enjoy, reved me up so much, took it to the girlfriend and we started a bdsm relationship.

[naomi57 {ukMC}]

i found out that i was a submissive when i was put over my boyfriends knee and gave me a good hard spanking as it really turned me on example wet and juicy and wanted more i was 16 at the time and ever since then i have been interested in bdsm bondage and discipline and love being owned and collared by my Master and being a submissive slave to him and wouldnt change it for the world

i

I am always fascinated by the stories of how people knew or discovered that they were a submissive. Anyone care to share?

In my case, I sort of always knew. When I was as young as four or five, I'd con friends into playing games that involved spankings or being tied up. I remember once I was at a friend's house and they wanted to play "doctor"...I managed to finagle my way into being the patient every single turn so they could examine me. I fantasized aboutbeing dominated and controlled--and especially about being spanked--for most of my childhood. When I was fifteen or sixteen I stumbled across a hardcore bdsm story on writing.com, and was fascinated, repulsed, and aroused by what I'd read. I started doing research and reading more and learning more and five years later, here I am. Still reading and learning, only now it's legal for me to do so. lol.

Sorry if there's already a thread like this. I didn't see one on the first or second pages. :-/

[miimii]

I too have always been this way, but only just realized what I wanted two years ago. I can't say that I had fantasies as a child about being controlled, but I gravitated towards people who controlled me. I always ever only had one or maybe two friends who always took the lead in any activities we did. I spent my entire youth being led around by one person or another (all my age though). I always envisioned relationships to be where I took care of the other person. Did the laundry and cooking and basically whatever I was told in order to make the other person happy. I wonder sometimes if my submissiveness stems from a desire to be controlled or from a desire to be pleasing to the other person. Hmmm does that even make sense?

[fantasien]

I think i have always been submissive, but not in a sexually way. If there was a party or get together id always be the one to ask if anyone needed anything, hand out drinks, see if everyone was doing okay needed anything, wanting something. People would think i was a carpet for people to walk on, and yes people did use me like that sometimes, but its in my nature to make sure everyone is happy..

I've been some where on the same lines to shayna.

i tend to want to please everyone in my life. i ake sure that i take care of certain aspects of people.

But my story, was a long one i think. it was found along with my gender identity as well. I am a mtf trans-sexual. but, i for some reason was able to understand what the internet was an exactly how to look for what i needed sexually. it wasnt until recently that i really found myself as a sub.

i actually talked about the experience in my blog post, my first ever in this community. but i have met this Dom online through myspace initialy. then we started talking on AIM. after about the third day of talking, we started our Dom/sub relationship.

i was always scouring the internet and media for sex and anything with sex. i actually came across tranny porn and that's where i found out what was going on with me and was like oh...then i started seeing sexuality as a different thing all together and have been ashamed of it for some time, but still proud and feeling like i have to always hide and protect myself all of a sudden.

[blythe spirit]

Yay! my first 'real' post
i wonder, though, if the way in which i DON'T want 'to be on top' but sometimes put up a bit of a fight for it (with the hopes that i'll lose...) is that fairly common? Is it unusual, particular to me? could it be explained by the fact that i didn't have much discipline as a child and so i'm always trying to provoke it out of people?

I don't know how common it is, ballad, but I know it's not particular to you. Discipline, guidance, control are things children need in my opinion and when they don't get that, I think they spend a lot of time seeking it out. I know I did by provoking men that I've been with. Hell, I still do it.

[flying66]

ah I've always been a submissive... from the 'pretend play' I've done as a little girl to the type of sex stories and fantasies I enjoyed when I first discovered the internet.

I loved tying my hands and legs (to a chair sometimes) or taping my mouth shut when I was like... 4.

though I didn't know what it was called or that my 'fetish' wasn't what 'normal people' do until I was about 13

[sinderella]

i hate to get off-track here, but i just have to say that if some people are "uncomfortable" reading people's experiences that may or may not include a childhood sexual component, they should try to remain silent - because let's face it, there most likely was a sexual element in there somewhere that served as the harbinger of BDSM. in some cases, you absolutely can't NOT talk about it, as in my case, and it seems wrong to ask people to temper their story to avoid offending a few people who can stop reading after the first sentence and move on.

ok, on to desdemona's topic - here is my experience...

i was born submissive, i think...i was always a good little girl, being a Catholic and taken to Catechism at an early age, and counting rosary beads, participating in Latin recitations, etc. i was the youngest daughter in a large family and i found the best way to avoid being hit by my mother was to be obedient and compliant and silent. my father never hit me - in fact, i was his favorite, and we had a very close bond with each other. he drank a lot, though, so many times he was either absent or passed out when my mother would hit me, and i suppose in my adult life, i was seeking a powerful "Daddy" figure to be in complete control of me, which i lacked as a child. he was also killed in a car crash when i was just entering womanhood (14), so that is another reason i gravitate to men in control, i suppose, because i had no control over his being taken from me. every girl wants to please her Daddy, and one thing my father did was pull my hair...not in a mean way, but in a teasing way...he would be laughing gently and pulling me towards him, then pick me up and put me on his lap. it HURT, but he told me to work through the pain, urging me on...he told my mother he did that to "make me strong" because i was weak and small, having been born prematurely. i liked it though, because he didn't do that to anyone else, just me, and the reward was being cuddled in his lap and being told i was a good girl. one day i was trying to climb over a chain link fence and slipped, falling on the rail of the fence onto one of those pointy things that stuck out of the top, which instatly became embedded in the underpart of my chin. i was afraid to move, so i cried out for help, and my father came up and said oh my look what you have gotten yourself into, and told me to just relax and he would extricate me from it, but i had to stay calm...and he talked to me the whole time as he pulled me up and off of the fence, then set me in his lap, stroking my hair. another time i had accidentally cut my finger, and was injured pretty severely. my father took me to the hospital and while they were sewing me up, he pressed his hands against the sides of my face and told me to look right at him and made me laugh and forget the pain, even though it was excurciating. so then, too, pain mixed with pleasure and the comfort of my powerful authority figure, so that is how i came to be. my whole life i was attracted to things other girls didn't like, like the big bad wolf, outlaws and evil men on tv, and always chose clothes that had a lot of ties, straps and belts, or bracelets resembling leather cuffs, and chokers. when i met my first Master, i learned i had a name, and the name was 'submissive', and it was one of the wonderful and thrilling moments of my self-discovery. thank you for reading.

[slavedoggieboy]

I first knew when i was 12 years old and together with a young female playmate read a small story booklet( a type common in in the 40s) titled Girls will be Girls. It was a story of a woman who was being dominated by her female friend, who at one point made her drink her pee. When i read this i found myself wishing i was that girl being dominated and my friend decided to dominate me. Of course we did not do much, altho she did make me kiss her between her legs. When i was in my teens, i fell under the spell of two wonderful ladies, both more than twice my age, who led me down the path of female domination. They were the ones who taught me to drink their pee, and to serve them in the bathroom. That was more than 55 years ago, and i still am serving women as their slave. I presently serve one 47 year old dominant woman who has greatly expanded my service to her.

slavedoggieboy

[sinfulsex]

Look, the fact of the matter is, children are sexual. Freud went on at length about the sexuality of children. A child's sexuality is a very natural, very healthy, very well documented thing. From admitting children are sexual to permissiveness of being sexual with children is a quantum leap. The one does not follow from the other.

speaking of this my psych teacher once told me a very disturbing theory by freud about childrens sexuality. apparently he thought young boys were jealous of their fathers because they had their mothers to themselves and they were scared that their fathers would cut their penis's off! yep its true, it was in a txt book

but my point was that as shwenn said there are many varied theories on children and sexuality, many saying quite disturbing things, but the thing is that we were all children once and all had that sexuality in a weird way in us!

its natural

[Ninva]

As a little girl - I couldn't have been in kindergarten - I decided that I should wash my vagina. Being an innie instead of an outie and being too sensitive for soap, I decided that just the flow of water from the tap should work. I was shocked at the pleasure that flowed through my body then the delicious pain that followed. I was hooked from that very second.

I knew that my purityrranical upbringing frowned on the activity, even though I couldn't understand why. The ensuing shame brought me to fantasies of punishment then exhibitionism. By twelve, I would imagine that the tile shower were really a viewing room, where strangers watched me as I pleasured myself on the cold floor while the water surged around me.

I've never told anyone this before. Not that I'm ashamed anymore, but I simply haven't thought about it now that I am an owned woman. Besides, I don't want anyone to ever think that I was sexually abused and just repressing the memory.

[yama]

I was about 4 or 5 years old when I had dreams about chunks carved out of my body. It was done always by girls. It wasn't a horror scene, my body didn't bleed at all, it was inside just like outside, smooth skin and nothing else. And there was no pain.

Later I always enjoyed stories where people were tortured and humiliated. In the age of puberty my sexual fantasies were masochistic. Later I read about masochism and I could identify myself. The BDSM subculture is a surprise for me.

Thank you if you took the care of reading this late post. It is the second occasion in my life when I could reveal my childhood dreams.

[blossom]

looking back now i was about six, i used to do really naughty things at my aunties (breaking windows) just to get hit with the wooden spoon, then when i was left with another family member (i think it was my uncle) i used to refuse to leave him alone while watching tv, he got really pissed and dragged me by my hair to the bedroom and lock me in.
then i was sent to a couple of foster homes which didnt work out because i did 'wierd' things with the quilt cover between my legs. so then i went back home to find i had a step dad who took pleasure im sure telling me off, but then i was enjoying it too so i started being very naughty by cutting up curtains carving pictures in to the wood of the house (his house) of course id cry when i was being smacked because it hurt, but after the pain went i forgot about it and carried on being the child from hell.

when i was nine for some reason i started tieing myself up with string, (i was rather good at it) i did this about a year untill one night my loving mother came in to check if i was asleep she pulled the covers off me saw that i was wrapped up in string, she ran out the room shouting and came back with a pair of sissours, i thought she was going to kill me but she cut all the string off and told me to go to sleep and never to mention what ever it was i was up to again,
a couple of days later a was put in care again, i was sent to see doctors who scared the shit out of me, who kept asking about daydreams i was having so i told them about a girl who was tied to a chair and walls getting built up around her so she couldnt get away.

i stayed in care till i was thirteen, i then move in with my mum and her new hubby who later on tryed killing my mum by knocking her out and putting her throgh the bedroon window i tryed to stop him but he knocked me out, my mum did recover but i was put in care again i never saw her again, im 25 now and married have a lovely home and a hubby who understands all my kinks, its just a bit hard for him to keep up lol


p.s, sorry bout the life story

[leo9]

This girl does it in preparation, maybe, for when she finally finds her Mistress. She isn't sure, though, exactly. Whatever the case, it feels right to this girl!! It makes her feel more in-tune with her submissive side and gives her a sense of self. She isn't sure why.

It's a style of speech known to Goreans and similar as "slave mode." I'm not sure why it works, but when I'm in Dom mode I also find it very sexy. I think it's a spoken expression of objectification, it says "treat me as a thing not a person".

[ben'sslave]

It was sort of strange for me. I've always been a very dominant, abrasive person. One would think I'd have turned out to be Dominant.

But when I began to be sexually aware, I didn't fantasize about dominating others, as I do in the rest of my life. I fantasized about being dominated.

Like Chains of Gonzo i have always been very a dominant person but always fantasized about being dominated. And that's just what it was a fantasy until a guy i was talking to recognized my submissive side and decided to bring that side of me out.