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.