HOW IT ALL BEGAN Part 2

Yesterday we laid down all the ingredients for my BDSM awakening: a dominant personality, quite contradictory sexual desires, and a difficulty in conjugating these two aspects of myself in the search of a fully satisfactory partner, since those that were most attracted to me tended to be the opposite of what attracted me. And, of course, most of those which might have appreciated my intimate self would stop at the first layer and possibly be put off by the exuberance. After all, in a perfect world forceful personalities should be looking for like minded partners and rise to the challenge of having them submit, but in the imperfect world we live in most people look for the easy fit and an all-around complacent partner is definitely more desirable than a challenging one.

I was therefore left in the middle. A gray area where compliant partners which would have appreciated my everyday assertiveness bored me, and more spirited men… very much enjoyed having me as a friend while they dated the Melanie Hamilton of the month. Since I already had quite enough on my plate with school, family, friends, and hobbies, and I had no desire to lead on someone I already knew wouldn’t be the right fit, I was single for quite a long time. Which doesn’t mean celibate, mind you, but certainly devoid of that companionship that should naturally come from a compatible romantic match.

I realize that this may all sound terribly dramatic, but rest assured that I was quite content for most of that time and only in the later stages of my single life did I begin to fret. After all, I intuitively knew that the men which surrounded me in daily life weren’t what I was really looking for, even though I still didn’t even have a concrete idea of what that was. I just knew that I’d figure it out once I happened to find it. Or so I hoped.

But can you really find what you’re not actively looking for? There seems to be a myth with regards to relationships, which everyone who’s been looking for a partner will have heard at least once (or a hundred times, more likely) and that’s that you’ll find the right person when you stop looking. I’ve come to believe that’s mostly bullshit. Being too keen to find a partner for its own sake can certainly work against you. People can smell desperation and most like to imagine that the person they’re hooking up with likes them and not merely the idea of finally having a partner. But all that considered, you do need to put yourself “out there”, so to speak, in order for opportunity to find you. You’ll definitely won’t find a partner by sitting on the couch every night. And neither if you keep on doing the same things with the same people every day.

Which then begs another question. How do you shake things up enough that you may obtain not only different results, but favorable ones?

This is where books came into it, for me. And this is where I make the most damning confession you shall ever have of me. Because, I’m very ashamed to say, the book that finally woke me up was Fifty Shades of Gray.

If you didn’t stop reading at the last paragraph, I commend your faith in me. No, I did not like prose, plot, nor characters of that awful piece of writing. And neither did I find the repetitive and often absurd sex scenes particularly titillating. But I had read my fair share of Harmony and bodice rippers, the occasional saucy tale, and a quite wonderful series of sexy fantasy novels before, and after wading through the Fifty Shades quagmire I found myself thinking that the core of it didn’t seem quite so bad, after all. And if there was something good beneath all the purple prose and ripped-off plot, then someone, somewhere, must have written it better. And, why not, someone else might actually be living it in the real world.

Long story short, this epiphany led me to more and better literature. Then to non-fiction. Then to the internet. Articles, blogs, Tumblr posts, online little games, kinky social networks, and finally my local kinky scene. The BDSM test fell somewhere in between and once I familiarized myself with the lingo, I started navigating the scene, both online and offline. And that’s when I “broke the wheel”, so to say: most of the time, I kept on doing the same things with my old friends, but I also started doing new things, meeting new people, and putting myself in new situations.

It worked.

Not only was I having fun exploring and experimenting, but I also began to zoom in on what I had been subconsciously looking for all this time. That still didn’t make it easier to find. Kinky people are not much different than your average vanilla: most Dominants will still be looking for something I could never be. But at least I had acquired the right instruments for my search. And, after all, I needed a man ready to face any challenge, not just putting up with me. My quiet single life wasn’t such an easy nut to crack, after all.

Did I finally find what I’d been looking for? That’s a story for another time. Let’s just say, the scene didn’t disappoint in the end. But as far as my beginnings in the kinky realm go, that’s how the story goes. Was BDSM the true answer to my quest? No, it was just a step on the way. Is the BDSM scene a magical place where anyone can find their ideal partner? Far from it. So what gives? BDSM, for me, was simply the right thing at the right time, a crucial gear in my mechanism. It could be the same for you. Or not. In any case, I promise to try and make this space as fun and informative as possible, on the matter.