BDSM Therapy

[AmberAsylum]

Hello, everyone.

There has been very little data compiled on BDSM and the people who engage in it, so much of what I am about to say are conclusions drawn from experience. I am wondering if any of you concur, because my mental health professionals (my psychiatrist, therapist, and counselor) have all told me that it is unhealthy, but I disagree with that assessment.

My stance on BDSM is that it is both expressive and therapeutic, when done safely. I was into an area of BDSM called rape play, where a boyfriend and I would pretend I was getting raped. I viewed it as a way to express a taste for the savage. Then I actually had a traumatic sexual experience happen, and rather than viewing it as a tool of expression, I viewed rape play as a way to eroticize what happened, thus making it easier to live with. Eroticizing something adds fantasy and lightness to it that just makes it seem...like a more acceptable part of one's life, in my experience. I think rape play did for me what years of therapy could never do: I am now perfectly okay with the event. Of course I'd rather it had never happened, but now I feel more accepting of it, like its just part of a fantasy.

Do any of you who engage in BDSM also find that it is a good way to either express or cope with somethiing?

 

[Pyropyro]

Not a practitioner but you might find some data in this SFW comedy article

 

[Jennywocky]

A dear friend experiences those desires but struggles because his spouse does not share that desire. We've discussed it on various occasions (because I want to understand and know how to support), but he describes it more as a form of his own sexual preference rather than as a coping mechanism. He has never described any kind of traumatic event that he would be looking to cope with.

it doesn't mean it is not that way for some. there can always be multiple contributors for behaviors that look very similar on the surface.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Safe, sane, and consensual. The key thing is that both are into it.

 

[Yellow]

There are healthy ways to go about things, and there are unhealthy ones. I tend to lump it into the categories of "working" and "nonworking". My primary example being: imagine you just had a stressful day. You're at your wits' end, and you are doing some after-work grocery shopping. You see a chocolate cake in the bakery section, and you say "fuck it". You buy the cake and you sit in front of your TV, gorging on cake instead of eating a healthy dinner.

For the average, healthy adult, this spontaneous act served as a "working" coping strategy to unwind and perhaps add a little humor/fun to the day. Now imagine that the person in the scenario is obese and diabetic. Suddenly, this is a "nonworking" situation.

BDSM also falls into this gray area. For example, TPE is rarely "working". The power is often given up by people who struggle with co-dependence, and taken by people who are either co-dependent themselves, or just openly predatory. This is the kind of thing that would worry most mental health practitioners. It is more likely to keep you stuck in your issues rather than helping you move past them. There are exceptions, of course, but people who think they are the exception far outnumber those who actually are.

If you just practice the sexual and parasexual acts that most people associate with BDSM, then the safe, sane, and consensual (with someone who is calm and in control) rule can help keep you on the "working" side of things.

However, I do want to say this: Our sexual preferences are often formed at a young age (sometimes long before we've had our first [voluntary] sexual experience). We aren't born knowing what's normal. "Normal" is shaped for us by the environment of our early development. We may learn differently later, but it rarely changes our initial programming. You just have to learn what "works" for you, and what doesn't.

 

[xbox]

....weird

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

This reminds me of when I first got into Satanism, Aleister Crowley, and Chaos Magick. I did a whole bunch of stuff to test myself and push myself as close to the edge as possible. I think my motto at the time was to be like a bird perched on a telephone wire ("the line"), not crossing the line, but perching right on it and occasionally shitting.

I found the practice really useful in my moral development and discovered a ton, but then things got boring, weird, and a little scary, so I eased my way out of it. It served its purpose.

So do I think it can be beneficial? Maybe, it's going to depend on the individual like... everything else. Whether it's a coping mechanism seems like Freud territory.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

You know, when i read your OP, i can't stop to think that you are in reality a victim being abused by predators.
You have become desensitized to your own misery and your consent to be continually mistreated and confuse this with a therapeutic treatment.
What's in the mind of the dominating part on that paraphilia spectrum?
Most likely they compensate for their lack of power in real life by administrating a power of illusion over somebody else in their "play".
That's one way to read it, and that's perhaps 50%of the demographic that's attracted to the dominant role.
Another part is the Marquis de Sade type of persons.
And that's where i see the real problem.
There's not much harm that the first sad sob of a person can do,
because they depend on continiously feeling the power as a relief from the daily grind.
But... eventually they can reach a point where their usual dominance displayed/imagined in play is not enough to satisfy their means.
They can potentially snap, and there is no amount of "safe word/s" you can utter, once they have tasted blood.
They transform into "power trippers", people like the Marquis de Sade who can only affirm themselves by utterly dominating, torturing and negating "weaker" persons.
The ultimate form of negation is murder.
There are underground prostitution rings specializing in killing and dismembering their victims, largely based in the US/Canada and Europe.
How do you think these inner circles get their steady flow of victims?
The gateway drug is always BDSM.
They perfectly know that the persons willing to enter this circle have serious psychological issues and they know how to exploit them for their purposes.
If you research various serial killers you come across this pattern over and over again.
Many documented killers and their victims were introduced to the BDSM scene and everything seemed nice and consensual for a couple of years,
until one fateful day, victims and perpetrators were so deep in the inner structure that only one part on this "contract" escaped with their lives.
And you are free to make an educated guess on who that is.
We had a case in another forum which i frequent,
of a woman who was initially posting on alcoholism and drug dependency,
but later revealed that her boyfriend introduced her into a circle of "friends" who would "gangbang" her.
She told us there that initially she did it as a favour to her boyfriend (because he took her off the streets) and did not think about it too much.
Later on it became clear that this "boyfriend" arranged monthly meetings for this "particular occasion" and mildly forced her to comply to his wishes.
He also conveniently provided drugs for this.
The posts continued for over two years and it became clear to everyone else reading those posts, that he most probably made a large sum in the process and the girl was in a vicious circle of having to numb herself to "provide" for the demands that her "boyfriend" put on her.
I'll fast forward you to end of the story, it was a forth and back between breaking ties and being put on heavier drugs, going into more severe and more frequent events of prostitution and finally seeking help from an NGO.
I think many cases which we don't really know about go this way and i think when we say "consensual sex" we most likely don't have a good understanding on how the underworld works.
Because we live in the overworld, we tend to think in that narrow space of our own experiences (of bourgeois upbringing), but fail to understand that there's a whole parallel world running right through our mainstream society as an undercurrent where all rules that we are so accustomed to are reversed.

I strongly recommend watching the film "8mm"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8mm_(film)

Eyes Wide Shut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_Wide_Shut

and the brilliant, investigative youtube series
"Programmed to Kill/Satanic Cover-Up" by LOLFIELDANDLOVE
https://www.youtube.com/user/LOLFIELDANDLOVE/videos

and, if you can find sources, to put yourself into the sick mind of the perpetrator:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Sade_bibliography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvgikgmzzlk

 

[Jason43]

I think I like masochism because I'm more comfortable feeling pain than love. To me emotional cruelty is cathartic and feels honest and real. Its also just kinky and works for me sexually. I'm more into emotional pain and humiliation than physical pain though.

I think this probably comes from my relationship with my ESFJ mother as well as my early relationships with women which were often emotionally painful. I guess it just stuck. The funny thing is that looking at me, I'm 6.2 220 pounds and covered in tattoos... not exactly submissive looking or acting outside of sexual preferences... Its just something that I'm drawn to. Its hard to find a sexually dominant woman and I've found that the women who are attracted to someone who looks like I do expect me to be dominant, so I've almost always been sexually limited to my own fantasies. Its like being a religious gay person who can never come out and is frustrating. Me knowing that my partner isn't naturally inclined this way is enough to make it not worth doing because it is not real. I can also be dominant but it is not my natural leaning. Sometimes its fun though.

Is that normal? People are into all kinds of weird shit. Maybe asking to be treated cruelly is just reopening old wounds but I still crave it. As long as you aren't harming others without their consent, I don't think there is anything wrong with doing or asking for what you actually desire. More power to you for owning what happened to you and if this really helps you, then it does. Simple as that.