I would say that I spend a good seventy five percent of my effort, minimum, when talking about BDSM, actively contradicting common wisdom on the topic. And it must really seem, at times, like I'm simply contrarian on the matter. Given how I go out of my way to challenge almost every perception and preconception about it, sometimes, I must seem like one of those guys that just has got to be different. And since I am a professed dominant, I suppose I can't really assure you that there's no truth to that.
But the funny thing is that if I were going to write a character in some kinky story based on myself, nobody would buy it. Not because he'd be too outlandish, but just the opposite. He'd seem wholly unoriginal, like I took the most clichéd perceptions about dominants and rolled them up into a completely trite, two dimensional character. Nobody would believe it.
Of course, I'm talking about the actual traits that real people with profoundly dominant natures tend to demonstrate. I mean ones that people who have spent time around lifestyle circles know and alternate between loving and hating. Not the ones that people prefer to suppose or depict in fiction.
First off, let's get the rough one out of the way. Yes, I came from an abusive childhood environment, including a couple fairly traumatic events. I strongly recommend that you don't bring this one up in lifestyle circles, though. It tends to piss people off when you suggest that one of the cornerstones of their identity is actually a dysfunction caused by childhood trauma. But, I have no problem admitting that it helped shape me in profound if not always positive ways, some that still haunt me now into my forties. And I won't say that everyone with that background comes to this lifestyle or that everyone in this lifestyle comes from that sort of background. But I will say, from personal experience, that out of scores of people I've talked about to in these circles, that I have a hard time remembering more exceptions than I can count on my fingers. And I'll also suggest, again, that you don't bring it up often.
From the time I started dating at about sixteen, and especially when I found my first serious girlfriend at seventeen, I displayed all the red flag warning signs of a dominant nature. Of course, that was long before I knew what any of them meant.
I was territorial and controlling, probably to a degree that looking back now I'd consider unhealthy, though I wouldn't say I crossed the line into abusiveness. Especially during sex, I was a very physical guy, very big into weight lifting and testosterone. I very quickly discovered I really dug holding a girl down or gripping her wrists during sex. Fortunately, most of my first few partners liked that, as well. A little bit of spanking or hair pulling, too, in the act, some biting happened in exploratory fashion.
Now, to some I'm probably starting to sound like I was some sort of little misogynist. And I really want to assure you that this was totally not the case. On the contrary, growing up and seeing my mother in an abusive relationship gave me a deep and abiding empathy for women. In fact, if anything, I can be accused of a overly protective sort of chauvinism in regards to women, based on that sympathy. I would love to say I've outgrown that idea, and intellectually, of course, I have. But the ideals you develop in childhood aren't intellectual things. It's more of an aesthetic, a way your emotions respond to the world.
That was compounded by the fact that I grew up in a very socially backwards area. When and where I was growing up, gender roles were still a societal expectation. Men worked, and if a wife had to get a job outside the household, it generally was a blow to a man's pride as bread-winner for the family. A good wife was there to kiss her husband's cheek when he came home from work and to bring him his beer or coffee. I remember when I was very young, my mother telling me how important it was to find a wife that cooked. That was where I came from.
Again, just to be clear, I'm not assigning any particular objective validity to any of this, not asserting or endorsing anything. But, the people I was brought up by said exactly that; mom, dad, aunts, uncles, neighbors, all firmly felt that was how it should be. And that all helped to shape my preferences and comfort zones. I'm not saying this is how it should be, or even that there is any 'should-be' in life at all. In fact, personally, I find professional women quite sexy. But, nevertheless, deep in my mind, in places I can't reach to change, it shaped how I felt comfortable acting, no matter how intellectually I can argue against it.
Of course, that's not to say that my attitudes were prevalently conservative. I was that too cool for the party guy. I was the loner with the big assed chip on his shoulder that only he couldn't see. I didn't belong to any cliques because the notion of trying to placate anyone's expectations, parents included, just made me bristle. I didn't get into trouble at school, not because I was particularly obedient, but simply because their expectation of calm, quiet, reserved behavior was precisely what I tended to display, anyway. So I was left alone with my C+ average that required no effort on my part.
I tried football and wrestling but the imposed structure predictably made those short lived endeavors. So I got into boxing and kick-boxing, then first tae-won-do, then later kempo, aikido, and jujutsu at a local dojo.
