My partner is extremely dominant but non-sadistic. When he tops I try to drive him to extremes he's uncomfortable with, knowing that as much as he enjoys being in charge he's cringing internally at the thought of hurting me (I, myself, get a heady adrenaline rush out of pain which I rather enjoy, although it does nothing for me sexually) I live for the meek apologetic "Areyouokays?" when we finish.

When I top, we arrange to have the his bonds such that he could easily navigate out of them, although they look cosmetically sound, such as that he can have the satisfaction of knowing that he could break free at any point and overpower me (and in some cases I let him).

One of our psychological defenses is the ability to bounce back and mixed in with that is the need for revenge as way of restoring our self esteem, by taking out your revenge you are regaining a posture (in your own mind/self esteem) towards your counterpart.

I believe this is a natural reaction and then the question becomes: Does true submissive sadism exist?

Very few subs enjoys breaking a leg as the pain can be unbearable – But a hard flogging or nipple clamps can be very enjoyable.

It’s a matter of in which context the pain arises.

I can enjoy bruises as a result from a flogging, but I find pictures of battered women with bruises originating from domestic violence despicable – Just mentioning this as a comparison to different types of pain as you were referring to.

Discovering your BDSM side inside a marriage is not always comfortable, especially if your wife doesn’t feel drawn to it. You are in a sort of lucky position tho, as she has granted you the a possibility to get your urges satisified. That is all good in my book as long as it has been based on honest negotiations with clear terms/rules as a result, rules that both of you accept. The established rules between you and your wife needs to be constantly revised and discussed. That is actually one of the core values within BDSM, total emotional honesty towards everyone involved.

The fact that you have “tricked” her is the thing that makes me a little bit uncomfortable as that is not based on honesty. Trickery is sometimes a behaviour that is shown when a submissive have been without attention from their Dominant or when the submissive feels that he/she is not getting what they need. Especially among emerging subs that haven’t found the secureness in their submission yet.

There is a common dangerous aspect that I sense a little bit between the lines: When one partner inside a relationship discover their own BDSM side, then they automatically want the other one in the relationship to become their Dominant or submissive. This usually ends with devastating results. Imagine not being drawn to BDSM and then being forced by your partner to become something you are not or do not enjoy. It is from a BDSM perspective a sort of topping from the bottom and the effect will be that nothing will feel real.

To sum it up – It ain’t pretty.

What you and your wife can do is to investigate your BDSM side together. Then it becomes something that you two share rather than something that comes between you and it might even get your wife interested in BDSM. But if she doesn’t become interested then you have to accept that, but if you two have done your homework properly then she might at least understand what you enjoy and that you need to have that urge satisified. Then she might consent naturally to what you want to do rather than being tricked into things.

Who knows, she might even enjoy seeing you being subjected to pleasurable pain without being the one inflicting it?

Acceptance and understanding come in small steps – Take it slow, try things together with your wife slowly, then pause and look back and talk about it together. Accept the emotions that it creates and take it from there.

It is all a part of the processing.

“Pain” seems to be a relative term. Medical personnel use a scale when asking about pain — “Would you say the discomfort you’re feeling is closer to a 1 or a 10, ten being the highest?” — because what’s a 4 for one person is a 9 for another. Tolerances vary widely between people. Heck, they vary widely within a person, too. What someone brushes off one day, is over the top two days later.

But the simple answer to the question that started the entry, “Does pain turn you on?” is a definite yes — with a qualification. There’s a difference between pain meant for pain’s sake and pain meant for sexual release. Granted, the line is fine and different for every person, but there is a distinction that needs to be made. I suspect true sadists don’t care about the line, but true Doms do. Same with submissives. We want the pain that makes our insides turn to jelly and open our bodies and psyches to more, more, more — NOT the pain that makes us cringe away and say, “Ouch, that hurt.”

Grrr…I’m not sure any of this is making sense. Is it?

The problem with any labels is that we tend to use them to limit our experiences or definition of self. Labels are merely supposed to help us describe. But for something like BDSM, which is a personal exploration and of which little good theory is taught, even in grad schools on human behavior, we try on the labels, then try to conform. Isn’t this kind of silly in some ways? We are like medieval scientists who keep trying to create the alchemists stone, and puzzle out orbits in which the earth is the center of the universe. We try to fit reality into immature theoretical framework.

Be yourself. And let us know what that’s like; it’s fascinating.