M was not gone from my life very long when I took up a relationship with S. She was a long-time friend and confidant, a member of my logical family for some years. We had even had sex a handful of times, quite enjoyably, but neither of us were in a place to pursue that more frequently or more intentionally, until M left.

Three things came together in a quite unexpected fashion when S and I embarked on a more serious relationship.

First, we started incorporating BDSM into our sex play from the outset. I had long known S was a self-described sensation junkie, with a very high pain threshold. She also had some challenges reaching climax during the early renewal of our relationship, so rougher play and BDSM were a way of reaching some of those intensely transcendent moments during sex without orgasm.

The second major factor was that I took the occasion of deepening our relationship to ask S for some details regarding her past and childhood. Most specifically, I wanted to hear the full story of several years of childhood sexual abuse she endured. This was a fraught process. S had spent a great deal of her adult life trying not to think about that part of her past, had internalized a significant amount of shame and blame about the event, and had never before shared the entire story with anyone. Thankfully, she felt like she could trust me, and we spent long hours over several different meetings going through all of the horrific details.

So there we were. Meeting once a month at the start, very soon moving to once every two weeks, and shortly after that to weekly. Talking very intensely about her childhood sexual abuse. Engaging in some fairly rough sex play and BDSM. Quite unintentionally, the two began to overlap in some unexpected ways. After rough sessions of flogging and spanking, we would take time for aftercare, soothing her skin with oil, reassuring her that she was in a safe space with someone who loved her and cared for her deeply. During those times, she would often flash back to our conversations of her abuse. On some occasions, she flashed back to specific events and details with graphic clarity. Other times she would break down sobbing over the guilt she felt over “letting” the abuse happen. I categorically reject the assertion that a seven-year-old has any agency in sexual abuse inflicted upon them and I started making that case with increasing vigor and firmness. As incredible as it seems to me, this was the first time S had gotten validation that her childhood abuse wasn’t her fault. It took a lot of time, reassurance, and discussion for that idea to begin to take root within her.

The third major factor (remember, up above, I said there were three parts?) was that all of this elevated BDSM activity motivated me to get much more serious about the practice. I spent some considerable time thinking about my own internal ethics and the moral implications of striking a woman, repeatedly and quite hard. Growing up as a good Southern boy with lessons of “you don’t ever hit a woman, ever, for any reason” left its imprint on me and I had to really think deeply about how these new sexual behaviors integrated into that. There are some past posts in this blog where I wrote about that issue at some length. I also did a bunch of research and reading in the neurological science behind pain play and why that “works” so dramatically for some people. The BDSM sessions I planned and executed for S started to follow more specific and intentional patterns, based on that research. Over the course of ten minutes I would gradually escalate a pattern of stimulation, building within S a reservoir of endorphins, ending in a climactic rush of stimulation/pain to dump those into her bloodstream. Then the next ten-minute session would immediately begin and the cycle would be repeated. We would get three or four of those cycles completed before S was effectively “tripping balls” on her own internally-produced endorphin rush.

There was one particularly note-worthy moment that brought all three of these factors together. We were in the midst of an intense BDSM scene. S was standing, arms restrained by padded wrist cuffs. I was behind her with an array of floggers and leather straps, escalating the activity towards another endorphin release. She was at a particularly vulnerable moment, the flogging was really getting to her, there were tears flowing. To this day, I don’t know quite what prompted me to do this, but as I was flogging her, I started asking her, roughly, angrily, “Whose fault was it?”

The first couple of times, she was silent and didn’t answer.

“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
Eventually, she responded, breaking down sobbing in the process.
“It was my fault!”, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“It was my fault,” she answered, more tentatively this time.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
Silence.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“His fault?”, this came nervously, tentatively, like she was trying it on for size in her head.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“It wasn’t my fault.”, this came more firmly, like she was finding sure footing.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“It wasn’t my fault!” This came out stronger still. She also stood a little taller, and did not shrink from flogger blows.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“It wasn’t my fault!” This came out as an angry shout, defiant, solid. She flared her back and shoulders, daring me to do my worst. I put my back into it and swung hard.
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Whose fault was it?” Thwack!
“IT WSN’T MY FAULT!”

When I released her, the aftercare was especially long, and there was a great deal of crying. However, these weren’t the hot tears of shame and violation, but the cleansing tears of release. For the first time, S was really coming to terms with releasing the responsibility she had been trying to carry.

This experience shaped much of our subsequent BDSM play. Over much time and discussion we would identify issues where she was “stuck” mentally or emotionally and look for ways to bring them to the surface during an intense scene. In the process, her confidence grew and emotional weight she had been carrying for virtually her entire life began to fall off her. She was reframing her memory of the experience, from something that defined her, into something that “merely” happened to her.