My first time with BDSM was nothing like ’50 Shades’

I cradled him on the living room floor and told him what a good boy he’d been. Then I helped him to the bathroom, drew his bath, and washed and bandaged his cuts.

img-of-media-slide-rv-3710-15260.jpg
iStock/coloroftime

Let’s call my first client “David.”

I was 21 years old.

I had decided against law school at the eleventh hour and, in a panic, accepted a job offer from a small non-profit in a town I’d never been to.

Alone in a new place, I spent a lot of time at a local coffee shop that could have passed for a Hello Kitty playhouse. This is where I met the other kinks — the dommes, the subs, the swingers, and Pete, our token ponyboy.

A group of people, mostly queer, who wanted to spank their lovers (or be tied up, or swap husbands for a night) met once a month, fully clothed, to sip lattes and talk BDSM best practices. 

The coffeehouse was home base. Meetings were private. You could cut the sexual tension with a butter knife, and it would thank you and ask you to do it again.

There’s a long tradition of southern progressivism that looks a lot like those meetings. Like-minded people assembling quietly and in small numbers to discuss how best to liberate themselves and others shaking their heads over the puritanical types. It seems a little myopic now, but I still don’t disagree.

When our meetings split into smaller groups, the other kinky ladies and I talked about this a lot. My first kiss was with my family pastor’s daughter; the first boy who asked me to hurt him during sex grew up Hasidic; the first girl who asked to hurt me was newly ex-Muslim. #NotAllSadomasochists grow up amidst authoritarianism, but there’s an undeniable correlation.

We exchanged a few emails to set a day, time, and terms. It was a formal, extra-careful version of the conversations I’d had with non-paying sex partners before BDSM play.

Yes, please, to whipping.
No, thank you, to breath play.
Bondage, yes.
Humiliation, yes.
Breaking skin, yes yes yes.

(You’d be surprised how rare that last request is.)

Two hours total, including 45 minutes of play and 45 minutes of aftercare. $300 to be delivered via PayPal. I got to his apartment building three minutes early.

In hindsight, this was incredibly stupid of me, even if he had been vetted by a colleague. Domme work is sex work, and sex work is dangerous. It’ll stay dangerous so long as clients can be arrested for buying what we’re selling them.

David’s apartment was about what you’d expect of an upper middle class former frat boy: washed concrete floors; tasteful, minimalist decorations; Eames chair.

img-of-media-slide-rv-3710-15259.jpg
iStock/alexovicsattila

I pushed him down, naked, so he knelt facing the couch, and tied his wrists to its wooden arms.

His CrossFit-built back muscles quivered under what I’d later learn was an artful spray tan.

If it sounds like this came easily, that’s because it did.

I’d had enough practice with kinky sex partners beforehand to sink into the role of Boss Bitch quickly and thoroughly. Plus, I was getting more out of this than a paycheck.

The kit I’d brought was tailored to his session: synthetic fiber rope (easier to sterilize), a brand new riding crop (still ultra stiff), scarves (so versatile!), and a general purpose first-aid kit.

The amount of pressure it takes to break skin changes depending on the body part, the skin’s tautness, a person’s age, and so on. I whipped the back of David’s thighs, the soles of his feet, and his buttocks on and off for half an hour, pausing to rest my arm and let him catch his breath.

We’d agreed on three cuts — four if he was very well behaved, which he was — and when he was finished, I tended his wounds.

Aftercare flies by sometimes. That’s adrenaline and endorphins for you, I guess. 

I cradled him on the living room floor and told him what a good boy he’d been. Then I helped him to the bathroom, drew his bath, and washed and bandaged his cuts. I made him some tea, tucked him into bed, and left.

Here’s the thing: Hurting people — even if they beg for it, even if it turns you on — still feels a little bit fucked up.

In my experience, that goes double if you’re a woman hurting a man. I see now what I was doing by tucking David in: I’d made an able-bodied, conventionally attractive, vaguely Christian white man bleed, and beg me to make him bleed more, and I took his money for doing so. I’d spanked the ass of the bourgeoisie.

And as Simone de Beauvoir wrote, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

After going off script for over an hour, I wanted to return to the safe, familiar territory of gender roles, to be the gentle caretaker misogynists swear lives deep in my and every other true woman’s breast. I felt guilty.

I got over it soon enough.