It can be a wonderful thing to be there when someone with a previously mostly vanilla background suddenly discovers his kinkiness. There’s a rebirth. A new level of understanding of who he or she is. And usually it’s accompanied by big smiles and a desire to discover as much as possible in as short an amount as possible about our wonderful alternative lifestyle.

But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes someone discovers their kinkiness and comes upon yet a new way to hate themselves.

I’ve encountered such an individual. One really hot guy, I have to admit. A genuine head turner who could draw attention for his muscular gym toned body and handsome face in any dungeon. But he’s not likely to be seen in one anytime soon, because he’s tearing himself up inside because he hates his kinky appetites.

He actually was in a dungeon one time. He got drunk and allowed himself to come in, lurk in a dark corner, and play with someone furtively for awhile. As he sobered up, he panicked and left.

I’ve had three exceptionally hot, although rather short, sessions with him. After each one he reiterated how much he loved about what he just experienced, and how he can never allow himself to do it again. I’ve also spent hours on IM with him, trying to help him get his head together. Two things are constantly recurring in these online chats: (a) his dick gets hard every time he thinks of BDSM, and (b) he doesn’t want it to! The future he says he dreams of is of "a vanilla lifestyle"…not Straight… still Gay… but vanilla!

This brings us to a realization that most of us in BDSM don’t often think. We know that there are those who are afraid of being Gay or ‘becoming’ Gay… even phobic about it. But when we think of our own BDSM lifestyles from the comfort and ease of being insiders, we rarely think of our lifestyle choice as being one which is to be FEARED. I mean, we know that it’s not the lifestyle of choice for many of our friends---at least in most cases. But not choosing to be kinky is different than actually being afraid of it!

For this we often have to thank one of our favorite entertainments…

...porn. Kinky porn.


The kind that shows intense hot and heavy scenes we love for one-handed viewing on lonely nights. Or their accompanying magazines, novels and websites. We all look at them and know how they’re produced…and living here in San Francisco, often have friends who are in the porn industry, either in front of or behind the cameras. We see the hot sex, submission, and BDSM without the benefit of seeing the meetings and negotiation that goes on before those scenes are videotaped. And often fuckin’ love it!

But there are also impressionable people out there who are actually buying all this fantasy hook line and sinker! People with college degrees for God’s sake! (does this tell us something about the quality of graduates being pumped out these days?) submissives are really out there who fear what BDSM will turn them into! The submissive that I referred to earlier has a deep ingrained fear that "a Master will grab him and force him into a personal dungeon for 24/7 slavery, when what he really wants is a career!" I have to admit that I was a little taken aback when I heard that. I mean, the guy seemed otherwise lucid and intelligent, and not on drugs, or at least so that I could tell.

I have to admit, the first time he said it I thought he was kidding. But then, he kept repeating this fear, and others. That he could be "branded as owned property or disfigured so that he couldn’t rejoin society". And after awhile I had to realize that he wasn’t trying to pull my leg… he was serious! This, coming from the mouth of a guy who I was able to take to impressive levels of BDSM in an amazingly short time.

I was never able to convince him otherwise, because he had a couple of encounters with another Master who apparently started in on him with Leather roleplay without informing him of the rules of the road. So he knew from experience that it was all too real! I really wish I knew who that Master was…and why the hell he shoved a slave contract into the face of a total newbie on a second visit and demanded that he sign it or get out. He could use a little training himself!

We weep with frustration sometimes at the mental cages our fellow men can lock themselves inside. And yet we love the X-rated entertainment that fuels those cages. And the roleplay which under the right circumstances can be so hot. It can be argued that a paranoid personality will always find some fear to lock onto, and if it wasn’t a fear of BDSM it would be something else. I’d be the last to suggest cutting off the flow of kinky porn… it’s just too goddamn much fun to watch… at least when it’s done good. Which it often isn’t. But that’s for another blog!

So excuse me now while I watch a few scenes… that were done right!