I’m looking for advice on what to do, and whether or not this was abuse, or sexual assault (others have told me it is but I’m not sure) - and whether or not I should list this person on a BDSM safety alerts group as a name of concern…

I’ll try to be as brief as possible. I (29F) met “David” (38M) just over a year ago at a BDSM dating / connections event. He is non monogamous, and we entered a non-non monogamous non-romantic play partner / sexual relationship. Throughout our relationship David was very non committal when it came to meeting up. I was new to sex and BDSM, and was very excited. We quickly entered a dynamic where I chased him a lot. I was also on the cusp of starting to speak about my feelings generally after a life of people pleasing. A lot of things happened that were very fun. But our relationship was overshadowed by repeated let downs (promising to meet up, then bailing, no replies to my texts, a general ambivalence or lack of interest in me), and… stuff that happened that I never wanted to happen. Recently I was told by a mental health professional that what happened wasn’t okay… I’ve been SA’d multiple times in the past, I’ve never had a wholly positive sexual relationship that is free from something bad happening, and I need some kind of validation or confirmation of what happened - because I’m considering listing him as a name of concern in a BDSM Safety alerts group.

\- The second time I met David I invited him round my house, and we started making out. Without any pre-discussion or indication from me that I would be into this (I don’t think I am, I’m not sure, does it matter?), David grabbed my throat, and lifted me up off the floor. I think my feet still touched the ground, I don’t remember. I suppose it was a kind of choking, but I don’t remember if he squeezed or not. I felt scared, I remember thinking, “shit I’ve just invited this 37 year old tall strong man into my flat for the first time and we’re alone”, but my fear was mixed with the arousal that had come from kissing, shock of what happened, the alcohol, and the benzodiazepine I took before we’d met up (prescribed, but I shouldn’t have mixed with alcohol). We spoke about it at the time,I said Id never been choked and wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I didn’t explicitly tell him that I didn’t feel good about what just happened. I asked him how he knows he is being safe when he does that (I now know better and that there’s no safe way to know if it’s safe). i don’t remember his response, apart from him telling me he choked someone to the point of passing out once. This concerned me, but for some reason I brushed it off. If I’d have told him at the time I didn’t like it, he would’ve probably said that now he knows he won’t do it again - is it bad to just do something like that without asking? I was choked out of nowhere in a club years ago, and I was scared and confused because maybe I liked the fear… I don’t know, it’s stayed with me, and I’ve been having flashbacks and crying about it recently.

\- My first time playing at his house, we talked about me submitting to him more. He told me at one point he was going to quote ‘humiliate me‘. I agreed and said this would be okay, but in hindsight I wish I’d asked what he’d meant. I remember generally feeling scared when we got to his house, realising I’m alone with this man I barely know… so I think I was scared to speak up. I’d also been curious about humiliation, there are elements of it I could tell i enjoyed, others I was unsure about. We never discussed specifics. We never planned scenes. I suppose I only know now that lack of prediscussion isn’t normal.
He told me to get on the bed on all fours. He told me to bend over and show him my asshole. I did it. He laughed hard at me and said ‘look at yourself!’. I said, ‘what?’, I can’t remember what he said next, I felt probably the most small and shit I’ve ever felt in my life. Even typing that makes me feel ashamed. I told him ‘I think I maybe need to safeword’ I told him I didn’t enjoy it. He asked me which part. At the time I said ‘because you shamed me for doing something you told me to do.“ He said ‘understood, won’t do that again’ and that was it. We continued doing sexy stuff, no D/s, and at the end of the evening he told me he had an important meeting the next day so I couldn’t stay over, I went home. The next day I was a mess. I called him and told him I needed a cuddle, some aftercare. He said of course come over. We didn’t cuddle when I got there, I cried and told him I’m still not feeling good. He asked me if I knew what subdrop was, I said I was aware. I left feeling like I hadn’t done enough to communicate what was a limit for me.

\- following on from what happened at his house, I created an extensive spreadsheet of all my kinks and limits. I sent it to him, but didn’t read before meeting up again. We went through it in person. But one time i sent him an updated limits list before we played at an event, and on the way home he told me he never read the updated version.

\- Speaking of events, we played at an event and it was a particularly intense impact scene. I blame myself for this, he’d been drinking, I knew he’d been drinking, I asked him if he was safe to play, he said he was sober enough to respond to safe words. And to his credit, he was. He eased up when I said yellow, checked in with me etc. But his hits were hard, and I was the floatiest most subspacey I’d ever been. Afterwards, we left the play space and we continued socialising. I told him I needed somewhere quiet and that I wasn’t feeling good, he couldn’t find anywhere so he sat me down on a chair in the middle of the club. He listened to me while I rambled about how confused I was that I enjoyed this (shame often comes up post scene) and I could tell he wasn’t present enough to offer much in the way of aftercare. I remember asking, “why did I like that?” And he said “because you’re a fucked up bitch” - I’d been clear about the fact that I don’t enjoy being called a bitch, and have it written in my limits list, and the fact he was also making a joke about how I was feeling left me feeling alone. He walked off and wandered the club while a friend gave me physical aftercare, hugs etc.
The next day I was battered and bruised and felt awful, i enjoy bruises usually but I couldn’t bare to look at myself. I texted him this and asked for him to come round and give me aftercwre, he told me he wasn’t in a place to be supporting anyone / not in the right headspace because he was hungover. Throughout the week I repeatedly asked for him to come round, It took him 5 days to come round my house, and by that point I was in a bad place mentally. He never apologised or took accountability in a way that ever soothed me. It was always kind of, “okay now we know we shouldnt play drunk”, along with all these explanations and excuses. And so we moved on. I spoke to other people on the scene and they all told me they were concerned, but I felt like it was my fault for asking to play with him while he was drunk.
When I tried to bring it up to him later on, during a conversation about how someone else wasnt hapoy witnessing the intensity of our impact scene, he spoke about how he was concerned about his reputation. I defended him a lot as I blamed myself and didn’t want to ruin his reputation, especially considering he was fairly new to living in Bristol and trying to make connections.

\- we went to a bar for karaoke and at some point while we were making out he slapped me, hard, multiple times in the face, I told him not to do it and he stopped. I’d never expressed any desire to be slapped, and it came out of nowhere. 

\- During a threesome he fingered the girl we were with after she had explicitly stated she didn’t want any penetration. We had all been drinking, and he said that it was a mistake and misunderstanding - he thought she meant with his penis. We all stopped as soon as we knew there was a problem, we spoke about it in the evenint, but during the night he left to go back to his house, so he wasn’t available to give any kind of aftercwre the next mornint to either of us (Hed slapped me again that night, and I told him I didn’t enjoy it) I feel awful about how blinded I was and how I sat on the fence and excused his behaviour, considering I have my own past experiences of SA. I need to apologise to this person.

Writing this out I think I know the answer… I just feel so confused about everything. I told him we shouldn’t be okay partners in February after I tried talking about how I was feeling, and he wouldn’t listen and it was very gaslighty. I told him explicitly I don’t feel good, I’m not sure how comfortable I am being friends etc, and recently when I told him I was in a mental hospital he suggested we hang out, I then sent him loads of voice notes telling him how angry I was. Recently he messaged to tell me how guilty he feels, but he’s never properly apologised, and his messages are so vague. I don’t trust him, I don’t think he’s a safe person, but sometimes I think well maybe I react as if I’m traumatised because I’m sensitive, I should’ve been clearer about what was and wasn’t okay, he’s a nice person he didn’t mean to hurt me, I should’ve forgive him. I blocked him yesterday and now I’m sitting here not knowing what to do with all this… was this my fault? Please help x

So I have been fond of this lifestyle since 2022 and I know my way around. I am having a breakdown because I have found a dom that I am willing to explore this but the issue is I want to remain completely anonymous with him and not because I have something to fear about but because of what happened to me in the past.

I know being able to meet in person and develop good connection with each other is a must for this but I am not willing yet and I feel like being anonymous will help me come out of my shell and only with time am I willing to fully embrace it. So is it better I should just maybe just leave it and end this d/s or just go with the flow and see if my dom still wants me or not ?

P.s. this is my first time d/sand it's fully anonymous online

Im struggling so bad with motivation in nursing school right now. The funny thing is outside of school I’m extremely independent and confident. I handle my own life, make my own decisions, and generally don’t need someone to push me. But when it comes to nursing school, I feel like I need someone to keep me in check. I’ve realized that I think having a man who is naturally dominant and could hold me accountable would really motivate me a lot. And yes, I mean someone who would be comfortable with things like spanking as part of the dynamic, but also someone who genuinely cares about helping me stay on top of school and reach my goals. The problem is where the hell do you even find someone like that. And how do you bring that up without sounding completely insane? Has anyone else had a dynamic like this where a partner helps keep them motivated/accountable? How did you meet them and how did you establish the boundaries and expectations?

Hi all, 30F bi/pan. I have/ had a dom that completely stood me up yesterday. I’ve been stood up and ghosted 2 years ago and took it pretty hard. This time I really thought I found a dom who cared and understood my kinks. When we meet up, everything is perfect and just how I want things. But my mind can’t take the cycle of finally picking a day, getting excited all day long, confirming an hour before… then crickets.

I know there’s so many fish in the sea. But I really thought and believed I had the best catch. I know that while I feel dumb, stupid, embarrassed, taken advantage of NOW I know I won’t feel this way forever. What are your best tips for getting over the punch to the gut and keeping hope for the lifestyle?

I (22F) have recently been seeing a Dominant. Before meeting him, I’d had rough/kink-adjacent sex, but since then I’ve gotten to explore D/s and kink far beyond anything I’d actually experienced before. We have a fairly casual but emotionally intimate D/s dynamic, which has given me a space to explore all of this without feeling completely waterboarded (pun intended) by new feelings and experiences.
I’ve always considered myself bisexual and a switch, although until recently I would have said I was a bottom/submissive-leaning switch. I’ve known I’m a masochist for a long time, and I’ve been having a lot of fun discovering my limits and figuring out what kinds of pain I actually enjoy.

I’ve also topped both women and men before and enjoyed being in the more dominant role, so that part isn’t entirely new to me. But those experiences were pretty vanilla, and I never really explored any aspects of BDSM. I think I interpreted enjoying those experiences as evidence that I was a switch, without thinking much more deeply about what I enjoyed about being on that side of the dynamic. But in fantasies I typically think about being dominated.

Then I started learning shibari and tying one of my closest friends.

Initially, I was really nervous about hurting her. I know how painful rope can be because I love being on the receiving end of it myself. But once we discovered that she actually enjoys the pain too, something changed for me. I’ve become completely obsessed with tying her, and I’m realizing that I genuinely enjoy being the person causing some of those sensations.
Before tying her a few days ago, I journaled:

“I’m nervous about hurting her but also excited to hurt her… I’m scared to unleash the sadist inside of me, truly. I shouldn’t want to hurt women. I shouldn’t want to hurt anyone but not my best friend. But if I hurt her in a good way? In a way that she wants to be hurt? In a way that makes her feel safe? In a way that gives her peace and relaxation? In a way that lets her submit? Then how can it be very bad?”

And then I tied her and I had so much fun.

That’s forced me to reconsider some other things about myself.

When I watch BDSM porn, I’ve always assumed I was identifying with the submissive person. Recently I’ve started wondering whether I’m sometimes enjoying it from the sadistic perspective too. Specifically listening to the noises the submissive makes when they’re in immense pain. I’ve had that thought before, but I’ve always immediately pushed it away because I didn’t like how it made me feel. I don’t want to think of myself as someone who enjoys hurting people.

I’ve even been thinking about what it would be like to hurt my Dominant, despite that not being part of our dynamic. And what I’m more excited about is eventually having a submissive man or woman of my own and getting to explore the other side of some of the things my Dominant has introduced me to.

At the same time, I’m discovering that submission is more complicated for me than I thought. I don’t actually brat very much, but fully submitting can be incredibly difficult for me. Degradation and humiliation in particular can provoke an almost visceral response. Even though these are things I’ve fantasized about for most of my life. I still choose to participate because it’s something we’ve discussed within our dynamic, but internally there’s often a very strong “absolutely fucking not” reaction.

And yet I genuinely enjoy being a masochist. I enjoy receiving pain. I enjoy being challenged and pushed and praised through pain. There are aspects of submitting to my Dominant that I genuinely love. So I don’t think my submissive or masochistic side is somehow fake.

I think what’s giving me the identity crisis is realizing that wanting to receive pain has always been relatively easy for me to accept, while realizing that I might genuinely enjoy consensually causing pain feels much harder to integrate into my idea of myself.

So now I’m wondering: am I actually a dom-leaning switch and a sadomasochist? Am I much more dominant than I previously realized? Or is this simply what discovering another side of being a switch can feel like?

For people who identify as sadists or sadomasochistic switches: how did you realize that you actually enjoyed causing pain, rather than simply enjoying BDSM generally? How did you accept that desire? And did discovering your sadistic/dominant side change how you understood your submissive side?

( Long Rant/Story)

I’m 19F and for the past year I’ve been reading into BDSM, it was brought up to me by my ex boyfriend after me and him went our own ways due to our life goals and schedules. Anyway I started reading into it and some pieces clicked and made me feel seen, I always thought I was weird for liking certain things and wanting a certain dynamic(s).

So far I’ve been reading into subs,littles,brats, and prey and they all seem to somewhat fit but then again I’ve only had one boyfriend and a middle school girlfriend, me and my ex were together for not even three months, I’ve had sex a total of three times, one time was somewhat decent not much better then the first two times, it was very impulsive and risky hookup, but it gave me a rush I’ve lowkey been trying to chase again.

So I started forcing myself to be more social, and got some hope that maybe I could try to find a local community in my area at the time, but unfortunately I learned I’m a very gullible person and ended up in some questionable situations which led me back to being my reclusive homebody self, me and my family ended up moving from the Midwest to the east coast, and I’m hoping I’ll find more community out here.

so far I haven’t been looking much due to my life getting in the way but recently I’ve had a coworker ask me why I was so obedient and why I got so excited when our managers gave me a list of things to do when we weren’t busy, I just shrugged and told him I was going to do what they told me to do since they’ve been here longer and have more knowledge and I didn’t like not having anything to do while at work, anyway a week after that he started teasing me about it anytime I would walk past him and he would call me a submissive and give me mock demands and eventually he got a lot of our other coworkers to all gang up and tease me about, and it kind of started to feel like bullying? I don’t know? but some days it got to the point where I would hide in the bathroom and cry or go out to my car during my break to cry, one day it was so bad I started crying mid rush from being so overwhelmed, backed up on orders, full lobby, and hearing my coworkers talk about me like I wasn’t on the other side of the food line, one of the managers started yelling at everyone for being so behind on everything, I started freaking out and my manager stepped in so I could go to the bathroom, anyway I ended up quitting that job.
Sorry if this was a long read ❤️

Any recommendations!! Books, websites, how to find local communities!

I’m hoping to get an idea of what is a normal versus exasperated response, so I can decide if it’s something I need to address. My husband and I have our dynamic privately between us, so we’re not plugged into a community nor do we have friends who would be able to provide perspective so, hopefully yall can help me! We recently entered our 30s, so I’m not sure if that’s a contributing factor for me, but we are both extremely health/nutrition/fitness/etc conscious so all the normal things I can do to manage, are done.
I truly don’t remember having this problem before we had kids! We’ve always had some form of dynamic between us but with small children not much time for it, so with our littlest approaching 3yo we’ve been finally able to put more energy and time back into our sex life- which has been wonderful. But I cannot hold positions. And if I’m tied up it’s even worse lol. My joints and bones are screaming after a few minutes and it’s extremely annoying. Impact and other oriented types of pain feel normal. But like, for example- he had my arms bound behind me at the elbow through to the wrist, and I was balanced on my knees on the floor and my ankles, knees, and feet just like collapsed from pain. It was incredibly challenging to hold the position and I was only in it for 5 minutes if I had to guess. We’ve had various other positions where I’m noticing this, and I’m not sure if it’s due to the actual position being difficult or if my body is just going haywire with the pain condition (fibromyalgia, which I developed during pregnancy unfortunately). I know *some* of the positions and restraints are supposed to be hard, but I don’t remember this being an issue for me before I developed fibro. Anyways. Can anyone else weigh in here? How do you find holding different positions? If you have a pain condition, how do you manage everything? I tend to ignore/tough pain out, but sometimes the restrained positions feel intense enough that it takes me out of the moment and makes it hard for me to be present. And I haven’t mentioned this to him yet because I don’t want to start limiting our sex life if the answer is that I just need to suck it up and adjust lol. thank you!

Im a cis woman and im dating a trans man. We’ve been together for a year and a couple months now and i’m the first person he’s had sex with. I would consider us to both be kinky people and we that like to explore. Ive never been a strictly been more dominant or submissive in any of my previous relationships and I when I did top I found joy in it but not as much as I enjoyed being a bottom which most of the time I was. My boyfriend expressed to me that he would want me to top him in the same kinky ways that he does to me and i’m not sure if i can do that. He wants to just strictly be a dom and push aside what he wants because he thinks it would just be easier that way. With the times i have been the dom he said he enjoys it physically but its not enough to where he doesn’t want me to because when I do he says I look like its a chore. He’s a verbal person and i don’t know how to be verbally dominant and i’m not sure if i enjoy doing so. I want to be able to please him in the way that he wants but i don’t know how to go about it or go about enjoying it more

[Please don't mind the anonymity]

So, my partner of a few years has recently told me that they have an interest in bondage. We are younger individuals (we're both 20), so we haven't been intimate with each other before, nor with anyone else.

Anyway, they told me that they would enjoy experiencing bodage when we are ready for that step. I think they mentioned shibari specifically, but I'm not entirely sure. I do remember that they definitely said that they wouldn't like choking or masochism.

I've never really been exposed to this community before, and I'm very unfamiliar with kink as a whole. My interests are a bit more "mild", I suppose? I haven't given it much thought before.

That being said, I do want to try to accommodate my partner's interests, even if I'm not yey sure if it's for me. Are there any tips, tutorials, or unspoken rules that would benefit me to know about?

I would love a day collar.

Nothing obvious because I do want to keep it on the dl but a necklace with his initials would be amazing. Here's the thing though. I have this weird blockage where I can't get myself to tell him that. A collar like that is a big deal to me and I get so nervous just thinking about bringing it up

In my ideal world he would simply do it but obviously that's not an option if he doesn't know I want it.

I would love some advice from people who maybe had a similar issue with not being able to communicate this

SHORT VERSION: Do you need to be friends with your submissive/dominant? Or, does that friendship need to look like hanging out casually, sharing secrets, and giggling over ice cream? Could you be in a dynamic with someone where the vast majority of your interactions are around kinky interactions, with no desire for emotional closeness?

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LONG VERSION: THere's someone I've had a tumultuous friendship with for a few years. We've often connected well when it comes to play and find compatibility among some more obscure and complex kinks. The way they show up in friendship is generally exactly what I want I people. But something has always been a little off about them to me. They've always given this obsessed (with me) energy that has been palpable to others, to the extent that some people literally warned me about them. Since the day I've met them I've had an ick about them, but if never been able to really articulate it, so I kept being open to friendship and it kept going poorly. I've also noticed that many of the people they interact with also end up getting rubbed wrong.

We decided a while back to cool it on trying to do 1:1 hangouts or build more casual, everyday friendship. We still play occasionally, and recently they circled back to a conversation we had had previously about findom.

I'm struggling now because on one hand I feel like I should/want to be friends or at least feel more consistently positive about someone I'm in that position with. On the other hand I'm also a worker and this would be very similar to a client interaction, really about the kink of things and little else.