Working Out the Kinks

For a long time I've wondered, "why are there kinks?" Why do people like sex that employs uneven power dynamics?  What's the deal with dom/sub stuff, BDSM, and this thing that I've recently acknowledged has kept me in a state of repression for the shame of it?  I'm into sovereignty so how could I have a repressed kink about not-sovereignty?  The idea of being owned, punished, etc. has been so shameful to me that I've had to deal with dreams of tigers full of milk, stalking me, dreams of velociraptors asleep in my bed.  How scary.  After all, I've spent my life trying to figure out how to be free, how to not be dominated, to not be controlled by another human being, entity, or system of oppression in general.  To me these kinks seemed as bad as having to pay the government to kill people.  Why is my shadow so persistent about it!  Just let me enjoy vanilla and keep my dignity!  

Well after acknowledging it as real for me, I started researching the BDSM community and practices, and how people have used it for healing, specifically.  (I'm certainly not about to start up a new addiction).  Many abuse and assault survivors, often those who suffered horribly as children even, have come to the BDSM world to work out their kinks.  It seems to work when the emphasis within the community and within the relationship is on strict communication guidelines, negotiations, and trust.  Expressing ones needs explicitly, and exploring the boundaries of pain in a controlled environment with someone you trust can heal major wounds.  Why?  

The masculine/feminine dynamic is interesting.  There is a strong aspect of the feminine that wants to trust.  She wants to surrender herself completely within the safety and security of an unwavering masculine protection.  The masculine in high form is confident enough to be 100% accountable for his actions.  He is trustworthy.  He is safe.  He is accountable.  And a proper dom will be accountable and in control of his actions, to give to the sub whatever they desire, while the sub's power is in having complete control over the situation.  They express what they want, what their boundaries are, and what their safe word will be should they choose to stop the interaction.  The dom cannot fulfill this role without being a rock solid person, right?  They are essentially givers, while the sub receives.  But still, why does anyone want to be punished in role-play?  

My conclusion about it is this:  humans have a tendency to want to shirk responsibility sometimes.  We project our blame and shame onto other people when we aren't self-aware.  And when we are children, if we didn't have caretakers who were always responsible for us in the ways we needed, before our limbic system was attached to the frontal lobes, something there, a little kink forms.  Why might I want someone to punish me?  Because I haven't taken proper care of myself and I want someone else to hold me accountable for myself by punishing me.  It means someone else is there to take care of me so I don't have to.  The dom needs to be in full accountability because that is what the sub needs.  This does exemplify a lack of self-love, which is a lack of self-accountability.  Accountability is why we put expectations on others or boundaries around ourselves.  The expectations and boundaries (or lack thereof) always reflect our level of inner accountability and inner love for ourselves.  Sexuality is the perfect vehicle for exploring these unhealed aspects, isn't it? 

Essentially my point is that in craving punishment, we are asking someone else to show us what it means to be accountable for loving ourselves.  It came to me while I was screaming in a car with the windows rolled up. 

I had recently had a marriage for my inner masculine and my inner feminine.  I realized I had never connected with my inner masculine.  Not ever.  He was divorced from me.  When I went to unite these parts of myself, I found that he was always there, perfect, devoted, amazing.  He was truly fulfilling to my inner feminine, who had been so angry about his betrayal, which wasn't real.  Anyway, I thought I would understand more about my sexuality after this union.  And that I would be a better parent to my inner children as well.  I still had kinks though, and I still don't necessarily trust another mortal enough to go down that road at this point.  A friend of mine suggested I find my inner dom, and explore it on my own.  So I'm screaming in a car, getting rid of some poison that was projected onto me as shame and resentment which wasn't mine.  Primal scream therapy is still one of my favorite methods of release.  So I'm accessing all this pain and screaming it out, and it's tiring, and out of nowhere this inner dom came into my consciousness.  It's associated with the pain I was releasing, because the reason I had gotten involved with that pain in the first place was that I was not being accountable to myself.  I didn't have proper boundaries or trust structures, I didn't find what I was looking for in another person.  I found the opposite.  Again.  And here now I wanted to be punished for it.  WHACK!  "Now do you know your worth?"  WHAM!  "Now do you know what you deserve?"
                     
                       Yes.  Yes I do.