Clients and science are a big part of my work, but so are my life experiences. This blog is my fetish origin story.
The DeMille theater was huge and packed, and the dark curtains parted to reveal a massive screen. My dad held my hand tightly until we got to our seats. The lights dimmed, the spectacle was unveiled, and this tiny curly-headed 5-year-old tried hard to watch it all. I’d never seen such sights! Nearly naked men in combat! Beautiful women being treated like chattel! As I was already schooled in my parents’ memories of the Holocaust, it was horrifying to see people treated like animals, like slaves.
But I was five. I wasn’t even sure what I was seeing until Kirk Douglas led the rebellion. Then I understood.
My First Awakening
At the end of the movie, Spartacus endured the bestial degradations of crucifixion, while his wife wept as she was transported past him. Oh no! No, someone had to save Spartacus! Someone had to, at the very least, climb up that wood stake and comfort him. If no one else would do it, I would.
Mesmerized by that vision, I got out of my seat and began walking down the aisle to the screen, as if I could enter his world, the world where I’d have a place. A moment later, someone tugged at my pants in the aisle. My father had grabbed the waistband and was reeling me in, plopping me back in my seat.
“What’s wrong with you?” he whispered. “Stay in your seat.”
I could not tell him that I had to rescue Spartacus, or that I wanted to kiss his face. Nor that I wanted to apologize to him for the evil people commit, and to dry his tears even as mine spilled for him.
Deep in the center of myself, I knew that one day I would find a man tied up somewhere. I would save him with my cuddles. I felt it in my heart.
The Torrid Fetish Teens
When I was 10, a gossip tabloid revealed that Kirk Douglas was 43. Oh, the disappointment! I did not realize people lived that long. There was no way I could marry him when he was at the edge of death.
As the Hormones Explode
In my mid-teens, I suddenly discovered that boys my age were just as attractive as the rock stars and celebrities I had crushes on, and that real-life people were available! I wanted many of them, as long as they weren’t other people’s boyfriends. Yet while messing around and touching one another seemed like a logical way to pass the time, none of these boys was strange enough to really excite me.
At night, my fantasies turned to bondage and captivity. I browsed the funky 1970s mail catalogs for ideas on strange underwear. Drugstores displayed bandages and trusses, which I carefully inspected for my late-night fantasies. The intoxicating musk of leather was also worth a visit to the mall to go inside Wilson’s Leather and inhale, eyes closed. No Internet, no porn, just Brooklyn, so I had to be inventive.
The Whole World Is Weird
By the age of 18, I had had enough sexual experience to believe that everyone was off-the-hook weird. The things men asked of me often veered into odd territory that I didn’t understand but enjoyed anyway. Like one lover who asked me to call him “Master,” and a guy who wanted me to knee him in the groin “as hard as you can,” which both horrified me (wouldn’t that hurt?!) but intrigued me.
I just made notes in my head about their quirks, without judgment. I did not consider myself a sex expert, so what did I know? Maybe this is just what men do or need, I thought. That was okay, it wasn’t gross, it was just really strange. Apparently, strange was my thing!
The Terrified Twenties
I entered my 29th year revolutionized. I had found my people on a funky little BBS (FidoNet, for those who remember animated GIFs of humping dogs). That opened a door to the real kink and fetish world. I was in shock. People who shared my fantasies! It was a revelation. They were regular people with some of the same feelings and fantasies I had. They welcomed me into the clan as one of them; that had never happened to me either. I welcomed some of them into my life, including my first kinky partner. We have maintained our friendship for over 40 years!
But the big questions still gnawed and stressed me out.
What’s Wrong With You?
“What’s wrong with you?” Both my parents repeatedly asked that throughout my childhood and teens. What WAS wrong with me? I needed to know why I was like this. Was I as mentally ill as the medical literature stated? I filed other people’s kinks under “strange and intriguing” in my head. But my kinks, and especially my sadistic streak, seemed terrible. I never confronted those needs. I wanted to be kind, not cruel.
I returned from the Vault a few days before my 29th birthday. I had an overwhelming need to shower, to wash off all the stuff I’d done inside its darkest rooms. I stood under the water, hating myself.
Yes, it was wonderful and amazing to be a dominatrix, but it confused me. Who was I?
I Am Who I Am, Said My Therapist
I found an exceptionally wise therapist. She was not shocked by my disclosures. She listened without judgment. After three months, I turned to her and asked, “Am I lost? Broken?”
“I think you are exactly where you should be.”
“Okay, but as you know, I’ve whipped guys. Only the ones who beg for it, always consensual, but still. On one level, it’s so powerful. I feel clear and euphoric doing it. Then inside myself, I think I must be sick somehow.”
“No. You are clear as a bell. You are who you are, and you are making good choices. You are finally being who you are.”
Photo credit: Jon Jacobs, 1988, New York City.
