Shameful Secrets

I stumbled onto this post, and I was blown away.

This question got me thinking:

So my question is, really: How can we stand up for ourselves as worthy people making a worthy and personal choice to do SM, D/s, B&D, whatever — while still honoring those abuse stories and the fear they speak to?

My answer: I would say we honor it by acknowledging it as abuse, not BDSM.

I have this philosophy:
I refuse to be a victim.
No one can make me a victim but myself.

You can victimize me, and still I am NOT a victim.

Because I choose not to be.

Indigo, in the comments from the referenced blog, seems to me also not a victim by choice, although clearly she’s been victimized and traumatized. She’s looking for a way to heal, without allowing it to take anything away from her.

The women in the entry which sparked the blog, seem to me to be choosing to be victims. They seem focused on the scars and the damage and the trappings of what occurred in those relationships. And in my opinion they’re addressing the symptoms rather than the cause.

Make no mistake, I do not question whether or not they were in abusive relationships. That’s not something I’m qualified to judge. And I in no way believe anyone is ‘responsible’ for being abused, any more than I believe a woman can ‘ask’ to be raped.

I have come to the conclusion that my last relationship was abusive. While we were heavily engaged in BDSM, the abuse was entirely emotional. Quite frankly, I waffle back and forth as to whether or not I actually blame my ex at all…I stayed, after all…I fought to keep the relationship when it began to crumble. While his illness doesn’t excuse his behavior, but I’m not certain if he was entirely in control of it either. I’ve come to terms with the fact that that is a question I’ll never be able to answer.

The fact is the relationship was emotionally abusive.
And I allowed myself to be abused. I chose to continue to be a victim.

The sexuality of the relationship was based in pain and submission. Among other things we watched a lot of porn and he passed me around to other men. He hurt me, and it made me come. And he made me want more of all of it. When he ended the relationship, I found myself second guessing all the various things he and I had engaged in. I began questioning why I’d done such things… what that made me, said about me, and asking whether or not I’d done them not because I wanted them, or because he did. After quite a bit of soul searching I came to the conclusion that, yes, actually… these things really DO turn me on. Despite not being in that relationship, I still wish to engage in those types of activities. I actively seek them out, in fact.

I am not ashamed of my sexuality. I am not ashamed that I get off on being hurt. I do not believe that D/s is a bad thing, despite the fact that that particular dynamic allowed me to hide from the truth, and choose to be a victim. While I do not believe the dynamic is inherently abusive, I know I can get swept away by it and let it become harmful to me. These are things I learned from him.

Instead of feeling ashamed and hiding what I learned about my sexual desires, I choose to make myself stronger from the experience, not hide from it. I choose to embrace what I discovered about myself, despite the fact that the relationship itself was in many ways harmful. I choose to find ways to embrace my fantasies in ways that are not harmful. Yes, I spent some months being miserable and ‘wronged’ and tragic. I was deeply in love with him, and he broke my heart. It took time to learn how to make the choice to embrace what I learned from him, bad and good.

I believe he abused me.
BDSM, however, had nothing to do with it.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
US poet (1819 - 1892)