I read a BDSM story and found hate I never knew existed. Now what?

[Ach1ll3s]

Background: I had a very traumatizing experience of domestic *** and child *** as a kid and through my ***age years. Unfortunately, it seems like that provoked submissive tendencies that I could never eliminate, no matter how I tried. And because of this, I could never enjoy the so-called "vanilla" sex and had to stop having sex altogether. These days, I kind of try to accept that side of myself. I never had any problems at all accepting myself being gay, but being kinky is somehow not going well, to put it mildly. 

A couple of weeks ago, I got a "great" idea. I read quite some sex stories in the past but never really focused on any BDSM ones. Wouldn't reading one be a decent way to see how things are going in that "other" world (even though it's fiction)? Yeah, sometimes I make mistakes. 
I randomly picked a story, and it wasn't bad at all. Several mildly triggering moments of minor ***, but every time a character somehow expressed their complete acceptance and even some kind of joy (which I couldn't understand, but who am I to judge?) Several days later, I tried another story encouraged by the previous positive experience. It started with a disclaimer saying that all characters participated willingly and were not coerced. Well, that was total bullshit. The story contained scenes of ***, extreme domestic ***, and all sorts of physical and mental ***. I read 3.5 chapters out of 12, looking for any redeeming factors. For example, if one of the criminals (*** is a crime even if one lives with their victim) fell in love with his victim and somehow stopped the ***. Or at least if the victim expressed some kind of enjoyment and consent. But the victim stated many times that he hated that and he wasn't even gay. When I stopped reading, I realized that I was angry AF and struggling to breathe because of the burning hate I felt. And I don't ever hate anyone because I usually am able to understand how the person got in an unfortunate position and how it isn't entirely their fault. I realized that if I were in the situation described in the story, I would kill all the rapists. For a person who never physically hurt anyone and always tried to find a compromise in any confrontation, it was quite a revelation that I could have such a thought. For the next week, I had dreams during sleep and spaced out many times while awake, getting back to the described situation, basically trying to find all possible ways for the victim to get out. Ultimately, I had to talk to my therapist about this because I couldn't let these episodes of spacing out continue (I never talked to him about my sexual "issues"). He assured me that what I felt wasn't wrong, and it didn't mean that I was unstable and would hurt anyone. So that's all fine, but there's one burning question left. How the hell am I supposed to "accept myself" and get into all this BDSM mess (no offense) when I found out that I could feel that much hate?!

[ey****]

oh no. Firstly, I sympathise with your background.

I feel... the problem with a lot of BDSM stories, especially short stories, is they never really explain the background.   "Everyone in this story consents and was not coerced" but it never really shows how it got from "hey shall we do a scene together" to discussing consent, to building trust, to the story actually being depicted.

As well as it being.... no real... a work of fantasy... (which sometimes let's the writers own fantasies run wild) anything real that resembles this - has been something built up over time, with trust

[Ach1ll3s]

14 hours ago, eyemblacksheep said:

I feel... the problem with a lot of BDSM stories, especially short stories, is they never really explain the background.   "Everyone in this story consents and was not coerced" but it never really shows how it got from "hey shall we do a scene together" to discussing consent, to building trust, to the story actually being depicted.

I wish there were no background in this huge 12-chapter story. In that case, I could make up one and calm down. But there was a background here. Four male friends (the author knows nothing about friendship, that's for sure, and it makes total sense) live together in a rented house somewhere in the US. Then one of them gets into financial trouble (no *** at all, right?), and another one offers to lend him *** in exchange for being a "house slave boy" for one year (never explaining what it was and tricking the victim into thinking that it was something like a housemaid). They signed a contract of some sort. All three end up raping the victim that same night (and every time they could moving forward). The criminals ***d the victim out of his (paid) bedroom to live in an inhumane environment and fed him food mixed with their urine from a pet bowl. Every time the victim objected, they "punished" it with a severe beating. I fast-forwarded to the last pages of the 12th chapter. Apparently, the victim paid back the debt, but the criminals never planned to stick to the contract, so nothing changed. When the victim fled and started a new life in another house, the criminals sold "the right of ownership" to a new criminal who went to live in the same house as the victim and continued with the same ***. The story ends basically by stating that the victim never got away.

[Ach1ll3s]

14 hours ago, eyemblacksheep said:

As well as it being.... no real... a work of fantasy... (which sometimes let's the writers own fantasies run wild) anything real that resembles this - has been something built up over time, with trust

But the author came up with all this. It didn't come from ChatGPT or something. There's a real-life human desiring all this! This is not "wild". This is more like the author needs medical help before he hurts someone (if that hasn't happened yet). I'm very understanding and forgiving when it comes to crimes and the overall human "dark side," but this was too much even for me.

[De****]

There is nothing wrong with your emotions. You feel what you feel.

I like CNC. I’m really into it, and I whole heartedly consent to it. In the moment, I also fight like hell. I spit, scratch, bite, kick. That’s the background of consent before the scene - concocted fantasy. It’s like “what if the scene played out like this?…” I can’t speak to what you read. I can only say that CNC stories scenes often leave out the consent that happened before.

As far as bdsm, there is no one size fits all. Maybe, CNC is not your thing. That’s okay and does not need to be a part of your dynamic.

I had a psychology professor once talk about fetishes and kinks. They posed the question, “are they a disorder in need of treatment?” The answer is simply - do those fetishes cause physical or physiological harm to the person having them or to others around them? If so then they need treatment (I.e. Pedophilia, actual ***, or a kink that makes the person miserable having it.)

Does wanting this lifestyle make you mentally unhappy? If so work with your therapist to stop wanting it.

Also, understand that some of us do like the lifestyle and it makes us happy. We are consenting adults. Let us feel our feelings, and let yourself self feel yours.

[Nerdycat]

It's just fiction, some submissives do fantasise about scenarios like this, maybe others do too, it doesn't mean that anybody wants someone to be treated in this way in RL. Films depict horrific acts of *** all the time it doesn't mean the writer wants these things to happen in RL either. 

Maybe another issue maybe obtrusive thoughts , they can be a real problem when triggered.

[Ja****]

Erotica can be a great way to explore your kinks, it's helped me explore a lot of kinks that I haven't been able to explore with a partner yet. But it's important to be careful, particularly if you have serious triggers, to watch out for stories that don't have proper tags/content warnings.

If the author of that story did anything wrong here, it would have been not properly tagging the contents of their story. The consent between the characters in the story isn't really the issue since they're just figments of the author's imagination. There are a lot of extreme and specific fetishes out there that people would never practice in reality, but still find fulfilling in fantasy for a multitude of personal reasons. The more important issue is the consent between the author and the reader. Mystery and surprise can be alluring, but a good author should do their part and make it clear to the reader up front what kind of story it is. Whenever you find a story that is untagged or if you feel unsure if a story is right for you, it's best to just skip it and move on to something else. 
I'm not sure where you found that story, but there are some great communities for erotica around that are moderated and that have rules about content being properly tagged. If you're not too put off from erotica now, I'd recommend GoneWildAudio on reddit if you like listening instead of reading. It's pretty well moderated and I haven't run into anything on there that wasn't properly tagged. Hope this helps.

[DommeFeminity]

Your story impress me a lot. BDSM hasn´t to do with REAL *** and you are a submissive because you are like that and full stop. It hasn´t to do with the ***.

 

You will learn how to make a diference between bdsm play and trauma

[TimtheMerciless]

On 7/30/2023 at 10:06 AM, Ach1ll3s said:

Background: I had a very traumatizing experience of domestic *** and child *** as a kid and through my ***age years. Unfortunately, it seems like that provoked submissive tendencies that I could never eliminate, no matter how I tried. And because of this, I could never enjoy the so-called "vanilla" sex and had to stop having sex altogether. These days, I kind of try to accept that side of myself. I never had any problems at all accepting myself being gay, but being kinky is somehow not going well, to put it mildly. 

A couple of weeks ago, I got a "great" idea. I read quite some sex stories in the past but never really focused on any BDSM ones. Wouldn't reading one be a decent way to see how things are going in that "other" world (even though it's fiction)? Yeah, sometimes I make mistakes. 
I randomly picked a story, and it wasn't bad at all. Several mildly triggering moments of minor ***, but every time a character somehow expressed their complete acceptance and even some kind of joy (which I couldn't understand, but who am I to judge?) Several days later, I tried another story encouraged by the previous positive experience. It started with a disclaimer saying that all characters participated willingly and were not coerced. Well, that was total bullshit. The story contained scenes of ***, extreme domestic ***, and all sorts of physical and mental ***. I read 3.5 chapters out of 12, looking for any redeeming factors. For example, if one of the criminals (*** is a crime even if one lives with their victim) fell in love with his victim and somehow stopped the ***. Or at least if the victim expressed some kind of enjoyment and consent. But the victim stated many times that he hated that and he wasn't even gay. When I stopped reading, I realized that I was angry AF and struggling to breathe because of the burning hate I felt. And I don't ever hate anyone because I usually am able to understand how the person got in an unfortunate position and how it isn't entirely their fault. I realized that if I were in the situation described in the story, I would kill all the rapists. For a person who never physically hurt anyone and always tried to find a compromise in any confrontation, it was quite a revelation that I could have such a thought. For the next week, I had dreams during sleep and spaced out many times while awake, getting back to the described situation, basically trying to find all possible ways for the victim to get out. Ultimately, I had to talk to my therapist about this because I couldn't let these episodes of spacing out continue (I never talked to him about my sexual "issues"). He assured me that what I felt wasn't wrong, and it didn't mean that I was unstable and would hurt anyone. So that's all fine, but there's one burning question left. How the hell am I supposed to "accept myself" and get into all this BDSM mess (no offense) when I found out that I could feel that much hate?!

BDSM activates the low brain, which we normally only experience indirectly through the mid brain (where we feel recognisable emotions we can make like joy, love, ***, anger etc. )  and through the conscious mind. 

 

The thing some people did not get about it is that the low brain IS low. And that it IS part of us. Every person's low brain is full of selfish lust and hatred.

If it wasn't we would be angels , not humans.

 

There are three ways to be human 

 

Don't suppress the low brain. Let out rule your intentions. These people are called psychopaths. Badly raised ones end up in jail fairly rapidly. Well raised ones end up as CEO 's and Politicians.

 

Repress the low brain - it works ok for most people . It's the vanilla attitude to life . You live with the uncontrollable parts of your psyche permanently locked down.

 

Gameify the low brain - this is what BDSM does. We  deliberately expose ourselves to 'cruelty' and ' *** '. A big part of our emotional self gets activated because all of that locked down low mind suddenly is able to act in our mid brain and supercharge our emotions and feelings .

 

This can be very messed up if we expose ourselves to '*** and 'cruelty' in a literalistic way. Some real cruelty might be sexy . But it isn't wise to spend time with cruel people . They are usually stunted emotionally and can't be trusted. Ultimately quite boring (apparently serial killers after often quite dull people, not like Hollywood fantasies of the dark genius) - certainly not what you'd want in your life .

 

BDSM works well when cruelty is simulated. To take as cheesy example we spank our lover and the low brain feels humiliated and insulted. We feel the cruelty. It stirs us up and we feel a lot of emotion.

 

but it isn't messed up because our high conscious brain knows it's just a game and our lover wants us to feel humiliated because our lover knows it will intensify feelings of love , desire and specialness - IF IT IS OBVIOUS THE HATRED IS SUMULATED and IF IT IS OBVIOUS IT IS DONE AS A BRAIN HACK IN ORDER TO SUPERCHARGE ETHICALLY POSITIVE EMOTIONS .

 

So best to find BDSM experiences where there positivity is obvious. Or find cheesy vampire stories where there cheesiness makes it obvious it's a game and not actually something really disturbing.

 

Dracula is worse than Harvey Weinstein. But he's sexy because he's imaginary. 

 

Look for fake cruelty - which is sexy. Not real cruelty - which is ultimately dumb. 

 

Hope that is helpful and makes some sense .