Shame, Submission, and My First Sexual Fantasies

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1997

When I was young, my mother painted a figurative picture of how dating would go. A boy would be astonished by my beauty and brains, politely ask me out, and offer a time to pick me up. At our house, he’d meet my parents. He’d say nice things to my mother. He’d chuckle with my father, who would be slightly intimidating to him, threatening malice if anything happened to his baby girl. I would date many boys, and so would my sister — they said it all the time. “Our girls are so beautiful, the boys will be knocking down the door trying to get in the house.” 

I hated when she’d talk like this. 

I was young for my grade, one of the last of my peers to enter puberty. I spent most of my time reading, writing, and playing SimCity2000. I volunteered in the library during lunch so that I wouldn’t have to endure the cafeteria, where the cool kids teased me for not yet shaving my legs. I had a penchant for binging Cheetos as a bedtime snack and then immediately feeling crummy about the pudge around my midsection. 

At night, I’d lay in bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars I had stuck to my ceiling. After I had thoroughly overthought and regretted the relatively few words that I’d uttered at school that day, my mind would shift into deeper territory. 

It’s funny what pops into your mind in the dark of night. I spent far too many nights trying to fathom either eternal existence or nonexistence. I didn’t know which was worse; both sent me into sweaty states of heart-pounding panic. My Catholic faith didn’t offer much in the way of comfort, especially as the other thoughts crept in. 

The shameful ones.

It’s funny how these thoughts also seemed to come out of nowhere. One night I was a girl reading The Babysitters Club, and the next I was thinking about sex.

I had only a rudimentary understanding of it. I’d been exposed to television and movies, of course, so I knew that kissing, touching, and nudity were involved. I knew that sex somehow made babies. When a group of older boys took great delight in describing the exact mechanics on the playground one day in fifth grade, my friends and I ran off in disgust. We weren’t the type of girls who talked about such things. 

My mother waited until I was in seventh grade to have the talk with me, but it wasn’t much of an explanation. It was “penis-in-vagina” with heavy religious overtones, an emphasis on waiting until marriage. Her awkwardness made it clear –this wasn’t a topic for casual conversation. Her commentary as we’d watch movies together indicated that casual sex was repulsive, and Lord help us all when Ellen announced that she was a lesbian on prime time TV. The world was going straight to hell, but not me. I was a “good girl.”

And yet, I found that my nighttime recollections of those rather PG-13 sex scenes brought a certain warmth to me down there. I found it much more enjoyable to focus on sex than death in the hour before I fell asleep.

I overthought the entire thing, of course. That’s what I do. I pondered how a penis in my vagina could possibly feel good, for me or the guy. Pleasure seemed to be the promise of sex, but at that point, it was the mystery, too. Was there something about being so close to someone that felt good? 

I tried to conjure up an image of the person I was with. My fantasy partner was a male, naturally. His face was blurry, but I clearly pictured his strong limbs embracing me in some dark, warm place. His hair smelled good and felt soft. I imagined caressing smooth skin, sans body hair. I imagined kissing. 

I wanted to be enveloped by somebody kind, trustworthy, special. I wanted this person to want me, desire me. I imagined feeling shrouded in love that would manifest as irresistible physical sensations. 

Here’s what sucks, though. I’d have all these wonderful thoughts about making love. My whole body would start to relax, almost as if I was drifting off to a dream-filled sleep, but awake. And then, just as I was starting to feel really good, guilt and negative self-talk would rear their ugly heads. 

My mind said shitty things like, Who is going to fall in love with you? All this talk about boys knocking down the doors, but seriously, boys don’t ever crush on you. No one asks you out. Plus, any possibility of marriage is at least a decade away, so what’s the point in thinking about this? It’s just pathetic. Go to bed and try to be better. Say your prayers again — Our Father, Hail Mary, Guardian Angel, bless your family and pets and friends and then tell God your hopes for eternal life and a good day tomorrow, and go to sleep, dammit. 

Like that, I could turn a would-be masturbation session into hopeless longing and anxiety over my social status. I didn’t know how I was ever going to find a partner, let alone experience sexual pleasure.

Leave it to the Internet to solve my problem. Well, only the latter one, for now.

I reaped the benefits of my dad’s career in the technological sector by being one of the first kids I knew with full access to the Internet in the privacy of my bedroom. And what did I do with it? 

Pretty much the same thing as every other human with a modem. I searched for pictures of naked people. Sex. Porn. All of the above. 

I was curious about the initial images that I found, but I didn’t like them. The pictures of naked women weren’t like the beautiful nudes in my mother’s art books. The women wore too much makeup and their hair was all wrong, too greasy or too done-up. They were posed awkwardly, unrealistically.   

The images of women getting penetrated by men seemed especially vulgar. I labeled them as dirty, gross, even disturbing. The men’s bodies looked grimy to me, whether or not their bodies were covered with dark hair and muscles. I didn’t like any of their faces. Everything about it felt so very wrong. It wasn’t beautiful, loving, or intimate. It was gross, dirty sex, and I wasn’t supposed to like this at all.

Then I stumbled onto another type of porn. Women tied up, like Popeye’s Olive on the railroad tracks, distressed, not wanting it. And yet, beautiful. Their skin, their hair, their humiliation. They didn’t want this done to them, but ohhh they were going to get it. And perhaps, in the end, they’d come to like it. They would be forced into orgasm after orgasm. They didn’t have a choice in the matter. 

In discovering BDSM, it seems that I had figured out how to justify my enjoyment of sexual pleasure. My brain eagerly took the handful of images that I had seen and crafted them into stories. 

The beautiful peasant put on display, touched, and paraded in front of everyone in town before being given as a gift to the prince, who would do as he pleased with her, whenever it pleased him.

The woman tied up in a dungeon, a live sex toy for a handsome captor. If she was a “good girl,” he would set her free.

The woman who unknowingly signed up for an experiment in sexual pleasure, suddenly clamped to a medical table by her doctor, unable to resist the sensations he brings to her body.

I didn’t fantasize about regular sex anymore. Imagining “real” sex left me feeling despondent, pathetic, worried about my unsuitability for love and romance. 

BDSM didn’t look like romance to me, and yet it stirred my soul. Even now, at forty, I still can’t shake that feeling of deep arousal when I picture being tied up, pinned down, gagged, humiliated, nipple clamped, forced to endure one orgasm after the next, all kinds, until I’m completely spent, knowing I would endure it all again another day. It’s as hot to me today as it was in my teen years.

I suppose I’ve always wanted to fit in, to be desired, but that seemed so petty and vain. In my fantasies, though, it wasn’t my fault. I was captured, tricked, a political bargain — I was wanted, and it didn’t matter if I wanted it or not. I was forced to enjoy it, and somehow that stripped away the sin.

I never touched myself as I lay flat on my back in bed, dreaming. The most I would ever do was position myself spread eagle under my blankets. That little maneuver, that surrender to pleasure, made my genitals burn with a flame that ran right up my stomach to my throat, grappling my mind senseless yet fixated on the moment at hand. 

I didn’t realize that I had reached orgasm. I could feel it was a climax, a hill to climb and then a release, a burst of pleasure that lingered so sweetly. Pleasure wasn’t a part of my sexual education; all I knew was that I was done. Satisfied.

Only then would I feel myself down there. Soaking wet. I’d wipe myself clean, change my underwear, and wonder at what I’d just experienced. 

Why did these dark thoughts bring me so much pleasure? While a part of my consciousness recoiled and reprimanded me, another part of me rebelled.  I’d liked it. I knew that my body would again take that kinky course to ecstasy, eagerly. 

Dear God, what was wrong with me? 

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