Negative Polarity & BDSM

[ricdaw]

Perhaps to build off of what Jeremy and Jade are saying, I have been wondering the following inquiry: by what specific means can one disentangle undesired sexual distortions acquired as adolescents, such distortions having been embedded into one's sexuality by the mechanism of imprinting?

In my experience, being able to fully acknowledge that these triggers of arousal are there, without shame, is the most important and, strangely, most difficult step. If an individual is, for example, turned on by something they don't want to be turned on by, the usual response is to simply repress or deny what is experienced, or to view it from an uncomfortable, oblique angle without actually touching it. This usually serves to intensify the trigger instead of alleviating it. 

For a long time I was very ashamed of my sexual preferences (bondage), and simply tried to pretend they weren't there. I looked into a million other ways of sexually expressing myself, trying to just replace the desires, but in the end I always wound up back in the same place, usually feeling very guilty, which only deepened the tangle of sexual blockages I was rapidly accumulating. Now I couldn't enjoy any form of sex, because my enjoyment itself felt wrong and I was subconsciously telling myself that I didn't enjoy sex in an attempt to balance the "wrong". Frankly, it was an awful experience.

Learning to view myself as I was, with the intention of honesty instead of the intention to change myself, helped tremendously in unraveling that knot. It was like shrugging off a huge burden, staring into that closet without the "...but I'm going to fix it" mentality. A lot of processes naturally balanced themselves from that alone, and I became a lot less neurotic in my views on sex. Seeking truth trumps seeking perfection every time in my book.

I, personally, in the end, decided that I cared far less about what is balancing and polarizing according to someone else's standards, and far more about what makes me feel like a healthy and capable individual, and I just pursued that. My behavior regarding these specific desires didn't change that much at all, only the thought I attached to the behavior. In other cases, once the cause is viewed honestly and understood, it can be seen as unnecessary and the desire will simply depart. This is something I've experienced in an unrelated instance involving the desire to be with more than one partner. After fully understanding everything that formed and sustained that desire, I just didn't want it anymore. Regardless of further work and outcome, however, I feel that self honesty is the crux of personal growth. 

Reaper, your eloquent essay also describes what it's like for a young man to come to grips with being gay.  I remember it well.