Vanilla & Spice but mostly BDSM Written by Anonymous I’m sure many of you have seen the not-so-great movie, or read the books of, 50 Shades of Grey. Now I know some of you found these titillating, tantalising, and, honestly quite tasteful, however, in the reality of it, it’s quite BULLSHIT. Anyone familiar with the BDSM scene would know that 50 Shades of Grey does not provide a safe, healthy, or realistic representation of what BDSM is. With the addition of more and more shows/movies appearing on TV/streaming services showing the world of more structured and ‘hardcore’ (term used loosely) BDSM; such as, dominatrix and humiliation or the heavily controlled breath play as is the likes in Netflix’s BONDiNG or what can be seen in Ryan Murphy’s AMAZING show Pose. For others reading this, I’m sure your question is what is BDSM? Well, the acronym stands for bondage dominant sadism and masochism, representing three main components: • • •
BD: Bondage and Discipline – playing with physical restraints, training, punishment, etc. DS: Dominance and Submission – playing with obedience, power exchange, service, humility, etc SM: Sadism and Masochism – playing with pain, degradation, humiliation, fear, etc. It is a consensual activity respecting the fundamental rights of every human involved.
When you read or hear about what these are, you probably think kinky, but the reality is BDSM is not limited to sex. In quite a few cases the mental connotations of some acts are more of a turn on than the prelude of a particular act leading to sex, or sex itself. Another way to think of it is the overused and famous quote “It’s 14
about the journey not the destination”, where sex is the destination and the much more fun, entertaining, and enjoyable part is foreplay or the more BDSM/kink side of things. In the reality of modern-day relationships (of any sort from casual to committed natures) BDSM is a lot more commonplace than you’d think. You might be starting to or already incorporating elements of BDSM into your bedroom life without realising; from the simple restriction of movements by holding their hands above their heads developing into restriction using other means, or light choking (breath play), roleplay, outdoors, public, exhibition or voyeurism, or more commonly, taking on more dominant or submissive roles during sex. All of which have become more readily seen in relationships or hookups. There isn’t anything wrong with it, and in my opinion, it honestly makes it more enjoyable and adds more to just the ‘making the beast with two backs’, aka sex. Which brings up the question of “what is vanilla?” Commonly, vanilla has been used to describe the more mundane everyday version of sex. It’s just the good old regular standard, and typically more of, what is deemed, a romantic side of sex; and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you are enjoying it! Within BDSM there are heaps of different archetypes and, just like genetics, everyone is different and finding someone with the same preferences is probably extremely unlikely to occur. However, there are some common ones which people can identify with or parts of ranging from dom/sub (dominant & submissive; with someone who is both being switch) through to brat/ brat tamer. It is also important to know that preferences can change over time, even between different partners (such as with switch, who could be dominant one moment but submissive the next), and it is a completely natural thing to happen. Just like sexuality and gender,
