Paradoxical

My idea of myself in a BDSM relationship lies in the intersection between my fantasies of myself as a unbreakable hero and a corrupted slave.

I know that sounds weird.

When I was growing up, I was fascinated by heroes who took beatings, who were broken down to nothing, and came out of it stronger. Who found some…inner strength, some spark, to carry on even in the face of a furious beatdown that left them on the edge of death. Bruce Willis in “Die Hard.” Mel Gibson in the first “Lethal Weapon.” Arnold in “Predator.” The superhero Daredevil in the “Born Again” arc. Cowboys and cops and superheroes. I was fascinated by the ability to survive, to be strong in the face of superior power, to be alive when the dust settles. To bleed and not fall.

The recipe is simple: Take one man. Maybe a normal guy, maybe a supercop, whatever. Then, have him beaten. Have everything he loves taken away from him. Hurt him. Torture him. Gloat over him. Break him down to nothing. And then, at the end, watch him stand up, indomitable. Watch him overcome all of the odds, watch him get past his beating, see him still standing.

I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to be tested, I wanted to be tortured, and I wanted to be still standing. I wanted to take the beating. I wanted to be put through a psychological ringer. And I wanted to still be standing at the end of it. “See? I’m strong. I am a man.”

On the other side of the fence, there was me being “the good guy.” I tried to be noble. I tried to give. I tried to always be there for people. I was the rebound-guy girls could get over their boyfriends with. I used to be the guy my best friend’s girl could come to and whose shoulder she could cry on, even as I tried to deny the erection in my pants. I was the guy who was always dependable, who always stayed sober so everybody else could party, always there when you wanted to talk or needed help.

And inside me, there was this seed, this little germ of a fantasy. And that fantasy was about being weak. About not being noble. About being selfish and hungry and saying, “Fuck my friends. I’m going to fuck their girlfriends when they come over for solace. Fuck sitting around at parties, I’m going to let somebody else watch out for me for a change. Fuck being there for people, I want to think about me. My needs. My hunger. My desires.”

I wanted to be weak. I wanted to be ignoble. I wanted to screw over my friends and fuck their vulnerable girlfriends, and have a good time doing it. The turning point for me was one night, when my best friend’s girl was drinking with me, and they had just broken up as we were all heading out of town in the middle years between junior college and college, and I admitted I always wanted her, and she said, “Every time I went over to your house after he was an asshole to me, I wanted you to fuck me. And you never did. You could have had me so many times.”

Doh. I made sure to make up for lost time later on but still…it kind of smarted. My friends were dicks, and they had mindless, remorseless fun. I was a good guy, and I ended up with girls who were terrible for me. I missed out on a bunch of stuff, by being too nice. Too selfless. I should have been selfish, just a bit. I should have been weak.

***

At the intersection of that guy who takes a beating, who sacrifices, and that guy who is weak and who is lustful and selfish and who craves sensation, there’s where I am now.

I am finally in a position to show my strength by letting myself be beaten, by letting myself be pushed to the breaking point, by letting myself be hurt and torn down and rebuilt. I can be pushed to the limit, and show that I’m strong enough to take it. I can be spit on and degraded and mastered and overwhelmed and overcome, and at the end of it, I’m still standing. That’s the point of masochism — I can show that pain doesn’t hurt. Or — more properly — that it hurts, but I am strong enough to take it. It’s what I’ve always wanted — to be tortured and heroic and strong. That’s part of what gets me off — my own strength, my endurance, my desire to show my wife that however hard she can hit me, I can take it.

At the same time, there’s the part of me who wants to give in. Who wants to crawl on his knees to the bad girl, who wants to ignore his responsibilities and fuck her. Who wants to be corrupted. Who wants to be used. Who wants to wallow in his own weakness and moral depravity.

Yeah, I said it: Depravity. Because as much as I can honestly say BDSM has been good for me, as much as it’s made me confident and self-assured and sexually sated, as much as it’s been healthy — I can also say that there’s a great big goddamn turn-on about being humiliated. Used. Cursed at. Objectified. Pissed on and sodomized and bled and turned into a cheap fucking toy for another person. To be, in short, a slut. (I want to live in a world where that word loses its gender connotations and I can have it.) To be used and hungry for more when it’s all done. To be weak and selfish and happy in my own degradation.

***

Two almost mutually exclusive impulses. To be strong. To be weak. To be loved and respected, and to be despised and degraded, by the same person. Somehow, that paradox is what makes it hot. I can be strong and heroic even as I let myself be weak and humiliated. I can let her own me and yet rejoice in my ability to be standing when it’s all done.

And on some level, I know my wife has similar conflicting impulses: to care for me. To own me and treasure me and love me. But also to hurt, and not worry about holding back. To spit on and degrade me. To be the bad girl instead of the good girl, and to be strong instead of timid. To selfishly hurt for her own pleasure instead of being loving and gentle.

I don’t know if anybody else has these paradoxes feeding into their BDSM, but I do. Oh, man, I do.