Tristan Taormino - The Ultimate Guide to Kink - BDSM, Role Play, and the Erotic Edge

I started off by restraining her feet to a metal spreader bar that I had made. After her feet were clamped to the bar, I suspended her upside down from the top of the dome. I lashed her hands together behind her back with deep-red-colored hemp rope that she made for me. The rope is well used and scarred with bloodstains from prior scenes.

As with most times when I have sex with my wife, I did not have an organized plan. What happens is really a matter of what enters my head at the time, so my thoughts and actions are always subject to what she may say or do. For some reason, while I was binding her up, she moved in a direction I did not want. I said something to the effect of “Stop fucking moving.” She instantly began to cry for fear that something unpleasant was going to follow. She would only have this type of reaction during a scene because, in the past, I have punished the part of the body that made the mistake. It keeps her thinking about what not to do. While she cried, I continued my bondage work.

Underneath her were chux pads (medical drop cloths the size of a medium bath towel) to keep the floor clean and collect anything that might come out of her. The vast dungeon was dimly lit in this area, which made clear vision a challenge. Nonetheless, I was able to see the shadows cast by her external jugular veins. Because she was dangling from her feet, the veins in her neck had become engorged with blood.

I felt her neck veins with the pad of my finger, which let her know I was going to draw blood. Because her adrenaline was elevated from the excitement of the scene and she was suspended upside down, I knew I had limited time to work before she might pass out. I placed two holes in one of her jugular veins with an 18-gauge needle. Blood began to squirt from her neck and onto the white chux, and slowly dripped down her face, pooling below her. My cock was very hard at this point and I wanted it inside her. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought that part all the way through beforehand—it was impossible with her upside down.

My next-best solution was to bring her to orgasm by licking and tasting her pussy. Her legs were spread apart and her waist was at the height of my face, so this worked out well. It did not take long for her to have an orgasm. Her body shuddered and withered against the restraints and even more blood oozed from her neck due to the increased pressure in her body from the orgasm. Okay, I thought, she had her fun. Now it’s my turn.

Later that evening and the next day, many people spoke to us about the scene and how hot it was. But what did they see? Was I being a Dominant? Many would agree that I was topping. Were there any elements of sadism? Viewing a scene from the outside, it can be difficult to see what the dynamics really are.

A Dominant, a Sadist, or a Top can wield a flogger, and by outward appearances they may appear the same; the difference is in the intent of the flogging, the receiver’s perception, and what you can’t see.

I have fulfilled the roles of Dominant, Top, and Sadist at various times in my tenure in the world of BDSM. The names of these roles vary to suit the user; the language can be imprecise. Although you can assume multiple roles simultaneously, I believe there are significant differences worth exploring. The emphasis of this piece will be sadism, since I feel it is the most complex, the least understood, and there are fewer examples of it in the kink community.

A Dominant, a Sadist, or a Top can wield a flogger, and by outward appearances they may appear the same; the difference is in the intent of the flogging, the receiver’s perception, and what you can’t see.

Top is an all-encompassing role; topping describes the actions performed by one person (the Top) on another (the bottom), like wielding the flogger. But topping does not describe behavior . Behavior is how a person conducts himself or interacts with the environment around him. In the case of flogging, a Top’s intent is to flog the bottom, to create various sensations on the bottom’s body. The flogging may be pleasurable for the bottom, even playful and fun. The Top may gain pleasure from the flogging, but not necessarily sexual pleasure. The key element is that these actions do not have to lead to sexual arousal or gratification for the Top or the bottom.

Dominance reflects a set of behaviors or a type of relationship. It is a dynamic where a power exchange takes place; the Dominant accepts control over another person (often, but not always, the submissive), and the submissive gives up control or power to the Dominant. Do not confuse giving up control with giving consent—everything we do is consensual. Dominance can be, but does not have to be, about sexual encounters or sexual gratification. Using flogging as an example again, a Dominant may employ flogging to communicate his control over the submissive’s body, making the submissive bend to his will, achieving the same result as a Top. The Dominant gains personal satisfaction in accepting and exercising this control.

Sadism is a set of behaviors (or fantasies) involving the emotional or physical suffering of another that is sexually exciting to the Sadist. This is all about sexual gratification, nothing else. When a Sadist flogs someone, she wants them to suffer and be in pain at some point. Note that the pain and suffering are not sexually exciting to the bottom.

A Dominant becomes a Top or Sadist within a scene. A Dominant can be sadistic in a scene while he or she is topping. A Sadist does not have to be a Dominant in a scene, and vice versa. I would like to emphasize that dominance is a set of behaviors, not physical actions . As a supervisor in my career field, I have taken numerous behavioral tests, and in every case I was classified as “dominant”—an assessment that has nothing to do with my physical actions. Now, as a test subject for sadism, observe how hard my cock gets when my wife is in extreme pain and suffering.

I am most noted for my consensual sadistic behavior, and I have performed a great deal of research on the subject of sadism—not to understand my own behavior, but to understand its origins, its history, and the language involved, kind of like some sick behavioral family tree, I guess. So let’s talk about sadism for a bit.

The ravished girls were led away to marriage; their very shame made them more beautiful. And when one struggled hard against her captor, He carried her away in eager arms, And said: “Why spoil your pretty eyes by weeping? Your father took your mother, I take you!”

In the eyes of the poet, the psychological shame of the girls made them more attractive and maybe even sexually aroused the onlookers. Unmistakably, when the girl struggled knowing she was going to have sex, possibly forcible sex, her captor was still happy. It is safe to say sex has been around a long time. Is it inconceivable that sexual gratification from the suffering of others has been around just as long?

The behavior that we know today as sadism has been around for thousands of years, but there wasn’t a name for it until recently. Could it be that this was just normal, accepted behavior for the times? And how did this behavior, along with all the evil circumstance that ill-informed people associate with it, come to be known as sadism?

The vast majority of people in the BDSM community probably disagree with the definition of sadism as put forth in the medical literature. I will attempt to shed a favorable light on this subject by explaining the changes associated with the medical definition of sadism. It is my hope that you will agree, as evidenced by these changes, that it is no longer an evil sexual practice but can be an accepted sexual behavior.