One Small Step – Buying the Ticket for the Journey into BDSM & Spirituality
Reading Time: 4minutes A while back I discovered an article about BDSM and Spirituality called The Art of S/m by Rick Umbaugh. I was amazed that someone was writing about this, a topic which is nearly a non-issue on the national tabletop. I have been writing about these two subjects for several years, but always separately.
A while back I discovered an article about BDSM and Spirituality called The Art of S/m by Rick Umbaugh. I was amazed that someone was writing about this, a topic which is nearly a non-issue on the national tabletop. I have been writing about these two subjects for several years, but always separately. Oddly enough, it never occurred to me to think about the relationship between the two, and I felt drawn to explore that relationship. Over the last year I’ve uncovered about twenty articles, written by a wide variety of BDSM authors from the famous to the unknown. Some are professionally written and highly engaging pieces; others are more casual journal entries. All of them look at the BDSM experience through the lens of spirituality.
Seasoned scene players tell me about these incredibly passionate relationships they experience, ones which are more than just spanking and bondage, Yes Master this and Yes Master that. They describe the subtleties of their day-to-day D/s experience, the ongoing connection that blesses them both. I want this and yet I’m not sure if it even exists outside their stories. Not that they didn’t experience it, but only that it might be something beyond me somehow. They tell me they feel a spiritual sense of things when engaged in D/s play, although they often can’t explain how to get there. I keep asking though.
The biggest challenge so far is that I’ve never had a partner who consciously explored this element with me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t choose partners with this interest. Frankly, it never occurred to me, and maybe didn’t occur to them either. Now that I’m ready to go down that path, there’s not a partner in sight. Not a spiritual Dominant, no Dominant at all. I feel not so much lonely as sad that I have so much passion and no where to express it except in these words.
Some of my BDSM experiences have been similar to spiritual experiences in that I felt a profound sense of being present. I felt in touch with myself, with my partner, and with something magical besides. But is this spirituality?
I have seen faith work miracles in my life. For several years I was miserable at my job, crying almost every day even as I prayed for things to change. During this time I transferred into a temporary job, just something to earn a living. After six months in this temporary position, I realized it was a great fit, and that I’m really happy again. I had resisted it because this job wasn’t in my field, and yet I discovered it to be the perfect match despite myself. God did indeed grant my wish. God knew me better than I knew myself.
I call on my faith now to keep me balanced during this ebb in the flow of my relationships. It’s become so much more challenging to find a partner now that I want something more than just play and fun. The things I want in a partner could seem intimidating: a more sophisticated Dominant with whom I can explore the darkest caves, hand in hand. Is there a man out there who might feel a shiver run down his spine at these words? I don’t know, only that I do not want to reach the end of my life still wanting. Rather, as George Bernard Shaw said, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die.”
I wonder if my sticking it out now, and not giving in for the need for affection and love from a Dominant, any Dominant, will eventually bring the right partner to me. I wonder if this time next year I’ll be looking back at this time just as I looked back on that horrible job, laughing because the universe provided me with exactly what I needed.
Because I don’t have a partner at the moment, I’m exploring not the experience of BDSM and spirituality, but the concept of exploring BDSM and spirituality. I suppose that will have to do for now, and it may be a good starting place for what could well be a lifetime journey. In the back of my mind I do sometimes worry that I might be connecting the two out of wishful thinking. I don’t want them to be inextricably connected; rather I want to experience the joy of each alone as well as in that mysterious place where they overlap.
In the past when I wanted to explore a new area of BDSM, I simply asked a friendly Dominant to help out, and mostly they agreed. A committed relationship, one with a spiritual element seems like so much more, not something you can get just by asking for it. On the other hand, it is the “asking” for it that creates the spiritual space for it to happen. Not asking a person, but asking the universe. I will ask, and ask again.
As I move through my last year before 40, I realize that most of my adult life I have lived alone. I guess I don’t like people all that much, and mostly don’t like them underfoot. It’s a struggle to accept this about myself because it seems like it doesn’t allow for the possibility for a partner, much less a Dominant. Yes I imagine there must be men who don’t want to be joined at the hip, who derive their strongest self first from being alone, and second from being with a partner.
That first article brought me to a whole new place in my life, slipping into my life’s work of writing and then into my soul. It pushed me out and to wing, maybe a little shaky at first but aloft. And now I still may not be able to map out the trip, but I can see far enough ahead to see the next row of mountain peaks, topped with white fog dissipating even as I approach.
Coleen is a writer, photographer and film maker at Wasteland and Sssh.com.
Here at BDSMCafe.com, she is editor and curator of this comprehensive library of BDSM fiction, informational articles and other educational features that date back to the early days of the internet in 1996 when the site was first launched.
