Dec. 29, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:10:26
4272 "I AM THE REAL LIFE CHRISTIAN GREY!" Freedomain Call In
"I'm a hetero, male, professional BDSM practitioner that conducts sessions with women and couples - I'm a dominant, not an escort (I don't have penetrative sex with my clients) and its a paradox in a way that I have conservative views while also embracing a quite liberal orientation to sexuality. I also train/mentor men and couples who want to learn the art of ethical BDSM practises and in regards to couples, help them deepen the intimacy between them and help them communicate more honestly with each other. I've been involved with this lifestyle for the majority of my adult life. I have been involved with alternative sexuality circles for this time as well, and have conducted my own study/research into social dynamics/relationships/psychology/dating etc for many years - I feel I have a fairly decent understanding of these topics. I can also talk about my experiences/understanding of men and women's sexuality outside of the professional application of BDSM etc."Over the years of listening to Freedomain Radio, sexuality/bdsm has come up many times - especially references to 50 shades of grey/women looking for a christian grey. I feel I could share some insights into this world... and especially the positives/advantages I feel are often misunderstood around this aspect of sexual expression. I'm not a scholar on the subject by any means, but at the same time, I have extensive practical experience..."▶️ Donate Now: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.fdrurl.com/newsletterYour support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate▶️ 1. Donate: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate▶️ 2. Newsletter Sign-Up: http://www.fdrurl.com/newsletter▶️ 3. On YouTube: Subscribe, Click Notification Bell▶️ 4. Subscribe to the Freedomain Podcast: http://www.fdrpodcasts.com▶️ 5. Follow Freedomain on Alternative Platforms🔴 Bitchute: http://bitchute.com/stefanmolyneux🔴 Minds: http://minds.com/stefanmolyneux🔴 Steemit: http://steemit.com/@stefan.molyneux🔴 Gab: http://gab.ai/stefanmolyneux🔴 Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stefanmolyneux🔴 Facebook: http://facebook.com/stefan.molyneux🔴 Instagram: http://instagram.com/stefanmolyneux
Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom, I hope you're doing well.
Yes, we're branching out just a little bit.
I got an email from Damien, and Damien has asked me to record this for your slice and dice pleasure, and he had this to say.
He said, Finished watching slash listening to the Confessions of a Sugar Daddy and decided to share my story, what I do, with the hope that you might find it interesting as I feel it would be along the lines of a Confession Off segment.
I'm the real-life Christian Grey without the billions or complex PTSD. Wait, do you play piano?
No, I don't. All right.
So I guess that's just part of the torture.
All right. I've been involved with this lifestyle for the majority of my adult life.
I have been involved with alternative sexuality circles for this time as well and have conducted my own study slash research into the social dynamics, relationships, psychology, dating, etc.
of many years. I'm a hetero male professional BDSM practitioner who has been in the personal and professional aspect of this lifestyle for many years.
I conduct sessions with women and couples.
I'm a dominant, not an escort.
I don't have penetrative sex with my clients.
And it's a paradox in a way that I have conservative views while also embracing a quite liberal orientation to sexuality, fair to say.
I also train mentor men and couples who want to learn the art of ethical BDSM practices, and in regards to couples, help them Deepen the intimacy between them and help them communicate more honestly with each other.
I'm not a traditional escort, as I do not have penetrative penis in vagina or all sex with my clients.
I'm a professional heterosexual dominant.
And along with being essentially an ethical version of Christian Grey, devoted to creating the best safe, fun, and sensual kinky experiences possible for my female clients, but without the billions, unfortunately, I also fulfill the roles of kinky sex coach.
And more often than not, I'm called upon by my clients to be a counselor, a couples coach, where I help foster authentic sexual expression, And communication within their relationship, which essentially guides the couple to deeper levels of intimacy, connection, and relationship satisfaction.
At other times, I'm called upon in ways akin to what a conventional therapist would facilitate to their clients.
I've become fairly acquainted with the effects of sexual repression, trauma, shame, guilt, and fear, and how those affect the mind and body, focusing on how this affects someone's sexuality and their relationships to other people, while also continually researching and exploring topics such as biology, neurochemistry, dating, relationships, and other forms of sexual expression, such as tantra, sexual healing, And other sacred sexuality practices to add to my knowledge and skill set.
Suffice to say, it's not all whips and chains.
Aw! All right.
Suffice to say, it's not all whips and chains, but I kind of lean towards the kinky side of it because I'm drawn to that form of sexual expression above all.
It's what is my authentic sexual expression.
I don't have a specific question I need to address, but I feel you may have questions for me.
I enjoy sharing what I do and why.
Well, Damien, I appreciate the email.
I think the conversation is quite interesting.
And I guess first and foremost, since most people's reference point these days to this practice is, of course, Christian Grey, the Fifty Shades of Grey series, which, for me, the real torture is just the writing, but when we were talking before the show, you said that you had read the first one.
I don't know if you saw the movie, but that's what people think it's about.
Sexual trauma, control, depression, brutality, violence, and a woman who is willing to get bruised for money.
In other words, it's abuse if you don't have A private penthouse suite, a Steinway grand piano, and a helicopter on call.
But it's really sexy if you do.
And let's just clear out some of the misconceptions around the movie or the book versus what you do.
Well, I didn't read all the book.
I have watched the movie. I couldn't actually get through the first book.
The writing was quite painful and it wasn't a good kind of pain.
So I did just defer to the book and other people's critiques of the book.
But it definitely doesn't match the real-world application of BDSM and consensual DS, which is dominance and submissive relationships.
So in reality, a lot of dominance are not rich.
We don't have multi-billion dollar companies.
And in reality as well, which is a big point of difference, a lot of the submissive women or submissive men who look for this lifestyle, they actually crave it.
It's something that they want.
And I noticed in the first movie, she was kind of like new to it all and a bit resistive.
So I notice that more often than not that the people that are looking for it, it's something they're actually embracing instead of just, you know, going, oh, yeah, maybe, if that makes any sense.
No, it does. I mean, so if she was into the whips and chains and hot wax on the nipples or whatever goes on, then she wouldn't need to be talked into it.
She wouldn't be so resistant. It seems to me kind of like, I don't mean to say it's a switch, but if you're into it, then you're into it.
If you're not into it, I'm not sure that you can cross that bridge all too easily, if that makes sense?
Yeah, well there's a lot of the women that come to see me.
A lot of them haven't had any experiences at all, but they've had this yearning for a long time.
You mean experiences with BDSM? Yes, so they've had this yearning for quite a long time.
They wait quite a considerable amount of time before they take the plunge and have a go.
It feels like in the book, and this is just my viewpoint, that there isn't any real yearning there.
It's just like, oh, this is new, let's do it.
There's a yearning for the actor's abs, which are really spectacular.
And there's also a yearning, I'm pretty sure there's a yearning for his billions of dollars, and she's willing to put up with it because she loves him.
But of course, everyone understands that.
It's taking all concentrated female desires.
It's like taking endorphins and converting them into cocaine to have that level.
Like, he's gorgeous, he's muscular, he's fantastically wealthy, he's charismatic, he's arrogant, he's like, you know, like the Howard Rock with a beat-me-eat-me-licorice whip.
And it just stimulated every conceivable aspect of fairly decadent, I would say, female sexuality because, you know, if it's one thing, if you're into it, but if it's just generally tweaking.
Your ovaries, that's a whole different matter.
So let's make sure that people don't take the movie as the reference point of where we're starting from because the movie is basically bribing a woman into being beaten and it's really not, as far as I understand it, it's not the way that things go and the way that you were describing it in terms of people like they have these desires,
they don't know how to act on them, they're hesitant, they're curious, it sort of reminds me of the stories that you would read From E.M. Forster or other people about gay men in the past, before it was more socially acceptable, exploring that aspect of their sexuality.
Yes, that is correct. No, go ahead.
It's a hard thing to really articulate.
I don't want to be overly dominant in this conversation.
We'll see how the power shifts.
Maybe if you had billions.
Yeah, there's just a naturally innate desire in the people that come to see me, for example, as well as the people that actively participate in the BDSM community.
It's something that is seen as a positive thing.
They embrace it. It's something that brings them joy and pleasure and it builds connection, deepens intimacy.
And I don't see that so much in the movies.
So, unfortunately, this kind of idea has gone out into the world and there's been a lot more stigma, as well as it has opened up conversations about it.
Sex stores have reported a 500% increase in BDSM toy sales after the movie came out.
But there's still a lot of misconception and myths around it.
Right. So let's talk about your personal experience before we get to the generalities, if that's alright.
So what was your history with this?
Well, when I was about 17, 18, I was, I think it was when I was 18, I stumbled upon a BDSM play party.
So it's a public party where people go and, you know, there's performances and people dress up.
Wait, you stumbled across?
Yeah, I didn't know what it was.
I had a pretty adventurous youth.
Never really stumbled across anything like that.
What do you mean you stumbled across this?
Well, I was going out a lot in my youth and I actually found a flyer for an event, but I didn't understand what it was.
It didn't say, you know, kink or fetish party on it, really.
It just looked like an interesting flyer.
So I went out. It was a Wednesday night.
And I just went out and thought, okay, let's check out this event.
My friends and I were going out quite a bit around then and we were looking for interesting things to do.
And when I walked in, it was like, okay.
Okay, so you walk in.
What do you see? Yep. I see a woman on a table getting covered in hot wax with a big crowd around her.
That was the first thing I remember seeing.
And I was like, okay, this speaks to me.
I'm not sure why, but it does.
This speaks to me. I thought maybe you were training to be a burn specialist.
It's like, this speaks to me.
I feel called to heal her.
Okay, so was she naked?
Well, at the time she was pretty covered in wax, so she definitely was naked underneath, but I can't tell for certain that there wasn't, you know, a bikini or lingerie underneath.
She was pretty covered.
It's a scene from 40-year-old Virgin, but all right.
So you saw that and her physical response, I guess, was both, that's the pain and pleasure mix, is that my understanding?
Well, that's what I've come to understand now.
You know, I didn't understand it at the time, but something was, you know, making me excited by watching it.
I could just feel... Also, the atmosphere of the event was very different to any other event I'd experienced at that time, and pretty much since.
So, there was an air of inclusivity, there was a lack of judgement and fear.
It was a really amazing carefree environment.
So people, there was like all ages, all orientations, all body sizes.
It was everything.
And everyone felt really comfortable and relaxed in the environment.
And every other event that I went to, you know, other dance parties or whatever, it feels like there was a general type of person that would go to an event.
But this event wasn't that because of everything that I just said.
There was an air of inclusivity that I didn't find in other events and in other lifestyles.
Okay. Adjectives aside, let's go back to year 17.
You go to the hot wax party like some back alley behind the Queen exhibit.
Queen the band, not the woman.
And what else did you see that night that had you coming back for more?
Well, there was flogging, there was bondage, there was pretty much the basics of what is considered consensual BDSM. There wasn't any sex on premises at the time.
But it was just the general vibe, the activities.
I didn't really understand it at that time.
There wasn't things like the internet now.
So I had to go and really research it.
Nowadays, you can find websites like bdsmcourse.com where you can go...
Let's not get into putting ads in.
Okay, sorry. When you went to this party, there were people, I guess, in various stages of undress being mildly tortured, right?
Like flogged and all this sort of stuff, right?
I assume it's not enough to leave massive marks, it's not enough to break skin, but it's uncomfortable, right?
That is an outsider's point of view, I have to really say that.
You know, to the people that are...
Yeah, I'm an outsider. I mean, that's perfectly fair to me.
Yeah, but in reality they're not being tortured, they're being stimulated.
They're being, yeah sure, it looks like it's from the outside.
No, but they're being stimulated by torture. That's the S&M part, isn't it?
I mean, look, I'm not saying it's not exciting for them, I'm not saying it's not something that turns them on, but what they're being turned on by is mild torture.
I have a problem with that word, I have to be honest.
It's not torture. Torture is, when I hear that word, it's something that's not consensual.
That's perfectly fair.
So what should we call it?
Erotic stimulation.
No, because that includes non-pain activities.
We need something that differentiates the pain part.
Eroticized pain. How about that?
Okay, yeah, that's fair.
Eroticized pain. It strikes me as kind of blue ball-y and enormously unsatisfying to have that sexual stimulation without the release of orgasm, but because you were in a public place and you said there was not sexual contact from that standpoint, then people are being erotically stimulated by pain without orgasm.
Is that right? That's correct.
So is that not an additional layer of discomfort, so to speak?
Well, what I've come to find from going there for many years is that it's kind of like an amazing foreplay.
So a lot of the couples that go there, the people that go there, they play.
Not everyone plays. It's only maybe, say, a third of the crowd will actually do any play.
But after that, they go home and then they continue on.
So, they don't fully get the orgasmic release, perhaps, at an event.
But once they go home, they continue on, and then they get their release.
Oh, so it's kind of like a tantric gear-up for sexual activity at home?
Sure. Yes. Well, those kind of events, yes.
There's others, which there are sex at it, sure.
There's a differentiation between different types of events.
So, that first event that I went to, there's no sex on premises allowed.
People just went home and had fun afterwards.
But there are other events where people can go the whole way.
Human sexuality to me is a very wide and wild tapestry.
It's something that almost defies categorization.
It almost defies analysis.
I've had on this show guys who can only get sexually aroused if they're wearing the costume of a North American river otter.
I was actually going to bring up that video.
Funny you mentioned that. Oh, yeah, yeah.
What were you going to say about that?
Oh, the furry stuff, right?
Yeah, yeah. There was just one particular part.
It's about one hour and eight minutes in how you kind of praise him for being able to still have connection to something.
And then you're saying that...
I'll actually pull up the exact quote if you don't mind.
Let me just pull that up.
So you're praising for the connection, and then you say exactly this.
The alternative to fantasy food is starving to death.
He's ending up a nihilist, a sadist, a masochist, or someone who fucks snakes and posts it up on the internet.
Oh, that was in reference to somebody he was talking about in the show, right?
No, that was you talking to him.
No, no, no, but he was referencing something that he'd seen online about sex with snacks.
Just for those who haven't listened to the show, that's where that reference comes from.
So for me, it's not that sentence specifically, it's the connection.
This is what it feels like to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the lack of connection in his childhood You know, he could end up being a sadist or a masochist, and then therefore it's bad or unhealthy or immoral.
Well, let me clarify that with regards to what we're talking about here.
I don't view...
I know that SM, sadomasochism, is in the description of...
The sexual activity, but I don't view consensual as sadist.
Like a sadist is somebody who physically tortures somebody who desperately does not want to be physically tortured and is trying to get away, and that to me is sadistic.
And yet if it's consensual sex play, that doesn't strike me as sadistic.
I mean, I may have other opinions about it, but I would not myself put that in the category of sadistic.
Because of course a sadist wants to cause pain, Whereas if you are a dominant in a BDSM relationship, you're actually causing pleasure.
And so I don't see how that particular fits.
So this is where maybe there's a point of issue that we can discuss.
In my world, Someone who says that they're a sadist, it's not really a negative thing.
And someone who says that they're a masochist, it's not a negative.
It's already a given that if someone is a sadist, they enjoy giving pain in the realms of a consensual interaction.
But it's pleasurable for the masochist.
Sure. And so it's different from, you know, somebody who just tortures animals who, you know, don't want to be tortured, obviously.
And so if the purpose of the sadism is to cause pleasure, it's not very good sadism relative to the purpose of the sadism is to cause pain, if that makes sense.
I understand what you're getting at, but you have to understand as well that the acronym of BDSM is dominant submission, you know, sadomasochism.
Yes. So it is...
It is not an unhealthy thing.
It's just more about the use of the term that is maybe the contentious issue.
In my world, the sadist isn't seen as something as negative, as I said, as long as it's consensual and the masochist is up for it.
But I'm noticing that when people use it to discuss psychological frames and stuff, That they use the word sadist as...
There's just a cross of terms.
In our world, it means something.
In the general population, it means something else.
And because there's a mismatch between the two, there's a lot of stigma that gets thrown onto people like me.
Yeah, and I'm trying to unravel that, right?
Because if someone came up to some group that you were a part of and said, let's go out and torture cats.
No, seriously, you guys would be like, that is messed up, man.
You need to go get some help.
That is horrible. Because that's what a sadist would want to do, right?
Sure. Whereas your categorization is, we like mild erotic pain in order to enhance sexual pleasure.
That's not quite the same as, you know, sticking toothpicks in a cat's eye or something.
Understood, yes. So just saying, because people are using these terms in the psychological sense and we use it in the sexual sense, there's a lot of stigmatization and misunderstandings that occur.
Right, right, right.
No, to me it's the difference between paintball and actual hunting with bullets.
So, what was your sexual life or sexual experience prior to going to this Hot Wax Woman Festival?
It was, as you could consider, vanilla sex.
It was everything without the BDSM. And when did you lose your virginity?
I lost my virginity at 16.
Right. And you had no sexual experiences prior to that, as far as I understand it?
I mean, premature or molesty sexual experiences?
Oh no, none whatsoever.
My ACES score is completely zero.
Zero? So you were not spanked?
No. You were not yelled at?
You were not anything like that?
No. And your parents were together and all that?
Still together now, yes.
You weren't yelled at at all?
There was arguments and disagreements, but nothing that I feel traumatized me in any which way whatsoever.
If I did something that they considered to be wrong, they gave me a stern talking to.
But there was no excessive yelling.
They're just not like that.
And your relationships in school?
Pardon? Your relationships in school?
To my parents? No, in school with peers.
I'm not sure I get your question.
How did you get along with other kids in school?
I had a fantastic group of friends.
I went to an old boys school.
I had a great group of friends that I had from school and then after school.
Okay, I'm going to have to stop you there.
Go for it. All boys' school, no premature sexual experiences at all.
Wait, I thought you were asking if I was abused, like abusive, what's the word?
If you were molested, right?
But there may have been cross-pollinating sexual experiences in an all boys' school after puberty kind of thing.
Oh, I've had no gay experiences, if that's what you're asking.
Look, I'm not saying everyone in an old boys' school has had gay experiences, but you can have quasi-sexual experiences with boys that are not directly sexual, if that makes sense.
Well, I had a healthy group of friends, but there was no sexual activity as far as I remember.
And I met girls outside of that.
We went to social events, so...
And how was discipline achieved at the boys' school?
Discipline was achieved, well, it changed.
So when I was, say, starting, it was a year, how old was I? Around 10, there was some corporal punishment.
But I never experienced any personally.
But as I got older, they stopped doing it.
It's kind of like the society norms changed and they just stopped doing it.
But I never experienced any personally.
And did you have friends who did experience it?
I only had maybe like five good friends.
So that group of friends formed when I was about 15, 16.
So I don't remember any of them experiencing any corporal punishment.
And this was not an overnight school, right?
Pardon? It was not a boarding school, right?
No, not a boarding school, no.
So there were rumors of corporal punishment.
Do you know how it was applied? I saw it when I was younger.
I saw it once. It was just like a leather strap, actually.
You know where the audience is going with this, right?
I know, but the science and the research doesn't back it.
Well, we can get to the science and the research in a bit, but if you see a dominant authority figure beating a victim with a leather strap, It's not way outside the bounds.
I'm not saying it's causal. Please understand.
I'm not trying to simplify it to, you saw one kid getting beaten with a leather strap, and that's why you are...
I'm not trying to simplify it down to that degree, but it is a bit of an elephant in the room.
Because, you know, a lot of people, myself included, think that there's some sort of imprinting that occurs early that leads people down this particular direction.
In my opinion, you can't say blah, blah, blah, but, da, da, da, da, because once you say the word but, it negates what you first said.
So you do believe that at court there's the imprinting that produces certain behavior?
Yeah, and I just said that, right?
Like I just said, a lot of people, myself included, believe that there's some kind of imprinting that produces later behavior.
Sure. You can have that viewpoint.
You know, the research and everything else, my life experiences, I don't feel that way.
Well, but the research is self-reporting, right?
What I saw was not consensual.
When any child gets beaten in any respect from parental discipline to school discipline to whatever, these children are not consenting.
If I was into beating people or anyone was into beating people that wasn't in a consensual way, then I can understand the causal relationship.
But it's not that. Well, and to reinforce your point, I was beaten in an all-boys boarding school by the headmaster, and I don't have any predilections to the activities that you talk about.
So, you know, I'm not trying to, like, enforce a viewpoint on you because that, I think, serves your approach or explanation.
Sure. Well, I'm sorry that you went through those kind of experiences.
And it changed now.
Just missed the boat a little bit there.
Alright, so you go at 17 to this party and then what happens?
I started to research it to the best of my ability.
As I said, there was no internet around that time.
So for you, I'm sorry to interrupt right after I asked you the question, but so for you, this was like a formative experience where it's like this is something, like it spoke to you and this is something you want to explore more, right?
Yes. So at the time, I didn't understand the deeper aspects of how it can increase intimacy and all these other things.
I just knew, you know, I was young.
I was just like, oh, this excites me.
I want to know more. So I returned to events, found mentors, spoke to people, started to understand it.
You know, I went along that line.
It took quite a bit of time.
Because again, there was no internet, there wasn't a lot of books about it floating around at the time.
So I just learnt from other people, which I'm very grateful for, because I was able to get the knowledge and the wisdom and the understanding of people who were much more experienced than me.
And were you certain of your preference for being the dominant from the beginning?
Oh yes, 100% definitely.
You know I did self-administer when I first got my first pieces of equipment and I was like well I don't find this enjoyable so I know I'm not a submissive or a bottom or a switch.
I know what you mean but it's a bit abstract to say that you self-administered with your first pieces of equipment.
What specifically do you mean? Oh, you know, with the cane I hit myself, with the flogger I hit myself, just to see what it feels like.
And I didn't like it, so I just knew that I preferred to be the giver and to be in the controlling aspect, the dominant aspect, than to be the receiver.
That's how I know. That's one of the ways that I could feel.
Do I enjoy this sensation?
No, I don't. There was nothing that I liked about it specifically.
Now, Your first time as a dominant, how old were you and what was that like?
Oh, that was, say, 19.
So you were two years since the party that...
No, no, the party was 18 and then my first time as dominant was 19.
So I didn't practice with anyone because I had no partner at the time.
I was just researching and understanding more, reading as much as I could find, and then...
When I was 19 I had a girlfriend and she was open to exploring and we explored.
And did you know that when you first started dating her or was that something that came up?
It was something that came up that wasn't discussed unlike my dating later on in life.
It wasn't something that was discussed on the first date.
You know, we connected and it'd be like, hey, what do you think about this?
And she was excited by the ideas that I presented and then we explored.
And so when you were administering pain to her, Was it...
I mean, I'm just trying to figure out the emotional side of the administering of pain because it's kind of contradictory because you're administering pain and pleasure at the same time.
That's right. So the pain and pleasure centers of the brain are pretty much identical.
So, you know, the fear and excitement centers of the brain, they spark the same neurocircuitry.
It's exciting for me to know that that person's being pleasured and excited by the action.
So I don't particularly connect to the idea of giving pains like rubbing my hands, I'm giving no pain.
For me, it's an act of giving and an act of loving.
I know it might sound strange to you and the listeners, but for the people involved, that's how we view it.
And the childhood of the girlfriend who enjoyed Being beaten, what was her childhood like?
Her parents...
It's been many years now.
I don't really remember that much.
But as far as I remember, she was...
Her parents were married.
We were going over 15 years, 20 years ago now.
So I don't really remember that much about her childhood.
And how long did you guys go out for?
About a year and a bit.
A year and a half. A year and a half.
We just broke up. But why?
Oh god. I'm trying to get back to it.
Let me see. Yeah, she just fell out of attraction, I would say.
There was no...
We didn't have a fight.
We didn't cheat. We just...
I could only say we just naturally ended, because attraction for her ended.
But do you know why? No, I can't specifically say yes or no to that answer.
Because there's, again, I don't know how much I believe this, but there is an idea out there that the kinkier the sexual activity, eventually the more stimuli you need and there is this concern that it can escalate.
And so one of the theories could be that, you know, she got her kink from you, but then she wanted more kink and had to sort of go further down the tunnel, so to speak.
This is another misconception.
This is something I want to also explain.
Our sex life, or my sex life in general, whether it be with my first girlfriend or my current partner now, it's not always BDSM. It's not every single time that kink has to be involved.
Can people escalate in their desires?
Sure, but it's not something that I've experienced.
I found that I hit a level, and it generally doesn't go over that level.
I don't personally feel I need to do more to feel satisfied.
So, was she hypergamous in her desires, sexual desires?
I don't think so, because we were young and we were experimenting.
It wasn't something that, pardon the pun, dominated the relationship.
So there was a lot of vanilla interaction.
And I was more of a top and she was more of a bottom.
I know this is a term that needs to be explained.
This was not such a direct DS relationship as such, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I'm not sure the dominant submissive I more or less understand the top-bottom stuff is clear to me.
So I'll give you an example.
If two people meet at a party, or if I meet a person at a party, And they come up and they go, hey, Damien, I've heard you're really good at X, Y, and Z. Can you do that for me?
And I'll say, okay, so all I'm doing is administering what they've asked.
So there's no dominance and submissive dynamic in our interaction.
It's just, I'll apply this or give you this, you'll receive this, and then it's over.
So that's more of a top-bottom kind of framework.
Dominance and submissive, that's more of a relationship dynamic.
So there is a difference between the two.
So one is a request that you fulfill, the other would be orders that you give, right?
Say that again? One is a request that you fulfill, the other would be orders that you give.
To a degree, that is one way of looking at it, yes.
So another thing that happens within the dominance and submissive relationship types is what we call consensual non-consent.
So I can explain that in further detail in a minute.
So most interactions, say at parties or what I was doing with that girlfriend at the time, I was not her dominant and she wasn't my submissive.
We were just exploring in the bedroom.
So the dynamics didn't leak out into other aspects of our relationship together.
So it was more of a top-bottom thing of like, I'm going to apply this.
It was constantly discussed.
It's a hard thing to explain, but there is a difference between exploring it in the bedroom versus having a complete relationship dynamic.
No, I can fully understand that.
So for those who've seen the movies or read the book, Christian Grey is like a bossy bully everywhere.
You know, wear this, eat this, we're going to dinner here, and then we're going...
But whereas you're saying, so there was a dominance and submission or top-bottoming in the bedroom, but outside of that, it was egalitarian.
Yes, very much so.
And the dynamic that I think that's actually happening in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy is what we would consider to be the MS or Master Slave.
So it's like, these are the rules, you don't have any choice.
Within a dominance and submissive framework, What are the rules?
What are the goals? That's all discussed.
In a bottom-top situation, it's just around the sexual play and a specific act, but there is actually no power dynamics around that.
Does that make sense? Yes.
Okay, so I hope that helps with the differences in what actually goes on.
Right, right. Well, and this consensual non-consent?
Is also, I mean, it's portrayed in the movie where they have a negotiation regarding the contract of their sexual relationship.
Yes. And once she has signed that contract, she's consenting, in a sense, to non-consensual activities.
Yeah, but it doesn't feel like, from my recollection of the movie, it doesn't feel like she had much say in it.
So, healthy DS couples that do healthy consensual non-consent, everything is discussed and agreed.
So if the submissive has an issue with one thing, they negotiate it before they enter an agreement.
So that's just another parallel of what happens in the real world versus the movies.
And how many of these relationships...
I assume that all your relationships involve this component, your romantic relationships?
Not at all, no. I've had one relationship which was pretty much vanilla.
That lasted a few years.
Currently in one where consensual non-consent is part of it.
Yes, so that's a DS relationship.
What's about the others?
I have another one, which was DS. So I'd say there's two longer-term DS relationships.
One relationship that was pretty much near large, just with top and bottom in the bedroom.
Two DS-related relationships.
And another one that was just more bottoming and topping in the bedroom.
So it's not automatic that all my relationships have to have a DS component.
And how many relationships have you had?
Four. Four longer.
What's your age bracket?
Older than 35.
Put it that way.
Why do you think you are in your mid-30s or late 30s and can't sustain a relationship or haven't?
That's a big question. You don't come here for the little questions, do you?
Your parents were together your whole life, so you've seen that skill set in action.
So it's not like you're learning some foreign language.
I mean, this is the language you grew up with was, I assume, a vanilla stable relationship.
So it's not outside your experience.
It is, in fact, your lived experience.
So I guess that would be my question.
When I was messaging you with the desire to have this chat, I don't actually have any problems with my past.
If the relationships end, they do.
If they last forever, they do.
I don't have a framework where it's having to hold until death do you part.
You don't want kids or anything, right?
Yeah, probably not at this age anymore.
I was open to it when I was younger.
But no, I'm choosing not to at the moment.
Why do you think you've decided not to have kids?
I like my life as it is.
I enjoy it. I don't feel that there's anything missing that can come into it by being a father.
I actually really enjoy my life as it is.
So you don't think that you would gain any particular benefit from having children?
Personally, no. I mean personally.
You know, it's a pretty universal phenomenon.
Not everyone has to, of course, but it's a pretty universal phenomenon to want to have children to hold and to love and to grow old with and to raise to adulthood and to repay the gift of life that your parents gave to you and so on.
But you did want them when you were younger, and what do you think has changed?
I was open to it in one relationship.
That relationship ended, and I'm currently with someone who already has children, and she doesn't want any more, and I'm okay with that.
And that's it. So I have no desire to have my own children.
It's just I don't know where it comes from.
I don't know why. Well you did, right?
You did at one point. I was open to it.
I wasn't jumping up and down, but I was open to the idea.
Yes. But that is then and this is now.
I completely enjoy where I'm at and For me personally, meaning isn't about being a father.
So for anyone out there that wants to have them, more power to you.
Congratulations. Fantastic.
And that's just not me.
The woman that you were with, where you were open to it, did she want to have kids?
Yes. And what happened with that relationship?
Well, that's an interesting one.
Because the reason I'm asking, David, is you tell me at the very beginning how good you are at helping couples achieve intimacy and have great relationships and you can't sustain yourself.
You've got to see, I do specific work, okay?
People come to me and they ask X, Y, and Z. Maybe it's a wounded healer archetype that, you know, I help people...
In specific ways, based on my wording and understanding, I don't know.
So, I want to make a parallel.
Strengthening, you know, deepening intimacy.
There's no guarantees that these things keep relationships going.
There are no guarantees at all.
What do you mean? Just because you have an amazing sex life and it gets better doesn't mean the relationship stays bonded.
Well, no, of course not, but you're conflating intimacy with sexuality, which is not the same at all.
Fucking is fucking. And emotional intimacy is not unrelated, but you can have emotional intimacy with male friends or people you're not having sex with.
You can also have sex with people you have very little or no emotional intimacy with.
So it's interesting to me that we talk about intimacy and you immediately go to sex.
No, I don't immediately go to sex.
What I said in the original thing is that I help people achieve greater levels of intimacy through their sexuality.
That's what they're coming to me for.
I help them do that.
I have countless results where that's happened.
There's been many a time where I've helped them save their relationship because if I didn't intervene at that point, one partner was about to leave because they didn't feel they were sexually compatible.
So I've done some amazing work.
I know the results that I've had.
But I don't believe that, you know, having an amazing sex life is the absolute biggest key to making relationships last.
Sorry, you don't believe that?
No, it's one aspect of, but it's not the be-all and end-all.
I'm definitely not going to say that.
You know, there's compatibility, there's all different other factors that are involved.
But you said there's no guarantees in relationship, and that's the part I'm a little confused about.
I mean, I'm going to be with my wife until we're dead.
Congratulations. Your parents are together and I assume that they're not constantly toying with, they're not entering all six but not seven digits of the divorce lawyer's phone number and so on.
No. So, why do you think that you grew up with people for whom there was certainty in a romantic pair bonding, but for you there's not?
Well, I'm hoping that my relationships last.
I don't sit there knowing with guaranteed absolute certainty that they're going to.
If you can have that level of confidence, more power to you.
If it ends, I feel sorry.
That's very passive. For a dominant guy, that's very passive, isn't it?
Just crossing your fingers and hoping things work?
I don't have the same framework as you.
I don't believe that every relationship has to go for the end of time.
If it happens, fantastic.
Hang on, are you just trying to be argumentative now?
Did I ever say every relationship has to go until the end of time?
Or do you think that might be a little bit of a straw man?
It feels like that your framework, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that if a relationship doesn't last till the end of time, it's not healthy or it shouldn't be explored.
That's what it feels like.
No, I've not said that at all.
All relationships need to last till the end.
I've never said that. I had girlfriends before my wife.
That's fine. So when I enter relationships, I don't go into them with an idea that they will or will not last.
That's just the way that I go into them.
That's my personal framework.
If I work with people who are married and monogamous, I work with them in their framework.
If I work with people who are polyamorous, I work with them in that framework.
Does that help? No, not really, because talking about other people isn't the same as talking about yourself.
So I guess my question is, because I've got a whole book on relationships called Real Time Relationships, The Logic of Love and all of that.
If you share values and virtues and If you express them consistently in your life and you're with a love partner who also expresses objective, quality virtues and brings them to light in her own life and so on, then the relationship will last.
So if a relationship doesn't last, there's some value in compatibility.
Now, either that means that you're a good person who chose someone who wasn't as good a person, or you're not as good a person and somebody chose you by mistake, maybe just because you're really good looking or something like that, right?
So if there's a value mismatch, then the relationship eventually will decay, right?
Or if you're in it just for the sex, you get tired of it.
Or if you're in it for the looks, you get bored of it and so on, right?
And so I guess that's my question is, do you think that there may be value differences between yourself and your romantic partners that end up with these decaying Possibly in the past.
My current relationship doesn't feel that way.
Maybe as I get older you understand what's happened in the past and you try not to have that repeat in the future.
I don't feel that with my current relationship.
Oh, so your current relationship you think could go the distance?
Yes. Okay, so that's just a little bit different from what I got earlier, which is that you said, you know, things kind of happen or they don't happen or they work out or they don't happen.
Well, you know, I feel more confident in this one than the past ones because, you know, I've become older and wiser based on the failures of the past.
But again, if it doesn't, then so be it.
And are you monogamous with your girlfriend?
We are what we call sexually inclusive.
So if we play with another person, we do so together.
So you have threesomes?
Yes. Just threesomes or are we talking 1990s?
No, just threesomes, because that's what I like, that's what she likes, you know, we're our sexual...
Are they male and female, or just female or just male?
No. I'm hetero, she's bi, so where we overlap is that we're both attracted to women, and that's where we play.
Is it that the sexuality you would have with your girlfriend without other people would be unsatisfying over time?
No. But it must be less satisfying than threesomes, right?
I don't put a judgement to it.
They are completely different experiences.
No, but if you're doing something, it's because you want to do it, right?
And you want to do it more than the alternative.
So the reason you would have threesomes is because sex with your girlfriend would not be satisfying enough or rich enough or whatever, enough.
We don't view it that way.
I don't view it that way. That's all I can say.
No, that's logic, though. That's not a view. That's logic.
Right? If I move from a smaller house to a bigger house, it must be because I can't sort of say, well, I want to move from a smaller house to a bigger house, but I have no value judgment between these two because then my behavior becomes incomprehensible, right?
We both enjoy them.
No, no, I'm not saying you don't.
I'm just saying that sex with your girlfriend would not be enough because you want to include other people.
We don't see it that way.
We don't see this is not enough.
I don't know any other way to put it.
That is not the way we view it.
But it must be... This is a logic thing.
This is not a psychology thing.
I don't see the logic in it.
I honestly don't see the logic in it.
It's something that we both enjoy doing.
It's a different experience.
Yeah, I get it.
But it's an experience that you want in addition to sex with your girlfriend, right?
Or to complement it. It just adds to our life.
I get it. So you prefer it when there's threesomes included in your relationship.
Do I prefer it as in, okay, if I had to choose a relationship that doesn't have one, I would say, yeah, sure.
I prefer it. It's interesting.
It's dynamic.
It just adds to our life.
That means, of course, that sex with your girlfriend is less interesting and less dynamic if you don't have three things in the mix.
I honestly don't see it that way.
I don't see it that way at all.
I enjoy sex with my partner.
You just described it that way. I'm sorry to be annoying, but you just described it that way.
You said, with a threesome, sex with another woman is more interesting and more dynamic.
No, it adds to our life in a dynamic way.
Sorry if I came across that other way.
For us, it adds to our life experience.
Yeah, it's preferable.
It's better. We don't judge it.
It has to be better or you wouldn't do it.
You're not a masochist, right?
So you wouldn't do something that's unpleasant, right?
Okay, wait, maybe in this way.
I feel, maybe this would help.
In my personal preference, I feel a sexually inclusive relationship for me is better than a relationship that's not.
Yeah, I get it. So, and that's, I assume that your girlfriend is the same way.
That sex just with you is not as interesting or dynamic as sex with you and another woman.
We don't put that, I don't see how you can...
Create that judgment or pull that...
No, no. I'm just describing what you're telling me.
I'm not creating a judgment. If you are doing something that you prefer, pointing out that you prefer it and it's better than if you didn't do it, is not a big philosophical leap, right?
You know what I mean? Let's say I have a Volvo and I like to rent a Ferrari, right?
And then if somebody said you can never rent a Ferrari, I'd be like, oh, that's a negative in some way, right?
Because the reason I'm renting the Ferrari is I don't just want to drive the Volvo, right?
You understand, right? Now, if someone were to say to me, so you find just driving the Volvo not as exciting as driving the Volvo but renting the Ferrari, and I said, no, I have no opinion about that, I don't want to judge it, it's like, no, but then why on earth would you rent a Ferrari if driving the Volvo was satisfying enough for you?
Well, again, it's something that we both enjoy.
And we prefer it than having a completely sexually monogamous relationship.
Right, so a sexually monogamous relationship is not as satisfying to you as one that involves threesomes.
It's not about being satisfying.
Like the sex of my partner is deeply satisfying.
It's about, it just feels like we're not including the realm of possibility of other people.
It's not about satisfaction.
The threesome is satisfying.
Sex one-on-one is satisfying.
They're different. I get that.
But if your girlfriend...
Oh my god, man. You're hard work.
If your girlfriend came to tomorrow and said, I just want to be monogamous, no more threesomes, you would view that as something that would not be as good, right?
Well, sure.
If you really want to go down that line, but this is the way we were.
We had these discussions when we first got together.
Okay, but you understand that there are risks in threesomes, right?
100%. Okay, there are STD risks.
You could attract some psycho stalker risk.
There's a chance, of course, that your girlfriend might get infatuated or fall in love with some other woman she's having sex with in your presence and so on.
So, the risks are not tiny.
You could also have an unwanted pregnancy, should a condom break, or who knows, right?
And so the risks are not small, and therefore the rewards must be considerable.
It's not like 1% better, right?
Because 1% better wouldn't be worth the risks.
It must be significantly better for you to take on the risk, right?
I find there's many different aspects of life are risky.
You know, we do have protocols in place to minimize the risk, so...
What protocols? Oh, like, we don't, anyone that we have threesomes with, we don't really have any conversations outside of it.
You know, we don't maintain, like, friendships with them that are, say, similar to people who are our friends that we don't have sex with.
Sorry, you're hitting your mic or something, man.
Oh, sorry. Sorry about that.
Don't touch me. I'll say that again.
Don't touch me with post-show editing.
I'll say it again. No, I get it.
So you don't want to be friends with, you don't want to have any socializing with, you don't want to have anything to do with these threesome women outside of having sex with them.
Correct. So it's a completely value-free cum-dumping.
Because you don't want to have anything to do with these women other than getting your rocks off, right?
Everything is consensual.
No, I didn't say that.
I don't even mean to imply that, but it's not like you love these people or you want to spend time with them or you enjoy watching E.M. Foster movies together or anything like that.
It's like they come over, they have sex, and then I assume you try to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
Well, that is not the way it plays out.
It's not like if we finish and it's like, right, get out.
It's a different mentality.
No, but you don't socialize. You don't socialize with them.
Generally, no. Right.
So it's just about sex.
It's about creating shared intimate experiences.
It's not intimate if you're just having sex.
Come on. That's like saying I'm dating a glory hole.
No, no, no. You need to trust that what I say about the experience is what it is.
You're basing it on not knowing the experience itself.
It's very hard to describe.
No, I'm going by what you're describing, man.
It is an intimate experience.
No, you don't socialize, you don't have conversations, you're just having sex.
It's an intimate sexual experience?
Does that help? I guess it's an intimate physical experience, I suppose, in the same way that if you stick your finger up someone's nose, you're closer to their brain.
When you do BDSM play, there's a lot of trust, there's communication, there's a whole bunch of things in play.
It's not just someone comes over, you stick your dick in and see you later.
There's communication, there's understanding what they like and dislike.
We discuss what, you know, is there any opportunity for an exploration that they haven't done before?
Oh no, there's lots of conversations about sex, I get that.
It also pertains to the type of person that they are.
We get to know them.
But we have some safeguards.
No, but you get to know them in a sexual way, right?
It's all about safe words and boundaries and all of that, right?
But it's all about sex.
You're not like saying, what's your opinion of Donald Trump?
What do you think of the midterms? Or do you like Proust?
Or it's all like... How hard can it hit you with the ping-pong battle?
Flat or edge? I'm trivializing to some degree, but the conversations are about sexual boundaries, right?
Yes, you are. You are trivializing to a large degree.
No, but the conversations are about sexual boundaries for the most part, right?
Sexual boundaries, what excites them, the type of person that they are, what are their fantasies, you know, what...
Lots of conversations about sexual...
I mean, do you think that sex might be...
I don't know how to put this.
Do you think it's possible that sex might play a bit of a larger role in your life than other people or what might be more of an Aristotelian balance?
Sexuality, yes, but sex as an act in itself, no.
Sexuality, yes, like the topic of it, you know, the understanding of it, the application of it, the healing aspect of it, the therapeutic aspect of it, you know, is one of my jobs, yes.
So sexuality, yes, but sex in itself, no.
Like, I don't need to have sex every day.
I'm not constantly fantasizing about it.
I feel that because I've explored my shadow, there is a lesser grip.
That sex itself has on me and my life.
I don't feel in any shape or form repressed in my sexuality.
Oh no, I think that's true.
I certainly have no doubt that's true.
So how often do you have these threesomes?
I'd say once every three to six months.
It's not every weekend or anything like that.
It's just something that we look forward to that's different.
What happened to the father of your girlfriend's kids?
I'm not going to discuss that.
Sure, that's fair. There's certain things that she said do not discuss, and that's one of them.
If you want to find out about her, that's the limit.
Sorry. No, that's perfectly fine.
That's, I mean, hey, boundaries is the name of the game, right?
Yeah, no problem with that at all. So, I will respect her boundaries 100%.
Yes, of course, of course.
Right. And how long have you guys been going out?
Three years. And did you meet in the world?
Yeah, we did. No, we met in a bar.
Got it. Now, with regards to your role as a dominant...
Yes. Was this something that you got into in your early 20s as a career?
No. That would say be about six years ago.
So essentially I was in the right place at the right time with the right reputation and the right skill set.
I'm not sure what that means.
So I was in the right place at the right time.
So my boss was looking for someone and I managed to meet them.
You're a boss? What do you mean?
I work for a place.
I don't... I'm not...
Oh, you're not freelance, so to speak, like you work for an established...
No, so I freelance as, you know, doing the education side of it, like the training, the coaching, the mentoring, but the actual one-on-one sessions or the one-on-couple sessions, I do for someone at a place that's completely legal.
Yeah, okay. And when did you start making money doing this?
At what age were you? I don't really want to go into the actual ages too much.
I'd say six years ago from now.
Okay, and before that you had a regular old job kind of thing?
I've done a number of different various things.
You know, IT, all sorts of different things.
But it's not my only job.
But as I said to you prior to the show, there's certain areas of my life I don't want to discuss.
That's fine. No, I was just wondering in my head, Damien, if you've ever done call center work, because if you were a...
If you were a sadist and you did call center work, that would explain a lot of call centers.
I'm just putting that out there.
I did work for a telemarketer once for like four days and then I just like...
That's rough. Yeah, I worked as a bill collector for an afternoon.
Like, I can't do it, I can't do it.
Yeah, it was for a charity and then I worked out they were scamming people so then I just left.
Oh yeah, that's pretty rough. Yeah, it was.
I do. And do you think this is going to be your career for the foreseeable future?
Absolutely not. I don't think I'll be doing this forever.
I'm doing it. It's rewarding.
It gets me in contact with a lot of people that enjoy what I do.
There's been some amazing transformation and benefits.
So while I'm still enjoying it, I'll do it.
I don't think it'll be something I'll do forever, and I just don't know when that will be, but right now I'm still enjoying it.
It's quite rewarding, so I'll keep going.
I was really struck, Damon, when you were talking about sexual repression, that people come to you or to this environment, and I don't know if it's like the Freudian approach or whatever it is, but there's this idea that You know, sexual oppression is really, really bad and you've got to let your freak flag fly and so on and let it all hang out and pursue your desires and your thirsts wherever they lead and so on.
And look, I get all of that.
And I, you know, looking back at sort of the Victorian area, there was a prudery with a sort of teeming underworld of Jack the Ripper salaciousness that was kind of troubling in a way.
So I do get the idea.
But with the people that you work with, What kind of sexual repression are you running into?
And when you say that there's a healing aspect to it, now I'm in my head forever.
So what kind of repression are you dealing with and where do you think the healing aspect comes in?
So, you know, the clients come to me for a number of different reasons.
One of the main ones is that they've had these urges.
They've not acted on them for a period of their life.
They're not feeling in alignment with their true self.
They have the experience.
They feel a lot better about their lives.
They feel more empowered. They feel like they've embraced their true or one of the true aspects of their realities.
And that has been a transformative process for them.
So they've come to me having these desires, not acting on them.
So is that not a form of repression?
Well, no, that's where I'm torn.
That's where I'm torn. And I do want to get to the studies that you forwarded to me, which are very interesting.
But here's where I'm torn. So let me give you a standard narrative that you will not accept, but just, I know it's out there.
And the standard narrative goes something like this.
Some people like sex that's pleasurable, other people like eroticism that is both pain and pleasure together.
So the question is why?
What's the difference? What's the difference?
Now, maybe it's genetic.
Maybe there's some... I don't want to say crossed wires because that sounds like it's bad or broken or something like that.
But maybe there's more of a merge of the pleasure pain center in some people and that's why they prefer pain as part of their erotic stimulation and so on.
Maybe for some people it's very separate.
And so for them BDSM would be like for you being a submissive like just not pleasant and you really not want to do it in any way shape or form.
So there's this question why some people would want to have pain mixed in with their sexual pleasure.
So one of the answers could be or is theorized to be that people who've suffered as children Who maybe have been verbally abused, maybe sexually abused, maybe abused in other ways, have got a pattern of intimacy, so to speak, because children will pursue punishment more than they will avoid attention, right?
So for a child, not having any attention is the worst thing at all, because you might.
If the parent at least needs you for punishment, then they need you for something and you have a weird kind of bond and all that.
So if there is A child who was associated intimacy and connection with violence or aggression or pain or something like that, then it may be blended in their sexual makeup to the point where they would pursue that or find it less gratifying to pursue sexual satisfaction in the absence of that because they have a dysfunctional bond with a caregiver, whether it's parents or maybe it can be some daycare teacher or nanny or whoever, right?
A babysitter it could be, right?
So, as far as sexual repression goes, There's sort of two ways to look at it.
And these aren't the only two ways.
There's just two ways to look at it. So one, which I think is your way, is, hey man, this is who they are.
And if they're repressing who they are, they're going to go through life discontented and unhappy and unfulfilled and have a bad life.
Whereas if they embrace...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm going to stop you there.
I'm not saying that, I'm not saying if they repress themselves that they don't have a positive life.
It just adds a layer of richness to their life.
But not being able to express yourself or find sexual satisfaction would be pretty bad, wouldn't it?
I don't say the word bad.
I would say it's more unhealthy for them as an individual and the way they orientate to the world in relationships.
Like a man who's gay, who has to pretend to not be gay his entire life.
I think we can assume that he would not be as happy as a man who was able to openly embrace his homosexuality, right?
Right. Okay. And it was the same thing.
So if somebody's really into this stuff and they have Unsatisfying sex or less than satisfying sex and are always yearning or thinking or dreaming.
Of course, if they then have this secret with someone who they are in love with, like they have the secret that this is what they like and they can't talk about it, they can't express it and so on.
That's not very satisfying.
So, in terms of the sexual repression or the unleashing of sexual repression, that's one approach, right?
That this is who they are and they should embrace it and express it and not hide it and all that, right?
Now, another approach would be something like, well, if they had something that went a little awry when they were younger, then it's better to go back and deal with that Rather than to manifest it going forward, right?
So if there was some trauma or some problem or some dysfunction or some odd bond that happened when they were younger, It's better to go back in time and to deal with that, which would release them in a sense from the connection between pleasure and pain that may be occurring as the result of something in the history.
And that would be preferable because that's dealing with trauma rather than acting it out in an attempt to master it in the future.
So that's why I was sort of asking about the kind of sexual...
Repression. Have you ever worked with someone where, you know, they have a BDSM fetish and you can kind of see where it comes from in their childhood?
Well, I actually agree with you in those points.
So before I coach someone, for example, so there's coaching and there's actually doing one-on-one sessions.
So before the one-on-one session, I asked them, is there any history?
Of, you know, any abuse in their life.
If they say yes, I make a value call, do I keep going or not?
Depending on what, you know, what they want to explore.
So again, the pain-pleasure aspect is only one part of BDSM. There's bondage, there's all sorts of different, you know, there's role plays, there's dressing up, there's fantasy, there's a whole bunch of other things that isn't automatically pain and pleasure.
So I wanted to make that as one part of the discussion.
If I notice someone has, you know, a lot of trauma in their past, I do recommend that they go and get therapy for it.
So, I tend to agree.
And the studies that, you know, I pointed you to, there's another one that was done in Australia where they spoke to over 19,000 people.
The studies show that there is no correlation between BDSM play and trauma.
Versus the people that do BDSM actively as a lifestyle to people that don't.
The rates of trauma and abuse, that's of course it's all self-reported, is no different.
So I understand that you can have that viewpoint, but from the studies as well as what I've seen, there's no parallels.
And I'm going to throw a caveat in here which I fully accept is Not capable of being disproven.
So I'm throwing it in there, but people can throw it out right away.
I'm just putting it in there as something that I have.
Which is that if people are acting out, they're less likely to remember their prior trauma.
So if a woman was Raped as a child when she was very young, and then she has this repetitive compulsion to roleplay rape fantasies, then she may be using that to cover up the memory.
And again, I understand that's completely not provable or disprovable.
I'm just putting the idea out there because it sounds like, well, if the data's not there, I'm just going to make up a scenario wherein it is.
And I'm fully aware of that.
I just wanted to put that out as a potential issue.
So, I think maybe we need to understand how, like, fear and pain and eroticism all goes together.
Yeah, because, I mean, I don't, I mean, this is why the conversation to me is very interesting, because they're kind of the opposite for me, you know, like, so that's what's fascinating to me.
Within the systems of the body and the mind, we have the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, the two parts of the atomic network of our nervous system that work together to regulate the functions of our hearts and our glands.
Arousing the parasympathetic system causes our heart raises to rise, our bodies sweat and to adrenaline to pump, and it also arouses us sexually as well.
The parasympathetic system then triggers the sympathetic system which controls orgasm and ejaculation.
Incredibly intense emotional sensations like the feeling of fear, humiliation or danger floods our parasympathetic system and opens into the sympathetic circuitry which brings it all to a climax.
So the systems that control pleasure and pain, they're so closely related.
And I would say, if you're hooked up someone to the scientific equipment, if you've got them in fear or an arousal state, you will not see any difference.
So there is a complex array of mechanisms in neurochemistry that goes on in all of this activity.
I mean, I get that the body, you know, the penis is used for more than one thing, right?
So I get that the body reuses code wherever humanly possible.
I'm not talking about genitalia, I'm talking about...
No, no, I'm just using that as an analogy, right?
That there's more than one use. So I get that if the pleasure system can hook into the pain system, that prevents duplication, it's more efficient and so on.
But still, you know, if the average person has said, well, you can go here and you can be beaten or you can go here and have sex with someone you love and in the privacy of whatever, right?
Most people are not choosing behind what's behind door number, right?
And so you can say these things are similar and I think for some people there may be sort of overlap, but for most people, nobody says, I mean not many people say yay jail, that's much better than the Hilton.
Well, you know, the studies show that I'd say 10 to 20% of the community in according to the surveys that I've looked at are active BDSM participants.
Is it 10 to 20% of people?
Yes, and the Durex study showed 36%.
Okay, but what are we, I mean, are we talking like slap and tickle?
I mean, what are we talking here?
We're not talking like bamboo under the nails, right?
I'll just pull up the Durex one.
Yeah, because it could be like one of these, you know, three and five women are raped on campus and stuff, and I'd like to know what the definitions are.
So the 36% one, so it was 36% of adults in the USA and according to their studies, 20% worldwide use masks, blindfolds and bondage tools as per a 2005 study.
So again, I wasn't involved in this, I don't really understand their methodologies and stuff, I'm just reporting back what has been told.
And the thing that I find interesting as well is There's a lot of activity that vanilla people do that they don't class as BDSM, but technically it is.
So one of my favorite things to do...
You mean like CNN? Sorry, just a stupid joke, but go ahead.
So one of my favorite things to do is like if I'm at a dinner party or I'm around places and they go, what do you do?
And it's like, you sure you want to know?
And then I drop the bomb and I say, well, this is what I do.
You see a shit ton of people freak out.
They're like, what, really? And then I go, okay, before everyone loses their minds, who here enjoys being spanked on the ass during sex?
And a lot of the people that originally were going, oh my God, that's so weird, would be putting their hands up.
So that's another thing that I've noticed, is that a lot of vanilla people do what is...
What kind of parties are you hanging out? Oh my God!
Dude, you're in your late 30s.
What are you doing slap and tickle parties for?
I mean, it just seems kind of odd.
It's not odd at all.
I'm just telling you that my experience is that a lot of people in the society condemn something that they're technically doing themselves.
Oh, that's nothing new in society as a whole, right?
I mean, this is like the priest railing against...
Anyway, so...
So what I'm getting at is that a lot of people are doing technically BDSM activities, but they don't Okay, so spanking, what else falls into that category in these conversations?
Well, I've seen vanilla couples.
The wife would walk past the husband and the husband gives her a tap as he walks past her.
Just a tap on the butt.
Nothing intense.
But that is technically a form of BDSM, don't you think?
It's a little tap of affection.
Do you get my point?
No, I can't go there.
Why not? It's not a habit of mine, but I mean, if you just like pat your wife on the butt or something, that's not BDSM. Technically it is.
No, technically it's not.
I don't see that.
There was a physical strike.
On the other person as a sign of affection.
How is that not?
I mean, you burp babies.
You pat them hard on the back to get the burpee.
I mean, is that baby BDSM? Come on.
No, no, no. I'm talking about couples in relationship.
I'm not talking about babies.
We're talking about couples in relationships.
As I said, I've done a lot of work with couples.
And I say to them, you know, they're coming here and they're going, they come to me and they say, we want to explore BDSM. And I say, have you ever done this, this, this, this, and this?
And they say, yeah. And I say, well, you really are.
So for example, couples with like the man would hold the hands over his partner's head while they're having sex.
That's technically a bondage control aspect.
So what I was just trying to get at is that there is a lot of activity out there In my opinion only, I can only talk from my opinion.
I get the restraint thing and I get the spanking, I assume, wealthy spanking.
But yeah, a pat on the butt.
You know, this may just be a difference of definition.
I'm with you on some, so I'm not resisting for no reason, but I can't go all the way with that stuff.
So I'm just saying that there is a lot of activity that vanilla couples do that they don't consider is a BDSM activity.
But from my technical standpoint, It is.
So, you know, the statistics show, of course, it's not the majority of people that would actively do consensual activism activities in the bedroom, but it's at least 10 to 20 percent, for sure.
Absolutely. Where do you think it comes from?
Where do you think this difference is in people?
That's a really good question.
I've never really looked into it.
No, but... I'm not asking for the data, because if there was data, we'd know, right?
If they're a brain scan or whatever, right?
But where do you think the difference?
Because if it's not environmental, right?
If it's not life experience...
Well, I think it could be a combination of nature and nurture.
So, you know, men have the dominance instinct.
Yes? Do you agree?
Not from what I've seen.
Maybe it's just watching billions.
But, I mean, don't men enjoy being...
I mean, a lot of high-powered men enjoy being dominated, right?
Sure. Yes, that is definitely the case.
Well, I am talking in generalities.
So, you know, we do have a dominance instinct.
We compete for resources.
We do all that stuff. Yes, no.
I've heard you talk about it many a time.
Well, I mean, I have a dominance instinct in that I want to spread philosophy and beat bad ideas, but not with a cat of nine tails, right?
I mean, so having a dominance instinct and then combining that with sexuality is...
Not the same. So, conflating a dominance instinct with sexuality to me is saying, well, you know, we became top of the animal heap because we enjoy fighting and winning, and that's why, you know, I'll hit a partner during sex with her consent or his consent, right? But we started the conversation talking about the appeal that Fifty Shades of Grey has.
Where does that come from?
I'm asking you, where do you think it comes from?
It has to come from some...
Inherent aspect of human psychology and human nature.
Well, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, the whole Fifty Shades of Grey thing to me has shades of pedophilia, which I actually talked about with someone on the show back in the day.
He does have sexual relations with a woman when he was 15.
Well, yeah, and I mean the way that her sexuality is described with her pigtails and like it's gross.
I mean, as far as that goes. There has to be an appeal, you know, the whole dominance and submissive archetype.
There has to be an appeal inside the innate aspects of our human psychology.
Well, no, because if it's 10 to 20%, we can't say that it's innate.
If it was innate, you know, it's innate for us to want food.
It's innate for us to have a sex drive, which is why everybody eats, and if you can, you have sex if you want to, right?
And so... I don't think we can go with innate if it's a minority of people.
It's like saying it's innate that we're homosexual.
Well, that can't be innate. It may be innate for homosexuals.
Maybe it's innate for some people?
Well, that's the question. Do you think it's genetics?
Do you think it's genetics plus triggers?
Do you think it's just triggers? I mean, we can't come up with an answer because we're not scientists and we don't have the data, but I'm just curious what you think.
Well, because when I looked at the history of BDSM, the earliest recorded BDSM rituals or even mythology goes back to 4000-5000 BC in Mesopotamia.
So, there was something going on.
It's culture. We know. I'm sorry to interrupt you, man, but this, I will absolutely, we're on the same page as far as that goes, because if you look at the warlike nature of a lot of human history, if a woman was never, ever turned on by an aggressive man, her genes would be very unlikely to survive, because if the tribe is conquered, and her children are killed, and her lover or boyfriend or mate is killed, and then she just fights to death, those genes get wiped out.
If she can find some way To go with the brute, you know, like that woman in Game of Thrones, right?
So if she can find some way to go with the brute, then her genes will survive.
So the idea that women are just absolutely appalled and horrified by aggression or sexual aggression on the part of men just flies in the face of evolution.
And I think there are times, you know, I've done the whole R versus K stuff, gene wars, which people should check out.
I think there are times when...
Women are more naturally drawn to gentleness and resolution and calmness and so on and then there are times when women are drawn more towards the bad boys and it has a lot to do with resources and it's all complicated.
I've gone over it before. But it would not surprise me That in a time of what seems to be inevitable and increasing social conflict, like the whole war between the left and the right and mass migration and increasing violence and so on, to me, something like Fifty Shades of Grey is women's antennae going up and saying, well, peace may be ending, so we better start to widen our tastes a little.
It's an interesting question.
I really don't have an answer.
Because you talk to a lot of people, right?
When they come in to you, you ask them about their history and so on.
And if there was any patterns, I guess that was my question.
I haven't noticed any patterns.
I have worked with people who have aversion to touch, for example, in this context.
So I do change the way that I work with people if I notice something.
But I haven't noticed any patterns.
They just say that the common thread is that they've had these desires, yearning, and they want to fulfill it.
So I don't really probe too hard because that's not my job to probe where that comes from too much.
I do ask, as I said before, if there's any real severe trauma or abuse, and if so, I do recommend that they go and get professional help to deal with that.
But I don't see any great patterns.
I'm only generally working with women, so I can only talk about what I've experienced with hetero women specifically.
This is the language that they use.
I have this natural desire to be dominated in this way.
Now, within that, of course, it's not just all force one way.
There's the aftercare, there's the communication, there's a whole bunch of things going on.
So the domination aspect or the pain aspect is just one part of the dance, so to speak.
There's this great bit.
I'm not giving any spoilers here.
It really is a powerful bit in a not very good movie, but it's the third in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, which I watched, knowing that we were going to talk.
And not because I was assuming it would be like this, but you did introduce yourself as a Christian Grey type.
So I watched the last movie, and there's a very powerful bit at the end.
Where she, and I think it's the first time this happens, that she invites him to the dungeon, right?
To their red room of pain or whatever, right?
And he says, you know, Mrs.
Gray, you're topping from the bottom.
Oh, yep. Right?
And then she's in there, she's kneeling down in a submissive position, and just before the door closes, she turns and smiles.
Like this Cheshire Cat grin.
And Dakota Fanning is...
I mean, it's not a great role and, you know, it requires more sit-ups than Shakespeare.
But it is...
That moment is really, really good.
Really... Because she's in control.
She's the submissive. She's in control.
She's got the marriage. She's got the money.
She's got the baby. She owns him.
Hook, line, and sinker now.
Because she's been submissive.
She's in control. And that...
This is what he means.
I assume this is what he means when he says you're topping from the bottom.
In our world, the topping from the bottom means...
Okay, so within BDSM play, I maybe need to give a little backstory.
So when the dominant has a discussion, or the top has a discussion with the bottom, he or she gives back a set of parameters.
So you can do within this range.
So I like this, but I don't like this.
Or you can do this much, so there's a set of parameters back.
Yeah, so like you can say, I want Benoit no butt plugs or whatever, right?
Right, yeah. So the sub or the bottom will give back a set of parameters that the dominant or the top can work within.
So when we say someone's topping from below, is that, okay, they've given the parameters, the Dom's doing what he's doing within that, but then there's like more instruction coming from the sub.
So, it's like they're not actually giving over any power if they're constantly directing the top.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
Yeah, because I mean, the dominant is controlled by the boundaries set by the submissive.
That's fine.
That's that's that's the normal paradox of BDSM That's what makes it consensual and healthy and good is that there he doesn't go over what's the negotiated limits But if there's constant like adjustments from the sub That's when we consider it's the topping from below.
So that's how that's how we understand that phrase But yeah, I haven't seen the third movie gonna be honest haven't seen it because it doesn't really interest me Yeah, no, I wouldn't Okay, let me ask you this.
It's sort of my big final question. If you had the choice, if you had a switch, so you're on your way to this, what turns out to be the hot wax fantasia party when you're 18, right? Now, if you had a switch and you could say, I don't want to be turned on by this stuff, Basically, am I asking, do I have any regrets?
No, no, I'm not saying, well, would you flip that switch?
No, because regrets would be, is it up to you, right?
I mean, you just responded sexually to what you responded to, right?
Sure. I mean, you obviously didn't sit there and say, well, this is going to make my life a whole lot easier.
This sounds great. It's like, you know, being gay.
I mean, the people don't sit there and say, wow, you know, it'd be great if I had to do this difficult path.
And it's still a difficult path, even though the world has opened up a lot this way.
But if you had a switch, Would you have flipped it, you think, for not being into this?
Absolutely not. Why not?
Absolutely. It's been rewarding.
It's a rich experience.
I can only say it from my subjective viewpoint.
It increases the intimacy with my partner.
We play out, you know, trust.
There's the whole things that play out all the time.
It reinforces the trust.
It reinforces our communication.
It reinforces our conscious connection to each other.
This is our personal choice for our lives with our It's been an absolutely fantastic addition to my life.
The experiences, the opportunities, the friendships that have formed within the community, the feelings of not being judged, there's no shame or fear or any guilt within the community.
I will not change it for a second.
This is the pompous stuff that drives me a little fucking nuts.
To be honest with you. I'm just talking as a vanilla guy, you know, it's like, oh, it's deepening, it's enriching, it's like, regular old vanilla sex is none of those things, is what you do and what you have so superior, and it just seems kind of lofty, you know? Like you say, no judgment, but by saying that this is enhanced and it's deeper and it's richer and so on, aren't you kind of taking a long dump on the vanillas?
Not at all. It's not for everyone.
You kind of are. No, no, no, no.
It's not for everyone, for sure.
No, but you're saying it's an improvement.
It has. So this is where I wanted to get to the studies.
We haven't really gotten towards that yet, right?
So the studies, the ones that I sent you, there was a 2013 study published in the Journal of Medicine Found that people who practice BDSM scored better on certain mental health indicators than those who've had vanilla sex.
Like, I've noticed these changes.
Not all, just some. No, no.
So they're, you know, they're found to be less neurotic, more open, more aware and sensitive to rejection, more secure in relationships and overall better well-being.
That's one of the studies. Yes, but what I'm saying is they don't score better on all measures of mental health, just on some.
On those ones, well, the summaries of the studies that I've looked into have said that they score better than the vanilla counterparts.
I'm saying that I've experienced that.
I didn't do the study. Obviously we know that I didn't do the study.
I'm just saying that what I've experienced from a subjective point has matched what the new studies and the research has shown.
So then you are saying it's better?
I'm saying it can...
I'm saying I feel that the way I orientate with rejection and communication is...
I would say yes, it is actually better than my vanilla counterparts.
Because I see power struggles all the time.
In vanilla relationships that I don't see in kinky-DS relationships.
I've noticed before when I was having vanilla sex...
I'm sorry, because if you wanted to talk about the studies, just so you know what I'm talking about, the studies, one of them that you sent to me says, people who are into kinky sex may be psychologically healthier than those who are not.
Maybe! Says a new study, researchers found that people who were involved in BDSM, bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism scored better on certain indicators of mental health than those who did not bring kink into the bedroom.
Right? So certain and maybe, right?
So this is not a blanket endorsement of it's better.
It's like, okay, there's some pluses and some not as plus, right?
I'm just saying for me personally, I feel it has improved my ability.
No, no, but you can't cite the studies and then jump back to you personally, right?
Because I said they score better on some, not all, right?
And there are some areas in which they would score lower than vanilla's.
You think? Well, no, that's what the study says.
So the people involved in BDSM, here's the quote, scored better on certain indicators of mental health.
Yes. Not all.
Which meant that they scored lower on others, right?
So they were less neurotic, more open, more aware and sensitive to rejection, more secure in their relationships, and had a better overall well-being.
That's the summary that I got from that study.
Well, that may be a different one. I'm just looking at the one.
I think I have them both.
Let's see here. Okay.
Another one, yeah, the results mostly suggest favorable psychological characteristics of BDSM practitioners compared with the control group.
BDSM practitioners were less neurotic.
Yeah, this is one, more extroverted.
Now, but see, extroverted is then put forward as a plus.
Why is that a plus? Introversion is fine too, right?
More open to new experiences?
Well, yeah. More conscientious?
Well, sure, because if you're not conscientious and you're into BDSM, you go to jail, right?
Because you're breaking rules, not respecting safe words, and you're assaulting people, right?
Correct. Less neurotic?
Okay. More extroverted?
Less neurotic, I assume, is good.
More extroverted? I don't see it as a plus, because extroversion and introversion both have values.
More open to new experiences?
I'm sorry, go ahead. The introversion and extroversion one, I agree with you.
More open to new experiences?
Well, that's kind of by definition, right?
More conscientious? Sure.
Less rejection-sensitive?
And had higher subjective well-being, yet were less agreeable.
Now, the interesting thing about this is that I wonder if you could make the case, and this is always the cause and effect correlation that's always in trouble with this kind of stuff, you could say it's the practice of BDSM that does this, or you could say it's the people who are less neurotic, more open to new experiences and less rejection sensitive, who end up acting out BDSM because of those very characteristics, right?
In other words, if you were more neurotic but you still loved BDSM, you probably wouldn't end up doing it because you're too neurotic.
Or if you weren't open to new experiences and you were into BDSM, you might not do it because you're not open to new experiences and all of that kind of stuff.
So I don't know if BDSM causes this or these characteristics allow for people to practice BDSM because they have these characteristics.
Well, that's an interesting view.
Can I talk about what I've noticed with playing with people who are completely inexperienced to then becoming experienced?
Yeah, so we just leave the studies behind, but I just wanted to point out...
No, no, no. I'm happy to hear your experiences, otherwise I'd just be reading the studies, so yeah, go ahead.
So, I can talk about one couple.
I spoke to them and said, can I talk about your story?
And they said, yes. So this couple, fantastic couple, married for over 35 years, childhood sweethearts, this is what they told me, I spoke to them both individually, that no one was unfaithful, they generally had a pretty amazing life.
And they had kids? They've had kids, yep, still married.
The kids were now old enough to have their own lives and they wanted to explore kink.
So I worked one-on-one with the woman, let's call her Sally, the other one Harry, when Harry met Sally.
So let's say Sally, I spoke to her.
Before coming to see me, she was reporting that she wasn't feeling so amazing with how she expresses herself.
So we did some work around communication.
I helped her draft a letter to her partner with all the desires that she wanted to explore.
Wait, her partner? You mean her husband?
Yeah, her husband. Okay, got it.
So we did some work around her communication styles.
So we did that. That was on one side.
And she expressed to me...
So we did some role plays of like, okay, I'm your husband.
Tell me what you would want to say to him.
So she went through the motions and I said, how does it feel to pretend...
Wait, but what did she say that she wanted to say to him?
She wants to be dominated.
She wants to be tied up.
She wants to play around with fantasy roles and dressing up.
There's a whole bunch of things that she wanted to do that she hadn't expressed before.
So this is a bit of a long case study.
So we did some of the role plays between me and her, no sexual role play, just pretend I'm your husband, tell me what you want to express.
So we did all that.
And then she went off and did that with the husband, as in she presented the letter, and then he came to me, he was really excited that his partner was wanting to explore.
Hold on. Okay, I'll gag myself.
How's that? And you can continue.
You can attack. You can attack.
I'll put a ball gag in. Go on.
So she expressed what she wanted to experience with him.
He had no real experience with that.
He comes to me. We did a bunch of skills training around her desires.
He goes back. They do it.
They're happier. So they feel like this is what they report to me.
They feel like their intimacy has grown.
They feel like they can communicate better.
They feel like they're more closer and bonded.
She feels more confident in herself.
Within this confidence, she had some issues with her children that she wanted to address prior to doing this work and exploring BDSM and owning her reality as such, as the words that she would put in, she gave back to me.
She went back and addressed some of the issues that she had with her children and she reports to me after that The relationship with the children has become better, yeah?
So I'm only reporting back what's been told to me.
So because she's had this newfound strength and confidence to express herself sexually with her husband, it has seemed to, based on what they've told me, increase their communication styles and her ability to speak her truth to her children, which then in turn brings her to a level of honesty, and you've said many times how important honesty is.
She'd be able to be more honest with them, therefore their relationships have become better.
That's the only words I can give it.
So now the husband, he was actually, he tells me, in confidence, of course.
It's alright, it's all open between them.
But at the time, he said that he was feeling a little bit distanced from his partner.
So after exploring BDSM together, in safe, sane, consensual ways, He feels that distance is evaporated.
These are just the reports.
Yeah, I know. I mean, it's anecdotal.
I get that. But, you know, that's fine.
But what I'm trying to get at is that the positives that show up in the studies match what these people's life experiences are after exploring BDSM. Again, it's not for everyone.
I'm not saying that everyone should go ahead and do it.
I'm just saying, for certain people, at certain points in their lives, this has added to their life, increased.
But if, see, this is the thing, right?
So let's look at the, sorry, I didn't want to cut you off there if there's more you wanted to add.
Well, it seems like, as per the study, that they're more secure in their relationship now.
She reports to me individually that she feels less neurotic and more at ease with her life and her ability to communicate.
They both feel understood.
They both feel...
More bonded.
So, what I'm saying is this one particular case study virtually matches identical to what the studies say are the positive effects of BDSM relationships.
Now, these people were living technically a vanilla life for 35 years, bonded.
When they came to me, I didn't dismiss it.
I didn't say that was bad. I'm just saying they've done these certain things and there's been a lot of positive results from it, which match basically identical to the studies.
So why?
I don't know if I could sit here and extrapolate for hours on end.
About the why. I just know it has a positive causal and effect.
Yeah, well, come on.
I mean, cocaine has a positive effect.
The question is... But we're not talking about drugs.
So why even bring it up? No, no, no, no, no.
I'm not saying that it's a drug.
Of course, endorphin is a drug and all of that.
But I'm just saying there are things that have positive effects in the short run that can have negative effects in the long run.
So the fact that it gave them positive effects in the short run It doesn't invalidate, and I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that that's not the only standard by which we would judge things.
I saw them over a year ago.
I speak to them every couple of months.
Sometimes I ring them, sometimes they ring me, give me an update, and they still report.
They said to me they feel like they're renewed.
Their bond is renewed.
Their happiness is renewed.
So I can't put a negative spin on it.
Well, let me try. Let me try.
I'm sure you can have a go.
Yeah, yeah. Let me try. See, first of all, the fact that she's...
Look, I admire the fact that if she has these thoughts and ideas and desires, that she's honest about it.
She should be. Right?
She should be. But...
Simply being honest about something doesn't mean that you have to act it out.
Like, so, if a man is attracted to another woman, he can be honest about it.
That doesn't mean he has to go have an affair, right?
You understand that, right?
But we're talking about a married, hetero couple that are monogamous.
No, no, no. Listen, don't jump ahead of me.
I'm just laying a framework here, right?
Don't criticize the second story, but I'm still digging the foundation, right?
Okay. The fact that she's honest has certainly provided them some relief, and it's better than if they're not honest, right?
Yes. However, the challenge is that if she wants him to become a different person than he is, right?
If she wants him to dress up as someone else, if she wants him to be someone else, that is a rejection of who she, of who he is.
I don't see it that way.
I see it's just adding a dynamic.
No, she's saying if he has to wear a horse's head mask to have sex with her, she's saying that you, without the horse's head mask, aren't good enough.
I prefer you with the horse's head mask or whatever, right?
So whatever is the person plus It's also the person minus, which is what I was talking about earlier, which you kind of wished away, but I think the point still stands, which is if you prefer your girlfriend plus another woman, that's also your girlfriend minus another woman.
In other words, if you don't get that, you're not as happy, right?
So there is that aspect of if you want If you want someone to be someone other than who they are, and this is something to do with the cosplay and the river otter suit, if you want someone to be someone other than who they are in order to turn you on, you're not celebrating intimacy.
You're celebrating distance.
You're sexually turned on by someone being not who they are.
By someone dressing up or assuming another character or Getting involved in something that isn't natural to them, so it's not intimacy.
I mean, I can get that it can be satisfying and so on from a sexual standpoint, but you are rejecting who they are and who they have been.
Now, if For whatever reason, the couple, they've both been dying for this.
I don't know, that's a whole different thing, right?
But in general, if you come to someone after 35 years and say, I really, really want to change your sex life, that is a rejection of them as it stands and what you've been doing for the past X amount of years, right?
You say the word change.
I say the word add to.
I don't see it as a change because they don't go and then it's not like she needs this.
It's not a change. It's an addition.
It's not a change. Is it the same as it was before?
No, it's a change. Like you play these semantics games.
They're kind of baffling to me. This is like, are you the Bill Clinton here, right?
Depends what the definition of is, is, hey, you're changing your sex life.
I'm calling it a change. No, it's not.
Of course it is. But you're telling me your sex life with your partner never changes?
It doesn't grow in bondage.
Well, we're not here to talk about my sex life, trust me.
No, I get that. But it is a change.
With this couple that you're talking about, they went from non-bondage to bondage.
They went from non-BDSM to...
It doesn't change. If it wasn't a change, why bother?
I see it as an addition.
Sure, is it a change, but it's not negating their bond.
It's not saying that...
Does you want him to dress up?
Well, it's not about the dressing up so much.
It's more about the domination in the bedroom.
Okay. Is he a natural dominant?
Was it just unexpressed for all these years?
Well, this is the thing.
In his private life, or sorry, I'll go back.
In his professional life in all the other realms, there was a lot of authentic dominance.
It was just maybe what's the right word for it.
There was some dominance, like, you know, he would initiate sex and stuff like this.
She just wanted to go a little bit further.
So, again, what you say change, I just say hone.
Come on. This is not a cunt.
Like, for a man to initiate sex is not the same as BDSM. That's not like, well, here's one step, and the next step is...
I mean, that's not, that's not on the, maybe in your will, it's not on a continuum in a rational universe though, right?
I mean, initiating sex saying I want to have sex is not the same as getting into BDSM. But again, we didn't discuss because I don't really want to go down that path of exactly what they want, what they started to explore.
That part I said I'll leave aside.
But for example, it can be something as basic as blindfolding and having your arms tied.
That is not far off vanilla sex.
Yes, I understand getting whacked with a cane 50 times.
That is a massive leap.
I get that. But it was just an addition.
It was just a slight, in my opinion, change in the power dynamic.
So they're keeping it spicy kind of thing, right?
She wasn't like, I need you in a horse's head uniform or in some sort of gimsuit from Pulp Fiction or something like that.
It wasn't an extreme jump, no.
Yeah, okay. All right. So it was just adding.
I honestly see it as adding to their life.
You should tell your partner what you want.
I'm with you and if you don't, then that's It's not going to lead you to, you know, it's like going to a restaurant and saying, yeah, just bring me whatever, right?
You've got to ask for what you want in life, you're not going to get it.
So, what I was trying to, I wasn't really wanting to look at the exact things that they added.
I'm trying to, I was trying to bring a highlight to the positive effects it's had to their relationship and them as individuals.
It matches that original study that I showed you.
Which speaks to me the confirmation bias, right?
I mean, I'm sure that you've met people who haven't matched it, but you just happened to tell me the story of the couple who matched it perfectly.
That's not an accident, right?
There are people that have come to me, some women, they don't do BDSM ever again.
They go, I have this desire, I want to explore it.
They go, right, that's not for me, they don't do it again.
So, okay. Is there anyone to whom the pursuit of BDSM makes them less happy or less fulfilled or less...
Healthy? Let me have a think about the answer to that.
Well, I'd say 99% of the experiences I've had as a professional have always been positive.
They were fulfilled, they had a positive experience, they have no regrets in doing it.
99%?
Yeah. Come on, man.
No, philosophy doesn't have 99%.
There's no discipline on earth with a 99% success rate.
Therapy doesn't have 99%.
Oncology doesn't have 99%.
Back surgery doesn't have, like, nothing has 99%.
I'm afraid your credibility just took a little, for me at least, like you may be going a little further than the data supports.
I've had only two experiences not end well.
And you know, it wasn't in the sense that I didn't break any of their boundaries.
It wasn't like, you know, they ended up with a broken arm.
You know where it actually didn't go well?
It's where they explored something where they...
What's the best way to put it?
They took something out of their fantasy world and it didn't match the reality.
That's the only times it's ever gone bad.
So everyone has a wonderfully fulfilling experience and it's never a problem except for like one person out of a hundred?
That's what I've experienced.
Take it or leave it. I will leave that one and I'm sure you're you know being authentic with me but I just I I don't know what they feel about it six months later.
There must be people who don't come back, right?
Who are nice at the time but don't come back, and they did have a negative experience.
They were submissive and didn't tell you.
Well, the thing is, this is the major difference between men and women who seek out professional BDSM services.
A lot of the men, they do come back, so they form a relationship over time with their female dominatrix.
But a lot of the women don't because they're coming there because they want to experience it or they've had an idea.
So there is a completely different set of psychology and reasonings behind why they seek out people like me compared to why a man would seek out a professional female dominatrix.
So there is actually vastly different.
I'm not really going to point out, I'm not really going to have a stab in the dark of why because I've never really played with a submissive man.
So I don't really know firsthand what drives them to the experience.
But I have seen that there's the men that come back, they form relationships over years with their preferred dominatrix.
And women they're coming to explore have a desire fulfilled, you know, work it out if it's for them or not, and then they go on their journey.
So there is a difference between the male and female psychology when they come to see a professional.
I can't attest to...
I'll just let people judge that I'm 9% wonderful and perfect.
I'll let people...
What I'm saying is that the interactions that they had with me The vast, vast, vast majority, except for two, were completely happy that they had done so.
How many people have you seen, do you think, over the last, what was it, six years?
I'm not going to discuss those details.
It's quite a lot. So it's like 99.8% or 99.7% if you've seen 200 people and there's two, that's 99%.
If you've seen more than 200 people over six years, then...
You need a perfect record of absolute bliss when people are exploring challenging sexual issues, which...
Anyway, okay, so let me...
No, no, no, no, I'm not going to accept that.
They're not challenging sexual issues.
That's your viewpoint of it.
It's not theirs. No, it's challenging for them, though.
No, it's not. What?
Then why do they need training and counseling if it's not challenging for them?
I don't understand this at all, then.
I was talking about the one-on-one BDSM sessions with heterosexual women.
I wasn't talking about the couple stuff.
In that part of the conversation...
Yeah, but isn't that the 99%? Why are we switching to subcategories now?
No, no, no. Coaching is one thing.
The one-on-one session experiences is another.
For me, they're not the same.
Oh, so the 99% is not the people...
Because you were just talking about a couple that started exploring this stuff under your tutelage.
So I don't know why we suddenly switched categories without you telling me.
I haven't... Well, within the tutelage stuff, the training and the coaching, I haven't had one person report back to me.
Maybe it is out there. I don't know.
Oh, so that's 100% success rate.
I haven't had anyone come back and say that they've regretted exploring it.
If they have and they haven't shared that with me, so be it.
But I haven't experienced it.
I'll just sort of give you, you can have the last little bit, but I'll just tell you sort of my thoughts.
So first of all, I appreciate this information.
I really do. The road less traveled, as far as I can see, and it's really interesting to see it.
I'll tell you, it seems sex obsessive to me as a whole.
You know, like, sex is great and all of that, but to me, it's like, okay, you know, build a family.
Hold on. Hang on.
No, no, no. This is where I talk, and hang on.
You can put your thing in at the end, but there's my boundary here, right?
Right. So, it's just...
It's cock and ball focused, and it's sexual pleasure focused, and so on.
And I can't help but think of these women you're having threesomes with, it's like, I don't know, are they married?
Do they have families? Are they, you know, continuing civilization?
Or is it just collision for the sake of sexual release, followed by what?
I don't know. I mean, it...
Is that a question? No, no, it's a rhetorical question, because you don't know, because you don't have any conversations with these people, really, except about sexual boundaries.
It just seems kind of sad to me that the sexuality is the cement that Keeps families together, that pair bonds, that creates the stable foundation for the raising of children.
I mean, it's the essential glue that holds society together.
And it just seems to me that to use sexuality in this kind of way is kind of self-indulgent.
It's kind of like, okay, well, yeah, I don't really want any kids, but, you know, these threesomes are great.
You know, it's kind of fun but sterile in a way.
And that's sort of my concern.
It's not specific to the...
BDSM stuff, it's just in general.
I mean, we all have wild hormones as a teenager and we all understand what that kind of lust is like and so on and sex is great, it's a wonderful part of life, but it just seems like putting the cart before the horse a little bit to focus so much on sexuality and not necessarily on community building or More charity or raising kids and having grandkids.
It just seems like you got a bunch of rocks off and then that's it.
No continuation, no further life, no comfort in your old age.
Because sexuality is going to fade over time.
Then what are you left with?
You're not left with much sexual desire because you're going to get older.
And you don't have a family, and you don't have kids or grandkids, and I don't know, it just seems like You're squandering some stuff in the present at the expense of a lot of stuff in the future for the sake of titillation and threesomes and, you know, I need this to get off and I need that to get off.
But can't we have a civilization that continues or something?
Wouldn't that be kind of nice?
It seems like this hedonism kind of drags everything that forefathers built into nothingness, into squirts and slaps.
Sterility! So, I'm just trying to understand, and please help me understand what you've just said by answering these questions.
Are you talking about my personal choices in my own life, or are we talking about BDSM as a sexuality as a whole?
I'm talking about a focus on sexual pleasure at the expense of building families and having a future and so on.
But when I talk about BDSM or the exploration, I don't mix the two up.
So this is what I was saying to you, my original message to you, that I have paradoxical views.
I feel people are happiest in The science and the research has shown, yeah?
That generally as a whole, people are happier in pair-bonded family units.
Good luck to them. Fantastic.
I think that that's fantastic.
So the type of sex within that, that's where it gets, you know, that's where I don't feel people should repress themselves.
No, but you're not having kids.
I assume the women you're having these threesomes with aren't having lots of kids and We don't know.
I don't know. But probably not, right?
I mean, if this is the kind of lifestyle they're pursuing.
Yeah, you say it.
See, this is where I have a point of contention.
No, but you don't know.
So let's not contend about stuff we don't, neither of us can prove, right?
I just don't think so. I can't prove it.
But you don't have conversations with these women you're having sex with, so you don't know either.
So there's no point having contention over stuff neither of us can prove.
So why are we bringing my personal life into BDSM as an idea and as deepening intimacy and helping people communicate and not live a life of sexual oppression?
So I don't equate someone having a fulfilling or a more open, more inclusive, probably not the right word, That's not the right word.
Say, having a more richer sexual life to the end of civilization.
Although it has been associated with that repeatedly throughout history, just so you know.
Just so you know. I mean, the level of decadence in ancient Rome, the level of decadence in ancient Greece, the level of decadence...
In the French monarchy before the revolution, the level of decadence in Germany, the level of sexual decadence throughout history has consistently been associated with the end of civilization.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
Was it Sex and Culture by Unwin?
You're probably talking about that book or those anthropological studies.
I understand that.
So I'm not here To say that people shouldn't or shouldn't be monogamous.
That for me is a completely different thing.
I was just wanting to talk about and highlight the types of sexuality that people are actually having.
So as much as we would like to say this, you know, good people have good sex and that produces civilization, the reality is that there's a whole wide range of sexuality that's being explored.
But you're choosing BDSM over children.
No. Yes, yes you are.
I'm bonded with someone.
You said when you were younger that you wanted to have children.
And now you've got a woman who...
Hold on, hold on....going into you with threesomes and you're not having children.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You didn't ask, in the relationship that I was having at the time where I was open to having children, was I doing BDSM with her?
Yes, I was.
So it wasn't a choice between BDSM or children.
First of all, I've never got a clue from you how these relationships end, so we don't know if they ended because she wanted to have children and you didn't or some other reason or anything like that.
But right now, you're staying with this woman to a lot.
You said that sexual satisfaction is a very large part or key part of a relationship working.
You're staying with this woman to a large degree because she'll participate in threesomes with you and other women.
And I assume she's into the BDSM stuff as well, right?
It's not the only filter of why I choose to stay bonded.
No, that's why I said you keep taking my nuanced statements and turning them into bullshit absolutes, which is not what I'm saying.
I said it's a large part of the reason.
And then you say, well, it's not the only reason.
It's like, dude, I already said that.
It's not a large part.
It's one of. You said satisfying sexuality is a key part of a successful relationship, right?
And now you're saying it's not.
Come on. But it's...
No, no, no, you contradicted yourself.
Come on, be honest. No, no, no, hold on.
We're jumping around here.
No, we're not jumping around. You earlier said that satisfying sexuality was a key and essential part of a successful relationship.
And then I said, well, the reason you're staying with this woman is to a large degree because you can have threesomes and she's into the same sexual stuff that you're into.
And now you're switching your story and saying, well, no, no, it's not a major part.
The sexual satisfaction is not a major part at all.
It's a key component.
It doesn't mean it's... So we go from the word key to quantifying to the word large.
Yeah? Yeah, come on.
I'm not playing the semantics with you.
Sex is very important to you and you're willing to give up kids so that you can get your free card.
I'm not willing to give up having kids.
I'm pair-bonded with someone who has children who doesn't want any more.
And you're pair-bonded with her to a large degree because of the sexual kinks that she indulges you in, or participates in, or is an enthusiastic instigator of.
I don't know. But you're choosing to stay with this woman and not have your own children largely because she satisfies you sexually.
And that's all I'm saying. Is that you're choosing sexuality over fertility.
And if everyone did that, none of us would be here.
So you're kind of cashing in on everyone else having children, and yet you're choosing your kink over a future of your culture, your civilization.
The question that could be asked about this relationship I mean now, is if she didn't have children, would you be open to having children with her?
The answer would be yes.
Right. But she does have children and therefore you bonded with her sexually and you're giving up having kids because she doesn't want kids and you'd rather have your sexual freak on than have kids.
And that's my point. That's my point.
When people start to value sexuality above children, your civilization falls apart.
Because you're relying on everyone else not doing that, right?
I want to be with her because I want to be with her.
I know! That's the solipsism.
You want to be with her and the sexuality is a key part of it.
And that's all I'm saying is that you're choosing sexual kink over Actual children, which is, I mean, you understand, sexuality, the only reason we have sexual desires is so that we can have, make children, right?
That's the only reason sexual desires exist.
And you're acknowledging those sexual desires and using them for your own personal gratification rather than deploying them in the way that nature intended to bear bond and have kids.
I don't believe that the only reasons that we have sexual desires is to procreate.
Really? Why do you think we have sexual desires?
And why do you think those sexual desires coincide immediately with fertility?
It's definitely an aspect, but I think sexuality is way more diverse of, you know, where the desires come from.
All of these questions is a little bit more than saying it's just around fertility, it's just around reproduction.
Because we don't have sex just to reproduce.
No, we have sex to pair bond so that the children we make have a stable environment to grow up in.
Because people always say, well, why do you still have sexual desire after menopause and so on?
It's like, because pair bonding keeps you together for the grandkids.
I mean, it's all about kids, right?
Oh, sorry. It just dropped out for about five seconds.
So people say, well, if it's all about fertility and kids, then why do women still have sexual desire after menopause?
It's like, so that they stay pair bonded and that's for the grandkids, right?
It's all about the kids. Right.
But you've made it all about you.
Not about family and kids and all that, right?
I've made...
I don't agree with that statement.
I'm just looking at sexuality as a concept, not as to do with my personal life.
I don't believe... I don't know what that means.
You are choosing sex over kids.
You're choosing good sex or great sex for you over having kids.
Because if there was a woman who wasn't into BDSM and wouldn't do threesomes but wanted kids, you'd stay with this woman.
And how do I know that? Because there are women out there like that, but you're not looking for them because you're getting your freak on with this woman rather than having kids.
I'm not, as I said to you at the start of this conversation, I'm not looking to have kids anymore.
I know. Because you've got your sexual satisfaction with this woman and you're choosing that over kids, which means you're taking the glorious enjoyment of sexuality and turning them to your own pleasure rather than what they're designed for.
And you know, look, you're not evil.
Please understand. I mean, this is just a choice.
I just think it's a selfish choice.
That's all. It's not.
It's not. It's not to do with the sexuality aspect.
Your whole life is about sexuality.
BDSM, as you said at the beginning, is erotic stimulation.
Right? Through pain.
And now you're saying your job is about sexuality, your relationship is centered on sexuality, the matching kinks you have for the woman around sexuality.
So don't tell me your life is not, this is your job, this is your career, this is your relationship.
Listen, I choose, even if I wasn't with this woman who already has kids, I'm not looking to have children.
I like my life the way it is.
Call that selfish, I don't care.
That doesn't faze me. It's what I choose.
No, it's great. It's great that there are other people Damien, who are out there having children, so that there are people to work so that you get your retirement income, so that there are people who can build roads, so that there are people who can deliver health care to you when you get older, so there are people who can do all these wonderful things so that you can get your rocks off.
I mean, it's great that other people are having kids so that you can get things that you want in life, but it's just not for you, right?
It's not for you because you enjoy this particular aspect of sexuality, so it's great that other people can have kids, it's just not for you.
I'm not going to accept that, that my only decision about not having kids because of my sexuality, that does not ring true for my life and me.
Well, it doesn't matter whether it rings true for you based upon the evidence that you've put out here.
I mean, look, I'm going to let the audience judge this one.
I mean, I've judged it, but, you know, that's fine.
So there's no point protesting because you've already passed a long, enormous amount of information.
So maybe I'm completely wrong and maybe people will tell me I'm completely wrong.
Wouldn't be the first time. Probably won't be the last.
But that's what I see.
I can see how you can come to that conclusion.
I'm just telling you what I know to be my truth, for me, is that I'm not choosing to not have kids because of my sexuality.
Because I know that to be true because when I was I was open to the idea, the sexuality that I was experiencing with the woman that I was open to having children with was BDSM based.
So it's not a one or other choice.
Yes? Does that make sense?
You don't really remember what happened with that early relationship.
Listen, I'll let you have that last word for sure and I really do appreciate the conversation.
It was certainly illuminating for me.
I'm interested in the comments.
What do you guys think of this?
I'm curious whether I'm the Puritan or he's the Hedonist or something completely different that I haven't even thought about which could equally But I really do appreciate the conversation.
It was really, really fascinating. I hope you don't mind the tussle too much.
I enjoyed it, and I certainly wish you the best.
Okay, so can I say my last piece?
Sure. So, for me, sexual desires are not politically correct, nor moral, nor sinful.
Non-consensual acts, which actually cause harm, are immoral and sinful.
As much as we like to consider ourselves rational creatures, humans at their core are a bundle of contradictions.
Who we are is frequently at odds with who we see ourselves as.
And as much as we value consistency and constancy, we are too intricate, too prone to internal conflict and mismatch to always be uniform in thought and word and deed.
We are humans perfect in our imperfections.
By contradicting ourselves doesn't mean that we are liars and hypocrites.
It simply means that, in the words of the American poet Longfellow, we are complex, we contain multitudes.
It's the rush to ascribe moral and meaning to everything that we end up making things harder and more confusing for ourselves.
By attempting to ascribe morality to emotion and correctness to desire, we force ourselves into hypocrisy.
We're attempting to create a universal standard to things that are, at their core, defy easy categorization.
Nothing happens in a vacuum after all.
The same forces that decry kink or fetishness perversion and an indicator of mental disease or emotional deficit open themselves up to accusations that their own desires are the product of a society that arbitrarily denies sexual agency and forces them into limited sexual roles.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I've never actually had anyone read an essay on the show before.
I just wanted to know how long it is.
It's another two paragraphs.
I apologize for the interruption.
If it's two paragraphs, please finish it.
Okay. Of course, simply acknowledging that the desires exist, even trying to understand why they exist, is only part of the struggle.
It's in making peace with your shadow self, being able to embrace and acknowledge the dark and unpleasant sides of yourself, that you find freedom, comfort, and authenticity.
Accepting that you have these desires doesn't make you sinful or wrong.
It empowers you, in my opinion.
And by empowering yourself, you're better able to address their desires, even the dark, disturbing ones, in ways where you and your sexual partner communicate honestly, are aware of the risks, and respect consent.
Educate yourself, play safe, and be open to possibility.
All right. Well, I appreciate the conversation.
We'll leave it on that. And wish you the best, man.
