BDSM and Trauma

[su****]

32 minutes ago, eyemblacksheep said:

It does seem most on the thread disagree with your assumption

It's only their/our lived experiences. 

How did you come to that conclusion that the majority of people in this thread disagree with me? I think we read the same responses and got different conclusions.

Did you read the PubMed posted by another member? They found causation between aces and involvement in BDSM.

I agree not everyone involved in BDSM has trauma. I simply stated that many involved in it have trauma.

And I get what you’re saying that many people just have trauma.

I also think there’s a link between BDSM involvement and neurodivergence. Not that I think everyone involved in BDSM is neurodivergent. I simply think that many people in the space are.

I think that many people who are neurodivergent have trauma. Not all of course.

We are all human and all unique.

[Da****]

15 hours ago, sub03038 said:

I’ve yet to meet a single person involved in BDSM who does not have some form of trauma. Now that is to say, I obviously have not met everyone.

But if you had no introduction to bunnies and the first 10 bunnies you met had two ears wouldn’t you assume that bunnies have two ears?

I don’t think it’s bad assumption. That’s your opinion. Everyone’s got one.

It could also be the people who are attracted to you can read your trauma. As you heal you will attract different personalities.

[ey****]

13 minutes ago, sub03038 said:

I agree not everyone involved in BDSM has trauma. I simply stated that many involved in it have trauma.

So I would agree many in BDSM have trauma. But that's because many people have trauma.  Global stats stand around 70% of people have trauma. 

Your orginal statement mind was "I personally believe that much of BDSM interest is a trauma response in most people. " - and there is a difference between having had trauma and it being a trauma response.  

15 minutes ago, sub03038 said:

They found causation between aces and involvement in BDSM.

When you say aces, do you mean asexuals or Adverse Childhood Experience?  At first I thought you meant asexuals, but then when I googled figures I found that acronym.  Which stands at around 60% of people so again, there is going to be overlap.

17 minutes ago, sub03038 said:

I also think there’s a link between BDSM involvement and neurodivergence. Not that I think everyone involved in BDSM is neurodivergent. I simply think that many people in the space are.

There are a lot of people in BDSM communities who are neurodivergent, but it's difficult to see how it sits within wider society.  Neurodivergence in itself is a large umbrella term - which does cover about 20% of the population.

A big difference however is a lot of people who are ND don't feel the need to mask in kink circles.   Not to out anyone but there's been a couple of people who I've worked with over the years who have confided in me they are ND - however they mask at work.  So because of this there are people who we might deal with on a day to day basis who we don't know if they are ND or not, but in kink communities are more open.

Mind, there are plenty of people I know to be ND who have little/no interest in kink. 

[su****]

13 minutes ago, Dangerotica said:

It could also be the people who are attracted to you can read your trauma. As you heal you will attract different personalities.

Definitely a thought 💭

[su****]

2 hours ago, Barthold said:

Don’t worry you’ll learn about confirmation bias when you are back in school

For now just know that „BDSM=damaged/treatable“ is among the stereotypes the community has spend the most time arguing against in the last two decades at least

Also to me personally „man=dominant“ isn’t a bad assumption, i am a dominant man, i know three other dominant man by name and face and i only know one openly submissive man by name and face
But that doesn’t change the fact that statistically there are more submissive than dominant men in the community

Your personal observation sample is basically just people you relate to while clinically it’s people seeking treatment
You have only seen bunnies with ***d ears

Many dominant men that I have met when you get down deep into their history you find they have trauma too. Different than submissive trauma, but still trauma.

They have different reactions to it than the submissive type.

 I find BDSM to be extremely healing on many spectrums when approached with integrity.

Anyway, I appreciate all the thoughts and thoughtful commentary.

[su****]

It is nice that the BDSM community is a place where MOST people feel safe to be themselves.  I wish there was less judgment in people overall. 

[jinxed]

21 minutes ago, eyemblacksheep said:

So I would agree many in BDSM have trauma. But that's because many people have trauma.  Global stats stand around 70% of people have trauma. 

That's very interesting, thank you for mentioning this figure! I've been wondering for a long time whether I am kinky because of trauma or whether it's not necessarily related. This went so far that I asked myself whether I'd still be / still should be kinky once I'm more in control of my trauma responses. So far, I can say that some things don't feel appropriate anymore but others just won't go away. So based on this self-observation I'd say trauma and kinkiness exist independently from one another but maybe the way the kinkiness shows can be strongly influenced by a given trauma. 

[an****]

No one is personally attacking you. Understand that first. The definition of trauma is pretty specific and most people use the APA definition. I concede that in my own post I gave too much flexibility.

I would take this opportunity to step back from your personal definitions (as I have) and go back through these comments in the lens of the APA definition. No one is attacking you personally, what is being attacked is the too broad definition of trauma.

I understand that your topic didn't even make this broad claim as anything more than your belief, it's the repeated defense of a belief over a definition that is creating the tension.

This community is good about being professional and education focused, so if a bunch of people are saying the same thing, reflect on why.

Copy/Paste from APA
Any disturbing experience that results in significant ***, ***ness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning.

Traumatic events include those caused by human behavior (e.g., ***, war, industrial accidents) as well as by nature (e.g., earthquakes) and often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just, safe, and predictable place, any serious physical ***, such as a widespread burn or a blow to the head.

[Ba****]

2 hours ago, sub03038 said:

Many dominant men that I have met when you get down deep into their history you find they have trauma too. Different than submissive trauma, but still trauma.

They have different reactions to it than the submissive type.

 I find BDSM to be extremely healing on many spectrums when approached with integrity.

Anyway, I appreciate all the thoughts and thoughtful commentary.

Well it is at least healing enough for BDSM-therapy to be a thing in the field of psychology, it’s not even new anymore
And i‘m not saying that there is absolutely no connection at all
I understand it is a strong correlation but it is not definitive enough to lead to any conclusions about causation, while there is a higher percentage of the BDSM community who are open and vocal about their trauma than in the general vanilla population that is also in part because knowledge about said trauma is more immediately relevant to any potential dynamic and there are still more people with trauma outside of the BDSM community
The comparison to ASPD and crime in my first comment on this topic wasn’t random, it’s quite literally the same thing in different colours

[Po****]

When I was like young I flirted with a girl in a sexual manner for the first time. This was a Jehovah's witness household and the girl I flirted with was one too... Well she told my dad, and he was drunk and came into the room and jacked me up against the wall and started punching the wall next to my head. I think it has caused me to have a trauma response when I need to escalate sexual tension or make move where I go into freeze mode and it's like my brain goes totally stupid. And it destroyed my self esteem. I hope I can overcome that with kink. It has pretty much destroyed my life 🤷.

[ey****]

2 hours ago, jinxed said:

That's very interesting, thank you for mentioning this figure! I've been wondering for a long time whether I am kinky because of trauma or whether it's not necessarily related.

It's a difficult one, because for example there are people into kink where it is likely, in their cases, a trauma response.  However there are plenty of people where despite having some form of trauma, their involvement in kink isn't down to it.

Sometimes, a lot of people who have kinks, fetishes, interests, etc try to self-analyse where it comes from and come to conclusions - but - it doesn't mean it's always correct.  

An interest thing that actual studies into kink/fetishes are inconclusive.  

Of course, there are people who find that doing some things in kink helps them deal with past traumas.  But that in itself isn't universal. 

[ey****]

1 hour ago, PoisonOfGod said:

it destroyed my self esteem. I hope I can overcome that with kink. It has pretty much destroyed my life

I'm sorry this happened to you.

However, therapy is more likely to yield healthy long term results than kink is. 

[Da****]

2 hours ago, PoisonOfGod said:

When I was like young I flirted with a girl in a sexual manner for the first time. This was a Jehovah's witness household and the girl I flirted with was one too... Well she told my dad, and he was drunk and came into the room and jacked me up against the wall and started punching the wall next to my head. I think it has caused me to have a trauma response when I need to escalate sexual tension or make move where I go into freeze mode and it's like my brain goes totally stupid. And it destroyed my self esteem. I hope I can overcome that with kink. It has pretty much destroyed my life 🤷.

I imagine this may be one of many less obvious situations that you've come to see as normal. Therapy can be incredibly helpful in recognizing and understanding patterns of behavior that may have developed over time. Personal growth is a lifelong process, and gaining greater self-awareness as an adult can be both challenging and deeply rewarding. It's a journey of continuous learning, and one that often brings meaningful positive change.

[Po****]

41 minutes ago, Dangerotica said:

I imagine this may be one of many less obvious situations that you've come to see as normal. Therapy can be incredibly helpful in recognizing and understanding patterns of behavior that may have developed over time. Personal growth is a lifelong process, and gaining greater self-awareness as an adult can be both challenging and deeply rewarding. It's a journey of continuous learning, and one that often brings meaningful positive change.

I do go to therapy. It got the ball rolling for me, but I think I might have gotten most of what I can from my current therapist.

I started looking into jungian psychology and the idea of shadow work was intriguing and I started identifying I think many of not most of those behaviors. I started reflecting on the things that irked me and realized I was traumatized 😂.

So I read and much of the philosophy I have studied so far encourages experiencing the opposite of your trauma. So I think if I actually experienced a radical sex life for a change maybe it would ward off the subconscious feeling that dads going to kick in my door and beat me up if I try to initiate sexual intimacy.

I'm not a virgin, I have managed and been in relationships and all that but have always settled and have very low self esteem. But I'm actually happy because I've finally started at least recognizing all the denial I was in and the false identity I created. And the terrible people I kept around.

[mi****]

I’ve thought the same thing myself. I also enjoy researching and learning about all kinds is things including this - I have “daddy issues” as I didn’t know him until I was 12 and mental *** from my mother.

[Da****]

8 hours ago, PoisonOfGod said:

I do go to therapy. It got the ball rolling for me, but I think I might have gotten most of what I can from my current therapist.

I started looking into jungian psychology and the idea of shadow work was intriguing and I started identifying I think many of not most of those behaviors. I started reflecting on the things that irked me and realized I was traumatized 😂.

So I read and much of the philosophy I have studied so far encourages experiencing the opposite of your trauma. So I think if I actually experienced a radical sex life for a change maybe it would ward off the subconscious feeling that dads going to kick in my door and beat me up if I try to initiate sexual intimacy.

I'm not a virgin, I have managed and been in relationships and all that but have always settled and have very low self esteem. But I'm actually happy because I've finally started at least recognizing all the denial I was in and the false identity I created. And the terrible people I kept around.

I think the more awareness you have, the more you realize you have only begun to scratch the surface. Interactions with other people will trigger you into choosing old or new behavior, and you will leatn what works and what doesn’t.

[co****]

That’s real though. Like my wife is into impact play. The problem for me is that I slip in to an alternate persona from my old life. It gets hard for me to com back from so I tend to shy away from it.

[os****]

Nature vs. Nurture.. Where is this inner voice at (inner dialogue?) Psychologists does not know how the body and mind is connected. Did we look for kind of treatment growing up? Or did that kind treatment was looking for me?

[os****]

We train people how they treat us. I noticed people don't like it.

[Po****]

I've honestly found a lot more help from esotericism than my psychologist 🤷. But I do give him a lot of credit especially for the initial work. But reading Maxwell Maltz, Robert Anton Wilson, and Austin Osman Spare has been really helpful and in a short period of time.

[ta****]

As someone who has had the opportunity to be close to fully aware of how their sexual identity developed, I can say for certainty that it does not involve trauma pertaining to my parental upbringing but more of a social perception I picked up on at the time. I remember when I was still crawling as a baby (yes it may be hard to believe but I have been aware since I was a few months old) the day I realized I was to be a 'woman'. As a baby, you pick up patterns very quickly, and thus the biggest distinction in your life during that time comes from Father and Mother or boy and girl. Therefore, as I started relating the condition of being a woman or a man, I ascribed restraints to each, either socially, physically, verbally, aggressively, passively, esthetically, and so on. When it fully came to me that I could not choose and I was ***fully/violently placed in a body that would condition my experience as a human being, I decided to observe. I would observe myself observing the very acts done unto me that would steer me to take up being a woman. Quickly, I found a game, a world of my imagination where man and women traits can be displaced/played with and I started to revel in that power. Thus, began my journey of sadism and later my desire to dominate. Since it was at such a young age I ***ly developed the strong link for this and whenever I see a man being humiliated or a woman my mind sparks up before im even aware of it anymore.

[Ne****]

While there is definitely some correlation in there, I doubt that there is a cause-effect relationship.
BDSM as a coping mechanism is plausible, definitely - do X related to this and your brain dispenses happy chemicals - but we should take into account that A) it's not always trauma, sometimes it's even related to happy memories, and B) we humans deal with lots of things in very different ways.
What we should be careful of is the "broken" narrative. The idea that liking kink means something is wrong with us on some level.
That being said, good on you for your pursuit of knowledge and your self-reflection! That always helps us understand people better.

[Po****]

5 hours ago, Nerddasespadad said:

While there is definitely some correlation in there, I doubt that there is a cause-effect relationship.
BDSM as a coping mechanism is plausible, definitely - do X related to this and your brain dispenses happy chemicals - but we should take into account that A) it's not always trauma, sometimes it's even related to happy memories, and B) we humans deal with lots of things in very different ways.
What we should be careful of is the "broken" narrative. The idea that liking kink means something is wrong with us on some level.
That being said, good on you for your pursuit of knowledge and your self-reflection! That always helps us understand people better.

My thoughts is you can use it to overcome trauma related issues. Just switching my reality tunnel to one of non monogamy has allowed me to no longer see girls who cheated on me as terrible people, many of them were just trying to operate in a paradigm that is forcing them to deny part of their psyche and so was I. So now all that feeling like a victim and being bitter shit is gone 🤷. And I really haven't even participated in any kink yet, the mental shift has done that. Is that just cope? I dunno... I'll find out I guess. I don't have any beliefs so I can shift how I think to fix cognitive dissonance when it gets out of control 😅

[ds****]

I got hit by a truck in December and have had over 59 documented injuries and the trauma of it has had so many different twists and turns. So add in getting dumped in Feb by 6 yr relationship while only getting laid a limited amount times since I came back to bc at Xmas.

Now the hard part is my libido has gone through the roof. My last relationship was very sexy heavy but due to living below her parents room that took a huge toll on us. But now she’s got a new bf so I’ve just been letting this libido grow and grow for a little bit now and I don’t know what to do.

I had a somewhat of a date today, and we had already talked dirty and texting and what not but once we hung out, it was just like I needed a friend and we hung out and talked about personal stuff and that was great and all but here I am hard again.. with no one 

[ey****]

19 minutes ago, dsp1991 said:

l but here I am hard again.. with no one 

which is one of the issues of leaning on kink/BDSM to overcome trauma/***/etc - it relies on another willing participant to help with the band aid.   It also creates pressure on yourself to find a willing participant.  

And is no substitute for actual therapy, rehabilitation, etc.