I slapped a girl and she liked it
3 insights from exploring BDSM this past year.
Yes, probably the most sensational title I’ve used in a long time. But 100% factually true, zero exaggeration.
BUT FIRST.
My expectation and perception of BDSM prior to attending anything was mostly informed by:
50 Shades of Grey (movie)
Sherlock (the dominatrix)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (the hit job Mrs. Smith did)
So my rough impression was… something about contracts, bondage, domination, had something to do with sexuality, and something to do with kinks and fetishes that are super taboo that I didn’t understand.
I didn’t really understand why anyone would be so fascinated by BDSM just with the impressions I had, but I had enough friends deeply in that world who also raved about it.
So it merited a fair investigation, I thought.
Insight #1 - Pleasure-Centricity
I've never slapped anyone’s face.
Well. That was true until last November.
The first workshop I went to was an introduction to BDSM, and a pretty great one in hindsight.
We were split into pairs and we took turns giving/receiving each other pressure. But in my mind, the magic of this was how specific and calibrated it was.
In pairs we swapped responses on these 3 questions:
A) What kind of pressure?
Hitting/slapping/smacking
Nails/scratching
Grabbing/squeezing
B) Where do we apply this pressure?
Head/Neck
Shoulders
Chest
Back
Arms
Feet
Legs
Butt
C) How intense is this pressure (scale of 1-10)?
And the whole purpose, specifically for the receiver, was to explore unknown territory OR receive a form of touch that they knew felt good to them.
At this point, I thought this was pretty great! It seemed like a really thoughtful proactive communication around physical touch that… had very little to do with sexuality.
For me, it was pretty easy on the receiving side.
I knew that I enjoyed 8/10 grabbing/squeezing pressure on my back and on my legs. In my mind, I was getting a very brief deep-tissue massage 🤣 I LOVE GETTING MASSAGES.
After I shared what I wanted, my exercise partner did it. It was great! It was what I expected.
Then we switched.
So my exercise partner was someone who already had a lot of experience in the BDSM world.
You already know what she wanted.
She told me “I want you to slap my face, and I want it at a 6/10.”
I probably didn’t show it, but internally, I was absolutely confused and mind boggled.
“Why…. The heck would anyone want that. And why would they enjoy that?! Wouldn’t that hurt?”
We basically did a few “warm up” slaps so that I could get calibrated on what felt like a 6/10 to her.
3/10
4/10
Bam.
“That was a 7, but I really liked it!”
I went from 0 all-time face slaps to 3 all-time in the span of 10 seconds.
Record breaking.
Record scratch.
I spent the next 10 minutes reflecting on how I had always coupled the action of slapping (especially across the face) with explosive anger and an intent to hurt.
That experience with my exercise partner created a whole new category of possibility.
Slapping could be paired with an intent to give pleasure.
It dawned on me, how the acts of service I might do for friends — giving them massages, doing their dishes, driving them to the airport, cooking for them — all spawn from a similar place of affection/care for them.
Slapping, surprisingly, could be just a different way of making someone happy.
It was also enlightening to wrap my mind around how:
Me getting 8/10 pressure on my back/legs could give me pleasure and at the same time NOT be pleasurable to someone else.
And so similarly, my partner in the exercise and getting 6/10 force across the face could give her pleasure and at the same time NOT give me any pleasure.
And that leads to the next insight.
Insight #2 - Enthusiastic Consent
With the impressions I had about BDSM prior, part of me was often bothered because it actually seemed like abuse.
It seemed like the person who was dominant (usually a guy) was inflicting pain to the other person (usually a girl) and it’d seem like the girl 1) didn’t actually want to be there 2) didn’t actually enjoy it or 3) couldn’t actually get out of the situation.
And if any of those were true, why would anyone want to do that?
But from everything I’ve learned so far in the BDSM world, consent is everything. You are encouraged to use colors (green — “this is good”, yellow — “not working lets change it up”, red — “hard stop”) to communicate what you’re experiencing, there’s deliberate calibration on boundaries (what are the no’s), desires (what are the wants), and aftercare (what would be great after the experience).
Calling a yellow or red is encouraged.
“No enduring” encouraged.
Full-body yes’s are encouraged.
How I currently understand it is this:
The whole purpose of a BDSM dynamic is so that the receiver is having an enthusiastically great experience and the giver is fully present and attuned to help create that experience.
Additionally, a well-facilitated BDSM experience actually seems like a great context to explore limits, boundaries, desires, with people who have your well-being, pleasure, and enjoyment in mind.
Of course, that can’t necessarily be said of everyone who practices or teaches BDSM, this just has been the context and environment I’ve learned in so far.
Just like there are Christians who are a very poor representation of the essence of Christianity, dads who father poorly, shit bosses who give a bad rap to bosses, and incredibly greedy/dishonest wealthy people, there can be and absolutely are people who practice BDSM and are terrible representations of what it can be. But doesn’t mean that all of it is bad.
If you’re curious to learn more, I would recommend this podcast with Om Rupani as a starting point.
Insight #3 - A context for personal growth and therapy
I was about to go to a workshop entitled, “Humiliation Play.”
I am sure this gives you pause.
If it makes you feel any better, I had my hesitations.
I had many hesitations.
Was someone going to slap me, spit on me, and then call me “worthless, no good, dumber than a box of rocks”?
Or maybe pants me in the middle of the workshop?
Make me share my most embarrassing moments from my teenage years when I was super stressed, underslept, and moody?
Om Rupani was leading the workshop.
He told us to find a sensitive part of ourselves, an aspect that we knew would feel a little painful to poke at.
Ok. Done.
And then he asked us to come up with a sentence/phrase that would poke at that part of ourselves.
The ones that came to mind:
“You’re never going to find a life partner”
“You’re a bad sibling”
“You’re a bad, ungrateful son”
For the next 10-15 minutes, we paired up and would have our partner deliver one of those phrases in as embodied-and-real-way as possible. The goal was for them to say it and mean it so that it would genuinely feel like a poke.
Why?
The whole premise, Om explained, was to treat it like exposure therapy.
Hearing the very thing that might hurt (in a safe, real-but-simulated way) gives us a way to sit with that sensitive part of ourselves, feel the pain, understand the pain, embrace the pain, and heal from it.
Yeah. The first few times, it kind of stung.
The 4th time, less.
The 8th time, much less.
But after the 15th time, it was like water off a duck’s back.
I progressed from sadness, grief, shame, to acceptance and embracing it, to almost an invincible sense of “Come on, hit me harder, hit me with something that hurts… is that all you got?”
I was surprised and impressed with the rate of change.
It made me wonder — what other sensitive parts of me could be exposure-therapied through? And what if I just did that with myself and skip the whole setup and needing a partner?
Conclusion
For something that’s so taboo, I’ve found myself being a fan of how I’ve grown, how much I’ve learned, and how practitioners/teachers like Om help others make personal breakthroughs using the vehicle, language, and philosophy of BDSM.
The bad rap that BDSM gets in mainstream thinking is understandable. I’d likely be in the same boat still if it weren’t for my friends who introduced me to it and Om’s podcast and workshops.
But like many misunderstood things, there’s often wisdom hidden underneath if you can get past whatever might offend you and ideally, finding someone who can effectively teach, embody, or model that wisdom.
Have you had experiences with BDSM? Was it terrible? Was it great? What influenced your understanding of it?
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