About BDSM

BDSM stands for Bondage Domination Sadism and Masochism. It is an acronym that groups together the main dynamics of a lifestyle or sexuality (often both) revolving around power exchange, deep trust and hyperpolarize power dynamics made of structured hierarchies where Domination and submission are the main thread holding everything together.

What does BDSM mean

Let’s start from the definition of BDSM: although as stated often BDSM is referred to as in Bondage, Domination Sadism and Masochism, to be precise it stands for Bondage Discipline Dominance Submission Sadism Masochism. That is also why sometimes you might run into acronyms like BDDSSM or BDDSM.

BDSM is the kind of emotional, relational, behavioral and sexual universe that merges together people who enjoy and find pleasure in the consensual exchange of power trought strongly polarized roles, which extend outside of the bedroom and are meant to be lived as far more than “roleplay”. Role playing is ok for vanilla couples trying something kinky, which is clearly not what we cover in this website.

BDSM also includes people who like to be more in touch with the most primal part of their being, the one which still relates to a social hierarchy made of Alphas and omegas, or Dominants and submissives, and many more dynamics that we’ll cover in this article.

BDSM is a sexuality and a lifestyle, both based on consent, respect and trust, where two or more people seek an unbalanced relationship made of Domination and submission, trust and care, leadership and servitude, pain and pleasure, and very often a lot of symbology and fetishes.

Most of the general public when confronting the “BDSM topic” have immediately brought to their mind stereotypical images coming from old memories. Movies, things people have heard in the back of their minds for ages, where BDSM was associated with “freaks”, “weirdos”, “strange people”, “dangerous people”. There are many mass media products (and productions) that have helped creating this prejudice.

It’s true that BDSM can be pretty graphic and intensity is one of the main key words in the BDSM Lifestyle. The point is that those mass media took the “WHAT“, but they aren’t showing people the “WHY” of things.

BDSM requires a huge investment in brain, time and energy. What a wonderful thing, the brain. “brain” is the first keyword you should consider as part of the kaleidoscopic definition of what BDSM is.

What BDSM is not

It’s not our attempt to write a beginners guide to bdsm, but if we were writing one, we would have started from what BDSM is not.

BDSM is not a “different way of having kinky sex” and it’s not about being “pigs”. It’s not being ruthlessly extreme and following a path of self destruction for the sake of it. It’s not related with doing chems parties (the habit of having dates where heavy drugs consumption is the core part of the experience), and it’s absolutely not related to lack of consent; quite the opposite, BDSM is entirely based on consent; without consent, there is abuse, and where there is abuse, there is no BDSM.

In the last 20 years sexuality in the gay world have changed a lot, and the arrival of instant sex apps like Grindr and such, have brought us to a dramatic switch in our sexual behavior. We keep having more and more sex with people we don’t know and we don’t want to get to know, and we need, literally we crave for more and more. And the reason for that is that we are focusing on the WHAT (sex) without enjoying the WHY (connection, chemistry, great attraction, perfect match of what the two people fantasize about, trust in each other, desire of that specific person….).

That’s why it’s impossible to have quality BDSM while using dating apps; BDSM works when you are all in with the WHY. Only then, the WHAT will follow. But let’s jump a bit back, and try and understand why do we need BDSM and why it truly is inside of everybody… yet most of people don’t know it is inside of them. The dynamics we find in BDSM are dynamics that can be found in many natural species

Is BDSM good for you?

When BDSM is done the right way, it’s extremely beneficial both physically and mentally speaking. It is proven by several medical researchers that couples participating in consensual BDSM experiences registered increased levels of cortisol and testosterone, both hormones contributing in significantly reducing anxiety, and couple closeness. BDSM partners tend to live healthier sex lives and learn to confront their fears, and especially one fear over all others: the fear to trust the partner completely.

During a BDSM session the parties involved will produce significant amounts of hormones and other chemicals naturally, experiencing a profound sense of emotional and sexual release, satisfaction, anxiety relief, excitement and romantic closeness.

Such chemicals are, as an example:

• adrenaline
• cortisol
• testosterone
• dopamine

BDSM and Consent

The one and main thing differentiating a healthy lifestyle and sexuality from abuse, is consent. BDSM is entirely based on consent. A real Dominant or Sadist would never feel any pleasure or high in giving pain or control to a person who doesn’t desire to be treated in such way. Consent is vital not only from an ethical standpoint, but also in order for BDSM not to be a silly role-playing game. True submission can only stem from the deep act of freedom of the submissive part to submit. There is no way to make a person submit in real life, unless they choose to submit indeed.

And indeed the high for the Dominant / Sadist is the satisfaction of holding that power achieved trough earned trust, in carrying the responsibility and with mastery administering pain, pleasure, guidance, discipline, structure and control to the submissive, without harming it. The real high for the Dominant comes when the submissive breaks down and lets go of control, when pain merges with pleasure and gratitude and submission, and all of this is only possible when this power exchange was consensual.

In Old Guard Leather, We do have several ways to negotiate consent. This normally happens in three stages.

• During the first interactions: typically nowadays this would be trough chats and messaging, talking and sharing each other’s experiences and expectations and hard limits.
• With a formal consent form: before having a session with a submissive, in this house We share a very detailed form of activities, where the sub expresses the level of experience and/or the hard limits to a list of activities; furthermore this is the occasion for the sub to clearly state any condition that might afflict it, allergies, disorders, personal history, and much more.
• Ongoing feedback and reporting: after every session, I demand my submissive to send a written report within 7 days from the session, in order to deepen the level of processing and feedback that is in any case necessary, continuously, during any BDSM Relationship.

Talking about consent, we suggest you to deepen the topic reading our article about Old Guard and BDSM and sexism.

What is Power Exchange

Power exchange is one of the fundamental mechanisms making BDSM work. Power Exchange depicts the phenomenon throughout the submissive receives investment and commitment from the Dominant, and allows itself to give out equal investment and commitment on its end towards the Dominant; this creates an equilibrium and an equality even in such a polarized power dynamic between Alpha and Omega.

In fact, the more the submissive gives energy, the more energy it will get from the Dominant. The more the submissive lays down the guard, the more the Dominant needs to be able to safekeep this vulnerability and honor the promise made to the naked submissive, to be its Dominant.

Where one of the parties fail in giving back equal power, the energy is not balanced, and the relationship becomes toxic; toxic BDSM relationships don’t happen only when the submissive is being abused by the Dominant; very often, the Dominant is indirectly abused by the submissive.

I tend to consider Mankind as a nature’s unexpected “wrong turn”. We evolved. We truly evolved a lot. Normally in nature this doesn’t happen, not this fast and not in these proportions, anyway. We are possibly the only race in our planet’s history which have survived and evolved so long and so much at the same time. But while doing this, a perversion started to happen: we started to create an artificial society that wasn’t in the plot.

Most of you will be thinking by now “You need a society” and that’s true. But it’s not like nature doesn’t work in the same structural pattern as the base needs humans have in regards to society; we already had it. It was the same kind of society each and every relational animal living in Packs had. Think about Wolves. Think about Chimpanzees. Think about the Lions. Think about Elephants. Each relational animal race lives in packs and has a strong sense of family, and most of all, of hierarchy. The hierarchy is there in order to give order, peace and efficiency to the pack.

The sickest thing of the artificial society we have created is that we have substituted power with money (and this shows so much in the ridiculous turn that the kink scene has taken with public findom). In our society, the only way to acquire and express power is money, which equals to power in the hands of a privileged few. Also, we have created and utopian sense of democracy where we live under the illusion that we have our choices in this society, and that our future in this scheme is in our hands. I sadly believe that the only future that is directly in your hands, is what you make of your own identity and existence.

So in a group of animals, there is a scale of hierarchy that goes from the Alpha (the most dominant, usually a male, that fought and conquered this title by showing and proving to the pack that he’s worth of what he stands for, that will provide protection, guidance, direction, strength and prosperity) down to the omega (The most remissive, submissive and in need of being of direct support to the pack. These elements are by nature the most expendables, as we know nature can be pretty raw and brutal; they’d do whatever it takes to protect the pack, and spare the ALPHA’s life. Their life has meaning because they are useful to the pack).

In this delicate balance, there is no A class and B class individual because of their positions in the hierarchy. That is something wicked and manipulative we humans have invented with our artificial society. There is no classism in nature. Everybody has the same importance, but they do have different roles. And respect is one of the most important assets in a pack working this way.

Mankind was born the same way; we were relational animals living in packs first, and in tribes later. We still have this instinct inside of us. I’m sure I’m not the first you hear or read talking about “the animal living inside of you“. Each one of us has a beast sleeping inside of us; this beast is merely waiting, and often longing, to be awakened. Of course, one can live a perfectly artificial human life without needing to get in touch with the rawest and most natural side of itself. But once you know that flame is there, once you felt it growling inside of you, it’s very difficult and painful to ignore it.

Is BDSM for you?

Only you have the answer to this question. Do you feel like you’re still finding your place in the world? Try to ask yourself the question: who are you? Are you a Dominant person? Are you a submissive one? Do you feel pleasure in letting other people guide you and in being helpful to those you consider great people?

Or do you find it difficult to obey society, need to change things, and have people following your lead, with a strong sense of protection towards those who are loyal to you? Well, in most cases, you are a little bit of both.

There is no such thing as 100% Dominant (Dom) or 100% submissive (sub). Each one of us is the distilled result of many things that happened, and keep happening, in our lives. Each one of us contains the seed and the root key for each one of these polarities; who we are and how we life is a result of time and space, of experience and ambition. In fact, most often great Masters would be excellent slaves, and the greatest slaves I know are incredible leaders in their day to day life.

One could have been a great sub to the right man, but was scarred and insulted so deeply that can’t even think about lowering the guard anymore. Somebody else could have been a great Master but has had his self esteem destroyed as a kid and now wants to seek refuge as a sub (that was Me, Master Lupus, at the beginning of My journey with My Husband, Sir Daniel, when I was 18 years old, by the way).

All of this is ok, we are all different. We can say that who we are in the BDSM hierarchy is 50% a natural born tendency (Dom or sub) and 50% is an influence of the life we are living. At the end of the day, BDSM is about feeling in balance, and feeling loved for who you truly are. If you’d like to get to know your BDSM self better, take this free and very popular quiz online.

Conclusions

Of course it goes way further and beyond this, and not everybody is searching for the deepest kind of experience in the BDSM “lifestyle”, which to me and most of the community is the Master/slave relationship. To many people it’s much more about mere Domination and submission within the sheets, and the situation ends when the climax comes, or when the so called “safe word” is spoken. Not to me and Old Guard people, though, and I’ll explain you why in the other blog entries.

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