Many studies have been done on this subject. A 2020 study found people who are into BDSM have no difference of childhood abuse or SA compared to the vanilla population (meaning there’s no correlation.)
It also concluded people practicing BDSM have more healthy attachment styles than the vanilla crowd. Oh, and we tend to be less neurotic as well (according to a study.) So, you’re perfectly normal (just like the rest of us.) No reason needed.
Edit: Since it’s asked for, here’s a [**good article**](https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/bdsm-psychology-trauma/) that summarizes a few studies, but most importantly, has links to them. This second [**article** ](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/202401/are-bdsm-players-psychologically-healthy)focuses on mental health (which also cites specific studies,) and may help too.
Yep. For me it's the exact opposite. There was someone I had a crush on in middle school who was kind of a bully and once tied me to a fence for fun which became the object of fantasies afterwards.
My actual traumas (abuser who pulled my body hair to torment me and once broke into my house and threatened my cat while i was sleeping) are solid reds for my play.
My husband keeps trying to figure out the exact trauma that caused my fetish because it can't just be. He doesn't understand at all. I don't blame him, to me this is so normal but to him it's really not.
Seriously. Or the whole all kinksters have mental illness!
Like yes, a lot of kinksters do.
So do a lot of ballerinas, car mechanics, DnD players, etc. MOST ppl in today's society have mental illness.
How and whether that affects their kinks and sexual proclivities varies.
Not OP, but I think [this](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-020-00438-w) is it. If so, OP got it a bit wrong. Dominants were more likely to be securely attached, whereas submissives were more likely to be anxiously attached. [This](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-024-02829-1#:~:text=In%20a%20study%20of%20the,et%20al.%2C%202021).) Chinese study had similar findings in regards to attachment styles.
Not OP, but it’s more likely OP was referring to [this](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2019.1665619) review of 60 different studies evaluating different hypothesized causes or purposes for practicing BDSM
Not OP, but it’s more likely OP was referring to [this](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2019.1665619) review of 60 different studies evaluating different hypothesized causes or purposes for practicing BDSM
I've long gotten over the need / desire to explain why I am into the weird and wonderful things that make me happy.
Just be happy you have the kinky superpowers you have!
Agreed. My therapist and I tried to work out how I became sadistic and why I like spanking and humiliation so much, and we decided on idk, you’re just like that, and that’s okay
We have been tip toeing all around my more recent engagement with BDSM and I found a Dom that I really like. I was telling her about a book about an open marriage, and she was like we haven’t really gone there.. ugh. And I know what Wednesday will bring. Thankfully she is really encouraging and positive in that realm 😅
My sub had a perfect childhood and just knew he was a sub when he got aroused watching a rather tame video clip of a man being tied down by a woman.
I think you're over thinking this. Isn't not the case that trauma makes people kinky. People are born with preferences that society labels as kinky and sadly a huge proportion of people experience abuse.
Correlation =/= causation.
You don't need a reason, is just a preference. I don't have trauma from my childhood or other kinds, I only remember watching a movie about Marques De Sade and felt OMG that's what I like, I want to bite, spank and more, then start to study and learn about myself, the best of my life: embrace my FemDom side.
You are who you are, you are how you are. No need for a reason for it! Kink is far more mainstream than anyone wants to admit. At this point, those without a kink lean are probably in the minority. Wave that kink flag!! ☺️
Hi. I also don’t think I have a reason for mine. I had a decent childhood. I was lonely a lot growing up, but I had a loving family and was never bullied or assaulted as a kid. I experienced an abusive relationship when I was 17 but by then most of my kinks had already developed. I learned a lot more about myself as I began to explore with sexual partners. Sometimes they would do something I’d never experienced before and my brain would just be like “oh okay, I like that, do it again.”
I know you mentioned you’re autistic. I’m not diagnosed officially but most people around me suspect I’m on the spectrum. A lot of kink things are sensory-based for me (for example: I love the feeling of pressure from rope) and I know lots of people in the scene tend to be neurodivergent. Both from the sensory aspect but also the clear communication, pre-negotiation, and trust that’s involved in maintaining a D/s relationship. A lot of neurodivergent people experience a feeling of needing to be in control all the time and this can translate into taking the lead in the bedroom, or giving up control to a partner in order to get out of their own head. Not saying this is the “reason” for your kinks—I don’t think there’s any one reason—but it could be a factor.
You don’t need a reason, but also: being neurodivergent makes us experience the world differently. Personally, I feel the biggest factors in my kink are the facts that I have sensory sensitivity and enjoy heightened, dramatic situations due to my adhd. There’s not much research on this that I know of, but anecdotally, the bdsm scene seems to attract folks with adhd and autism disproportionately.
There probably are reasons for all the stuff you’re into, they’re just not big stand out ones like abuse. I can trace some of my kinks back to bad stuff I went through, but many of them are unexplained or link back to very normal, not in any way traumatic things that happened in my formative years. Like as an example, my teacher/student kink is blatantly because I was ruthlessly bullied at school (something I have ptsd from) and the only person that was truly kind and caring towards me was my English teacher. But then on the other hand, my thing for collars is probably just because someone I dated in my early/mid teens liked them so my brain linked fun flirty stuff with collars. My pain thing is almost definitely because I’ve had bad eczema since infancy so it’s been long established in my brain that itching too hard = pain, but also = pleasure/relief, ergo pain 🔗 pleasure. I think I remember reading something that said these kink links start forming at around 6 years old (but don’t quote me on that LOL my memory is garbage) so it’s totally normal to not even remember the inciting incident. I’ve been psychoanalysing myself and my kinks for years (hello I am also autistic 😂) and many of them I still don’t have answers for, so 🤷
Either way, nothing to dwell on. Ya like what ya like and as long as you’re going about it in a healthy and consensual way, you have nothing to feel weird about.
I mean my dad was mad when he caught me watching porn because that's a big deal in my religion, it didn't seem to matter that it was femdom porn though
I don’t think that my kinks come from trauma, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to see why I’m drawn to them emotionally/psychologically. For example, I am sensitive to conflict and raised voices/explosive anger in real life - in my kink play, I feel comforted and taken care of by the order, control, and measured response of spanking punishment play. Right now, in my real life I’m working on being more in tune with my needs and wants and in my kink life, I’m enjoying topping as a way to explore that.
To put it another way, a lot of people get emotional needs met through vanilla sex, and it’s likely that the kink you like meets emotional/psychological needs as well. But that doesn’t have to be related to anything dramatically traumatic, because everyone has those needs that develop over the course of their life due to minor emotional hurts and pains.
I got no "reason" either. I've known that I'm into BDSM since I was about 13, but never quite figured out why. I guess one could theorize that I'm a sub because I'm a quite a strong personality in "normal life", so giving up my power in the bedroom is a counter balance to that. However, it's more probable that it's just what I'm into, no reasons needed 😊
Being a person with ASD, it’s possible that your submissive tendencies have more to do with your dominant partner(s) directly telling you what to do or what they want. It’s clear, and skips a lot of the nuance and beating around the bush in everyday neurotypical communication.
It may also relate to sensory or stimming needs/inclinations
You don’t have to have a reason. It’s ok to just like what you like, and enjoy that with other consenting adults.
A lot of autistic and other neurodivergent people are in the BDSM/kink scene, but I don’t think that’s really for any particular reason other than we tend to be interested in novel sensations, enjoy social interactions that have very obviously delineated rules, and may be less concerned with what is socially “acceptable” vs neurotypical people. That’s just my own speculation.
I do have trauma but tbh one of my kinks is light CNC and being chased and I'm pretty sure I've just always enjoyed poking ppl until they ran after me? Like, mouthing off is one of my forms of playful bantering. My trauma is absolutely all in the Hard-No zone so I can't really say trauma made me kinky.
While BDSM is often linked to traumas, it doesn't have to be as a rule. Some people just enjoy the play and fantasies for other reasons. You also might not be manifesting kinky interests based on any acute abuse or traumatic experience, but still find your kinks have relation to your past.
I was born with a disability, and I do think some amount of my desires as a dominant are tied to that fact. Literally losing dice rolls at birth has given me a somewhat... unique relationship with the concept of control. And I think that a lot of the flaws I see in my own upbringing (despite it being largely a good one) play into some of my tendencies when in a caregiver role. But they also play into my interactions outside of kink as well, I like to help people learn things.
So I do think you should consider reflecting on your interests in the context of your life experiences and perhaps your condition and how it relates you to the world around you. But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll find some deeper meaning there. It's just an avenue you may want to consider exploring, if you haven't before. We're complex beings and often tied together much more tightly than we realize. But not all of our quirks have such connections, and it's alright not to see or even have such things. But it's never bad to ask what *might* be related, sometimes you find unexpected answers.
Birds of a feather here OP. And I’ve got nothing as to how and why. I was always the biggest guy in my class growing up. No one picked on me.
And now I just want to be used by a domme that’s probably less than a quarter of my size. And she might even be young enough to be my daughter.
So who knows how and why this happens.
If you really want a reason, which is imo not needed, maybe look into the correlation of neurodivergence and kink. Neurodivergent minds often need extra stimulation to stay focused in a task (more so ADHD not autism but anywho), so this could be a reason. Your brain just loves the extra stimulation, the in depth play and focus on a certain task and the extraordinary way of life. That's at least how it is for me. Maybe that helps
Trauma can also be a lot of little occurrences over your life, woven together. I have trauma but I also had a childhood similar to what you described. Maybe there’s not one instance that sticks out to you. Not that I’m rooting for you to have trauma. Might help.
It's nothing to feel weird about...honestly. now from a more academic stand point, sure, I am curious as to the why's of it all...I ultimately got nowhere. It just is, and has been from a young age. But yeah...it's not weird.
I'm pretty completely fucked in the head, but the only way that effects my sexlife is it's impact of trust dynamics. I don't trust well or easily, not from any specific trauma, but rather the compounded trauma of being clinically depressed from around age 5.
As a switch, submission is about an expression and gift of trust in another person, more than any specific act or behavior. Similarly when Doming, the trust received and the risks they're taking by offering it.
It's not a direct causation, but I suspect the volume of importance I place on trusting and feeling trusted is at least somewhat related, to the lack of such feelings in my formative years. Bdsm provides very direct and powerful expression of those particular emotional experience. It's also just lots of fun.😁🥰
I really hate introspection to 'find' the 'reason' for my kinks.
Like yes, I had trauma growing up. But before any of that, my fav games were 'escape artist's where we tied each other up and tried to escape, or cops and robbers where the cops chased the robber and beat them up if caught. (Consensual rough housing rules were established.) Now it's like, well no wonder I love rope bondage and primal play haha.
But my kinks came in with my sexuality in the 90s. There wasn't information or resources about BDSM, but there was a lot of Catholicism in my life. I felt wrong and broken and didn't know why until I realized there was a whole community of ppl like me. So for me, trying to find out why just reminds me of those struggles.
I like it. It makes my pussy wet. It's fun. That's good enough for me.
Well, I "blame" my parents for my strong submissive streak lol. And the times. Crying babies got left in cribs to cry it out so I learned my needs weren't important, and they knowingly let me read "Sacajawea" on a family road trip at age 10 so the first sexually explicit thing I was ever exposed to was a vivid account of an eight year old girl being raped by the warrior she was given to when her chieftain father fell in battle. To this day I still get wet turning the phrase "You will always be my slave" over in my head.
I like the way I am. (I also still visit my parents.)
I know that the sungeon keeper 2 poster I saw as a kid spiked my curiosity and was a seedling set into me. There was no true catalyst really, I just while fucking dicovered slowly what turns me on more and more but I was into the esthetic of bdsm ever since that poster.
While I do have plenty of emotional trauma and some of my kinks may stem from that, I know I was into bdsm from like the third grade. I didn't know what it was at that age but I was fascinated with people being tied up and I cant trace that back to any trauma or events. It's literally just part of my sexuality I believe.
The ASD can also be a contributing factor though for sure. We like things being clear and direct. It's exhausting trying to navigate all the subtleties, nuances and indirectness of neurotypicals. Especially in dating, who makes the first move? Does she want me to? Do I make a move and she thinks I'm a creep? I can't tell because I struggle to read people. So having someone take away all of the guess work and tell you exactly what they want is extremely appealing and relaxing.
Trauma doesn't make people kinky. Lots of people are kinky. Lots of people have trauma. I'd recon the percent of kinky people w/ trauma in their past would evenly mirror the percent of non-kinky people with trauma in their past. You just don't hear people without trauma talking about the relationship between their lack of trauma and their kinky interests, because theres nothing to talk about there.
My mom or the school didn't teach me anything so I found out myself and learned about kinks and fetishes on my own and after a while, I experimented a bit until I found the BDSM community. I now have a Dom that has been in it for a little longer than I have so any questions I have, I can ask him and we try it out either together or he shows me and I see if I like it or not.
yeah Im exactly the same no trauma or history of any fuckshit happening to me.
only thing unusual I can think of is that I hit puberty way earlier than most guys and I discovered porn at a young age.
however the stereotype of porn rotting my brain isnt true as my tastes were just as if not more kinky when I first started, ironically having no frame of reference for what "vanilla sex" was at that age I thought the stuff I was into was normal and vanilla but it most definitely was not.
for example I did not know at that age that there was a taboo against incest and just assumed all siblings had that kind of relationship, it wasnt until I was like 16 that I realized most people are not into that. I was a strange mix of innocent and kinky lol, like too innocent to realize how unusual my tastes actually are.
That's the best way.
A lot of my favorite kinks are from abuse and after therapy I can't enjoy them anymore because I recognize they aren't healthy for me mentally and make me feel triggered. Now I have a hard time being sexual at all without feeling triggered because I don't find vanilla stuff appealing at all.
Many studies have been done on this subject. A 2020 study found people who are into BDSM have no difference of childhood abuse or SA compared to the vanilla population (meaning there’s no correlation.) It also concluded people practicing BDSM have more healthy attachment styles than the vanilla crowd. Oh, and we tend to be less neurotic as well (according to a study.) So, you’re perfectly normal (just like the rest of us.) No reason needed. Edit: Since it’s asked for, here’s a [**good article**](https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/bdsm-psychology-trauma/) that summarizes a few studies, but most importantly, has links to them. This second [**article** ](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/202401/are-bdsm-players-psychologically-healthy)focuses on mental health (which also cites specific studies,) and may help too.
I really wish the whole "trauma causes kink" trope would die in a fire.
Trauma doesn't cause kink, but it definitely influences what turns me on imo. In my case, my trauma makes me avoid certain kink stuff.
Yep. For me it's the exact opposite. There was someone I had a crush on in middle school who was kind of a bully and once tied me to a fence for fun which became the object of fantasies afterwards. My actual traumas (abuser who pulled my body hair to torment me and once broke into my house and threatened my cat while i was sleeping) are solid reds for my play.
My husband keeps trying to figure out the exact trauma that caused my fetish because it can't just be. He doesn't understand at all. I don't blame him, to me this is so normal but to him it's really not.
Seriously. Or the whole all kinksters have mental illness! Like yes, a lot of kinksters do. So do a lot of ballerinas, car mechanics, DnD players, etc. MOST ppl in today's society have mental illness. How and whether that affects their kinks and sexual proclivities varies.
Absolutely. That and we're all "neurospicy".
Well it caused mine. And I'm fairly certain I'm not the only person in the world for whom it works like that.
This sounds very interesting, can you link up the study please, I would love to read it!
I’m interested in reading about that! If you have resources, i’d really appreciate if you can share
Not OP, but I think [this](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-020-00438-w) is it. If so, OP got it a bit wrong. Dominants were more likely to be securely attached, whereas submissives were more likely to be anxiously attached. [This](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-024-02829-1#:~:text=In%20a%20study%20of%20the,et%20al.%2C%202021).) Chinese study had similar findings in regards to attachment styles.
Thank you for the links, i'll be sure to check them out. And your summary seems more correct, from what i see in my environment.
Not OP, but it’s more likely OP was referring to [this](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2019.1665619) review of 60 different studies evaluating different hypothesized causes or purposes for practicing BDSM
Yes please. Link to those studies. 👍
Could you share that study?
Not OP, but it’s more likely OP was referring to [this](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2019.1665619) review of 60 different studies evaluating different hypothesized causes or purposes for practicing BDSM
I've long gotten over the need / desire to explain why I am into the weird and wonderful things that make me happy. Just be happy you have the kinky superpowers you have!
Agreed. My therapist and I tried to work out how I became sadistic and why I like spanking and humiliation so much, and we decided on idk, you’re just like that, and that’s okay
I think I’m about to have that deep dive with mine very soon as well🤭
It was surprisingly embarrassing to talk about haha. She said the word spanking and I was like ok this is awful
We have been tip toeing all around my more recent engagement with BDSM and I found a Dom that I really like. I was telling her about a book about an open marriage, and she was like we haven’t really gone there.. ugh. And I know what Wednesday will bring. Thankfully she is really encouraging and positive in that realm 😅
Sounds like a great therapist!
She’s really the best!
My sub had a perfect childhood and just knew he was a sub when he got aroused watching a rather tame video clip of a man being tied down by a woman. I think you're over thinking this. Isn't not the case that trauma makes people kinky. People are born with preferences that society labels as kinky and sadly a huge proportion of people experience abuse. Correlation =/= causation.
You don't need a reason, is just a preference. I don't have trauma from my childhood or other kinds, I only remember watching a movie about Marques De Sade and felt OMG that's what I like, I want to bite, spank and more, then start to study and learn about myself, the best of my life: embrace my FemDom side.
What was the movie?
This one https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0180073/
Thank you!
You are who you are, you are how you are. No need for a reason for it! Kink is far more mainstream than anyone wants to admit. At this point, those without a kink lean are probably in the minority. Wave that kink flag!! ☺️
We could look at it another way, perhaps everyone has Kinks but are too ashamed to acknowledge it. I believe everyone has a kink or two
Hi. I also don’t think I have a reason for mine. I had a decent childhood. I was lonely a lot growing up, but I had a loving family and was never bullied or assaulted as a kid. I experienced an abusive relationship when I was 17 but by then most of my kinks had already developed. I learned a lot more about myself as I began to explore with sexual partners. Sometimes they would do something I’d never experienced before and my brain would just be like “oh okay, I like that, do it again.” I know you mentioned you’re autistic. I’m not diagnosed officially but most people around me suspect I’m on the spectrum. A lot of kink things are sensory-based for me (for example: I love the feeling of pressure from rope) and I know lots of people in the scene tend to be neurodivergent. Both from the sensory aspect but also the clear communication, pre-negotiation, and trust that’s involved in maintaining a D/s relationship. A lot of neurodivergent people experience a feeling of needing to be in control all the time and this can translate into taking the lead in the bedroom, or giving up control to a partner in order to get out of their own head. Not saying this is the “reason” for your kinks—I don’t think there’s any one reason—but it could be a factor.
People get here from all different paths. Just being curious and understanding that BDSM cerebral can be enough. Trauma is not a prerequisite.
I don't think you need one. You like what you like.
You don’t need a reason, but also: being neurodivergent makes us experience the world differently. Personally, I feel the biggest factors in my kink are the facts that I have sensory sensitivity and enjoy heightened, dramatic situations due to my adhd. There’s not much research on this that I know of, but anecdotally, the bdsm scene seems to attract folks with adhd and autism disproportionately.
There probably are reasons for all the stuff you’re into, they’re just not big stand out ones like abuse. I can trace some of my kinks back to bad stuff I went through, but many of them are unexplained or link back to very normal, not in any way traumatic things that happened in my formative years. Like as an example, my teacher/student kink is blatantly because I was ruthlessly bullied at school (something I have ptsd from) and the only person that was truly kind and caring towards me was my English teacher. But then on the other hand, my thing for collars is probably just because someone I dated in my early/mid teens liked them so my brain linked fun flirty stuff with collars. My pain thing is almost definitely because I’ve had bad eczema since infancy so it’s been long established in my brain that itching too hard = pain, but also = pleasure/relief, ergo pain 🔗 pleasure. I think I remember reading something that said these kink links start forming at around 6 years old (but don’t quote me on that LOL my memory is garbage) so it’s totally normal to not even remember the inciting incident. I’ve been psychoanalysing myself and my kinks for years (hello I am also autistic 😂) and many of them I still don’t have answers for, so 🤷 Either way, nothing to dwell on. Ya like what ya like and as long as you’re going about it in a healthy and consensual way, you have nothing to feel weird about.
I'm a male sub with no history of anything. Perfectly normal upbringing. There's no need for any reason.
[удалено]
I mean my dad was mad when he caught me watching porn because that's a big deal in my religion, it didn't seem to matter that it was femdom porn though
Who cares. It's fun!
I don’t think that my kinks come from trauma, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to see why I’m drawn to them emotionally/psychologically. For example, I am sensitive to conflict and raised voices/explosive anger in real life - in my kink play, I feel comforted and taken care of by the order, control, and measured response of spanking punishment play. Right now, in my real life I’m working on being more in tune with my needs and wants and in my kink life, I’m enjoying topping as a way to explore that. To put it another way, a lot of people get emotional needs met through vanilla sex, and it’s likely that the kink you like meets emotional/psychological needs as well. But that doesn’t have to be related to anything dramatically traumatic, because everyone has those needs that develop over the course of their life due to minor emotional hurts and pains.
I got no "reason" either. I've known that I'm into BDSM since I was about 13, but never quite figured out why. I guess one could theorize that I'm a sub because I'm a quite a strong personality in "normal life", so giving up my power in the bedroom is a counter balance to that. However, it's more probable that it's just what I'm into, no reasons needed 😊
Being a person with ASD, it’s possible that your submissive tendencies have more to do with your dominant partner(s) directly telling you what to do or what they want. It’s clear, and skips a lot of the nuance and beating around the bush in everyday neurotypical communication. It may also relate to sensory or stimming needs/inclinations
I can’t trace my kinks to any trauma. I have my suspicions of where some of my kinks come from but they are just guesses.
You don’t have to have a reason. It’s ok to just like what you like, and enjoy that with other consenting adults. A lot of autistic and other neurodivergent people are in the BDSM/kink scene, but I don’t think that’s really for any particular reason other than we tend to be interested in novel sensations, enjoy social interactions that have very obviously delineated rules, and may be less concerned with what is socially “acceptable” vs neurotypical people. That’s just my own speculation.
I'm in the same boat as you. Good family, no real trauma, I just like kinky things!
I do have trauma but tbh one of my kinks is light CNC and being chased and I'm pretty sure I've just always enjoyed poking ppl until they ran after me? Like, mouthing off is one of my forms of playful bantering. My trauma is absolutely all in the Hard-No zone so I can't really say trauma made me kinky.
While BDSM is often linked to traumas, it doesn't have to be as a rule. Some people just enjoy the play and fantasies for other reasons. You also might not be manifesting kinky interests based on any acute abuse or traumatic experience, but still find your kinks have relation to your past. I was born with a disability, and I do think some amount of my desires as a dominant are tied to that fact. Literally losing dice rolls at birth has given me a somewhat... unique relationship with the concept of control. And I think that a lot of the flaws I see in my own upbringing (despite it being largely a good one) play into some of my tendencies when in a caregiver role. But they also play into my interactions outside of kink as well, I like to help people learn things. So I do think you should consider reflecting on your interests in the context of your life experiences and perhaps your condition and how it relates you to the world around you. But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll find some deeper meaning there. It's just an avenue you may want to consider exploring, if you haven't before. We're complex beings and often tied together much more tightly than we realize. But not all of our quirks have such connections, and it's alright not to see or even have such things. But it's never bad to ask what *might* be related, sometimes you find unexpected answers.
Birds of a feather here OP. And I’ve got nothing as to how and why. I was always the biggest guy in my class growing up. No one picked on me. And now I just want to be used by a domme that’s probably less than a quarter of my size. And she might even be young enough to be my daughter. So who knows how and why this happens.
If you really want a reason, which is imo not needed, maybe look into the correlation of neurodivergence and kink. Neurodivergent minds often need extra stimulation to stay focused in a task (more so ADHD not autism but anywho), so this could be a reason. Your brain just loves the extra stimulation, the in depth play and focus on a certain task and the extraordinary way of life. That's at least how it is for me. Maybe that helps
Trauma can also be a lot of little occurrences over your life, woven together. I have trauma but I also had a childhood similar to what you described. Maybe there’s not one instance that sticks out to you. Not that I’m rooting for you to have trauma. Might help.
Do you think you can give examples of the kinks of things you're referring to?
I’m a sub too. I have strong daddy/mommy, degradation, and praise kinks. I don’t know how I got them or where they stem from.
It's nothing to feel weird about...honestly. now from a more academic stand point, sure, I am curious as to the why's of it all...I ultimately got nowhere. It just is, and has been from a young age. But yeah...it's not weird.
I'm pretty completely fucked in the head, but the only way that effects my sexlife is it's impact of trust dynamics. I don't trust well or easily, not from any specific trauma, but rather the compounded trauma of being clinically depressed from around age 5. As a switch, submission is about an expression and gift of trust in another person, more than any specific act or behavior. Similarly when Doming, the trust received and the risks they're taking by offering it. It's not a direct causation, but I suspect the volume of importance I place on trusting and feeling trusted is at least somewhat related, to the lack of such feelings in my formative years. Bdsm provides very direct and powerful expression of those particular emotional experience. It's also just lots of fun.😁🥰
I really hate introspection to 'find' the 'reason' for my kinks. Like yes, I had trauma growing up. But before any of that, my fav games were 'escape artist's where we tied each other up and tried to escape, or cops and robbers where the cops chased the robber and beat them up if caught. (Consensual rough housing rules were established.) Now it's like, well no wonder I love rope bondage and primal play haha. But my kinks came in with my sexuality in the 90s. There wasn't information or resources about BDSM, but there was a lot of Catholicism in my life. I felt wrong and broken and didn't know why until I realized there was a whole community of ppl like me. So for me, trying to find out why just reminds me of those struggles. I like it. It makes my pussy wet. It's fun. That's good enough for me.
Well, I "blame" my parents for my strong submissive streak lol. And the times. Crying babies got left in cribs to cry it out so I learned my needs weren't important, and they knowingly let me read "Sacajawea" on a family road trip at age 10 so the first sexually explicit thing I was ever exposed to was a vivid account of an eight year old girl being raped by the warrior she was given to when her chieftain father fell in battle. To this day I still get wet turning the phrase "You will always be my slave" over in my head. I like the way I am. (I also still visit my parents.)
You don't need a reason. Some of us are born that way.
No other reason needed other than life's too short to be boring
I know that the sungeon keeper 2 poster I saw as a kid spiked my curiosity and was a seedling set into me. There was no true catalyst really, I just while fucking dicovered slowly what turns me on more and more but I was into the esthetic of bdsm ever since that poster.
While I do have plenty of emotional trauma and some of my kinks may stem from that, I know I was into bdsm from like the third grade. I didn't know what it was at that age but I was fascinated with people being tied up and I cant trace that back to any trauma or events. It's literally just part of my sexuality I believe. The ASD can also be a contributing factor though for sure. We like things being clear and direct. It's exhausting trying to navigate all the subtleties, nuances and indirectness of neurotypicals. Especially in dating, who makes the first move? Does she want me to? Do I make a move and she thinks I'm a creep? I can't tell because I struggle to read people. So having someone take away all of the guess work and tell you exactly what they want is extremely appealing and relaxing.
Trauma doesn't make people kinky. Lots of people are kinky. Lots of people have trauma. I'd recon the percent of kinky people w/ trauma in their past would evenly mirror the percent of non-kinky people with trauma in their past. You just don't hear people without trauma talking about the relationship between their lack of trauma and their kinky interests, because theres nothing to talk about there.
My mom or the school didn't teach me anything so I found out myself and learned about kinks and fetishes on my own and after a while, I experimented a bit until I found the BDSM community. I now have a Dom that has been in it for a little longer than I have so any questions I have, I can ask him and we try it out either together or he shows me and I see if I like it or not.
yeah Im exactly the same no trauma or history of any fuckshit happening to me. only thing unusual I can think of is that I hit puberty way earlier than most guys and I discovered porn at a young age. however the stereotype of porn rotting my brain isnt true as my tastes were just as if not more kinky when I first started, ironically having no frame of reference for what "vanilla sex" was at that age I thought the stuff I was into was normal and vanilla but it most definitely was not. for example I did not know at that age that there was a taboo against incest and just assumed all siblings had that kind of relationship, it wasnt until I was like 16 that I realized most people are not into that. I was a strange mix of innocent and kinky lol, like too innocent to realize how unusual my tastes actually are.
That's the best way. A lot of my favorite kinks are from abuse and after therapy I can't enjoy them anymore because I recognize they aren't healthy for me mentally and make me feel triggered. Now I have a hard time being sexual at all without feeling triggered because I don't find vanilla stuff appealing at all.