I Have a Whole Room Dedicated to My Specific Sexual Art. Once My Dates See It, I Never Hear From Them Again.

How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

I am a man and every time I try to introduce a new partner to what I like in bed, they freak out and ghost me. This isn’t done right away—I wait until we’ve been going out at least a few months before telling them about my kinks, but the result is always the same.

I’m into BDSM. REALLY into it. I even have a dungeon in my basement devoted to the art. The only action I can get is from people I reach out to online who share my interests. It’s nice, but I really would rather meet someone in person and get to know them on a face-to-face basis. Is it unrealistic to expect a normie to be willing to join me in my world? I’m starting to think that I won’t find anyone outside of BDSM circles if I want a committed relationship.

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Rich Juzwiak: Is this merely a practical problem of just finding people? Or is there some kind of desire at hand to convert people? “Is it unrealistic to expect to get a normie to be willing to join me in my world?” Why would that even be important? Even if you want to go by this method of surprise—which is not the best and we’ll get to that—wouldn’t it be better for everybody if you happened upon somebody who also happened to be into BDSM? Why does it have to be a normie? So I’m just wondering if there’s a kind of fetishistic aspect to this.

Jessica Stoya: Two possibilities come to mind. One is about a fetishistic aspect, as you point out. I’m wondering if the man is into being dominant himself with some element of desire to emotionally control. That means he gets his rocks off harder if he is bringing someone into something they wouldn’t necessarily do. If that’s the case, all these partners are likely sensing what is, in practice, a form of emotional manipulation. And because he’s hiding this for at least a few months and then bringing it up, it’s non-consensual emotional manipulation, which is a thing that most people, rightly so, will look at and say no to, and will then ghost. When you’re walking away from a relationship because they’re trying to manipulate you, you don’t owe them an explanation because that opens the door for more attempts at manipulation and arguing, right?

Rich: Yes. And there was another kind of scenario that you had in mind?

Jessica: So the other scenario is based on this dichotomy of BDSM people and normies, and then the phrasing of normies, which means normal. So, the etymology implies that people who are into BDSM are not normal or weird. So I’m like, does our writer have some kind of shame going on about his sexual preferences and is hoping for a person he perceives as “normal”?

We’ve discussed at length the fallacy of the existence of normal, but in this case, it’s someone he perceives as less flawed by virtue of not having an inherent interest in BDSM. Telling someone, “This is how my body is, this is how my brain works, or this is what I’m into sexually, does that work for you?” is one thing. But when you’re going to someone saying, “I feel really uncomfortable and have a lot of shame about this,” it’s just unattractive.

Rich: Right. That reminds me of the fetishization of straight men by gay men, which was once more widespread but still exists, obviously. It would somehow legitimize your own deviant interests if somebody who is “straight” is into this as well. So you absolutely see that kind of psychology in many permutations. It’s pretty common.

Jessica: And I’m going to say this like it’s easy, but it’s not easy: The way through that is to dismantle within yourself these sets of hierarchies in which certain people are better than others and get past that garbage. The reality is, it often takes a significant amount of time and serious work and effort with a really talented therapist.

Rich: The one thing that makes me feel like maybe the latter scenario is less of a thing is that he does refer to BDSM as an art. It tells me he really takes it that seriously, that it’s beyond kind of the sensation and the sexual nature of it, now it’s an art. If he’s calling it an art, that implies that maybe he doesn’t have an appreciable amount of shame about it.

Jessica: I am very open to your assessment, but also remain open to the possibility that he feels like he needs to use hyper-glorifying language and terminology to cover up or push against internalized judgment from other people. I have no strong feelings either way. I just know that it’s sometimes a thing.

Rich: There is also a very practical path for him that he doesn’t seem to acknowledge. He’s dating as one would and then bringing up the BDSM stuff later and getting rejected, and he’s saying, “But the alternative is to meet people online that are into BDSM, but I want to get to know people first.” There are scenes in many major cities that include clubs and also social scenes like munches, where BDSM does not necessarily take place. It’s a social function. So that would allow you to meet people in person and get to know them and integrate into a scene, which can be fun if it’s not full of drama. This could be an actual pleasurable arm of this for you. That way, you get everything you want, including somebody who’s not going to run away when you say, “I’m into this.” Somebody who’s going to say, “Oh, well, that’s amazing.” If, in fact, that’s what you want.

Jessica: He does seem to be working with these rigid predictions, that if he meets someone through common interest in BDSM kink, it can only be a hookup and cannot develop into anything else. So, regardless of specific sexual practices, consider all of the millennials who, 15 years ago, met each other trashed at a bar and had sex without knowing anything about each other’s backgrounds or interests. They woke up the next morning and got to know each other over coffee. A possibly surprising number of those people are now long-term cohabitating or raising children together. So that is possible if you are not precluding the possibility by assuming that it can’t happen.

Also, thinking about any particular detail—bisexuality, a controversial job or political belief, all these different things—I can’t think of any situations where, after dating for a few months with no mention or a hint of the thing at all, then broaching that subject, would be anything other than at least a yellow flag.

Rich: Right. Unless what he’s suggesting is so extreme that it would take somebody with actual experience to be like, “Oh, OK, I know what that is, and I know not to be scared of that.”

Jessica: I would suggest bringing it up significantly earlier with people who are outside of the BDSM community. Also, rather than two discrete categories, people who are into BDSM and people who are not, he should think of it as more of a scatter plot, because there is a range. Meaning, if they met someone on a face-to-face basis who they are interested in, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to like what the writer is into, but they might be open to hearing more about it.

Rich: Right. It doesn’t have to be such a rigid binary, but if the behavior is extreme enough, then it might have to be. And in that case, you can’t have everything you want. You can keep doing it your way, because somehow this method is more pleasing to you for whatever reason, because it’s fun to reel people in potentially, or you can just really be practical about it.

Maybe it’s not ideal. Maybe, let’s say, there’s not a BDSM scene that he can penetrate for whatever reason locally, and there really are just these two scenarios: you meet people in person with no indication of what they’re into, or you meet people knowing what they’re into, but it’s not in person. Then you pick the lesser of two imperfect scenarios. If you want action, it’s the latter. Be a little bit more practical and you’ll get action.

Jessica: Also, there’s a thing that happens with extremely BDSM people, most often seen in men by far, where they build out a highly specific ritual, and it’s as though it has to be exactly this or nothing. You see it in people ordering custom videos or people hiring a professional dominant. They’ll send a three-page, incredibly detailed essay, and every single detail is very, very important to them, but that doesn’t fit with a recreational partner. When we’re talking about customs and professional services, you’re going to have to pay a lot for that level of specificity. But when it’s recreation, it’s about negotiating. So, I’m wondering if when he’s revealing his interests to partners he has dated for a while, it’s a whole lot all at once, and maybe that’s what’s startling and overwhelming to them.

Rich: Absolutely. So tease it out, and give some kind of indication instead of just dropping it all on them, especially, again, if it’s extreme. That opens up a potential way to negotiate here as opposed to just sending people running.

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