When I first sought out the world of BDSM, I thought of myself more as a submissive than a masochist. I generally still feel this way, although my relationship with pain (and submission, for that matter) has changed enormously since my journey first began.

Chloe’s favorite activity on her day off. Anyone care to challenge our undisputed word master with a naughtier poem? Throwdown!

Tackling in rugby is one of the most erotic parts of my day. This isn’t at all because of the girl tackling me – I stand by the time sixteen-year-old me refused to talk about how hot the girls on my team looked in the locker room – but because it’s this sheer, raw moment of absolute pain and total power. It’s simultaneously a moment that depends on each of the other 14 players on the pitch – I don’t think there’s another sport that requires more teamwork than rugby –and is entirely mine.

Check out Looking From The Outside In, Part 1.

If I were to recall when my best friend told me about her BDSM lifestyle, I would tell you that my bottom jaw dropped to the floor like you’d expect it to in a cartoon. As a vanilla, hearing my close friend say she enjoyed being whipped and tied for fun, let alone hearing that such a community even existed, put my brain on overload. Fast-forward a couple of months later – we talk about her kinky lifestyle without me batting an eye, and I’m actually excited that she is so passionate about her choices.

Some of the best Snapchats I ever get are of the “guess what’s going on in this picture” variety. Specifically, the “guess what part of my body is currently being contorted/ shocked/ stitched/ variety.” A few weeks ago, Chloe, one of our very own artists, sent me a particularly delightful series. There were a few photos, different angles of a line of small, organized stitches: “guess what I did last night?” Moments like that are my favorite because her night and mine had not been so different. While she had watched a gentleman (in his other life, an anesthesiologist) place a row of impeccably aligned sutures into her thigh (I guessed the correct body part, in case you were wondering), I’d been learning how to do the same, albeit contingent on a bit more blood and a lot less pleasure.

“So…I have this dungeon in my apartment, and I have strangers whip me for pleasure.”

Um, what?  As the most sexually vanilla person you could imagine, I didn’t even know BDSM existed before Rihanna’s popular song, S&M, a few years ago.  Truthfully, the words that suddenly came out of my best friend’s mouth took a little while to process…so, that’s what you’ve been doing this whole time??  Aside from the initial shock of learning that people live and breathe kinky lifestyles, the million questions flowing through my brain mostly revolved around safety and consent.  After learning about how the BDSM world works and some time to digest the surplus of information, I started to accept that this was not only part of my friend’s life, but it was her entire life.  Although I can’t speak for everyone looking from the outside in on the kinky community, I highly respect it when people are passionate about something, even if it’s being tied up with ropes and having your nipples clamped until you cry.

From the quippy, queer and (q)inky author of Kink & Identity comes this masterful musing of meta-ness…

The only thing I love more than talking about kink is talking about talking about kink.  It’s a thing that I didn’t grow up doing: white girls from the suburbs, despite whatever romanticized notions 50 Shades of Grey postulates about the adventurous inclinations of the nation’s repressed, tend not to get very far beyond admissions that yes, in fact, sex does exist – now will you please pass the broccoli?  Where college, for many, is a time of sexual revolution, for me it was a revolution of talking about sex.  The euphemisms of my teenage years segued into academic, even clinical, discussions about sex (no joke – I took an actual class for which one of the sections was a porn screening, complete with discussion and the campus Christian group walking by the window looking horrified), and I realized that there might be a lot more out there than even my rich high school browser history would suggest.

I first met Madison Young during one of her infamous workshops – Deep Throat and The Art of Oral Sex. This talented and inspirational lady had me deep-throating an engorged banana in no time! Teacher’s pet that I am, I sat in the front row and nodded along to everything she said. After class, I nervously sidled up to her and squealed out “Hello Madison I am the head of a group of professional submissives based in NYC, and I’d love if you could do an interview with us because we love you so much!” And lo and behold, the gracious Madison Young is now here to have a conversation about BDSM, her lifestyle, her new book and…the art of submission!