I have a friend who uses a wheelchair who shocked the hell out of a roomful of jaded perverts by enacting the victim in a scene where he was kicked out of his chair, dragged around, degraded, and humiliated with all manner of shocking epithets and completely inappropriate language. Yeah, that is pretty fucked up. But the point is, he wanted that experience in order to feel that he is a survivor. From the ashes of such debasement he can rise and feel even stronger and more empowered than before. Once you’ve had the snot beaten out of you and been called a “crippled faggot gimp” and survived, it can be very empowering to take back the power of those words over you.
Revealing your dark fantasies is risky, yes. But if you do not, you all but zero out your chances of realizing your desires. I struggled for years with memories of a cacophony of conflicts after I discovered my curiosity about pushing the boundaries of sexual consent. As I embarked on a quest to explore my demons, I had to scrape off layer upon layer of guilt and shame before I was clear enough to free my own mind. For me, daring to stare into the face of racism, classism, and sexism and discover why they tripped my erotic triggers was the key to finding a profound level of personal authenticity.
Let’s be honest: the majority of us struggle, at some point, with self-esteem. It can be crippling to have our fears reinforced by hate. Suppose you were in a scenario where a partner is belittling you for being Mexican, or queer, Irish Catholic, or Muslim, or short, or fat, a redhead, a Jew, a man, a woman, intersex—for being different just because you are you. But what if you realized that these words didn’t have the power over you that you thought they did? What if you were able to weather this abuse, this ugliness, and walk away unscathed? Or stronger? What if you were able to look upon your abuser thereafter with compassion instead of rage?
And for those who might take up the mask of the evil villain, think how liberating it would be to revel in those wicked thoughts—thoughts that all of us have entertained. It is not acceptable, in our current social climate, to judge people based on their appearance, to want to take them down, dehumanize them, plunder their body, feed off their fear, consume their energy. But through taboo role play you can. You can let this demon out to play, and acknowledge that these thoughts and feelings do not, in fact, make you a monster. They make you human. You can view yourself with more compassion, knowing that this wickedness is not the totality of your being, even when you indulge your terrifying fantasy.
The first time I negotiated and participated in a scene that explicitly included race-based abuse, my main fear wasn’t for my safety. It was for the safety of my partner, who was my friend. I wasn’t certain how I would react, whether this would be okay, and mostly, whether I would fly off the handle and try to rip his face off. The scene progressed from casual physical dominance to verbal humiliation, racially tinged verbal abuse, and finally a complete onslaught of overwhelming physical force, invasive sexual aggression, and scathing racial slurs. I panicked for a moment, lost and unsure of why I was here, why I’d permitted this terrible thing to happen. I stared up at him with shock and real fear mingling uneasily in my gut. He eyed me with a lustful disgust that froze my skin. Then he leaned in and asked me,
“Are you wet?”
My mouth dropped in shock. There was no way I—
“Because everyone knows how you nigger cunts love to have the shit kicked out of you. And you know I’ll have you begging to take my white cock in your mouth, up your ass—anywhere I want it. Won’t you.”
I started sobbing, confused and crushed and unable to fight anymore. He shoved me harder against the wall, one hand sliding down over my belly and stopping just short of my pussy. I remembered to resist again but this only evoked a tightening of his hand on my throat.
“Let’s just see, shall we? Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you aren’t dripping wet and ready to beg me for it. But I doubt it.”
I was certain I wasn’t physically aroused at all. I was enraged, terrified, scared, yes, but it was impossible that—
A sharp inhalation of breath into my lungs was the counterpoint to a contemptuous exhalation of breath from his as his fingers slid effortlessly inside me, twisting with a punishing roughness that blurred my vision as I kicked my feet against him. The look in his eyes was fearsomely cold, and for a moment I was not at all sure where my friend had gone.
“Go on, come like the dirty groveling black bitch you are.”
And, gods help me, I did. Shocked, overwhelmed, and completely undone. I orgasmed violently as he stared at me impassively.
In the aftermath of the scene, I was truly shocked at how I had reacted in the midst of what seemed like an impossible situation. Several days later, when I could finally talk to my friend again, I told him about the moment when he seemed really into it. He smiled “Well, weren’t you?”
Indeed.
Is it wiring? Are those of us who crave dark play simply different? Or are we just whistling in the dark as we play with our demons, courageous enough to exploit them for our own pleasure and pain? Ultimately it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have the freedom to make choices—that I have the ability to make a decision to live according to my desires, even if they terrify me.
I encourage you, you with unsettling dreams who find your minds slipping into crevasses when you contemplate devious scenarios: let go of judgment. Get dirty and see who you are on the other side of that darkness. The answer might surprise you.
CHAPTER 19
THE DARK SIDE
JACK RINELLA
Nearly a year ago, a guy from New York cruised me online, seeking to be imprisoned in my dungeon for the rest of his life. He sought degradation, abuse, humiliation, and (to put it mildly) escape from his current reality. In the ensuing months, he and I maintained a sporadic but ongoing dialogue via email.
His communications by email, chat, and phone intrigued me, and I sought to understand where the guy was coming from and how serious his search was. I found him erratic and ambivalent, and he demonstrated cyclical behavior that told me something was wrong. I finally figured out that he was a drug addict who engaged in episodes of physical abuse every four to six weeks.
His mode of operation was to deny his feelings for about a month, until he could no longer resist them. At that point he would get some recreational drugs to boost his courage, find a man or two to abuse him badly, and then slink home. When the drugs had worn off, he forsook such activity until the cravings slowly reentered his mind and he repeated the cycle.
By the time I had figured this out, my curiosity was at a high point, and I wanted to know more about others like him who wished to be so degraded. To be honest, the controlling and sadistic sides of me were aroused as well. What would it be like, I wondered, to own a subhuman creature like this?