Odysseys and Observations
Masochism from the Heart
by Debra Hyde

Memory Lane on Replay

I'm no different, truth be told. I've often wondered what pivotal moments helped make me the sexual creature I am today. I remember discovering that first tentative realization about sex during the third grade, when one of my girlfriends showed me her dad's stash of girlie mags. I was startled; startled that people looked at naked bodies, shocked to learn that there was something titillating about it. Amazed to find I was aroused. I also recall my girlfriend's rapturous thrill (a little too rapturous for her age, in retrospect).

Dominance and Sadism...

I know from whence my sense of sexual dominance came: my girlhood equestrian days. Simply put, train a horse, school a horse, develop that sense of command that comes from earning and keeping its loyal obedience, and... well, you get my drift. The training approach for a submissive isn't all that different. Going through adolescence and puberty with boots, spurs, and a crop was a definite plus for me.

Defining my sadism didn't take long when I started playing with power. All it took was a lawyer who hankered for a thorough spanking and knew how to negotiate for it. In pleading his case, he jump-started my interest. Paddling him gave me such a heady surge that I knew I'd never turn back. The last nail in the coffin consisted of the unbridled joy on his face at scene's end. It was all the convincing I needed.

...Submission and Masochism

Submission was a trickier beast, vulnerable and uncertain, hiding in the shadows of my desires. But Master coaxed it from me and claimed it. He maneuvered me into submission via my masochism, submission's bold and equally fascinating sibling. And Master holds me in his command still, much to my ongoing joy and fulfillment.

Yet my masochism was a different animal, long and slow in its complex maturing, largely veiled from me for so many years, despite my youthful and generally exuberant sexual explorations. Like good wine, it took some time for my masochism to mature to full flavor.

I did have brief sips of it, though, growing up. In high school, an older lover reneged on penetrative pleasures we had shared (sometimes it didn't pay to be jailbait!), but he did agree to heavy petting. Really heavy petting. He left me with nipples so worn from sucking and biting, they were scabbed for days. And, yes, I loved the erotic duress of the moment -- and the days of healing that followed -- just fine.

However, another masochism diverted me from any chance of discovering SM play during my teen years: emotional masochism. My first real sufferings in life were emotional and, in those formative teen years of love and sex, I'd exercise the pain of the heart often.

I'll never downplay the personal power I carried out of that time and into the coming years.

Still, I experienced great moments of profound loneliness. Ostracized, I longed for simple, common things like friendship and acceptance. And, as if I wasn't tormented enough, the full force of puberty hit me at this time. Despite having advanced warning and preparation, living through puberty at ten was a trial. I grew an inch a month until I towered over my peers at the ungainly height of 5'3". My body gained weight, shape, and moved from being a twig to being Twiggy. I went through one horridly embarrassing but short-lived spell where all my body odors were out of control. And, ironically enough, I started my period on April Fool's Day, six weeks shy of my eleventh birthday.

It was an amazing amount of change to cope with.

The Perils of Puberty

My emerging hormones took my longings in a new direction: into budding sexual awareness. My loins began to ache right along side my heart. I bought teen magazines and found myself yearning for encounters with Mark Lindsey, of Paul Revere and the Raiders. I bought Marvel comics, and the likes of Thor got to me so much that I actually thanked Odin when I pulled a Thor ring from a gumball machine with my one and only dime. Those were just two among many dreamy infatuations -- and I still have a thing for men with long hair and ponytails.

Intensity. I came to crave its flavor and I'm sure it led me into an early need for relationships and into earlier-than-accepted sexual activity. And I reveled in the pain of break-ups, normal occurrences that I magnified so I could wallow in suffering. But it was, in many ways, a blessing. I got past the "bad for you" men way ahead of my peers and settled into long, relatively stable and productive relationships by the time I was nineteen. And I learned to hurt, heal, and move on in life. No matter what the tragedy, I've come to believe I can survive.

Intensity has motivated not just my heart but my creative nature, and I'm lucky to say that I've led a creative, artistic life, from music to fiberart to my life-long calling, writing. However, intensity has also made me aware of the depth of my feelings. I know that my emotions can run so deeply that they could lead to annihilation, whether in a relationship or in my creative work. I'm aware that I have the capacity to love to the death as O threw her very fate to Sir Stephen, or to create unto death like van Gogh, whose palette grew bright as his life grew dark.

Yes, the capacity to feel so thoroughly is there, within me, but that doesn't mean I'm destined to act on it. My common sense is far and away much stronger and life is too good to sacrifice myself to oblivion.

Restraint, it seems, come in several forms.

Yearning for "The Good Hurt"

Still, I'm certain that the desire for intensity helped lead me to BDSM masochism,

In experiencing pain, in surviving and conquering it, I came to accept it, even thrill in my triumph over it. And, slowly, I came to realize that perhaps I longed to recapture the intensity of those physical experiences.

and certain intense physical experiences -- namely several surgeries under local anesthesia and two bouts with natural childbirth -- urged me to consider channeling myself in this curious direction. In experiencing pain, in surviving and conquering it, I came to accept it, even thrill in my triumph over it. And, slowly, I came to realize that perhaps I longed to recapture the intensity of those physical experiences. Especially when I remembered that nipple torture of my teen years. I wanted, again, to taste the strife of the erotic gone wild. The longing ache returned, full-force.

And so, a couple of years after becoming involved in BDSM, I up-ended myself to a good friend and got the spanking of a lifetime. Crops, paddles, canes, rulers -- you name it and it bruised me. For three days following, I smiled every time I felt the "sunburn" across my butt of that thorough job, well done. My bruises lasted two glorious weeks.

I'm sure that no matter where I go with my masochism, I'll always have undiscovered places left to visit. Whether it's stretching a personal limit, trying a form of play that's new to me, or revisiting an old favorite, I'll experience varying degrees of personal discovery. Yet every exploration, every indulgence is held in place by the bedrock of my greater relationships, those with Master and my family. In a sense, they hold my craving for intensity in check, balancing it with the realities of loving obligation. They challenge me to channel myself in ways that fulfill my desires, productively and nondestructively.

It's an odd dichotomy, perhaps, to balance the apparent extremism of masochism against the boundaries necessary for sound living. But I do think it's quite characteristic of integrating sexual expression -- it reinforces, rather than detracts from, one's fundamental happiness and wholeness. Personally, I'm greatly relieved that my physical masochism matured and revealed itself to me, and I'm thankful that it relieves my thirst in a way emotional masochism never could.

Of course, the great thing about thirst is that you can quench it, but, sooner or later, it always comes back. And when I'm parched in that certain way, the last thing I'm thinking of is Gatorade.

Copyright © 1998, Debra Hyde. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author

Debra Hyde is a mostly submissive switch who lives in New England with her husband, two children, three cats, and a dog. She says she is "well-owned and well-loved" by a very special Master, and shares a unique triangle with him and her somewhat submissive husband.

"When England Calls," one of Debra's short stories, graces the pages of the recently published Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica. She is currently working on a number of others, as well as the Great American Leather Novel. Her BDSM work has been previously published on the Internet by Leather Online and Section 12, but Leather and Hyde was her first regular column, originally hosted by About.com's BDSM site and relocated here with her kind permission.

Debra also maintains a personal Weblog called Pursed Lips and can be reached at 75222.2150@compuserve.com... but no junk mail or "Wannas," please.