The Sin in BDSM

At a very young age, someone exposed me to sex. I found the things they demanded I do and allow them to do to me humiliating. They used my body for their pleasure and did things to me that brought about a pleasure response. That pleasure response added to the powerlessness I felt to stop them from doing these unwanted actions to my body since my body seemed completely under their control.

Thus, their actions forged an early association with pleasure obtained through circumstances which made me powerless and humiliated. In fact, I couldn’t even achieve a climax without rape fantasies being involved, recreating the circumstances under which I first experienced sexual pleasure.

That cocktail lends well to the world of BDSM. I spent years of my life engaging in that lifestyle, unable to see how it contradicted the mandates of Christian living or how it could be considered offensive to God.

Maturing in Christ

As I began maturing in Christ, the Holy Spirit began to convict me on the necessity of leaving that lifestyle behind. He gradually revealed to me that the rape fantasies didn’t belong to me.

Those fantasies belonged to the demon which attached itself to me during the years I spent being abused by my assailant. The demon planted those fantasies in my mind, giving me a picture of what that demon wanted to do to me for eternity.

All the things which this person taught me to do from such a tender age needed to be left behind. Those things contradicted the love which God desired me to experience. The battle took decades to win, and many, many times spent going back to the confessional for Christ’s forgiveness and healing.

Free Will: A Necessary Component of Authentic Love
Once I broke free of my abuser, I became angry with God. Why could He not stop that child molester from doing what he did to me? I feared that God found me unlovable and that’s why He didn’t stop it from happening.

It took years before God could break through my anger to help me understand why He allowed it to happen. God desires that every human being choose love. But love can’t be forced. It must be chosen.

If someone locks me in a room and refuses to allow me out until I tell them I love them, that person undermines their ability to be loved. Even if I say the words, that person will never know if the words are genuine and truly meant or simply being spoken in order to regain my freedom.

Simply put: to stop someone from doing evil – even at the last second – is to stop them from being able to choose good at the last second. God permits evil so that all may be free to choose good, and with the good, to experience love.

BDSM: Consenting to the Abuse of Christ

As baptized believers, we become part of the body of Christ. What someone does to us, they do to Him. What we permit to be done to us, we are permitting to be done to Him. Thus, by consenting to these actions and engaging in this lifestyle, we are consenting to the abuse of Christ and engaging in a lifestyle of abusing Christ.

This lifestyle prevents the parties involved in it from experiencing authentic love. It trains the Dom’s brain to treat the Sub as an object for pleasure rather than as a child of God and the Sub’s brain to associate the touch of the Dom with pain, fear, and humiliation. Thus, it betrays the purpose of the marital embrace which God designed to bind the hearts of the two into one being.

Booth (Mostly) Gets It Right on “Bones”

In season 3, Booth and Bones investigate a murder that leads them to a location that caters to certain fetishes. At the end of the episode, Booth says something that’s stuck with me.

“I lost my appetite because you made me think about all those people parading around, pretending to be something they aren’t, just so they could have crappy sex.”

Brennan asks him, “How do you know it’s crappy?”

Booth says, “It’s gotta be, Bones. Come on, it’s gotta be.”

Brennan’s confused. “Why?”

Booth leans forward and tells her, “Why? I’ll tell you why. Here we are, all of us, basically lone, separate creatures circling each other all searching for the slightest hint of a real connection. Some look in the wrong places. Some may just give up hope because, in their mind, they’re thinking ‘Oh, there’s nobody out there for me.’ But all of us, we keep trying, over and over again. Why? Because every once in a while, two people meet and there’s that spark. And yes, Bones, he’s handsome and she’s beautiful and maybe that’s all they see at first. But making love? Making love – that’s when two people become one.”

Brennan’s not yet convinced. “It is scientifically impossible for two objects to occupy the same space.”

Booth continues, “Yeah. But what’s important is we try. And when we do it right, we get close.”

She asks, “To what? Breaking the laws of physics?”

Booth responds, “Yeah, Bones. A miracle. Those people role playing, fetishes, and their little sex games, it’s crappy sex. At least compared to the real thing.”

Why He’s Right

When you’re pretending to be someone you’re not – or something you’re not – you can never be loved. People can love the thing you’re pretending to be or the person you’re pretending to be, but they can’t love you. Not the real you.

And so there can never be an authentic or genuine connection between two people engaging in being someone they’re not.

Authentic love requires radical honesty about who you are, where you are, exactly as you are. And that authentic love is the only thing that can bind and glue together two human hearts, fusing them into one being.

A woman who does not trust her partner enough to allow him to penetrate into the depths of her soul that way can never achieve a full climax.

A man who does not trust his partner enough to allow her to receive all of him can’t fully give himself to her.  He’ll climax, but it will be empty and unfruitful. Rather than satisfying his hunger for love, it’ll make him feel even less sated than he did before he began.

To Those in the Lifestyle

I cast no stones at those in the lifestyle now. I can’t. I spent too many years in that space myself to ever judge or to condemn those in it now. I understand the confusion, the appeal, and the hungers that drive it.

I do encourage you, though, to put it aside. The lifestyle you’ve embraced doesn’t lead to love, and thus it doesn’t lead to a healthy life.  

A greater love than you can ever imagine awaits you in Christ. Open up to Him. If you need a master, make Him yours. Submit yourself to Him. If you wish to dominate someone, concentrate on dominating your own will and forcing yourself to become obedient to the One who created you.