My Story

2000-2006: As a teenager, I had never heard of BDSM and the only kink I'd seen on tv included joking references to dominant women wearing black leather. As a shy and somewhat religious teen, that was definitely not up my alley. However, my earliest sexual fantasies as I reached maturity included rape fantasies, usually by a much older (and fictional) father figure who forced me into sexual pleasure. As a young adult in my 20s, a few boyfriends and I experimented with rape fantasies, handcuffs, and other light BDSM activities such as name-calling, light bondage, and knife play. I am happy to say that the boyfriend and I who were both interested in rape scenes had the common sense to come up with a "real way to say no" (now I know this is called a safeword) even before we had any idea what BDSM or safewords were.

After 2006, I got out of my first kinky relationship, which unfortunately bordered too closely with abuse, I knew I wanted a man who would respect and not pressure me, but I also realized I was bored with just vanilla sex. I still didn't know what BDSM was, so I didn't have a name for what I wanted, but I responded better to men who were assertive and did not ask permission than to nice guys.

2008: In April I met (or re-met, since we'd been acquaintances before) my Dom. But at that time he was just another boyfriend. Our dating relationship started out pretty normally. However, there were a few little things that happened that made him more sexually interesting to me. For one, he made the moves-- he asked me out, he kissed me, he told me he wanted us to be exclusive, he told me he loved me first. Second, he tried a few kinky things with our kissing; minor things such as dirty talk, pulling my hair, or shoving me up against the door got him positive (but shocked!) reactions from me and encouraged him to try more.

By July 2008 we were exclusively dating, and the sexual tension between us (two Christians waiting for marriage) was incredible! Making out was very hot, including dirty talk, slapping, teasing, and light domination. I didn't know there was a name for what we were doing, but I liked it. A lot.

In September 2008 I moved to France for a job. Bored, alone, and with way too much free time on my hands, I started doing internet research because I was curious. To my happy surprise, I discovered that the activities we enjoyed were part of a sexual experience called BDSM, specifically Dominance/submission or D/s. I also discovered that there was an entire world out there we'd never imagined. I joined FetLife and started this blog as a way to document my research into different areas of BDSM that we tried out just to see what we liked, from Master/slave to bondage to puppy play to ball gags to whips and paddles.

From September 2008-April 2009 my boyfriend (who became my fiancé in February 2009) and I learned as much as we could about BDSM and emailed constantly about what we wanted, what we liked, and what we wanted to try in our future marriage. I was thrilled to have discovered what I'd longed for all these years and very turned on by the idea of a D/s relationship. We played around, first with D/s and then with CDD rules and training, which didn't work out very well for us because I freaked out and backed out of it both times.

April 2009: I moved back to the United States. We lived together so I wouldn't have to get an 8-month lease on an apartment before we got married, but we still didn't have sex. We collected an absolutely ridiculous amount of BDSM toys, including vibrators, paddles, whips, plugs, ball gags, collars, nipple clamps, and more. I blogged about my review of each of them.

December 2009: We got married in a beautiful ceremony in the Roman Catholic Church. We began practicing the Couple to Couple League's Sympto-Thermal Method of NFP (Natural Family Planning) and have been using it since with great success. I have never been on artificial birth control or used a condom - our sex is open to each other and to life!

June 2010: Still newlyweds, I made friends with lots of wonderful Protestant friends from conservative denominations who were also open to life and opposed artificial birth control. I learned about natural birth and midwives. We started talking and praying about getting pregnant ourselves.

January 2011: We conceived on our first try. Hurray! Until...

January - September 2011: The worst months of my life. Think all-encompassing spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical darkness. I was miserable, I was exhausted, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I threw up constantly, I was almost always nauseated, I lost weight, I was depressed, I was angry, I was in pain, I was constipated, I had terrible heartburn, my back and hips ached horribly, I couldn't sit or stand or lie without pain, I developed insomnia, I had panic attacks. Suffice to say, pregnancy was not a happy time for me. The only good news is that during my 2nd trimester, I was incredibly horny and felt very sexy. Sex was better, foreplay was better, everything was more intense. I asked for more D/s and rules. He gave them to me. Then he did not check up on me or reprimand me if I did not follow them. Lots of pregnant yelling and crying and blaming following. BDSM and D/s became a source of conflict for our relationship and so, at my Dom's request, we dropped the D/s aspect of our relationship.

September 2011 - February 2012: Sex? What's sex? Oh yeah, I vaguely remember that.... before we had a baby... oh wait, she's up again. Better go feed her. *yawn*  *Stumbles away zombie-like*

June-July 2014: I got a new job and we moved halfway across the country to rough it, alone with our toddler, away from both our families and support systems. But we were excited for the adventure and ready to try something new. We also started slowly re-incorporating elements of kink and D/s into our lifestyle and we both enjoyed it.