Societal rules are complex and we begin learning them at a very young age. Your family might not have told you that masturbation would make you grow up weak and sickly (or that you’d grow hair on your palms), but you’ll have learnt all kinds of other mistruths from society. Perhaps you heard:

• asking for what you want is selfish
• you should never hit another person
• if you enjoy sex you’re a slut
• you shouldn’t sleep around and you should find one person to commit to
• some people do sick things in the bedroom
• submission is a sign of weakness

The list goes on (and on) Add your own demons that society has created for you.

The fact is, what we do is transgressive. Some of us care more about that than others, and it’s more of a problem for some than others, but we all have to deal with the fact that what we do is outside of the norms of society. Along the way, we need to question the “truths” that we’ve been brought up believing.

That leads many people to see BDSM as “dark energy”. I’ll try not to get too new-age woo-woo on you in discussing this, but it’s very common to see ourselves and the world as some kind of balance of light and dark. The things we see as making us a better person, the positive in us, we see as light, and the things we think of as bad or negative or needing to be hidden, we see as dark. Nobody is “all light” or “all dark”. We see ourselves as some kind of balance of the two.

So, if your sexuality creates positive, enjoyable emotions for you, doesn’t it seem illogical to see darkness?

Ultimately that view is our reaction to the pre-programming of society, and if we question all those little voices in our head saying “good boys/girls don’t do this” then sexual activity itself doesn’t really have any quality of dark or light. Our emotions and motives may be positive or negative, and we can bring one or the other to sexual activities and colour them that way… but the activities themselves have no such inherent colour.

BDSM AND THE FEAR OF THE SHADOWS

We all start out seeing BDSM as unknown. Not just the activities, but the urge inside us. What is this thing inside us, and what happens if we release it? At that stage, some part of ourselves is hidden in shadows. Maybe we see it as our “demon”.

But it’s only a demon from an inexperienced, fear-based perspective. The dark side turns out to be not nearly so dark when we step into the shadows and explore it enough times and see that it is a part of us that can be kept in control, and integrated into the rest of ourself, with effort, intent, and experience.

Scenes allow us to “go there”, and provides the safety we need to give in to it and explore it.

If we think of the “light” as representing the known, relative to the flux of the rest of life it’s relatively stable. OK, that might be largely an illusion, but it makes us feel better to attempt to keep things fixed in the known. We feel safe there, but it can also inhibit growth and even stultify it.

Conversely, the “dark” is simply the unknown. Its not inherently “evil” or destructive (no more than too much of anything is), just simply what you do not know. Sometimes you have to go in to those shadows just to grow, to become something more than you currently are. The old Norse said “Reyn til Runa” which means “Seek the Mysteries”. And the mysteries are in the darkness!

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE

Finding balance is important, and ultimately balance comes from the ability to understand and accept all parts of yourself for what you are at any point in time, acknowledging that you will change.

The dark can feel like resistance and the light can feel like flow. When you allow yourself to flow through the dark, it becomes light and simply shines in a different way.

The path to flowing through resistance is simply to accept that what you are drawn to, you draw to you in order to learn something and release something you’re resisting.

With safety and self-care, look for the lesson, learn it and release it. Keep seeking to accept the lessons of your current experience and move beyond your limits. Let go of the assumptions that dark is bad and light is good, because ultimately, really, it’s all light and what you have brought to yourself now is good for you because it creates the possibility for you to find new paths to your potential.

This is as true for BDSM as it is for meditation, or coffee with a friend who has an insight you need in this very moment.

FURTHER READING

• Deviance & Desire – Taking BDSM to a Spiritual Level with Tantra
• Raven Kaldera – Monster Work: Hunting for the Inner Beast
• FetLife – Spirituality & BDSM
• FetLife – BDSM and Spirituality: The Spiritual Side of Leather
• Sensuous Sadie – BDSM is About Spiritual Transformation: My Own Story
• Jack Rinella – Zen Leather