Is BDSM inborn or made ?

[Miss_Adagio]

I think the overall desire to be submissive or dominate is born, maybe with environment adding the finer details of the kink. Ie: I was born submissive but through my environment I discover/learned to like wearing corsets while playing.

My main problem is, if you say that BDSM is purely "made", you're saying that something happened to us very early in our life (because at least in my case, i was this way since before puberty)to make us this way. Therefore if whatever it was didn't happen, we would be "normal". This is uncomfortably close to saying that something happened that "broke" us and there is something wrong with this lifestyle.

 

[Kojote]

My main problem is, if you say that BDSM is purely "made", you're saying that something happened to us very early in our life (because at least in my case, i was this way since before puberty)to make us this way. Therefore if whatever it was didn't happen, we would be "normal". This is uncomfortably close to saying that something happened that "broke" us and there is something wrong with this lifestyle.

Isn't this a question of perspective?
Maybe it has to do with us being educated (by parents as well as the whole world around) to view it as 'wrong'. But think back to times when everyone not acting the expected way was deemed 'wrong'.
Even the people who had a better understanding of the world and what went wrong in it (simply due to higher intelligence) where viewed with suspicion.

I think people developing kinks are not like people who don't develop them. They are different and therefore there will be always some who think that something is wrong with them.
But arguably something may be right with us (kinky ones) and wrong with this people, eh?

 

[IrateQuaker]

Confusion

I think the point that needs clarification here is that BDSM is an institution. It brings together people who stand outside the normal values of sexual behavior. As an institution it is purely created and not born.

Now the vast array of values that we exhibit are another matter. They have their own traits. When it comes to a person's nature such as Dominance or Submission, that will be innately born. You don't need the Institution to exhibit these traits and you'll hear families say repeatedly "He/she's always been like that"

When it comes to other values, say around fetishes like foot worship or sadism (just throwing out two randomly) you reach obscurity. There are arguments for and against. Many of the values are studies by people in lab coats with clipboards.

So answer answer the actual question rather than the one intended, No, BDSM is not born. It's a social device created by like minded individuals.

The reason why we joined? Well, that's another matter.

 

[Nameless_Rose]

I think its a bit of both nurture and nature, depending on the person and the circumstances. I know that events in my childhood shaped my identity as a sub, but I also feel like I have always had these desires and the events have just made them stronger.

I have read an interesting theory that talks about how the limbic system may wired differently in Doms and subs. In Doms, the area of the brain associated with aggression and sexual desire are somehow connected. In subs the area associated with fear and sexual desire is connected. Honestly don't know much about biology, but it kind of makes sense.

 

[Kojote]

I think its a bit of both nurture and nature, depending on the person and the circumstances. I know that events in my childhood shaped my identity as a sub, but I also feel like I have always had these desires and the events have just made them stronger.

I have read an interesting theory that talks about how the limbic system may wired differently in Doms and subs. In Doms, the area of the brain associated with aggression and sexual desire are somehow connected. In subs the area associated with fear and sexual desire is connected. Honestly don't know much about biology, but it kind of makes sense.

I mentioned something similar above. And I still think there may be some connection.
But it doesn't feel just right to think of this kind of 'wiring' as the rule.

What about adaptability?
Our race is immensely adaptable. And the adaption is triggered by circumstances. By need.
Lots of people here expressed that the always felt submissive (to pick one). That they always have been this way since they were children.
But what if they would have gotten pressed by chance to develop a more dominant streak and then gotten familiar with it? What if they would then feel that they always ‘had it in them’?
(Because, of course, we always have it in us if need permits. Both traits and any other imaginable one.)

I’m not trying to change the perspective of anybody regarding himself with this.
Just thinking loud …

 

[praefect]

I used to have a need to dominate. I found incredible fulfillment in it.

Having found it, I fell in love.

Having fallen in love, for the first time in my life, I realized, I had used dominance as a means of self protection.

I needed to have power over someone to open myself up in such a way that I was volnurable to them.

Having opened up to someone, and learned to love, feeling safe with this person, the need to dominate ceased to be a need, and became something to enjoy.

Dominance and Submission still triggers me sexually, but I am much more relaxed about it now, not quite so INTENSE.

Take from that what you will.

 

[Gabrielle310]

Fetishes BDSM are learned, just as we learn to talk.
When very young there may be something that the child is mentally exposed to that in older life never came to terms with.
Not in all cases, for example a girlfriend or boyfriend may expose them to the fetishes of BDSM.

Usually from my experience with clients, the ones that have humilation tendencies and like to be riduculed have some childhood issues.

Usually have done well in school and are succesful, need a reason to go back to a comfort level in their childhood. They have a lot of responsibilty currently and or stress and find the need to get inside their own head and share it with another, such as a mistress or lifestyle companion.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I remember (or more accurately, I now have the memories of remembering) masochistic fantasies at age four. I remember sneaking away from my own birthday party to masturbate. In my fantasies I had a penis, which I felt to be a clitoral analogy, because there was "more room" so to speak, for genitorture.

If my fetishes are because of something that happened to me in my childhood, I would have to say that I was the one that inflicted it upon myself.

But then-- my fetishes are mostly physically manifested rather than emotional manipulation type stuff. They satisfy my nerve ends.

 

[teknight]

Fetishes BDSM are learned, just as we learn to talk.
When very young there may be something that the child is mentally exposed to that in older life never came to terms with.
Not in all cases, for example a girlfriend or boyfriend may expose them to the fetishes of BDSM.

Usually from my experience with clients, the ones that have humilation tendencies and like to be riduculed have some childhood issues.

Usually have done well in school and are succesful, need a reason to go back to a comfort level in their childhood. They have a lot of responsibilty currently and or stress and find the need to get inside their own head and share it with another, such as a mistress or lifestyle companion.

But...learning to talk is the expression of an innate mechanism...

The problem here is differentiating between BDSM behaviors/ practices (including the wearing of outfits) which would have to be learned, and specific impulses (towards sadism, masochism (which could also be learned, btw- pairings of stimuli), dominance and submission, which might have an innate, biological basis. Considering that human beings are social, with social hierarchies, where position in the hierarchy results in quantifiable neurological changes (manifested as stress, for instance), it might be that there is some neuro-bio substrate to some of this...but it's hard to tell.

A better question would be - how far back does anything resembling BDSM go? Can we find evidence of BDSM behavior in the past, in history, where we can't explain it away as something else? Mind you, modern BDSM is its own culture.

 

[marieR19]

This is an interesting thread. I agree that some aspects of BDSM are definitely "made"... the culture, the stereotypical leather/chains/whatever, the slang, that was all "made" and is all stuff that people seek out, instead of something that is just *inside* them.

The masochism, sadism, etc, however, I have to think is inborn. Because it sure as heck is for me. Like some others here, there was no "trigger" that "caused" me to become a masochist... it's just how I've always been. And a submissive, to possibly a lesser extent. These aren't things that were influenced by something in my childhood, because they were already *there*. I remember specific incidences of liking and manipulating pain and humiliation from when I was five years old. I remember "let's play doggie!" when I was four. When my 2nd-grade teacher told us to write about an exciting fantasy, mine involved being blackmailed to be a servant (that story did not get turned into the teacher...).

Unless something completely off-topic like "growing up in a bar" would somehow "trigger" me to be this way, I'd have to think it's just the way I was born.

 

[KoPilot]

For me, there were triggers. Very subtle triggers that happened very early on. I began to associate what I would eventually learn to be "sex" with unconventional things. Pavlovian conditioning happened organically when I was still very young, modifying my internal reward system until it was a full-fledged fetish by the time I hit puberty.

Without those triggers (which I responded to in the way that I did by chance, it seems) I'd be vastly different, sexually. I imagine that I was predisposed for something like it, i.e. s-type behavior, through nothing more than the architecture of my brain. But show me that cartoon instead of this one, a different Disney film than the one I watched during that critical window of my developmental years, and you might have ended up with a furry vore fan or a humiliation aficionado or a foot fetishist instead.

I think the most basic of basic categories are innate: "I'm a pyl/PYL" seems to be physiological, but the trappings are most definitely learned. You can't be born wanting to be humiliated-- you can't even conceive of things like language and interpersonal interaction as a newborn, just as a baby can't know of latex and hogties.

 

[BBW Fan]

I guess you could say that I'm a natural sub. I love doing whatever I can to bring my wife pleasure and the greatest turn on is to see her brought to orgasm. With that being said, I know that she likes to be dominated from time to time. I am learning to act in the role of dom to please her. I wouldn't say that it is in my NATURE, but perhaps it can be learned over time.

I guess I'm being a sub by learning to be a dom.

 

[thatgirl2136]

I feel like I was born with it. I remember as a preteen pretending and fantasizing things that I now realize are BDSM related to why I am submissive.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I guess you could say that I'm a natural sub. I love doing whatever I can to bring my wife pleasure and the greatest turn on is to see her brought to orgasm. With that being said, I know that she likes to be dominated from time to time. I am learning to act in the role of dom to please her. I wouldn't say that it is in my NATURE, but perhaps it can be learned over time.

I guess I'm being a sub by learning to be a dom.

You're learning that your duties to your Dom include topping her when she requires such service.

 

[bhndblueyes88]

Stella, you need a stamp or something

 

[Stella_Omega]

Stella, you need a stamp or something

Hmm...
A lolcat macro.

 

[agirlinside]

born and man made

I have no doubt that i was born a submissive. All my childhood experiences revolved around pleasing more outgoing, dominant personalities. That being said, it is over time that the full submitting to one persons will, and excepting that their decision is in your best interest, of course to fulfill their wishes, comes to light. The knowing that i am there for them and them alone is so special. Being treated as an object seemed correct to me back them, and still does. The boyhood games have been replaced with real amazing events. Being trained to wear women's lingerie might have seemed a little odd at first, but the pleasure i saw in their faces made me want to comply further. We are born submissive, and made in our Dom's image. No different then being born real smart and becoming an engineer, rather then a fry handler.

 

[urh0227]

I think its predominately made. However what i mean by this is that genetically speaking only a small part of our personality is what we are born with- the rest is how we are allowed to express that personality to the rest of the world and how the rest of the world expresses our personality on us. I think the thing to remember though is that just because we aren't born a certain way doesn't make it any less 'who we are' or any less 'right' for ourselves.

 

[xperia2995]

This is an interesting thread. I agree that some aspects of BDSM are definitely "made"... the culture, the stereotypical leather/chains/whatever, the slang, that was all "made" and is all stuff that people seek out, instead of something that is just *inside* them.

Very well said. A lot of people DO confuse this with what is inborn.

 

[Noira]

When I was born I was a curious outgoing baby who never cuddled and always looked at other people. I became a shy, submissive people-watcher... I kept a close eye on people and preferred to listen rather than to talk and did my best effort to put other people's lives right. I was considered incredibly mature for my age. By the time I discovered what BDSM was (when looking for fashion accessories online I stumbled upon a site that made leather accessories... and kinky accessories), I was well engrained into a traditional womanly role, fully expecting to grow up to get married, have children, and serve my family.

Now some of those of you reading this might be going "waitaminute, I've seen a few of Noira's posts and she doesn't identify as a straight submissive woman!" and you'd be right. My point is that maybe we weren't made this way because my world was trying very, very hard to turn me into a subby woman ready and willing to serve her husband.

Being a very good Christian kid, I waited until I was 18 to join Literotica and a handful of other kinky sites which I had stumbled upon pre-18 and filed away for 'join these sites after I'm 18'. Then I started exposing myself to sexuality, something I hadn't before. Somehow the next three years would send me from 'adorable submissive' to 'likes women, possibly crazed feminist, supporter of gay rights (I hardly have to say that I was not in favor of these before!), likes pain, likes inflicting pain...' My own mother has no idea how I became so sexually confident when mere years ago I cringed and blushed at the mention of a penis.

Where did it come from? Did my hanging around kinky crowds online "warp"me? Was it the culture that brought out the sadomasochist or was it there all along and I simply responded by how I was trained to say "augh, gross."

I think she was there all along, and simply obscured. I can see her in the books I picked (I predominantly took books from the library that had a high chance of people being tied up or beaten up), I can see her in the games I played (one of which was "chase the boys with large sticks and then tie them to trees...")

So I would say that kink is developed, that BDSM is triggered... but the triggers that set me off weren't the triggers that set other people off. Plenty of kids read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I'm sure most of them didn't become raging human rights supporters with a kink for bondage and pain. I'd think some of it comes from how our brains are wired to process pleasure and pain. But if we're made kinky, why aren't I submissive? I like to think it's because it's alllll me, whether or not I was born that way... I'm happy that way. It's in me now. Isn't that good enough?

 

[GrimsPet]

It both born and learned.

I believe I was always a submissive. Just like my Master always had his Dominant persona.

What I believe happens is that submissive or Dominant tendency is always there and then something happens to trigger it into the forefront and bring it out.

With Master, he was always the one to try to lead anything growing up. Then he went into the Army and those skills were honed and sharpened. He's been out 11 years now and when he met me suddenly that aspect of being a leader that he had tried to put aside, that aspect of having some kind of control he had thought he had relinquished when he left the Army all came to the front and he realized he still craved that control and that sense of being able to lead someone. He NEEDED to be Dominant over someone. It was in his blood all along.

On my side of the coin, growing up I hated getting into trouble, hated making anyone upset. If you had ever seen my Father upset you would have a good indication as to why. The man could move mountains with his booming yelling when his temper flared, and believe me his hand was one you didn't want to get swatted with. My sex drive kicked in at a rather tender age and I was Masturbating by the time I was 11. I look back on it now and realize most girls that age didn't have a clue back in the 80's. Anyways I had no idea either what was going on and why I kept dreaming of being tied up and used by someone. I swore I was crazy, swore there was something wrong with me and I desperately wanted no one to know I was nuts. When I finally got into college one of my friends online very kindly pointed out to me that I wasn't nuts, I was just different and should embrace it. From there my journey into finding my Dominant counterpart started. Every new guy I dated taught me something different about myself, taught me something different to try. Those experiences made me who I am now.

 

[xperia2995]

Both posts above show people who were submissive in everyday life turning to BDSM. It is probably the nature of the human mind to think "Why am I submissive/dominant?" at some point in life. Our curiosity knows no bounds.
According to my opinion the non sexual part of dom/submission is inborn. But we ourselves make the sexual part of BDSM through exploration.
If it wasn't for our curiousity to find more about ourselves, i guess no one in this forum would have even joined literotica.

 

[winstonfrigglestein]

I never thought nature v. nurture had to be an 'either / or' situation. For me, I felt it was probably a combination of the two. While I never had any traumatic sexual experiences as a child, I do distinctly remember some private moments where I was maybe more sexual charged than most kids my age (talking earlier than grade school, here.). This was kind of spurred on by the fact that my father was/still is a programmer, who kept three+ computers in the house when I got into grade school. I am pretty sure I was born with a very submissive sexual standing that was pushed even further into kink by mountains of porn for years and years and years.

/shrug.

Who knows.

 

[switchbitch]

I think it can be either nature or nurture or a combination of both. For me it was definitely nature I started experimenting way too early for it to be anything else and as there was no outside influence to engender that experimentation I have to concludeI was born this way.

 

[sereneone4u]

I think it is both.

I was born naturally submissive. I am a pleaser, caretaker, helpmate, assistant, when being dysfunctional- an enabler, passive, receptive, obedient, yadda, yadda, yadda...

As far as my "bdsm" goes I like power exchange...and I think that is where nurture comes into the picture for me. I had a very abusive childhood. I had to be hypervigilant to my parents moods, to make sure "I" did not set them off by saying or doing the wrong thing, thus suffering their wrath...I also learned to be "invisible" so I would escape notice. I would go without as much as possible--the less needs you have, the less things you have to care about...the less weapons they have to use against you...

In every day life, I am quiet and unassuming (NOT AT ALL LIKE I AM AT LIT), I do not cuss, I sure as heck do not talk in a sexual manner. Everything is orderly, I am in control. I make sure everyone's needs are met, I volunteer extensively to sooth the pains of others, I do my best to have no needs or wants, control, control, control.

I think with power play...it is my way of giving that control to someone in a safe environment...being a child and being brutalized by those stronger...maybe there is a need to allowed to be weak and someone else be strong and know they aren't going to hurt me and I can let go. This is the only "bdsm" "preference" that I have and I am surely not jumping on the band wagon that abused people are bdsm.

I have just been thinking about this since Teknight asked about it in another thread, maybe I am overthinking it.