I Like A Bit Of Bondage

With EL James’ 50 Shades Of Grey selling by the truckload, it’s clear that there’s a big appetite out there for BDSM, and that women are indeed partial to it. Just don’t try giving me orders, says Anne Sexton.

Anne Sexton, 27 Aug 2012

not titillating, not dangerous, not taboo, not kinky. If anything, it was rather silly.

I knew that if I was going to have sex with Liam, it was going to have be on my terms. Someone who enjoyed giving orders, simply for the pleasure of having them obeyed, was not a person for whom an egalitarian relationship was possible. One of us was going to have to be the alpha dog.

I don’t like any relationships where there is a power play. Order me around and my first impulse is to do the opposite. I can do compromise, I can do negotiation, and for the most part I am relatively agreeable – but obedience is not in my nature. Obedience is for children, and even as a child I wouldn’t obey unless my parents had a good reason for their demands. A power play brings out my worst qualities – I don’t like to lose. No, that’s not it – I need to win, and I need the other person to know I’ve won.

A few years back I met Robert, a tall, dark and handsome dom in a nightclub.

“You will be my slave,” he told me.

“I don’t think so,” I warned him but he wouldn’t listen.

He promised that he could make me feel more pleasure than I had ever felt before, but only if I complied with his orders.

The first order was to address him as ‘Master’ or ‘Sir.’ The second was that I was to meet him in the ladies’ toilets in five minutes’ time.

“Make me,” I said, but Robert, used to having his dictates obeyed, thought a stern command was enough. Of course I didn’t meet him in the toilets. I headed for the dancefloor instead. Ten minutes later he came storming across the club, fuming that I’d kept him waiting.

“Come with me now,” he commanded.

“I told you I’m not a slave”, I said. “You’re not much of a master, are you?”

Whatever faults he had, Robert was not one to give up easily. Having got my number from a mutual friend he texted me for months. Whenever he was in Dublin for business, he sent demands that I should meet him at his hotel. Not requests, mind you, orders, including details of what I was to wear and how I should behave.

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