In this latest chapter of my post-divorce sexual reawakening, I’ve been exploring BDSM.
I had a pretty settled story about myself: pain wasn’t my thing. I was more sensual, affectionate and pleasure-oriented. Give me long make-out sessions, skin-on-skin contact and sweet nothings in my ear over a paddle any day. And submission? Absolutely not. I run my own life. Try to control me and see how that goes.
Then I went to Bondage Ball.
Josh and I headed downtown for the 25th anniversary of the famous fetish event at the Globe Theater. The theme was Post-Apocalyptic Masquerade, and the night promised a “sensory overload spectacle:” eight DJs, an underground dance floor, live art performances, fetish models and an upstairs VIP lair.
Everyone was welcome: “straight, LGBTQ+, body positive, non-judgmental. Whomever, whatever, be yourself and shine as you are!” I decided I would shine best in new lingerie. The day before, I picked up a BDSM-inspired set at Honey Birdette, complete with a collar and leash. The night of the ball, Josh and I got ready together, took a ton of pictures and called our Uber. We were excited and a little nervous. Neither of us had spent much time in this world.
Josh and I have been seeing each other non-exclusively for most of this year. We have electric chemistry, good communication and share a “don’t yuck their yum” attitude toward other people’s kinks. We both consider ourselves more sensual than kinky, so we figured we’d mostly observe.
We walked in. The theater was dark and dramatic, with music vibrating through every floor. We saw elaborate fetish get-ups from seasoned kinksters: leather, latex, harnesses, masks, pup hoods, gags, corsets and collars. Josh said it felt like a goth prom.
And oh, was there flogging. And paddling. And cropping. Lots and lots of impact play.
Every level had bottoms secured spread-eagle to St. Andrew’s crosses while tops ranging from dungeon-master brute to pixie fashionista worked them over with riding crops, paddles and multi-strand floggers.
It sounds scary: bodies restrained, lashes flying, bottoms moaning and flinching. And yet I felt safer than I ever had at a frat party in college or a nightclub in the early 2000s. In the heteronormative spaces where I came of age, power was everywhere, but roles were assumed and almost never negotiated. Here, surrounded by people literally tying one another to furniture, power was out in the open and roles had been explicitly chosen.
Impact play wasn’t calling to us, but after a while we wanted to do more than watch. I pulled the collar and leash out of my fanny pack and put them on Josh. Then I spent about twenty minutes leading him around the club, directing where he stood, when he moved, when he stopped, and what he was allowed to do.
Almost instantly, I realized I hated it. I am a solo parent and a professional. My days are already full of giving directions, setting limits, making decisions and keeping the trains running (mostly) on time—for the kids, the dog, the house and my team at work. The last thing I want on a free Saturday night is another dependent.
So, we switched. Josh fastened the collar around my neck and clipped on the leash. Holy shit. I loved it.
In my ordinary life, if a man told me where to sit, stand or when I could have a sip of water, I’d tell him exactly where he could go. At Bondage Ball, it felt like a vacation. My only job was to listen and follow orders.
I had imagined submission as doing something for him. Instead, he was taking care of me—watching closely, reading my reactions, tracking my limits.
He is usually gentle and sweet. Seeing him turn commanding without becoming careless was wildly sexy. He gave me a version of domination I didn’t know I was aching for—tender and firm.
At one point he handed me his water bottle. “Unscrew it.” I did. “Give me a drink.” I held it to his mouth. “Put the cap back on. Hold it until I want more.” I got wet. And not from the water bottle.
He led me upstairs to the VIP lair. Heads turned as I trailed behind him on the leash. The exhibitionist in me liked that. A lot. He stopped beside a thick pillar in the center of the room.
“Hands there.” I put my hands against it.
“Bend over.” I did, my ass now on display to the room.
Then came three or four spankings. Hard enough to sting and leave a handprint. Not hard enough to make me want less.
“Now thank me for your spankings.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
He put a hand at my neck, turned my face toward his and kissed me hard.
“Good girl.”
Hard. Then soft. Command. Then praise.
What I had always imagined as rough turned out to be surprisingly tender. I’d been spanked before. I’d played with “Daddy” and “good girl” a few times. But letting Josh take control of me in public felt different. It required trust—and by then, we had it.
I really didn’t want him to stop. Eventually we ended the scene and collapsed onto a pleather sofa in the lair, both of us buzzing. We started making out hard. I straddled him. His fingers slipped between my legs. His hand went around my neck and pulled me closer.
“You’ve been such a good girl all night. Did I give you what you wanted, baby?”
“Yes.”
By the time we got home, all that anticipation had nowhere to go but through us. My orgasms were explosive. Hard. Then soft. And hard again.
The biggest surprise of the night wasn’t that I liked being on a leash. It was that it felt like relief. In the rest of my life, I take up space. I make my own money. I hold my ground. I keep my boundaries, know my worth, regulate my emotions, heal my shit, and keep moving. Jesus Christ, it can be exhausting.
I believe in all of it. I teach it to my daughters. And over the last five years, I’ve leaned even further into my own power: I ended an almost twenty-year marriage, changed jobs, built a new community around me and reshaped my life into one that feels distinctly mine.
But maybe power also means getting to decide when you don’t want to exercise all of it. To give yourself a fucking break from being in control. To create a life where you are safe enough to set some of it down.
I walked into Bondage Ball thinking submission was the opposite of power. I walked out wondering if, sometimes, surrender is one of its privileges.
