Hello world. I am a dominant male, who's been active in the lifestyle for more than a decade now. Lately I've been very curious to ponder the factors behind what seems to be a huge wave of interest to the bdsm-scene among young people these days. Here are some of my thoughts about it.

Every little boy and girl living in touch with the mainstream culture today is appalled by the obvious hypocrisy of it. Whether we are honest about it to ourselves or still play along as taught by our families and peers, we are disgusted by the culture – all that which is seen as 'normal' - around us. Yet we don't condemnd it aloud. We feel it's too strong an enemy for us to fight against, and we feel alienated with our dislike to what we perceive to be accepted by others (who in turn probably secretly curse us for going along.)

When all the nice little phrases about our / their dual faced values and the superficial politeness of normal 'good behaviour' don't feel honest enough to us anymore, it is only natural that we turn to those who represent the opposite instead. At least the guy calling you an ugly, worthless slut is not bound by these norms of empty manners, and has more potential of speaking out the truth as it appears to him, right?

Also while the generally accepted state of society glorifies consumerism and we have come far enough in it to see ourselves also as products in this spectacle, fighting each other for attention, and it is the mainstream ideology -taught in schools too- to mold ourselves according to the needs and demands of the potential users, the buyers, the role of the submissive appears now like the most logical conclusion for pretty much everyone, whether they give that title to the package they sell themselves in or not.

And there's one more thing. With the internet our eyes have slowly opened up to the big picture of world news, no longer only as they are presented to us by the local propagandists, but now that we are able to hear all sides of the stories, we have become painfully conscious of our own role in upkeeping or turning over the powers that be. To simplify I use the term existential angst, it is making a new renaissance; we are again observing ourselves as the 'creators of our own reality' and this burden of freedom is heavy. If it is possible for our little boy or girl to choose the 'counter culture' in which he/she is liberated from this angst by submitting to a different set of norms, again giving away their personal responsibility - there will be a temptation to embrace the lifestyle for that reason too.

Under these conditions I am not at all surprised to observe how trendy the bdsm culture has become. Practically every teenager now wants to explore some of it, and roughly one third of them are saying they feel a deeper calling to submission or slavery as a devoted choice of lifestyle.

With all this in the back of my mind, as I still like to play with young submissives out there and explore the delightful plentitude of them, I have become more cautious than I was before to the spiritual aspect of D/s. With ”spirituality” or ”spirit” I don't mean something ghastly and unbelievable but simply that sphere of existence which is not apparent to us as something concrete and physical; thought-constructions, egos and what's behind them, emotions, social corpuses, all that. I would like to put a lot of emphasis on the real spiritual content of D/s relationships, that is on what kind of philosophy (in action) is being taught – since in every D/s relationship some kind of philosophy is there even if the people involved are not clear to each other about it.

And there are good kinds of philosophies, and then there are the crappy ones. As always, you can be sure the majority is attracted by the shit.

A lot of what happens in the bdsm culture is just a continuation of the same hypocritical mainstream phenomena I criticized above. If you approach the 'scene' believing there to be a right to accept and follow, the correct method or a school of protocol which can be used to qualify or justify your choices and you as a good Dom or sub, you're hopelessly lost. There is no real counter culture that operates as the mainstream culture does.

All good lessons of any good teachers are always revolutionary, always putting your focus back on your own existential angst, your own will. A person liberated from all ideas of cultural norms is free like the agent of plague as Artaud put it, and a good Dom's job is always to help his subjects (with a little force) into what can be called a 'poetic state'.

Lets us re-discover the revolutionary potential of D/s dynamics!

If you actually read what I wrote here, please drop me a line to say what it made you feel / think. Thank you.