3/5/2009 1:31:05 PM: A thought just occured to me... so many people who are "into the lifestyle" simply aren't. I know that some people will be offended by that statement, but as I am stating opinion I don't really seem to be able to care. So many of the persons listed on this humble, yet expansive, listing service seem to see BDSM as an activity, or pleasure source. I don't begrudge anyone their activities or pleasures, I simply wonder at what point does it become a lifestyle. Do you wear a mask when you are playing? Or when you are in the so called Vanilla world. It took me many years to recognize my own personality in regards to this lifestyle, and even longer to become comfortable with it. Society tells us that it is bad to inflict pain, bad to enslave someone, bad bad bad... One question... Why do so many of us get so much pleasure from something Bad? I think that sometimes its the being different that provides the pleasure, that little prick against the grain of societal fabric maybe. For some of us, opening ourselves up to closer inspection reveals some interesting things... without brutality where can there be mercy. Without torment, where the sweet release of knowing that the suffering has ended. Without the knowledge of enslavement how can the air of freedom fully inflate the lungs. So, to return to my original topic, does using this type of exploration as a source of play besmirch the enlightenment which can come from real soul searching? Or.. is it a gateway which we must all pass through before the real self searcing can commence. Or... am I simply rambling and full of shit? I know this: 1) I am a lifetsyler. No, I don't participate in community activities regarding the BDSM world, but I am a dominant 24/7. This is not to say that I have never met someone who was dominant over me, such a statement would be ludacrist.2) My endeavors in Sadomasochism have become more and more sensual, almost spiritual, and less about pleasure.3) By recognizing the need in others to follow, I have recognized the need in Me to Lead.