My ascent or descent into the world of SM, as we called it then, was, all things considered, relatively painless. The true pain was endured long before I acknowledged the truth of who I was, erotically speaking—during the dishonest years, when I fantasized but did not do, desired but did not dare.

Until I came out, I scratched only the barest surface of my deepest erotic needs…

I was a college-educated visual artist, a business owner, and the divorced single parent of two young adult sons. As an unattached woman in the mid-70s, in hot pursuit of sexual liberation, I had engaged in enough of what kinky folks refer to as “vanilla” sex to last a lifetime—partnering up with at least one hundred men, whose names, but for an exceptional few, were soon forgotten.

In the end, when this rampantly promiscuous cycle of my life drew to a close, the lovers who stood out for me were the bold ones, who held my hands pinned above my head and pressed against the mattress while they plunged their cocks deep within my opening as they fucked me. Others bound my wrists with silk scarves, or slapped my ass and laughed unapologetically at my pretense at outrage.

By the time the ’70s ended, so did my casual sex lifestyle. By then, I had taken sufficient time to analyze my erotic experiences—and understood the intrinsic nature of my desires by the mental images that triggered my orgasms.

By the early ’80s, I moved beyond the limited world of casual sexual encounters and began a serious flirtation with BDSM—despite my considerable fears.

 

***

 

My fears, and most likely everyone else’s, about coming out kinky were as follows:

My realization that my greatest erotic turn-on was sexual submission placed me, as a strong independent woman, immediately at odds with the feminist ideals of my time. Being sexually dominant would have been the more acceptable choice for the ’80s woman—blood-red lips, saucer-sized earrings, padded shoulders, and high platform boots. On the surface, at least, submission appeared uncomfortably like the passive female role model I’d grown up with in the ’50s, a time when men brought home the bacon and women cooked and served it.

 The mindset of submission turned me on above everything. Socially acceptable or not, I was wired that way.

But what would become of me if I permitted myself to live out my secret fantasies—or rather, what would I become?

Might my desires escalate out of control, until I had no limits left at all? Could spanking or the use of nipple clamps be gateway activities to more extreme and brutal forms of play?

And there was the pithy issue of how far outside of society’s tightly defined norm did I really want to venture? After all, it’s one thing to play SM games and wear trendy black leather handcuff belts and skirts with thigh-high slits—and another thing entirely, to self-identify as a sadomasochist in a culture that labeled it as perversion.

 

***

 

In 1983 I had three extraordinary experiences. First off, mere weeks after coming out kinky to a few trusted friends, I summoned all my courage and attended my initial SM event—a flagellation demonstration presented by the Society of Janus, a pansexual organization dedicated to promoting safe, sane, and consensual SM practices.

The event was held at the old Hamm’s Brewery, located in San Francisco’s steamy South of Market district—where I confronted the undeniable truth of the nature of my erotic desire.

 

***

 

Then, on December 10, 1983, I met my Sir, who would become my Dom and life partner, as a result of a relationship ad I placed in the now defunct San Francisco Bay Guardian. We met on a blind date that was so dynamic, so filled with explosive emotions, that I felt moved to give myself to him as his property on that same magical night!

 And on December 31, during the final hours of 1983, came the invitation to enter the world of my fantasies, at a New Year’s Eve party that took place in an upscale home overlooking the Bay. This extraordinary evening began my personal year of wonderful—the year I could not stop smiling! It was a year of constant erotic arousal, and multiple orgasms, and the kind of sexual satisfaction I had longed for all my adult life!

If this was indeed perversion, it felt right to me!