Nov 232012
 

istock_000019333456medium1-300x199-3084612There was a lesbian couple where one partner was dominant and the other partner was a switch. The switch could not always accommodate the dominant partner’s wants and so they discussed opening their relationship to bring in other submissives who would rank below the switch. And they decided to do just that with submissive men!

But that makes perfect sense! The switch was not comfortable with the idea of bringing in female submissives because they could throw off the relationship. So she agreed to open the relationship but with men because they could not possibly replace her. Right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Let’s look at another example.

There was a straight woman who had a male slave. He served her. He obeyed her. He took her beatings. But they did not do anything sexual because this man was gay.

Well that makes sense. She was heterosexual so she likes men regardless of whether they are gay or not. And men will do anything for sex. Right?

Maybe. Most likely not.

And then there was a dominant lesbian woman who loved women. She dated women, slept with women, had sex with women, and had women as companions. She did not desire to date men, sleep with men, and have men as companions. But she did want to fuck men with a strap-on.

Let me add something before we try to explain that one. There is a gay man who is the master of a gay woman. How does that work?

It works because humans are complex. Their behavior is complex, as are their emotions, psychology, and sexuality.

One contributor to this complexity in the scenarios we considered above is that BDSM brings us different types of gratifications. Some of this gratification is social, some sexual, some spiritual, some physical, and some related to the ego. Gratification beyond the sexual creates more room for interactions that seem to go against what we associate with sexual orientation.

Another contributor to this complexity relates to what is male and what is female; is it identified by anatomy, behavior, or something else? Physical anatomy defines sex and the  psychological identity defines gender. Sex and especially gender are not always black and white. A man whose gender and energy has a broad mix of that male and female might attract a person who is attracted to female gender and energy.

And the last contributor to this complexity is the concept of continuums. Kinsey, a renowned 20th century researcher of sexuality, proposed the Kinsey scale to describe a continuum for sexual orientation that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to bisexuality to exclusive homosexuality. I think there exists a separate Kinsey scale for each emotional intimacy, sexual intimacy, and BDSM. Thus, you might have a gay man who prefers men for sexual intimacy but is open to women for BDSM.

Bring together these three factors—that there are gratifications from BDSM that go beyond the sexual, that gender and the energy one conveys is not necessarily binary between male and female, and that there are separate Kinsey scales for emotional, sexual, and BDSM intimacy—and you can have the pairings (or quadruplings for that matter) that otherwise seem to go against what is commonly associated with sexual orientation.