Maybe NSFW: Would you go along with / accept a friend's role in an active BSDM relationship?

Only if I get to be the bottom.

Are you asking if I would judge people for having types of consensual relationships in which I don’t participate? I found your details to be somewhat confusing.
Anyway, their business. I have a couple of friends that are seriously into BDSM role-playing sex, I don’t care, as long as they don’t stiff the servers when we’re all out to lunch. Which has nothing to do with their sexual activities.

First of all, it isn’t ABNORMAL! It is a lot more common than you think.

Second of all, it is a matter of consensual relationships, which means it is no one else’s business.

Most people in the fet life are just as private as the next person; they don’t want their choices to be judged by society anymore than you want your proclivities public. By even asking this question as you framed it, you are judging them on things you know little about.

Also, from what I’ve heard but don’t know directly, there is always an agreed upon set of limits or acceptable behaviors and a safe word for ending the episode if the submissive person wants out.

I’m with the other answerers, not my business to know.

The question was. would YOU go along with the roles and still do things with them. Not necessarily as a participant but as an observer.

So far, we have someone who answered as if they would PARTICIPATE with a partner in a relationship, which is not what I asked at all. In fact, I spent considerable time explaining that this was NOT what I was asking.

And we have someone who is accusing me of judging. I really don’t care about how you feel about me or whether I am judging. That is so far out of the scope of the question. I am asking how YOU would react and if you could go along with the relationship with the people.

“Not my business to know” I appreciate but I am asking would you stay active in the lives of the people accepting their roles when you are with them.

So convoluted. So, the question is: would we want to observe their fun?
Well, no, but then I’m not into observing anybody else’s sexual fun.
And I still think their consensual preferences are not my business.

And I still would be having that lunch.

Really, brevity is the soul of clarity.

It seems a specious question to me. I don’t participate in or “go along with” any of my friends’ sex lives. I’m not a voyeur.

zenvelo: How do YOU know I know little about BSDM?

I am VERY involved with people in these relationships and have done quite a bit of research and understand the fetish behind these relationships. It makes pretty good sense to me that they have this drive / compulsion

I feel like I am living a double life knowing some of the things I DO know. I myself treat these relationships very matter-of-fact and without judgement.

The topic IS in the realm of abnormal psychology.

I know how I feel about it and you do not.

I am trying to find out how OTHERS feel about it.

Canidmajor: Brevity is ALWAYS misunderstood on Fluther. Details need to be explicit, stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.

@Yellowdog your details were way too long and convoluted. They often are. Break it down before you post. The level of not appropriate answers you got should indicate that you weren’t clear.

I would. I do. My friend’s kinks are her own business. She has lost several friends over it, I hear, who are just too squicked by it. She can talk to me about it without worrying that I’m going to drop her because of it.

She’s even invited me along a few times, and I learned a lot just by paying attention and asking questions. Everyone seemed to be happy and having a good time. No one pushed me to join in.

After three or four such adventures, I’d seen enough and declined further invitations. But when she wants to talk about her private life, I can listen a little more knowledgeably.

There’s a playful, fantasy element to it that I can accept without necessarily understanding it. My friend and her associates all take very seriously the need for a clear agreement before they begin and the absolute respect of safe words. It’s not for me, but I’m not inclined to impose on others my notion of private behavior between consenting adults.

I also don’t talk about her business with others. I haven’t described what I saw or repeated what she’s said, not to anyone. I wouldn’t consider myself a trustworthy friend if I did.

There is, of course, a significant possibility that any one of us does associate with friends who have hidden lives. They’re hidden. You don’t know about them and probably wouldn’t recognize the signs if you saw them.

Of course I would accept them and do stuff with them.

What business o9f mine is it if they want to do kinky things? Answer: none of my business. My approval or disapproval is not relevant – it is that person’s life.

No, personally I prefer to keep any sexual activity separate from entertaining visitors and when I visit I expect the same courtesy in return.

Sure, I can accept my friends quirks, as long I’m not required to participate or their particular fetish does not require an audience including myself.

I know two such couples right now, and have known at least three earlier in life.

The three couples I knew earlier in life were from my involvement in (unrelated) role-playing games—Chaosium, White Wolf, Kult, a few others). Though there was an element of fantasy roleplay it was not the same KIND of fantasy roleplay.

I do not find the bondage/sadomasicism to be overtly sexual per se’ although a sexual response is often from fetishes or humiliation itself. But mostly they seem, if anything, more about DEPRIVING a partner of sex and love.

Of the two I know right now, one involves a homosexual male couple—the submissive of whom has a close relationship with a woman whom I also know. Most people think he and she are a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship (she knows he is gay, and has recently been telling me that he talks about his experiences as if he wants a response out of her but she doesn’t know what to say). I found out about these two guys’ situation when I was carpooling with them to an event.

The OTHER couple (this one heterosexual) involves a man and woman who live together, and he is the submissive one. It is more like what Jeruba is describing—with a contract and appears non-revokable.
Oddly enough, his fantasy or fetish is DEPRIVATION of sex and there seems to be no sex at all (or love) in their relationship, He lives in (voluntary) confinement and has a very humiliating nickname she calls him by. He actually wanted to have his LEGAL, REAL name changed to this and I advised against it, for which he is now grateful. She alternates between treating him cruelly and treating him lovingly but ALWAYS deprives him of a loving and a sexual relationship. I am actually friends with this couple and treat it matter-of-factly.

The woman, in the aforementioned relationship with the two homosexual men, does not know how to respond, even though she is close to the “submissive” guy. So, I just hoped for some feedback into how mainstream society feels about these relations and how they respond or would respond.

Most of my social circle involves the church, and communities, and in the past it involved working with children and families in after-school programs, hence, I feel I’m living a double life, clueless as to what they and others expect of me.

Just do not expect a dance routine from me

If it involves hot lesbians, I’m in. No questions asked…

Lesbians don’t like me very much. Don’t know any Lesbians very well. But gay men are usually pretty polite, to me at least.

As a two time rape survivor I just can’t understand the desire for this no matter how hard I try. I can’t understand the desire for pain or to inflict pain or to be tied up. I’ll be honest, because of my experiences I do judge people who enjoy these activities.

You know I had a girlfriend once, who wanted me to be really rough with her. In fact, I’ve had a few… But I don’t like being rough, with someone I care about.
Even when I tried to play along sometimes, I could not keep it up… I am a big guy, so I guess I attract girls that like being roughed up… I don’t know…

But I just haven’t been able to be really rough with a girl, when I’m in control anyway. When those girls were on top, I couldn’t believe how much pain they seemed to desire. I don’t mind some scratching, and bitting. But not much more… Just me…

I dated a girl who brought in an electric device once. In to the bedroom. It was in a suitcase, and was like a wand, with multiple attachments. It essentially shocked you. It plugged into the wall. So it had some umpf!

(I don’t want to brag, but I’m decent in the sack. Got some skills. But when machines are involved, or whips, or leather, I’m just not into it.)

So this, torture device, I just was probably awful with it. Definitely awful…

She had been reading “50 Shades of Grey,” or something. Well, I hadn’t been….

EPIC failure…...

I don’t believe this behavior is normal.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/sexual-masochism-disorder

@Yellowdog If I follow what you mean, I find it strikingly odd that you chose the words “go along with” to mean “would you not abandon them as friends for the type of kink they are into”.

As if the normal default would be to not associate with people when you find out they are into something kinky you don’t relate to?

Anyway, I think it’s incorrect to stigmatize BDSM itself as abnormal or a disorder. @Aethelwine just posted a link to a Psychology Today article on “sexual masochism disorder”, but I think that’s a pretty backwards article, as it supports this notion that the behavior itself indicates a psychological disorder.

I’m quite straight sexually and BDSM is not something I want to be interested in, but I don’t stigmatize people who are. I do know several quite smart and sane and adult people who have tried it or who are interested in it, and in talking to them about it, it’s pretty clear that many people do it as a healthy and healing thing, with lots of structure and very positive intentions.

Which is not to say that many people who are into it don’t have issues connected to the BDSM. But the BDSM itself isn’t the core issue, and it can even be helpful.

And again, no, certainly they don’t need to be stigmatized or dumped as friends… though maybe it’s unavoidable or for the best in some cases of people who would tend to do so.

If wanting to inflict pain upon others for sexual gratification isn’t a disorder?... I have no words.

@Aethelwine You’re not distinguishing between consensual BDSM and pathological sadism or pathological sadism.

Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM – well, at least the first bit which makes this distinction:

“This article is about consensual adult sadomasochistic activity. For the medical condition involving non-consensual ideation or behaviour, see Sexual sadism disorder. For the medical condition in which pain/humiliation is required for sexual arousal and causes distress or impairment, see Sexual masochism disorder.”

^But I am. I do not understand the consensual part. I don’t understand why someone would want to inflict pain. I also don’t understand why someone would want pain inflicted upon them. It seems abnormal to me.

@Aethelwine I’ve only had people discuss it with me, and may be too tired now to explain what I gather. And I gather it varies from person to person. And I also don’t particularly relate, but I think I do understand much of what I’ve been told.

I’m not sure I can do it justice and communicate well, but imagine someone who does have a charge around power and control, and physical situations of being under someone else’s power or maybe just about authority or fantasies and/or power dynamics that they have little/no way to safely and without consequences engage in in their everyday life. Now imagine that there are groups of people who study this sort of thing and develop skills for being very clear in getting consent and creating a very safe environment for agreeing to play out the situation someone has a charge about.

It can be therapeutic and help people work through personal material, because not only does it allow exploration of fantasies and fetishes, but it allows exploration of shadow material, unrestrained expression, and facing types of situations that hold a lot of fear or charge for people but normally would be unavailable or unsafe, but can be intentionally set up for experiences that are safe and allow experiencing.

I have the impression that by go along with, @Yellowdog means he has either watched some sessions or heard them described to him in detail by his friends. That to me is different than accepting that friends have different sexual preferences from you. I would not want to participate in or hear about any of my friends’ sexual activities except in certain very intimate conversations about partner problems.

I have, curiously enough, met more than my share of such situations. Four or five.

Several of them involved sexual DEPRIVATION and, although being deprived and needing was part of his fetish, there was no sex allowed and the woman kind of alternated between being loving and supportive, in a teasing and promising sort of way, then cold and cruel and disdainful.

I DO consider it in the realm of abnormal psychology but not harmful unless, um, it IS harmful. The relationship must indeed be CONSENSUAL—and the disher of “punishment” must like what they’re doing in order to deliver it right without actual TRUE abuse, and maybe occasionally go a LITTLE overboard—but not dangerously so.

Unless a person is ACTUALLY hurting and not just getting a charge from humiliation, I PERSONALLY didn’t see it as unhealthy.

janbb—by ‘going along with it’ I mean if one partner was treated like an animal, kept in confinement or restraints, punished corporally, went by a humiliating nickname— ate cold oatmeal while you and the other partner ate steak—all these things treated as normal life for them—I don’t mean actual sex—would you accept this in their home or wherever they indulged?

@Yellowdog, would you clarify something for me, please? By “accept this in their home or wherever…” do you mean “would you be willing to observe this in their home or wherever…”? “Accepting” that this happens is far different from “observing” it happen.

@Yellowdog The way you describe your observations that behavior goes beyond role playing behavior in the bedroom to a sado-masochistic relationship with real cruelty and no I could not see that and be friends with them.

Some people really like to be treated this way. It may seem incomprehensible, to us, but it is a way of happiness for others. Call it what you will. It is what it is….

Here’s a recent article about the line between consensual BDSM and abuse. In the scenes I observed, the line was very clear. You had to sign a form agreeing to the health and safety rules before you could even enter the dungeon. There was also discreetly placed first aid gear on hand, and there were volunteer dungeon monitors who kept an eye on things. I never saw any trouble arise, even though some of the activities were pretty bizarre by my vanilla standards.

Being a sceptical sort of person I would wonder at the power play behind the scenes that leads to such behaviour. What pressures (if any) have been applied? How consensual is it really? The result for me is that I would be uncomfortable with it.

If you mean would I want to watch? No.

If you mean would I judge them for it? No.

If you mean something else then I have no idea from your posts what the fuck that might be.