I've read and occasionally commented on an American chat site for relationships that was established by a woman who wanted to encourage female sex-positivity, to help women become liberated about sex and their sexual desires and to live their best sexual lives. All admirable goals. I read it for a long time and learned a lot. Including about BSDM and poly, and the rules around both, particularly safe words, ongoing honest communication etc. The woman who established the site was both poly and a BDSM sub.
She'd also been violently raped and beaten into a coma by her father when she was 4.
I admired her for not only surviving this but also managing to live a somewhat functional life. But it was clear that her first sexual experience had irrevocably shaped what sex would come to mean for her later. She also eventually could not hold at bay what had been done to her as a child, she became increasingly mentally unwell, and the site had to be taken over by others.
And I see this everywhere, women trying to resolve the trauma that they received at the hands of men/patriarchy in their formative years by trying to rewrite it, by playing it out in their sexual life, by becoming subs.* The same is true for male subs.
I understand this. But I do NOT understand doms or why anyone would like to hurt and humiliate others, regardless of how much the sub wants it and whether it is with respect and with code words and the dom is actually doing everything at the behest of the sub. How can a dom get literally aroused by this? It's basically exploiting the mental and emotional harm that was inflicted on someone as a child so you can imagine yourself to be powerful.
BDSM should not be seen a a cool kink. It's not at all cool, it's based on psychological compulsion and it's weird and disturbing. The normalisation of BDSM as a 'cool' kink has led to an explosion of choking, hair pulling, slapping, and violent sex in porn, with young blokes now thinking that this is the way sex should be done and young women getting brain damage from it.
And then when people point out how weird and creepy BDSM is, and they don't want any part of it in their own sex lives, they're sneered at as being "prudish" and "vanilla". And that they should "try it".
The majority of people like uncomplicated sex that simply gives them a great orgasm, that feels good. They don't want to be hurt, or to hurt. That's healthy, pleasant, lovely sex. THAT should be/remain normalised.
*A recent example in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/feb/08/sex-addict-spent-years-meeting-strangers-masochistic-hook-ups