Why Kink is intriguing, orgasmic, and misunderstood

Have you ever been curious about BDSM? 

In this kinky episode, Nadège opens up about how she discovered kink and trained to be a Dominatrix. 

Then, our resident sex scholar dives into the fascinating and often misunderstood world of BDSM. From ancient Assyrian practices to the seductive powers of the forbidden fruit, kink isn’t just about whips, chains, and roleplay—it’s about power, play, and exploring the erotic edges of our human desires. 

Whether you are curious about the kink world or enjoy the BDSM lifestyle, this episode unravels why kink is so alluring, so misunderstood, and, yes, potentially the key to unlocking your own pleasure. 

Buckle up—it’s going to be a wild, empowering ride!

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Welcome to Pleasure Science, a podcast that helps you feel healthier and empowered in your sexuality. And today I have a question for you. How many of you cute listeners are here because of the words “trained dominatrix” that show up in this podcast description. Yes, ladies, gaybies, babies, all the cuties. Today we are talking about BDSM.

What is kink? Why are we fascinated by it? And also why are we a little afraid of it? So before jumping in, I want to let you know a little bit about my cute, slutty journey as a trained dominatrix and someone who really loves BDSM.

So, when I was in college at UC Berkeley, I found out about this club called Bondage A Go Go. All right? And so, you know, your girl was like, well, I'm gonna A Go Go. So, I went with a group of friends down to this BDSM club, and the moment I walked in, I just felt like I was home. I saw people dressed in all kinds of Gothic, leather, beautiful, you know underground kind of aesthetics, which I love. I saw people getting spanked. I saw people being tied up. It was just like a homecoming, and I felt so at ease and so peaceful and so excited. And I actually ended up dancing on a table that night. I got spanked and tied up. And it was wonderful. And it was just such a beautiful experience where I really saw that you can go to this space that is safe, that is well organized, and you can surrender to your desires or become the boss of your desires.

So I trained to be a dominatrix after I had this experience of going to Bondage A Go Go. I fell completely in love with the community and ended up training for about two years, both in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. I had three different mentors, one of which was International Miss Leather 2009. So shout out to you. And it was incredible. It was just truly amazing. And ever since, I've realized that BDSM for me is a way that I like to give and receive love. It's such an important part of my sexual experience. But also what's so fascinating about BDSM is that kink doesn't always mean that you're having sex. And we are playing with power all the time. So let's talk a little bit about kink.

When it comes to kink, first off, I think it's always important to say like, what is this? So when we look at sex and the way that we define sex today, anything outside of missionary sex between a man and a woman in a monogamous marriage is considered taboo. This means that any sexual act outside of that little description is kink. So if you're someone who likes to be spanked, you're a little kinky. If you're someone who likes to get your hair pulled, you're a little kinky. If you're someone who likes to have sex in a position and it isn't missionary, you're a little kinky. 

And this is really beautiful news, because the wonderful thing about sex is that it's diverse and it's all about pleasure, right? Pleasure is the measure of good sex, not orgasm, not getting into a relationship. Those can be the cherry on top of a really pleasurable evening, right? 

So when it comes to kink, something that really fascinates me is our sexual subconscious, because so much of what we do and desire sexually is hidden in our subconscious because in our current historical moment, sex is really taboo, right? And it can create a lot of shame and we're taught to have a lot of shame.

So a lot of people's kinks, a lot of people's fantasies, a lot of people's desires are existing in the sexual subconscious, and they come out in ways that maybe we aren't very aware of. Now, what's beautiful about kink is it can be this very safe and consensual and collaborative way to bring your desires to life, even if your desires aren't even that extreme. Like I said, maybe you just want to have a little spanky spanky in the bedroom.

And when it comes to kink and BDSM, what's also really fascinating is that this is not a new phenomenon. Humans have always been kinky and we can actually trace kinky sex back to the ancient Assyrians. 

Now disclaimer, I kind of said this before at the beginning of the episode, but when it comes to kink, all kink should be safe, sane, and consensual. Now, what does that mean? Safe means you feel safe. You know that if you say, hey, I need a break, or I need sex to stop, or I need kinky play to stop, that your lover will absolutely respect that and not hold that against you. To me, that feels sexually safe. Now, sane. What does it mean when we say all kinks should be sane? Because let me tell you, you might go to kink.com and see things that are pretty insane.

When we say sane, that means that you're not drunk or on drugs to the point where you can't consent. So sane really kind of means sober. And consensual, consensual means that everybody has agreed to and is excited to do the thing that we want to do. Consent also is something that you can revoke at any time. You can go into something and say, hey, I said that it was okay for you to pull my hair, but actually now that we're doing it, I'm realizing I don't like it that much. You can revoke consent at any time. 

And another really important element of consent, and this is something that I love about BDSM, because this is where you really learn about consent. Just because you consented to something once, especially if you're in a relationship, doesn't mean that you shouldn't have the conversation again or that you can't change your mind, right? So just important things to really drive home when we're thinking about kink and BDSM. 

So, kink, as I just said, is often known as BDSM, right? Now, kink, I think, is a larger umbrella for a lot of fun, sexy things that we can do. BDSM is a little bit more specific, and I kind of want to jump into a little bit of the history of BDSM. 

So BDSM stands for bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism. Now, speaking of sadism, did you know that the word sadist actually comes from the Marquis de Sade, a French man born on June 2nd, 1740. He was someone who came from a lot of power. He would seduce women and beat them up, consensually, in theory. We hope it was consensual. 

He got into a bit of trouble here and there, but we do get from the Marquis de Sade, the word sadism. And also, while the Marquis de Sade was quite a sadist and did get himself into a lot of trouble, I do also want to say that a lot of the women he was with, including his wife, stayed with him for most of their lives. And there's a lot of proof to show that the reason why he got such a bad reputation wasn't because he was consensually, you know, being a sadist. It was because he was doing something that was seen as so profoundly taboo. Because keep in mind, this man was born in 1740.

Now, the Marquis de Sade wrote a lot of fiction books that you can still pick up today. And if you were to read his work, you will definitely see where the word sadist comes from. Because he… oof… does he go into the sadism, all right. And a lot of the things he wrote about, he actually practiced in his real life, throughout his entire life. So that's where we get the word sadism from. 

Now the word masochism comes from a man who was born about a hundred years after the Marquis de Sade. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Now Masoch, the last part of his name is where we get the word masochism. Now Leopold was a real fascinating man. He was obsessed with his girlfriend Wanda, and Wanda was his dominant. So in this situation, we get the word masochist from a man who loved to submit to his lady and loved to be beaten up by her. 

And that's where we get these two words. So if you haven't figured it out yet by hearing about the lives of these really interesting men, sadism is someone who really enjoys being in a position of power and being consensually violent with their lover. They enjoy inflicting pain.

Someone who's a masochist loves to receive that. And in fact, in the kink communities, that's often something that's called being a pain slut, which is just a fun phrase to say. 

But keep in mind, all of these things, sadism and masochism, are only appropriate when it is consensual. And it is totally normal and totally fine for people to enjoy their sexy playtime to be a little violent. In fact, if you remember from episode one, pleasure and pain travel through the same neural pathways in your brain. This is why it's actually very normal for people to love BDSM and love to be spanked or handled with a little bit of rough yet tender care in the bedroom. 

So when we think of kink and BDSM, it's something that is so widely fascinating to people, but it's also widely misunderstood. So why is that?

I mean, first off, I think when we look back on Leopold and the Marquis de Sade, we can see that their stories can be a little bit of like a whoa, right? So it makes sense why some people might stop and be like, are these people okay? And trust me, kinky people, we’re more than okay.

But kink is widely misunderstood, and part of the reason is because these two men became really mainstream when it came to understanding this topic. Additionally, when Fifty Shades of Grey came out, a big part of Fifty Shades of Grey was again weaving in pain with pleasure, and people were kind of like… well, some people were like, hell yeah, sign me up. And other people were like, well, I don't know if I want that. Does that mean I'm not kinky? And the answer is no. Kink is so diverse and so is BDSM. 

Because remember, BDSM also stands for bondage, discipline, dominance, and submission. We do not need to include sadism and masochism in our kinky play if we're not pain sluts. And I'm someone who… I actually, when I am a dominatrix, I do love inflicting pain consensually on my submissive. I think it's just so sweet and cute to see my sweet little submissive happily enjoying what I'm giving them. 

But when I am a submissive, there is no way in hell that anyone can hurt me. Are you kidding me? I'm a pleasure princess. Pet me, massage me, give me oil, give me dessert. Treat me like the queen that I am. So when it comes to kink, we can really step into any role that we want and it can be so diverse. And sensuality, going slow, is such a big part of kink and BDSM. And you don't need to have any pain be a part of it at all. 

So another really fun thing about kink and BDSM that people don't know is that kink doesn't always need to involve sex. It can be about entertaining into a fun role play dynamic. It can be about having sensual power. It can be about getting spanked or massaged or spoken to in a certain way that can feel very affirming. It can feel like a release. And in fact, there's a lot of research that shows that kink can be incredibly healing when it comes to healing trauma. And this does not just mean sexual trauma, though BDSM can be a great way for people who've experienced trauma to reclaim what happened to them and step back into their power. Kink can also be a really beautiful way to heal trauma in general. 

If you grew up with people who are constantly disparaging you, it can be really helpful and healing to step into a position of power and have people respect you. There's just so many different ways that BDSM can be a really healing experience and not just a sexual one. 

Now, when it comes to kink, one of the roots of kink that I have seen and another reason why I believe we're fascinated by kink and it's misunderstood is that at the core of kinky play is the eroticization of power.

Power is sexy. It's sexy to give power, and it's sexy to step into a position of power. And there's a lot of power imbalances in our modern world. So kink is a beautiful way to disrupt the status quo by playing with these power dynamics. And there's a lot of, again, really taboo ways that people play with power that can be either a turn on or a turn off to other people. But here's something that's so important when it comes to kink. Don't yuck anyone's yum. You might see someone playing with kink and BDSM and be like, how could they do that? But then you might have a fantasy that makes someone else be like, well, how could they do that? Never yuck anybody's yum. Pleasure is diverse. Kink is consensual and lovely. And we should just be celebrating things that are safe, sane, and consensual.

So thinking of kink as this way of eroticizing power, research actually shows that if you're someone who loves responsibility and has a lot of responsibility in your day-to-day life, you'd probably really love to be a BDSM submissive because you have so much power in your day-to-day life. It can be so nice to step into an erotic playground where you can give that power to someone else and just submit.

And when we're thinking about submission and domination, which again is another part of that BDSM acronym, what's something that a lot of people don't realize is in that power dynamic, it's really the submissive who has all the power. Because if you're someone who's going to submit your power to a dominant, the way that that starts is with a negotiation where you, one, check the vibe with your dominant. Like, do we get along? Do we have similar interests? Do we communicate in similar styles? Those are all very, very important things. 

Once you've established those things, the submissive will then say, hey, OK, we've established that you like being a vampire, and I like being the prey, and we're going to play with that power dynamic. Now, me as the submissive, I'm okay with you biting me. I'm okay with you spanking me. I'm not okay with you playing with my hair. I'm not okay with you calling me a slut, but I am okay with you calling me a whore. There's a lot of really fun and interesting things we can get into. But you see how in this negotiation, it's really the submissive who has most of the power because they're expressing to a dominant what they enjoy doing. 

Now, it's also important to recognize that a BDSM dominant is also not a vending machine for pleasure, right? As a submissive, you can't go and be like, boop, boop, boop, okay, I want vampire, I want hair pulling, but I don't want to be called XYZ. And then all of a sudden this dominant comes out of a vending machine and is like, all right, I'm here. Let's let's have fun. I'm your vampire. That's not how it works either. Dominants have feelings, too. And it takes a lot of energy to step into the role of the sexy boss and the sexy dominant. And however you really want that to look. 

And so when it comes to connecting and playing with power, the negotiation is so important because you really want to make sure that everyone is on the same page and you have compatible fantasies, and you want to make sure that you don't objectify or tokenize your dominant and assume that just because someone likes to be a dominant means that they'll show up for you however you want. It's still a mutual relationship where you're both playing with power. 

So another reason why BDSM and kink can be something that's misunderstood and so fascinating and yummy is also because of something called the forbidden fruit effect. We used to worship sex, right? If you listened to episode three, I walked you through how we used to worship sex and now we hide sex and think that it should be really private.

We're no longer sexually open and therefore we're fascinated by the extremes of sexuality, and this psychological phenomenon called the forbidden fruit effect starts to kick in. Now, what's also really fascinating is our human libido, the way that you find and experience arousal, will be boosted when you do new things, and it'll also be boosted when you're not doing things you're supposed to do.

Another reason why the forbidden fruit effect is so sexy and fascinating and interesting when it comes to kink is because here is this world of sexuality where one, we're not supposed to be having sex like this, but we're doing it. Two, a lot of times what we're doing in kink is very new. We haven't done it before. And so that's also really arousing. And three, we're being kind of naughty.

And all of these things can come together to make a really beautiful erotic moment and can also really deepen intimacy. So kink isn't just healthy. It's natural. It's playful. It's fun. And just, you know, again, if BDSM and kink isn't your thing, that's totally fine. But what did we learn in this episode? We do not yuck anybody's yums. 

So thinking of kink and BDSM as a beautiful way that we can connect with people, I want to share a personal story about someone that I dated a long time ago. So, this was someone who had experienced a little bit of sexual trauma when they were growing up. And so, when we got together, they explained to me that the way that they enjoy having sex with other people doesn't really center around penetration or oral sex. They just like to do a lot of massaging, hand jobs, all of that kind of fun stuff. 

And it was really interesting because I was at the beginning of my journey training to be a dominatrix. So when I was dating this guy, we didn't get together in an explicitly kinky relationship or because we wanted a kinky dynamic. But when he explained to me that he was still healing from some trauma he had in his past, I was like, this actually kind of sounds like we're about to enter into a kinky relationship because we're going to be redefining sex. We're going to be making pleasure all about sensuality and what we want. And we both did really enjoy playing with power dynamics, especially like a sexy student-teacher thing. 

And so he wasn't someone who realized, oh, that's actually quite kinky, because again, we're playing with the idea of sex outside of the mold that the definition of sex is something hard, sliding into something wet, between a monogamous, you know, coupling and tra la la, the whole cake, right? 

And so, we started playing with sexuality in this really beautiful way. And I started explaining to him, like, you know, the way that you enjoy being sexual with people is super kinky. And if you continue dating in the kink world, you're going to find so many beautiful people who are going to be so excited to have sex with you in this way. Because something that was a real struggle for him was this belief that he wouldn't be able to find partners because of the ways that he was healing his relationship to his body and his relationship to sex. 

And also just a friendly reminder out there, this experience that I just shared is not proof that if you were traumatized, you're going to like kink or people who like kink like it because they were traumatized. That's not true at all. And in fact, if you remember my story, I found kink just because I was curious and I went to Bondage A Go Go.

Being kinky and liking BDSM does not mean that something bad happened to you. It's just a way that humans enjoy connecting and there's nothing wrong with it and there's nothing wrong with you. It can be a way to heal trauma, but more often than not, it's a fun way that you can play with your lover. And it's so interesting because this is just such a beautiful example of how kink can be healing. This person didn't heal their relationship to sex by getting spanked or becoming a dominant or something like that. They healed by being able to be in a situation where they could communicate their needs, have those needs be accepted, and where they could be in a sexual situation where it's normal to talk a lot about what you like and what you want. And it's normal to create your own definition for sex. 

And I just love sharing that story because I think when we talk about kink and BDSM, another big myth is, oh, well, you need to get all this equipment and it's a big production and it's a lot of work or a lot of training or a lot of teaching. And it is important to do your research for sure. But BDSM and kink can also be as simple as, these are the things that I like, let's have sex outside of the normal mold and definition of what we think sex is, let's communicate, and let's play.

So, again, you know, go out there and play, explore your sexuality, take a class on kink, and thank you for listening to this week's episode of Pleasure Science. We're actually going to be diving even deeper into this topic next week with Midori, who is a renowned BDSM sexologist and teaches people how BDSM and kink is the way that adults play with each other. So I know you're going to want to listen to that episode because you're going to learn so much about how to connect, how to explore BDSM, and how to do it safely. 

In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram and TikTok @PleasureScience. And please remember to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review or a rating. It doesn't just help us, but it helps the sex education and sex positivity movement across the globe, because we're showing people that this is information we want to learn and we want to learn it from credible sources.

And last but not least, you can watch these episodes on the Pleasure Science YouTube. And I really recommend you do that because behind me is a gorgeous harness that I have on display, a beautiful, beautiful leather piece of artwork that I personally wear when I am a BDSM dominant. And I know you want to see that.

And of course, we also have the Pleasure Science courses. By listening to this podcast, you get 10% off of our courses, and these teach my exclusive signature framework that teaches you how to trust, love, and learn sex using your natural strengths. And did you know, we actually have a BDSM mini course. This course teaches you how to date in the BDSM community, how to connect with people, and how to bring your kinky fantasy to life. So you get 10% off of that course and all other courses that we offer by putting in the code pleasuresciencepod.

Thank you so much for joining us this week. And before we go, just a quick reminder to go out there and experience some pleasure. And since this is a kinky episode, maybe you make that a little kinky pleasure. Why don't you go and ask someone to be spanked? Why don't you try to do something outside of the mold? Why don't you create your own definition for sex? Close this episode out, get out a piece of paper, and write out what does sex mean to you and what do you want it to mean to you? Or if you're not kinky, give yourself pleasure and eat a donut. Eat a cupcake. You deserve it. You're beautiful. Have a wonderful day and I'll see you next week with Midori.

This podcast is a Pleasure Science production hosted by me, Nadège, your resident sex scholar. The Pleasure Science podcast is produced by Laura Moore and edited by Camille Furman-Cullot. Our music is by Octosound and is licensed under the Pixabay content license.

To find out more about Pleasure Science and to sign up for our online courses, please visit www.pleasurescience.com.