BDSM has become far more visible in mainstream culture, but greater visibility has not necessarily produced greater understanding. Movies, pornography, social media, sensational news coverage, and decades of cultural stigma have helped create BDSM myths that continue to shape how people think about kink, even when those ideas have little connection to how consensual BDSM actually works.
Some BDSM myths are relatively harmless, such as assuming that everyone involved in kink owns a closet full of leather or an elaborate home dungeon. Others have more serious consequences. The belief that BDSM is inherently abusive can make it harder to distinguish consensual power exchange from actual abuse, while BDSM myths about trauma, mental health, submission, and Dominance can create unnecessary shame for people whose desires fall outside conventional sexual expectations.
Research has increasingly challenged many of these assumptions. A systematic scoping review of BDSM research found little support for older theories that treated BDSM interests as inherently pathological, while population studies have also shown that BDSM-related fantasies and activities are not exceptionally rare. Research reviewing BDSM prevalence and psychological factors presents a much more complex picture than many common BDSM myths suggest.
Debunking BDSM myths does not require pretending that every kinky relationship is healthy or that consent violations never happen within BDSM communities. Kinky relationships can involve coercion, abuse, poor communication, unsafe practices, and unhealthy power dynamics just like non-kinky relationships can. Accurate education gives us a better way to evaluate those behaviors based on consent, communication, accountability, and risk rather than relying on stereotypes.
If you are still learning the terminology, my guide to what BDSM stands for provides a broader introduction to BDSM roles, activities, consent, and power exchange.
Table of Contents
BDSM Myth 1: BDSM Is All About Pain
One of the most persistent BDSM myths is that BDSM is essentially an elaborate way of hurting people for sexual pleasure. Sadism and masochism are certainly part of the BDSM umbrella, and some people genuinely enjoy giving, receiving, or experimenting with pain. Pain is only one possible component of kink, however, and many BDSM experiences contain little or none of it.
BDSM can include bondage, sensory play, service, orgasm control, praise, roleplay, rituals, erotic authority, protocol, objectification, humiliation, fetish play, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and countless other activities or dynamics. Even when pain is involved, the sensation itself may not be the primary attraction. Someone might enjoy spanking because of the anticipation, attention, authority dynamic, ritual, emotional intensity, or marks afterward.
Another reason this particular BDSM myth is misleading is that BDSM does not always involve Dominance and submission. A Top and Bottom might engage in impact play or bondage without creating an authority relationship, while a D/s couple may have an extensive power exchange dynamic that involves very little pain.
Reducing BDSM to pain makes it harder to appreciate how diverse kinky sexuality can be. If you are still figuring out which aspects appeal to you, my guide to exploring new kinks looks at sensations, fantasies, psychological themes, and power dynamics as different pathways into kink.
BDSM Myth 2: BDSM Is Abuse
Of all the BDSM myths, the idea that BDSM is inherently abusive is one of the most important to address carefully. BDSM can involve behaviors that would be abusive without consent. Hitting someone, restraining them, insulting them, controlling their behavior, or frightening them can have radically different meanings depending on whether those actions were knowingly and voluntarily negotiated.
A review of consent in the context of BDSM identifies mutual informed consent as a central feature distinguishing consensual BDSM from abuse and discusses negotiation, safety practices, consent violations, and community consent norms.
That does not mean anything becomes ethical simply because someone labels it BDSM. Abuse can absolutely occur in kinky relationships. A person can ignore limits, use coercion, manipulate a partner, retaliate against someone for withdrawing consent, or use a power dynamic to justify controlling behavior that was never actually negotiated.
This is where BDSM myths can become especially harmful. If every form of BDSM is automatically labeled abuse, outsiders lose the ability to distinguish consensual kink from genuinely coercive behavior. At the same time, if people inside BDSM communities become defensive enough to insist that abuse cannot occur within kink, people experiencing harm may struggle to have that harm recognized.
The relevant distinction involves consent, context, agency, and whether the people involved genuinely agreed to the authority or activities taking place. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom’s Consent Counts resources provide additional information about BDSM consent and negotiation.
BDSM Myth 3: People Who Practice BDSM Have Psychological Problems
Some BDSM myths originate in older psychological models that treated unconventional sexual interests as evidence that something had gone wrong. That assumption still appears whenever people describe kink as a symptom of emotional instability, mental illness, or psychological dysfunction.
Research does not support treating consensual BDSM interests themselves as evidence of psychopathology.
A study comparing 902 BDSM practitioners with 434 control participants found that BDSM practitioners were not psychologically less healthy as a group. In several of the characteristics measured, BDSM participants actually scored more favorably than controls. The researchers concluded that BDSM could be considered a recreational leisure interest rather than an expression of psychopathological processes. Read the study on psychological characteristics of BDSM practitioners.
A broader review of clinical literature has similarly found little evidence supporting many BDSM myths about widespread psychopathology among kink practitioners. People involved in BDSM can certainly experience depression, anxiety, PTSD, personality disorders, or other mental health conditions because those conditions exist throughout the population. Enjoying consensual BDSM does not itself demonstrate that someone has a psychiatric disorder.
BDSM Myth 4: BDSM Is Caused by Trauma
One of the BDSM myths most frequently applied to submission, masochism, humiliation, consensual non-consent fantasies, and other intense forms of kink is that a person must have experienced trauma in order to develop those interests.
Human sexuality does not generally have such simple explanations.
Researchers have examined relationships between BDSM interests and childhood experiences, attachment, personality, biology, sensation seeking, and other variables, but the evidence does not support reducing BDSM to one universal cause. A systematic review examining BDSM through a biopsychosocial framework found that BDSM interests appear to involve a complex mix of biological, psychological, interpersonal, and social influences.
Some kinky people have trauma histories, and some do not. Some trauma survivors incorporate particular themes into consensual sexuality, while other survivors have no interest in BDSM whatsoever. Neither person’s sexual interests provide proof of what happened to them.
These BDSM myths can also be deeply invalidating because they encourage outsiders to replace someone’s own understanding of their sexuality with an assumption about what must have caused it. A person’s kink does not give anyone permission to diagnose their history.
BDSM Myth 5: Submissives Are Weak or Powerless
BDSM myths about submission often confuse consensually giving someone authority with being incapable of exercising agency.
Submission is not a personality test. Someone can be assertive, professionally powerful, independent, opinionated, and still enjoy surrendering negotiated authority to another person. Another submissive may naturally be quieter or more accommodating. Neither personality type determines whether someone’s submission is authentic.
Consensual submission also does not eliminate autonomy. A submissive can establish limits, ask questions, negotiate agreements, reject activities, withdraw consent, renegotiate a relationship, or leave a dynamic.
The amount of authority someone wants to surrender varies enormously. Some people enjoy submission only during sexual scenes. Others incorporate rules, rituals, service, or ongoing authority into everyday life. None of those structures creates a hierarchy in which giving up more control makes someone a better submissive.
If you are exploring submission personally, my collection of 100 journal prompts for submissives includes questions about identity, autonomy, boundaries, trust, desire, and power exchange.
BDSM Myth 6: Dominants Are Naturally Controlling People
The opposite side of these BDSM myths portrays Dominants as aggressive or authoritarian people who have simply found a socially acceptable excuse to control others.
Enjoying consensual authority does not mean someone believes they should control people who never agreed to that authority.
A Dominant may be attracted to leadership, responsibility, service, sadism, structure, ritual, decision-making, caretaking, or the experience of receiving someone’s consensual surrender. Those desires take place within negotiated BDSM relationships or scenes.
Someone who ignores boundaries, isolates a partner, punishes ordinary disagreement, or insists that identifying as a Dominant automatically grants authority is not demonstrating stronger or more authentic dominance.
Responsible dominance can require substantial listening, communication, preparation, adaptability, self-awareness, and accountability. The ability to admit uncertainty, ask questions, accept feedback, or change a decision does not make someone less Dominant.
My 100 journal prompts for Dominants explore authority, leadership, consent, trust, accountability, and responsibility in more depth.
BDSM Myth 7: BDSM Is Always Sexual
Another of the common BDSM myths is that every BDSM interaction is fundamentally a sexual act.
BDSM and sexuality frequently overlap, but they are not identical.
Some people experience BDSM primarily as sexual. Their scenes might include genital stimulation, orgasm, intercourse, masturbation, or other explicitly sexual activities. Other people may participate in scenes that feel intimate, emotionally significant, or erotically charged without involving conventional sexual activity at all.
Someone may enjoy rope bondage because of craftsmanship, physical sensation, trust, or connection. A power exchange relationship can include rituals, protocols, service, or authority during ordinary daily life. Impact play might provide sensation, challenge, catharsis, emotional release, or pleasure without leading to sex afterward.
People also define sexual activity differently, which makes absolute claims difficult. Correcting BDSM myths means recognizing that BDSM can be sexual, erotic, relational, recreational, artistic, psychological, intimate, or some combination of these depending on the people involved.
BDSM Myth 8: BDSM Relationships Lack Real Intimacy
Some BDSM myths portray kinky relationships as cold arrangements built exclusively around obedience, control, or extreme sexual activity. That stereotype overlooks the enormous range of relationships people create within BDSM communities.
For some people, BDSM is casual play between friends or acquaintances and is not intended to create deep emotional intimacy. For others, kink becomes intertwined with romantic partnerships, marriages, chosen family, or long-term power exchange relationships.
The communication involved in BDSM can also create forms of intimacy. Partners may discuss fantasies, fears, bodily responses, boundaries, vulnerabilities, and desires with a level of specificity they have never experienced elsewhere.
That does not mean BDSM automatically improves intimacy. One of the problems with replacing negative BDSM myths with overly romantic ones is that kink can begin to sound like a relationship cure. Communication does not become healthy merely because people use negotiation language, and kinky relationships are not immune to resentment, incompatibility, or poor communication.
A more accurate conclusion is that BDSM itself does not determine whether a relationship is intimate. The quality of the relationship depends on the people involved and how they treat one another.
BDSM Myth 9: Safewords Make BDSM Safe
Safewords are useful communication tools, but BDSM myths sometimes give them almost magical protective power.
A safeword does not prevent injury. It does not make an activity inherently low risk, replace anatomical knowledge, compensate for inappropriate equipment, or guarantee that someone will remain able to communicate clearly.
A participant may freeze, become nonverbal, dissociate, panic, faint, lose awareness, or otherwise become unable to use the word everyone negotiated beforehand. Some activities can also make speech difficult or impossible.
This is why BDSM myths that reduce consent to “they could have safeworded” are particularly concerning. The person directing the activity still needs to pay attention to what is happening rather than assuming silence proves that everything is fine.
Safewords work best as one part of a broader communication system that might include verbal check-ins, nonverbal signals, body-language awareness, predetermined intensity scales, and clear agreements about what particular signals mean.
If you are preparing for your first BDSM experience, planning how you will communicate during the scene deserves as much attention as choosing the activity itself.
BDSM Myth 10: Consent Means You Can Do Anything Once Someone Says Yes
Some BDSM myths acknowledge that consent exists but misunderstand what consent actually does. One common version assumes that once someone agrees to a scene, their initial yes remains binding until everything is finished.
Consent can change.
Someone may enthusiastically agree to an activity and discover that the sensation feels completely different from what they imagined. Their emotional response may change unexpectedly. Pain may become unpleasant. A health concern may arise. They may simply decide they no longer want to continue.
None of those situations require someone to produce a sufficiently dramatic justification before stopping.
Consent is also specific. Agreeing to spanking does not automatically mean agreeing to every implement, intensity, body location, level of marking, or context in which spanking might occur.
Tools such as a yes no maybe list can help identify interests and boundaries, but one of the BDSM myths worth avoiding is the idea that a written yes creates lasting permission. The current answer always matters more than the old checkbox.
BDSM Myth 11: There Is One Correct Way to Practice BDSM
Many BDSM myths do not originate outside kink communities at all. Some develop when particular traditions, protocols, or relationship structures are presented as universal rules.
Kink communities contain leather traditions, Old Guard histories, protocols, relationship models, titles, rituals, safety frameworks, and cultural practices that can hold enormous meaning. Problems arise when one tradition is presented as the only authentic version of BDSM.
You do not need to wear leather. You do not need to attend a dungeon. You do not need a collar. You do not need to use honorifics. You do not need to enjoy pain, bondage, punishment, service, humiliation, or 24/7 authority exchange.
Likewise, people who genuinely enjoy highly structured protocols or traditional power relationships are not doing BDSM incorrectly because their preferences are more formal.
These BDSM myths can be especially confusing for beginners because experienced community members may present personal norms as objective rules. Learning the histories and traditions behind BDSM can be valuable, but your consensual relationship still needs to work for the actual people participating.
If you want structured education rather than trying to sort through contradictory community advice, my guide to BDSM classes explains what to look for in educators and learning environments.
BDSM Myth 12: You Need Expensive Gear to Practice BDSM
Mainstream images have contributed to BDSM myths that make kink look like an expensive hobby requiring custom leather, elaborate rope, furniture, cages, restraints, latex outfits, paddles, floggers, and a dedicated dungeon.
Those things can be enjoyable if you want them, but they are not requirements.
Many BDSM experiences require very little equipment. Power exchange, commands, praise, consensual humiliation, roleplay, service, orgasm control, and numerous psychological forms of kink may depend much more on communication than objects.
At the same time, avoiding expensive gear does not mean every household item automatically becomes appropriate BDSM equipment. One of the more dangerous BDSM myths is that anything can become a safe restraint or impact toy if you are creative enough.
Improvised restraints, striking implements, electrical devices, or other objects may behave unpredictably when used on a body. The useful question is not whether something is expensive. It is whether the object is appropriate for the activity and whether you understand how to use it.
BDSM Myth 13: More Extreme Kink Means More Experience
BDSM communities can occasionally develop an unofficial hierarchy in which intense pain, elaborate rope, extensive authority exchange, permanent protocols, or visually dramatic scenes are treated as evidence that someone has progressed beyond beginner kink.
These BDSM myths confuse intensity with competence.
Someone can perform an extreme-looking scene poorly, while another person can demonstrate exceptional communication, awareness, and technical skill during an activity that looks relatively simple. Enjoying more intense sensations does not make someone more emotionally evolved, committed, submissive, Dominant, or authentically kinky.
Experience may improve someone’s technical knowledge and understanding of risk, but it does not require their personal interests to become progressively more intense.
This matters when exploring new kinks. Sexual curiosity should expand your options rather than create pressure to continually push boundaries simply because someone else considers a particular activity more advanced.
BDSM Myth 14: Everyone in BDSM Is Into Everything
One of the easiest BDSM myths to disprove is the idea that calling someone kinky tells you what they enjoy.
It does not.
A person who loves rope may dislike impact play. Someone who identifies as a Dominant may have no interest in humiliation. A masochist might enjoy particular types of pain while finding others intolerable. A submissive may want elaborate service protocols while having no interest in physical restraint.
Even people using the same identity labels can have dramatically different interests, limits, and preferred relationship structures.
This is why BDSM myths about automatic compatibility can create real problems. Saying “I’m submissive” or “I’m a sadist” communicates part of someone’s sexuality, but it does not provide a complete menu of what they want.
Negotiation remains important because broad labels cannot tell you the specific version of an activity someone is imagining.
BDSM Myth 15: Experienced People Do Not Need to Negotiate
Experience can make negotiation more efficient because people become better at identifying which questions matter to them. It does not eliminate the need to communicate.
Research examining consent norms among BDSM practitioners has found strong norms around consent communication while also showing that practices can differ depending on relationship context. More established partners may negotiate familiar activities differently from people engaging in their first scene together.
This is where BDSM myths sometimes confuse negotiation with filling out the same checklist before every encounter. Two people who have played together for ten years may not need the same conversation before a familiar activity that two strangers would need before their first scene.
Familiarity can create its own risks, however. Long-term partners may begin relying on assumptions about what someone “always likes” without noticing changes in preferences, health, bodies, emotional state, or boundaries.
Debunking these BDSM myths means recognizing that good negotiation does not always look formal. It means communicating enough for everyone involved to understand what they are agreeing to within the context of that particular relationship and activity.
BDSM Myth 16: Aftercare Is Always Cuddling
Aftercare has accumulated its own collection of BDSM myths, including the familiar image of a Dominant wrapping a submissive in a blanket, handing them water and chocolate, and cuddling until everyone feels normal again.
That may be excellent aftercare for someone who enjoys it. Another person may find the same routine overstimulating or actively unpleasant.
Aftercare can include physical comfort, food, hydration, reassurance, sensory regulation, quiet, space, comfortable clothing, practical assistance, or checking in again later. Some people need very little formal aftercare at all.
Dominants and Tops can also have aftercare needs rather than existing exclusively as caregivers for submissives and Bottoms. They may experience fatigue, vulnerability, uncertainty, physical soreness, or emotional intensity after a scene.
Understanding what people actually need matters more than reproducing BDSM myths about what responsible aftercare is supposed to look like. My guide to what is aftercare goes deeper into physical, emotional, sensory, and practical post-play care.
BDSM Myth 17: If Something Is Consensual, It Is Risk-Free
One of the final BDSM myths worth addressing is the assumption that consent automatically makes an activity safe.
Consent and safety are related, but they are not the same thing.
Adults can knowingly consent to activities that involve physical or emotional risk. Bondage can affect nerves and circulation. Impact play can create unintended injuries. Psychological play may produce emotional reactions nobody predicted. Equipment can fail. People can misjudge intensity even when everyone involved is experienced and communicating in good faith.
This is why responsible BDSM education should not replace fear-based BDSM myths with claims that consensual kink is completely safe.
A risk-aware approach asks what could reasonably happen, how severe the potential consequences are, what can reduce the risk, what skills are necessary, and whether the remaining risk is something the people involved understand and accept.
A good educator should be willing to discuss not only how an activity is performed but also what can go wrong, which warning signs matter, what preparation is useful, and where their own expertise ends.
Why BDSM Myths Matter
BDSM myths might seem like nothing more than misunderstandings about an unconventional sexual subculture, but stereotypes can affect how real people are treated.
Pathologizing BDSM can discourage people from discussing their interests honestly with healthcare professionals or therapists. Research involving BDSM-identified clients has documented concerns about bias and misunderstanding within psychotherapy, illustrating why kink-aware and culturally competent professional care matters.
BDSM myths can also make it harder to recognize abuse. If outsiders assume that every kinky interaction is abusive, they may fail to understand the significance of negotiated consent and authority. If people within BDSM communities respond by insisting that kink is always consensual and healthy, actual coercion can become easier to dismiss.
Another consequence of BDSM myths is shame. Someone discovering an interest in pain, submission, Dominance, bondage, humiliation, or another form of kink may spend years assuming their desire indicates something psychologically wrong with them.
Accurate sexuality education creates a more useful framework. We can acknowledge BDSM as a legitimate form of consensual sexual and relational expression without pretending that kink automatically makes relationships ethical or emotionally healthy.
BDSM Myths and Beginner Kink Education
Beginners are particularly vulnerable to BDSM myths because they are encountering unfamiliar terminology, community norms, risk frameworks, and relationship structures all at once.
Someone may encounter one experienced person online and assume that their version of BDSM represents universal practice. Another person might consume pornography and assume the performers are demonstrating ordinary scene negotiation rather than participating in a production whose preparation happens off camera.
BDSM myths can also create unnecessary pressure to identify immediately as a Dominant, submissive, switch, sadist, masochist, Top, or Bottom. Labels can be useful, but you do not need to choose one before you have enough experience to know whether it fits.
If you are completely new, my guide to your first BDSM experience walks through self-reflection, education, partner selection, negotiation, communication, scene planning, and aftercare without assuming that beginners need to follow one particular path.
How to Learn About BDSM Without Relying on BDSM Myths
If you are curious about kink, start with education rather than assuming pornography, erotic fiction, social media, or one experienced partner accurately represents how BDSM should work.
Look for educators who discuss consent and risk alongside technique. Be cautious with anyone who presents their preferred relationship style as the only correct form of BDSM or uses experience and community status to discourage questions.
Compare information from multiple sources when learning technically complicated or higher-risk activities. Community knowledge can be extremely valuable, but one of the BDSM myths worth resisting is the idea that longevity automatically equals expertise.
Formal classes can also be useful when you need detailed instruction or want to observe techniques before trying them yourself. You can begin with lower-intensity forms of exploration while figuring out which parts of BDSM genuinely appeal to you.
The goal of good BDSM education should be to give you enough information to make your own decisions rather than replacing one set of BDSM myths with another person’s rigid rules.
Frequently Asked Questions About BDSM Myths
Is BDSM Considered a Mental Disorder?
No. Consensual BDSM interests should not automatically be equated with psychopathology. Research comparing BDSM practitioners with non-practitioners does not support common BDSM myths suggesting that kinky people are psychologically unhealthy as a group.
Mental health conditions can occur among BDSM practitioners just as they occur among people with conventional sexual interests.
Is BDSM the Same as Abuse?
No. Consent is one of the central distinctions between consensual BDSM and abuse. Research on BDSM consent has specifically examined mutual informed consent, negotiation, safety practices, and consent violations.
Calling something BDSM does not automatically make harmful behavior consensual, however. Abuse can occur within BDSM relationships, which is one reason simplistic BDSM myths on either side of the issue are unhelpful.
Does BDSM Always Include Sex?
No. BDSM can be sexual, but individual scenes and relationships do not necessarily involve genital stimulation or conventionally sexual activity.
Some BDSM experiences are erotic, relational, recreational, psychological, artistic, or emotionally intimate without involving what the participants themselves consider sex.
Does BDSM Always Include Pain?
No. This is one of the most persistent BDSM myths. Pain is one possible component of BDSM, but bondage, power exchange, service, sensory play, roleplay, praise, fetish play, and many other forms of kink can occur without pain.
Do All BDSM Relationships Have a Dominant and Submissive?
No. Tops and Bottoms can engage in BDSM activities without creating a Dominant/submissive authority dynamic. Some people switch roles or use different labels depending on the activity and relationship.
BDSM myths often flatten these distinctions, which can make the terminology more confusing for beginners than it needs to be.
Are BDSM Fantasies Unusual?
They are not nearly as unusual as many BDSM myths suggest. A population study of 1,027 Belgian adults found that 46.8 percent reported having participated in at least one BDSM-related activity, while another 22 percent reported BDSM-related fantasies without having practiced them.
Those numbers describe one population and should not be treated as universal prevalence estimates, but they demonstrate that BDSM-related interests are far from exceptionally rare.
Do People Practice BDSM Because They Were Traumatized?
There is no evidence supporting a single universal explanation for why people develop BDSM interests. Research suggests that BDSM interests are associated with a complex combination of biological, psychological, interpersonal, and social factors.
The idea that kink automatically reveals an undisclosed trauma history is one of the BDSM myths that deserves particular caution because it encourages people to make assumptions about experiences someone has never disclosed.
Can BDSM Relationships Be Healthy?
Yes. Kinky relationships can be healthy or unhealthy for many of the same reasons non-kinky relationships can.
BDSM myths sometimes portray kink as inherently abusive, while other narratives romanticize BDSM relationships as unusually communicative or enlightened. Neither extreme is particularly useful. Consent, communication, respect, compatibility, accountability, and how partners treat one another matter far more than whether the relationship includes kink.
Do Experienced Kinksters Still Need Safewords?
Experienced people may develop different communication systems depending on the relationship and activity, but experience does not eliminate the need for ways to communicate limits and changes during play.
Safewords are one option, not a universal requirement for every scene and not a complete safety system by themselves.
Is There a Correct Way to Be a Dominant or Submissive?
No. Some BDSM traditions have particular protocols and expectations, but those should not be confused with universal rules.
The belief that all Dominants or submissives should behave the same way is one of the BDSM myths that can create the most unnecessary pressure for people who are still developing their own relationship to kink.
Moving Beyond BDSM Myths
BDSM is neither the frightening caricature created by decades of stigma nor a magically enlightened relationship system where everyone communicates perfectly and consent violations never happen. It is a broad collection of sexual interests, practices, identities, communities, and relationship dynamics practiced by people who are every bit as complicated as everyone else.
Moving beyond BDSM myths allows us to have better conversations about what actually matters. We can distinguish consensual power exchange from abuse without pretending abuse never happens in kink. We can acknowledge physical and emotional risk without treating BDSM as inherently dangerous. We can recognize that Dominants, submissives, Tops, Bottoms, switches, sadists, masochists, and people with other kinky interests do not share one psychological profile or one correct way of practicing BDSM.
Accurate information also makes exploration considerably easier for people who are curious about kink. You do not have to live up to the BDSM myths you have absorbed from movies, social media, pornography, or other people in the community. You can learn about the activities that interest you, understand their risks, negotiate specifically, communicate as you go, and decide which parts of BDSM actually belong in your sexual life.
The goal of debunking BDSM myths is not to convince everyone that they should try kink. It is to make sure people can make decisions based on what BDSM actually is rather than on stereotypes about abuse, trauma, pain, submission, Dominance, or mental health.
If you want to continue learning, you can explore my BDSM classes and workshops or start with my guide to what BDSM stands for for a broader introduction to terminology, roles, activities, consent, and power exchange.