There is something that took me a long time to admit.
Because for a very long time I thought this was all about enduring more.
Tolerating more.
Going further.
As if intensity itself were some kind of proof.
As if the more uncomfortable something became, the more authentic it had to be.
I’m not so sure anymore.
What confuses me is that the more I read about dominance and submission, the more I notice a gap between the fantasies I imagined at the beginning and the things that actually affect me.
And that gap embarrasses me.
Because it contradicts so many of the ideas I started with.
For months I thought punishment was at the center of everything.
It was the first thing that appeared in my mind whenever I tried to imagine it.
Authority.
Correction.
Discipline.
Severity.
Everything seemed to revolve around that.
But the more time I spend reading stories, watching videos, and disappearing into conversations I probably shouldn’t be having with myself, the stranger it feels.
Because I’m starting to suspect that pain does the exact opposite of what I imagined.
It doesn’t pull me away from myself.
It brings me back.
Back to myself.
And that’s difficult to write.
Because part of me expected the opposite.
When something genuinely hurts, I don’t disappear.
I appear.
Too much.
Suddenly I notice my body again.
My breathing.
My muscles.
The discomfort.
The need to react.
The need to protect myself.
The need to think.
It’s almost impossible to ignore yourself when something hurts.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize that it breaks something.
It breaks the very thing that fascinated me.
Because the fascination was never really about pain.
It was about something else.
That strange feeling that appears when you stop monitoring yourself for a few seconds.
When your attention shifts.
When you’re no longer analyzing every movement.
When you’re no longer trying to control everything.
That was what kept pulling me back.
Not the impact.
Not the violence.
Not the intensity.
But that strange sensation of silence.
And I’m embarrassed to write that because it sounds far more vulnerable than I would like.
Less heroic.
Less extreme.
Less impressive.
But it feels more true every time I think about it.
Maybe that’s why I keep reading.
Because I’m still trying to understand what it is that I’m actually looking for.
And every answer opens another question.
If it were pain, I would have understood it by now.
If it were excitement, I would have understood that too.
But it isn’t that simple.
There is something harder to explain.
Something connected to not having to carry the full weight of yourself for a moment.
And I still don’t know what to do with that idea.
I only know that the more I try to ignore it, the more space it occupies.
And that’s starting to scare me a little.
The neck I am not moving it I should…
