It ain't Just about Prayers: The Challenges of Adding a Spiritual Element to your BDSM Play
By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com 
www.sensuoussadie.com 


A friend of mine recently Googled the words "BDSM" and "Spirituality" and found that articles from my website topped the list. How cool is that! I guess I'm on the leading edge – or as they used to say the bleeding edge – of this area of study. Considering all this you'd think I'd be awash in partners who want to take me to the underworld and back, not unlike the ancient Sumerian Goddess Inanna.

Sadly, I have to report to you that the reality is quite the opposite. Since my interest in this flowered a few years back, I've had three Dominants of the spiritual flavor. While I did explore these realms with Griffin over the year we were together, I think we were both hampered by our own lack of information on how exactly to go about this quest. Lack of information is no longer a problem I'm happy to say, as I've just completed a book on the subject. Sadly, my former partner Alejandro didn't want to do much BDSM, much less spiritually-oriented BDSM and my current friend and sometime top Master Xavier has also declined my offer to explore spiritually-oriented BDSM. What a quandary!

Considering that both the latter two Dominants have deep intellectual interests in this subject, you can't help but wonder why they didn't want to actually translate this into practice. Neither of them ever gave me any real reasons, but I have talked to a number of other people who have shared with me the challenges they have encountered in moving their BDSM activities into this realm. This article will look at some of those challenges.

How do I even know Where to Begin?
Although I mentioned my book which details lots of how-to ways to go about including God in your play, in fact there are few resources for practitioners. So it can be scary and confusing to even know how to start. A Dominant might not be too willing to admit their ignorance on this subject to a prospective Submissive.

A Wee Population of Holy Rollers
One of the biggest challenges of course is that those of us who are interested in approaching BDSM with a spiritual orientation are actually a fairly small percentage of the larger kinky community, so naturally my choice of partners is far smaller as well. I admit that sometimes I despair at ever finding a Dominant at all, much less a Dominant who wants to explore the spiritual perspective. It's challenging not to get really discouraged sometimes. I am now, which I guess is why I'm writing this.

The Right Partner and the Right Spirituality
Although as a whole kinky folk seem to be more open minded in religious matters, it does need to be said that if you are a Pagan, it's probably not optimal to explore this with a Christian because your approach to spirituality is just too divergent. Having some commonality in how you think about God is important for you both to have a meaningful experience.

The Risk of Intimacy
One of the things Master Xavier and I discussed at length is the fact that exploring spiritual things together bring a couple together emotionally. It builds intimacy. This sounds wonderful, but if it's not something you want in your relationship for whatever reason, then this is probably an area of exploration you should avoid.

Expectations of Instant Gratification
Many of us are used to Dom and Subspace and so we might expect that spiritual explorations will be just as easy to achieve. But the reality is that this is by and large a whole different realm, and one that is in many ways uncharted. I think we need to adjust our expectations because it may take many tries, and many different avenues before we find the particular approach that works for us. For example, my former partner Griffin tried for a long time to turn me on to the Chakras but it just never did anything for me. So, we moved on to some other techniques.

What a Lot of Pressure!
Looking at things from a Dominant's perspectives, you can imagine that they could be a little overwhelmed by all the responsibility. Imagine adding on to everything else the expectation that they're going to be taking the Submissive into an experience with a Higher Power! Particularly in a culture when most intermediaries with God are highly elevated in status such as ministers and rabbi's, this process can really pile on the pressure.

Talking about it does not Equal Doing It
The BDSM & Spirituality group that I host here in Vermont attracts a predominance of intellectually oriented individuals. Being fairly intellectual myself, I like this in others, particularly Dominants. But to a certain extent there are also a number of brainy types who I think cannot translate that into actual action. My friend Stacey describes it this way: "I know so many brilliant men – they're like those artist types sitting around a Greenwich Village coffee house wearing a beret, and critiquing the world while not living their own lives." The corollary to this is that spiritually oriented scenes by definition are more difficult to demonstrate. How do you do a demo of someone communing with God? How would you know it was happening? And even an activity that is "officially" defined as being spiritual in nature such as a Sundance Ceremony might be a hugely spiritual thing for one person and just plain freaky to another.

The Role of Intention vs. Expectation
From everything I've read and experienced, an intention in exploring a spiritual realm is a key foundation to inviting these experiences into your life. This is not to say that they never occur spontaneously, because of course they do, just as they do in vanilla life. I am saying that broadly speaking, wishing and hoping to have a BDSM/spirituality experience without doing the work to make it happen is unlikely to yield results. By work, I mean doing some reading, talking with like minded friends, choosing a partner with a similar predisposition, and creating a path together.


So What to Do Then?
Those are all the challenges, and in a list they can seem a bit daunting. What I will say is that when you find a partner who is on the same page you are, the important things to do are to put your ideas on the table about what you're looking for in terms of experiences and what specific things you want to try. This is not the time for being vague and hoping someone will read your mind. Bring a few articles or a book if it'll help. Another suggestion comes from Stacey who finds the whole word "spirituality" a bit daunting itself. She says, "Stop using the word 'spiritual' - i know for me, i would run like crazy if someone used that term in our first discussions, thinking that 1. they were a bit too into God/religion, and 2. refer to #1. Talk about intimate connection, about it being more than the play, about wanting to surrender to his power; they all mean the same thing, but they don't invoke the Holy Ghost." I like Stacey's attitude because those of us who enjoy thinking and talking about ideas can get a little caught up in the words and forget how scary they can sound to people who might be doing them, but not necessarily yakking so much about them. Maybe instead of Googling for more articles on the subject, I'll Google myself a new Master who wants to let me "surrender to his power."


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Sensuous Sadie is the author of Spiritual Transformation through BDSM; Stories and Submissions from Fellow Travelers. She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn, Vermont's first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com or visit her website at http://www.sensuoussadie.com/. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing in most venues.

Copyright 2006 Sadie Sez Publications