Burning Bras To BDSM

It’s difficult to imagine a world where the role of women is more different from that of 100 years ago. Then they were subject to, if not the will of their husband, certainly the responsibilities which society invested them with.

That applied to all strata of society from the titled gentry to a wife and mother living in a squalid tenement. They were all confined by their circumstances and what society expected of them. Of course men were in a very similar position. Whereas they would perhaps feel they were in charge each and every man had a responsibility to look after his family, be the bread winner and make decisions that determined how the family prospered, or otherwise. Failing in that task would bring destitution and or shame on him, so being in charge wasn’t really being in charge at all. Men and women were on their own treadmills.

100 years brought the vote, and emancipation in all its forms via the need for labour in two world wars, cultural changes and a whole new freedom for individuals via an increasingly wealthy society and an increasingly well educated population.

But there is a paradox.

What we really all got is choice and for whatever reason some women still choose to be subjugated and defer to a male. Not necessarily in the master/slave sense, but they like the certainty of having someone else make the decisions for them. Some men enjoy this sort of relationship, again I’m talking here about what would be regarded sexually as a vanilla relationship where the two partners simply fall into what is looked upon as traditional gender stereotypical roles.

With that in mind is it so odd that there are so many couples out there with non-conventional relationships? So many in fact that it is self evident there is no such thing as a conventional relationship.

D/s relationships have always existed but in private and without a general acceptance that such a thing has a place in our world. It has always been regarded as an aberration, a behavioural and sexual curiosity that manifested itself in a few individuals and couples. The media age of the last fifty years and the Internet age, particularly the world wide web over the past 20 years has broadened everyone’s awareness of alternative lifestyles. This has simultaneously made clear the number of couples who are in a D/s relationship ,and allowed those  people who were curious about such a lifestyle, or felt there was something missing from their existence to make the connection with this latent aspect of there character.

So all that said, it’s not about her on top, or indeed him. It’s about all of us finding our place and developing a rich and fulfilling relationship with our partner that we are comfortable with, be that deferring to our partner and trusting in their decisions to a full D/s relationship and a BDSM lifestyle.