It happened after my first flogging scene. I was lying on the bed with the man who introduced me, and he asked me what I was looking for, in this lifestyle. I told him I wanted to find a man who would beat me like that every day. It's true, and that's when I knew.

I can't say there was a defining moment, but I was maybe 15 or 16 when I realized just how much the thought of being pinned, leashed, collared, bitten, teased tortured, etc, really 'did it' for me. And while I was a technical virgin(no actual penis-vagina play) until I was 18, I highly enjoyed messing around, and all the while being told what to do, and guys taking control.

when we both agreed to put a belt around my throat while fucking. OMG I love it and will never go back IT

I think it was a series of defining moments that have led to me realizing that I'm into BDSM.

The first defining moment was when I read Kushiel's Dart (by Jacqueline Carey) as a teenager. I was so overwhelmed at how sexy I found the play, but it took awhile for me to disentangle what I enjoyed reading about from what I wanted for myself. From that point on, I definitely had a sense that I was kinky, but didn't do much more than read/fantasize for a number of years.

The next moments were smaller, but involved talking to friends of mine who are in the scene/were getting into the scene, and me slowly realizing that I wanted to do some of the things we were talking about. I began to buy books and toys...

Finally, I think one of the most defining 'aha' moments was when I was telling a friend of mine (who is a gay male Dom) what turns me off about most heterosexual relationships (which is problematic, since many of my attractions are to men). He suggested to me that I should consider checking out BDSM, and began to tell me about what to be cautious of in heterosexual Doms when I suddenly blurted out: "I don't want that. I want the opposite of that." And I realized that it was really true -- I was not in the least bit attracted to the idea of being dominated, but the idea of dominating someone made my pulse pound. I later realized that this orientation (because I see Top/bottom and D/s as orientations of a type) explained for me a lot of my past feelings about sexuality and my own sexual orientation.

The first time I received anal, I was so turned on, I was moaning and practically screaming. My boyfriend thought I was exaggerating...but oh, I wasn't. That was the first time I realized I was into "naughty" sex. It progressed really slowly after that. I eventually would receive a quick whap on the ass during rougher sex with an ex, and it sent chills through me, and I realized that I really wanted to be spanked. Eventually, with my current guy, I confessed to him that I wanted him to spank me sometime. The next time we were together, we were sitting on the couch chatting and having a drink when he suddenly wanted to know if I'd been bad lately. The conversation quickly turned dirty and he told me that I needed a spanking. He put me over his lap and I kind of laughed (nervously) and said, "oh, are you really going to spank me like this?" He gave me a very serious look, flipped my skirt up, pulled my panties down and slapped my ass...HARD. It was sooooo erotic, and it took me seconds to drop my hesitance, and before I knew it, I was confessing all of my dirty thoughts to him while he chastised me and spanked me for it.

The next time we were together, he had me bent over and exposed and was whipping my ass with his belt, and it STUNG. But the pain did this fascinating thing where, after a few seconds, it would be replaced with this pleasant tingle, and then was replaced with the intense sting, and then the tingle, etc. He took pictures of my ass, and commented on how nice it looked blushed by his spankings, and I had to agree! The next day, I took a look at my backside in the mirror and spotted bruises. There was something so exciting about that...like it was a secret just between us, a symbol of my trust in him and his in me, and a pleasant reminder of the wild night we had together the night before. While we were showering together, I told him, "You know...you left bruises on my ass," and I turned around and showed them off to him. He got this adorable smirk and said, "Yep...sure did!" and I could tell there was the same feeling in him as there was in me over the whole incident--such trust, such intimacy, such satisfaction. We were notably closer after that, and it's just getting better and better.

I'm very happy with these realizations about myself. I feel liberated and am having so much fun.