Do You Ever Wonder...?

Indulge me for just a few minutes and take a look at the list of Desires/ Pleasures that follows:

___being needed
___being helpful
___being loved
___being appreciated
___pleasing others
___acceptance
___approval
___serving others
___giving to others
___being perfect
___being a good citizen
___being peaceful
___being secure
___deference to others
___being considerate
___accepting others
___being non-judgmental
___being tolerant
___philanthropy
___charity
___causes
___serving the family
___submissiveness
___asceticism
___hard work
___drudgery
___routine
___competence
___loyalty
___respect for authority

There are 30 items in that list. How many did you recognize in yourself? Me? I can check off 20 of those "desires" or "pleasures" without even having to think about it much. That list feels like it is about how I am, and it is also descriptive of what I've worked to become. I see many of those qualities as "positive" and somehow "right."

The list however, comes from this website: Masochistic Personality Disorder. Actually, I understand that the DSM-IV has re-named this personality type, and now refers to it as Self-Defeating Personality Disorder. Wow!

The DSM-IV states:
302.83 Sexual Masochism
In order for BDSM to be a disorder BOTH A and B must be present:

A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving the act (real, not simulated) of being humiliated, beaten, bound or otherwise made to suffer.

B. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Now, by those criteria, my orientation to sexual masochism does not attain to the level of a "disorder." I surely have to own up to A, but not B. I'm a pretty functional human being for the most part. Still, here lately, I've wondered about all of this from a "mental health" point of view.

Time spent out in "the community" last weekend didn't help any. I sat at the play party last Saturday evening, and looked at a significant number of people there who, in my view, seem pretty far from "functional" on a variety of levels. It used to be that I'd go to play parties and meet a fair number of people (maybe even a majority) who seemed like "regular" folks who just happened to like to get together and beat the tar out of one another. They had real jobs, and real families and all the usual concerns that anyone else had, and they could sit and carry on an intelligent and interesting conversation apart from their obvious kinks. Not so much in this crowd that we were with last weekend... There, we were uncomfortable and uneasy and so clearly did not "fit in." Still we WERE there. What is it that causes us (and I do think we are intelligent, and successful, and responsible, and pretty normal) to choose to associate with a veritable host of weirdos and misfits? Does it point to a "lack of functioning?"

Too, I look around the circle of people who read here (not that we ever actually hear from most who only lurk), some of whom have been following for nearly five years, and I see not a single one who chooses to live their life in the way that I do -- or that we do. It isn't that we've been trying to convert or persuade anyone to follow our path; far from it, but wouldn't you think that in five years, and after a gazillion hits (337,722) to our combined sites, someone would show up that would look sort of similar? Unless of course we really are just too weird, deviant, perverse to imagine... Alternative is one thing, but come on!

It took me a long time to come to terms with the awareness of my masochism. I really struggled with it, but eventually, I came to own the label and embrace the reality of that part of myself. I don't feel ashamed or unhappy about it these days. But here lately I'm wondering -- am I fooling myself? Am I following a path that leads to some sort of catastrophic ending? Should I be working to work my way out of this place that I've gotten into? There is not one bit of that set of questions that evokes an affirmative response in me. I really do think that I am where I should be, where I am most authentic and most healthy. I don't feel delusional; at least I don't think I do. What does "delusional" feel like?

I'm going to believe that my wondering along this line is just an artifact of the way my quirky mind works. But I do wonder if anyone besides me ever wonders?

swan