This is a pretty serious issue that I've been grappling with for my entire adult life, really. And I am currently in therapy, but I'd also like your perspective.

I'm a very kinky guy and always have been, since a young age. I also feel like I am a sex addict, and have used sex as a way of anaesthetising myself from difficult feelings ever since I was around 10. (I'm now in my early 30s, by the way.) My "addiction" was mainly to porn, sex chat rooms, going on web cam, etc. Alongside all this I've had relatively good long term relationships with women.

I've been working on a lot of my issues but where I am right now is that I realize how much I need to have a strong intimate, close, lasting loving relationship with a woman. And to share my kinks with her, and not keep them hidden and secret, as I had been.

This is possible, and I have been doing this. But I think my sex addiction is actually an addiction to sexual humiliation. I feel I have eroticized my shame and sought out acts and behaviors that are "shameful" and "humiliating." A large part of this is in speaking to, or even once or twice meeting, older dominant men. I get turned on by basically being bulled by them. Made fun of, insulted, humiliated, spoken down to.

I'm very sex positive and open minded, and I'm OK with being bi. I'm also OK with telling a GF or a future wife that I would like to occasionally see men. But considering that this kind of relationship with a woman, and starting a family, etc., are my priorities, I'm concerned that this kink of mine might actually not just be a simple sexual outlet, but might be a way of sabotaging my relationship.

I am concerned that the kink—in drawing insulting and humiliating comments from people—might be negatively affecting me. Might be contributing to negative feelings that I may have deep down about myself, even thought my self-esteem is pretty high. I also fear that, as i can get so completely sucked into that world, that it might take my energy away from the relationship that I'm in (when I'm in one). And I really want to make sure that I'm not behaving in a way which is destructive to that future relationship, while also not suppressing my kinks.

I don't think I can simply block the idea from appearing in my head. I don't think that works. But I also don't think that indulging it works either. Naturally I'm quite conflicted, and I'm not really sure how to manage these conflicting feelings—the sexual thrill of being humiliated, usually by a man, with my deep sexual and emotional needs for the love and companionship of a woman.

Your thoughts would be seriously appreciated.

My Problematic Kinks

I’m sooooo tempted to respond with some degrading comments… but I’ll resist the urge. But I’m curious how doing humiliation play with dominant men impacts you in the immediate aftermath. Do you feel depressed? Does it make it hard to relate to others? Does it impact your ability to work or relate to others? Or are your fears entirely hypothetical? I ask because you’ve done this for a while, and managed to incorporate it into your life. Are your concerns informed by some actual experiences of emotional or relationship blowback? Do you feel bad about it or do you just feel like you're supposed to be feel bad about it?—Dan

LOL, thanks for resisting... I rarely have that kind of willpower. And thanks for replying.

Basically the nanosecond that I come I feel pretty grossed out with myself. I feel like I've just woken up from a hypnotic spell. I look at myself and I think, "Did I really do that?" I don't feel immediately depressed but the general inability to control it all does get me down. It also plays into my subconscious belief that I'm a bit screwed up, and each time I do it I think it probably reinforces that belief. At its worst, it has impacted my ability to work or relate to others because I've had that kind of text/sex chat go on while I've been at work, or as soon as my GF was out, for example.

Although it's mainly been an online thing, I have had two meets with dominant guys, and I'm not even entirely sure if i enjoyed it or not. Partly because I'm not particularly attracted to men, so I found any act that wasn't entirely humiliating or sexual to be quite gross.

I have managed to incorporate it into my life but in a hitherto unhealthy way—completely in secret, for one. I'm now realizing how I have been using this hidden world of humiliation as an a crutch, or a secret world to escape from and avoid my feelings and avoid intimacy. But at this current time I'm single and I'm currently "sober" (I had to get rid of my smart phone for a while), so I have a bit of time and space to consider how I would like to approach this going forward, because complete abstinence from it isn't really an option... at least I don't think it is.—MPK

So it's not the hooking up with a man that's a problem, MPK, and it's not the degradation play aspect that's the problem. The problems seem to be those feelings of shame, your worries about the amount of time and energy you sink into this pleasure/distraction, and the deceitful way in which it/you have gone about indulging your kink in the past

Taking those issues one at a time...

Shame? You have nothing to be ashamed of—well, the deceit is shameful, and we'll get to that in a second. But your kink, all by itself, isn't shameful. It's just your kink. And what does exploring your kink do? It gives you pleasure, it gives the other guy pleasure. Besides wondering whether your kink is harmful, MPK, there's doesn't seem to be any real harm you can point to—your self-esteem is just fine, right? Okay, there's the shame—but shame is is opt-in. Try opting-out of the shame and see how you feel then.

Deceit? You don't have to feel bad about deceptions you don't engage in. Find a partner you can be honest with about this very unique aspect of sexuality. It might prompt some women to dump you... but they're not the right women for you, MPK. And, yes, there are kinky women in the world—and who knows? One might enjoy watching her male partner being degraded by other men. Or you could find a woman who has kinks of her own that require some degree of outsourcing. Or a bi woman who wants your okay to see women and is willing to sign-off on you seeing men and may or may not be interested in knowing exactly what you do with men. You can have your kinks and honesty—to varying degrees—and a family too.

Time? If you give yourself permission to be who you are, and enjoy what you enjoy without shame, it'll be less likely to overwhelm or obsess you. (Is anyone more obsessed with homosexuality—and hungrier for cock—than "straight" anti-gay "Christian" activists?) Create some space for your sexual interests, MPK, and they're less likely to leak into other areas of your life. And give yourself a fucking break: lots of people squeeze in a little sexting during work hours; and lots of people do a little online flirting before or after meeting up with their significant others. If your work performance isn't being harmed by your sexting breaks, and if your relationship isn't being negatively impacted (if you're not cutting time with your SO short to get back in front of a cam), those examples don't exactly prove you're obsessed or addicted.

Look, MPK, your kink isn’t going anywhere. Those feelings of shame, however, can be overcome. And, yes, lots of people feel squicked out the nanosecond after they come—sometimes even "normal" people having “normal” vanilla intercourse with loving, opposite-sex, age-appropriate partners feel a little squicked out immediately after they come. And, again, ask yourself: What's squicking you out and making you feel shame? What you just did (a degradation scene) or the stuff that's not about the degradation scene itself, i.e the secrets and the lies?

You say you’ve managed to incorporate your kink into your life but only in unhealthy ways. Well, MPK, there's only way to find out if you can incorporate your kink into your life in a healthy way… and that's to try and incorporate into your life in a healthy way. So give yourself permission to indulge your kink in fantasy, or pursue it in reality, without shaming yourself or doing something in pursuit of your kink that you should feel ashamed of. And proactively creating some time and space in your life for your kink—legit downtime at work, when you're single, with the okay of your kinky new GF (if and when she comes along)—should leave you feeling less obsessed and controlled by it.

If it's something you're able to look forward to—"Hey, I’m not doing anything Wednesday night, so I’ll have a nice online degradation/cam session and a wank"—you'll be less likely to act on impulse, less likely to lie, and less likely to be filled with shame afterwards. Good luck.—Dan

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