I don't totally understand why it is that wanting to be kicked in the balls is OK, but then asking someone to kick you in the balls and then they agree to do just that is then creepy. It seems to me that they must by definition be identically creepy.

Personally, I don't think that this can be a paid relationship. They're already too close. I assume, Dan, you aren't paying your Special Guest Stars cash for their sexual service - it's just a good time between friends.

Who's for setting up a kickstarter to get WKBFM some steel-toed workboots? Anyone...?

@1 Because he's taking advantage of her naivete. He's been lying by omission about there being a sexual component—a component that demands acknowledgement and a premium.

I'm really doubtful that asking him to level with her before this session will have the desired effect. He will probably push for more thinking she'll accept it because she's gone ahead knowing he's getting off on being kicked in the balls. It seems to me to be an open invitation for him to try to buy her repeatedly and being more upfront about it than he has already. Sounds like a situation to steer well clear of unless you want to do sex work.

I’d make it $500 to walk thru the door.

As a cisgender male, I'm calling bullshit on this letter. Yes, I know everyone has their kinks, and I know the question of what different people enjoy is subjective to a certain extent. But there's a certain hard and fast limit to how extreme a sensation can be beyond which it's not objectively possible for a human being to enjoy it, and getting kicked in the balls is squarely beyond that threshold. The pain intensity of that particular blow is orders of magnitude beyond anything you ever see in real-world S&M play. It's as farfetched as saying some people get off on undergoing surgery without anesthesia.

@7 have you seen ball-busting videos? These dudes have ladies step on them with giant stiletto heels, all types of shit - things that IMO must have serious medical/fertility consequences. But 1) apparently not? and 2) the dudes are into it. It's not even especially uncommon, as far as kinks go. There are more severe pain fetishists out there as well.

Alas, this is the type of 'porn' that Tumblr really excelled at. Dunno where the treasure trove of "weird" sex is anymore, it's the type of thing your youporn and pornhub sites don't seem to have.

An oldie but a goodie.

I'm only commenting to add that we're all ignoring the babysitter/sex worker's dishonesty.

When she worked out with the dad, swam with him, put on a blindfold and wrestled with him, she knew perfectly well that was sexual. When, after doing all that, she agreed to kick him in his balls, she 100% knew that was sexual. So, I'm calling BS on her supposed ignorance.

That said, I hope she didn't do it because there is something very disturbing about the way he eased her into sex work (initially unpaid) that makes me think that there is a non-trivial risk of sexual assault.

Run away, 2012 LW.

"I did this a few times, Dan, but I found it a bit unsettling."

But she kept going back even before he offered her money because ... ???? That's the question Dan failed to investigate.

@7 This subject has appeared on SL numerous times over the years. However hard it is for you to believe, it's an actual thing that some get off on. You're on the internet; it's quite easy to see for yourself.

@7 UpAndOver: Yeah it's not real. Not because ball-busting is too farfetched -- of course it's a thing -- but because the situation sounds like it was written with one hand while the other hand was busy fapping.
All that unnecessary detail and the timeline doesn't even make sense. She accepted "a few times" and yet he is "always" anxious to get to the self-defense and "often" he'd blindfold her? She hasn't been back for 6 months and yet keeps talking to him, talks that escalated to new propositions? A normal workout starts with treadmill, swimming, laps, AND weights before it even got to self defense training? She's 22, a college student, knows Savage Love, and doesn't know there's a sexual component to all of this?
Pshaw.

And wear steel cap boots.

Aright I havent' read the comments so...

Let me say something really quick. There are loads of people who have fetishes and 'nonconventional' sexual interests- this guy is obviously in that camp- and cool, go play with them for your mutual fun or for money.

However this guy is getting off for one of two reasons- the first that he's manipulating you into doing something that he can't get elsewhere by either honestly asking for it or paying for it, perhaps because not doing those things is part of his fun, OR (and I don't feel that Dan covered this as sympathetically as it could be) because he is in some weirdo self-delusional land in which he thinks he's really just building up your own self-defense and building up his own resilience, pushing his boundaries etc. Thing is, rich people can often lie to themselves way longer and in more complicated ways than the rest of us can since they can control so many more aspects of their environment, that's the point behind the Emperor's Clothes story. I mean, dude might not be actively manipulating you- he might be totally delusional.

None of that matters to LW- except that she should consider what role she's willing to play in all of this (risks considered- I personally could not repeatedly do something to could inflict serious harm to another person's body regardless of liabilities) but consider what role you are willing to play and at what price and then confront him with that in mind COMPASSIONATELY- it might be doing him a favor.

The invitation to do cardio, swimming, and blindfolded wrestling, where this 22 year-old woman is changing into and out of body-revealing workout clothes and a swimsuit, and showering in-between, wasn't sexual or creepy or boundary crossing, but the segue to ball-busting was too much? And where is his wife and children when this is going on? Don't they wonder what he is up to in the family gym when the 22 year-old former baby sitter drops by for a few hours?

Anyway, don't price yourself out of the market. I've done scenes with friends involving a lot more work than this for no pay.

Up @7: Nope. I've seen real life ball busting, and the harder the kick, the more the masochist loves it. Not your thing -- not most men's thing, obviously! But not bullshit.

2CV @9 / Escapee @11 / Ankyl @13: Doesn't seem far fetched to me. Look up "grooming." This young woman has had a relationship of trust with this man as an authority figure in her life she she was an impressionable teenager. Add that to women's being socialised to say yes generally; warning signs that do not explicitly include anything he's done thus far ("he never touched me inappropriately"); and indeed the appeal of a princely sum of $150 which is a lot of 2012 money for a student. In 2012 the US minimum wage was $7.25; she'd have had to work two 10-hour days babysitting to make that, and what college student has that much spare time? How many of you had heard of ball-busting as a kink when you were 22, prior to this very letter having run in Savage Love? It's completely plausible to me.

*since she was an impressionable teenager.

@2; Missed you comment. Steel caps would hurt hard and she could pocket the money and be out in five.

I use to be a professional dominatrix in New York for many years and kicking a man in the balls was a very common service. I used to make a lot of money out of it. Yes, there's a huge sexual element to it, yes he's manipulating you into getting a free sexual service that otherwise would cost him 300 dollares in a Manhattan dungeon and the worst part is he's doing it without your consent, meaning: this is not consensual as you never signed up to take care of his sexual fetishes. The fact that he'd rather manipulate his children nanny into giving him sexual pleasure rather than pay a sex worker or a dominatrix makes him a horrible person. I hope karma takes care of him.

BiDanFan@17 I agree with you 100% - I'd say that's exactly how it was.

@1 She's his kids babysitter, they already have a relationship based on paying for services. This is just another service she could provide. But if he asked her to come over and water the plants and then said "oh yeah, keep an eye on the kids" when she got there, that would be manipulative.

Also, he's offered to pay and she's interested. That's all the barriers.

BTW, she should make sure to get this in writing, if she kicks too hard and his wife doesn't know, that could get messy legally

@17 @21 I think one of the sad things as you get older is you forget the college money scale. When I was getting married we had a "putting out late night snacks" job that we didn't want to foist on any friend or family member. I put a (humorous) ad in the daily newsletter at my old college offering the gig for $50, thinking I wouldn't get a response and would have to increase the amount. I got nine phone calls and 40 emails within the first hour. These emails regularly included resumes. A friend who worked at the college said that the whole campus was abuzz with the gig.

$50 for an hour of work is a lot of money to a college kid. I'd forgotten that and felt endless shame.

The one condition I'd add is that his wife gets to know that she's kicking him in the balls.

I'd also want to speak in defense of the LW's honesty or naivety in not understanding the swimming, workouts or blindfold wrestling (!?) were sexual. She could have first known this guy when she was a child or teen. He could have a not-unpleasant avuncular vibe--in fact, he does for her. On the other side, his 'bet' could be a way of introducing money into what he knows should be a contractual relationship. He could be fond of her, especially attracted to her, and suppose that they have an implicitly consensual sexual relationship. She could say (she could have said), 'well, whatever the going rate for ball-busting is, I'll do it fully clothed, whatever footwear you provide, for one and a half times the going rate. Plus travel and travel time. Let's get your kink out in the open and be clear about the boundaries of what we're doing'. Possibly, though, if she said this, the shine could go off her naivete for him and he could find someone else.

@ 24, I don't think she's tough enough for that, or for Dan's advice. She'd end up getting manipulated anyway, possibly in a worse way, just because he's experienced at this and she's not. Like that stupid old joke, "now we've established what you are, we just have to negotiate price", he'll take any open admission of what is going on as "now we all know you're a sex worker, so nothing is off the menu" and she's naive and inexperienced enough to fall for that shit.

She should just walk away. And, since this is an old letter, I hope that's just what she did.

@25. agony. She said she'd be pleased to kick him in the balls for $150. My sense was that he was maybe more embarrassed about this being a contractual, sex-work relationship than she was (?). Another point is that a patron-protégée or ward relationship with this rich family (the wife and kids, as well as the guy) could be an advantage to her inasfar as she's young and poor.

@9 McDonald's workers often find having to get a job making or selling burgers for totally inadequate pay "unsettling" too. And then they do it, because they need the money to live on. Why should she turn up her nose at $150? If that is a large amount of money to her, then she definitely needs it. If you think it's a trivial amount, that says a lot about you, but nothing about her.

No work is intrinsically degrading, it's just work - you perform services for money. Unless you are living on unearned wealth, you too work for money, or live on money you made by working for it in the past.

@7 Definitely a thing. I have a friend with a ballbusting fetish that I met up with 4 or 5 times to kick in the balls. Our hangouts would usually last around 3 hours (I was skeptical of that the first time he suggested it last that long, but 3 hours ended up being a perfect amount of time for getting set up, spending some time talking and wrapping things up). He could take some HARD kicks, and repeatedly.

There's definitely some serious risks involved, but he's been doing it for over 15 years and just fathered a baby naturally, so it doesn't always cause problems. He said if he had to choose between ballbusting and sex he would most likely choose the ballbusting, that's how strong of a fetish it is for him.

I wouldn't go over to his house again. Dan says to negotiate for no recordings, but you have no way of preventing that at his house.

The ball-kicking could just as well happen in a public dungeon or in a hotel room.

If you go to a hotel, make sure you arrive together to check in, so you know he hasn't prepared the room with a hidden camera. And let him see you call a friend and make plans to see them later after you finish with Mr. Richy Rich.

I was familiar with ball busting at least as far back as 1997, when I was 16. Probably from reading Dan's column but also the internet did exist and the meme of the stiletto heels was already established (y'all remember the original Kidd Valley logo?). So yeah I'd expect an adult millennial you know about this.

I don't understand all the skepticism on this one. Both masochists and manipulative men are a dime a dozen. I wouldn't have to be aware of ball busting as a specific fetish to figure out that someone asking someone else to hurt their genitals is sexual.

BULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL-shit. LW is in total denial about her interest - definitely to us, possibly to herself. Or the situation is an imagined fantasy and not real. Suggesting a professional acquaintence come get sweaty doing "self-defense training" at one's private residence, especially when one has zero credentials to teach self defense (taking classes on a subject doesn't qualify anyone to teach that subject; teaching is a different skill than performing a task), isn't normal in any culture with which I'm familiar, and I'd assume it's a transparent come-on if it ever happened to me. Upgrading to ball-busting is overt, moreso with the offer of money for sex work - and if LW found Savage Love, she almost certainly could have found confirmation that sex work is what this is without writing in (I just tested searching "is kicking someone in the balls sexual" and got the obvious answer to LW's question - possibly this was different in 2012, but I doubt it).

On the other hand, @7 is accidentally correct, ironically for the same reason I think the letter is bullshit, so maybe there are lots of people who can find Savage Love (can't be regular readers if they don't know ball-busting is a thing) but not the fact that ball-busting is a thing (again, bear in mind I described the act when searching, I didn't use the term of art, do not knowing what it's called isn't a reason one would encounter difficulty finding out).

@22: It's not bullshit because people can't be that naive, it's bullshit because "she" (I suspect LW is actually the dad fantasizing about getting his babysitter to bust his balls) could have found the answer to "her" question more easily than writing in, even in 2012. I'd heard of ball-busting in my teens: I had internet access, which I used to look at porn (slowly, over dial-up, waiting minutes for pictures to load line-by-line and possibly hours for videos to download), and BDSM was/is popular enough that I was familiar with its common tropes even without seeking it out, as it's not my thing. I totally believe that's less common for girls, but, again, once she had the question, answering it was just a search away.

@34 People, especially people who are insecure teenage girls, often doubt their own judgement. She is clearly aware of the nature of the situation, but she does not want to believe a man who hired her as a babysitter put her in this situation so she doubts her own feelings.

I like the last part where Dan tells the writer to up her price...GOOD...lol