Do Our BDSM Desires Come From Past-Life Trauma?
Are they really just fun kink… or something else?
Note: I describe a disturbing scene here. Please don’t read this article if you are sensitive to those kinds of things.
I remember going to a weekend BDSM event because I’d been asked to teach Tantra in their boudoir section. (Tantra and I didn’t actually fit there but a friend was the organizer and he wanted me there). As I walked around, I was struck by how so much BDSM looks like what you’d see in torture chambers, slavery, and the very worst misuse of patriarchal power.
As I watched the bondage and beatings, it filled me with an unknown emotion — sadness, fear, despair… Maybe I was just projecting moralistic judgment on something I didn’t understand, which is possible. However, I’m quite a sensitive person and although everybody had signed up and paid to be there, it wasn’t pleasure that I was feeling from the room. It was something else that was quite uncomfortable.
When we think of the actual torture and confinement that millions of people have endured in humanity’s past (and present), we know that they were not there voluntarily. Their experiences were truly horrifying and unthinkable.
So, why do we now get off on it?
Personally, I could relate to some of it — the whipping, spanking, restraint. In very horny times of lovemaking, these all turned me on like crazy — mostly in fantasy-talk and sometimes in the flesh. So, it has always fascinated me where these desires came from. Why would I want my lover to do this to me? The only thing I could think of was that I had been spanked as a child. And even if so, why did I seem to like it now?
Going Back in Time
Recently, I went to a clairvoyant healer who specialized in Energy Release Therapy. I was seeking help with my breathing, anemia, and other health issues I had been struggling with for the last 30 years. What she found caused me to see these things in a new light.
The details were very gory, but basically, there was a 16-year-old girl — a previous version of myself — still with me, and her father was lying on top of her raping her. She and her sisters were sex slaves, and the story only gets worse from there.
For years, when people asked me what my breathing issue was, I would say that it felt like someone was lying on top of me. I had a shoulder that wouldn’t heal (which was dislocated in this previous life by my father). The ankles and knee issues I had struggled with were attributed to being brutally bound so many times… and there were many more stories.
The healer proceeded to work to remove the imprints and effects of this previous lifetime from my field and I instantly started feeling differently. I started to feel lighter and clearer and, since then, my journey has been to sort out who I am now versus who I was when this trauma was so present in my energy field, thoughts, and emotions.
When I returned home that night and shared everything with my partner, I realized something… I now had zero desire for anything that involves being bound, raped, or beaten.
Zero.
In fact, the very thought of it scared me a lot.
The Pleasure-Pain Principle
I remember years ago reading Norman Doidge’s book, “The Brain That Changes Itself”. In it, he talks about the neuroplasticity of the brain and how it adapts to everything the world throws at it.
One of these adaptations is the ability to survive trauma by rewiring our response to pain. Normally, when we experience trauma, our bodies should fill with adrenaline to help us get away from the situation. However, if we can’t get away, that fear and the pain could shut down our whole system, so the body shifts our experience out of that brutal pain response into something “pleasurable”. We cannot interpret this as actually liking the pain. The key is that the nervous system shifts our body out of terror and into something more neutral in order to survive.
Dr. Doidge found that with some of his patients, their desires to be hurt, humiliated, exposed, and restrained could be traced to medical procedures that they had experienced as young children. These procedures are often terrifying for children — even if mom and dad are there with them. So, their little bodies will easily be rewired quickly to allow their systems to survive the procedures — some that happened many times depending on the illness the child was suffering from.
He found that some patients who got a thrill out of exhibitionism or humiliation later in life had been exposed as children while strapped naked on a medical bed. Children who went through painful procedures developed desires for pain-play as adults. Being restrained became a thrill for those who had been restrained.
Then, assuming that we believe in past lives and considering the dark ages we have lived in for millennia, it’s reasonable to imagine that many of us also have cellular memories of surviving torture, punishment and confinement — perhaps in the giving and receiving roles. Could we have had this pleasure-pain rewiring from those times?
Healing or Harming with BDSM
Please note that I am not saying that all desire for BDSM comes from past trauma, nor that all people who experience trauma enjoy BDSM play. We are far too complex beings to be simplified in that way. This is simply an exploration of one woman’s experiences and ponderings.
I have several friends who do beautiful work using BDSM play to help their clients heal from past trauma. Although it is controversial, many have found that getting to explore safe power dynamics through BDSM has helped to heal childhood and other past traumas. With a trustworthy partner or practitioner, it is possible to access the pain points in safe ways hopefully paving new neuropathways to create a new way of responding to the world.
However, other people have told me that BDSM is simply their preferred kink. They believe that it has nothing to do with past trauma or anything like that. It’s simply who they are and they can get very offended at the idea that it might be something to be healed.
So, the question is, when I explored BDSM play — in fantasy or in the flesh — was I helping or harming myself? Was I exploring a previous experience in a safe place (the present time)? Or was I re-traumatizing the cells of my body that had experienced those horrors previously?
I don’t know and I’m sure there isn’t a blanket statement that encapsulates everyone’s experiences. But it is an interesting question and I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this challenging and sensitive topic.
I know that I have absolutely zero interest in pursuing or participating in anything BDSM. The whole idea fills me with panic and horror. When I first learned about these practices, at least in this lifetime, I thought it was so very sad and distressing that anyone would voluntarily want to participate, especially publicly.
This is a fascinating topic to ponder. Not long ago I attended a workshop where, at one point, we were testing our reactions to various types of energy and touch. As I grabbed my own wrist and squeezed, I had an immediate reaction of panic at being restrained, even though I was in total control of the touch. The overwhelming discomfort I felt surprised me, but I realized there must be a connection here with why most BDSM practices have always turned me off to the point of shutting me down completely. This was definitely a trauma response, though I have not experienced anything in this lifetime to trigger it. It could very well be past life trauma rising to the surface. This will require more thought, for sure.