By Annabelle River
Most people would be surprised at how often and how reliably most regulars in sadomasochists’ dungeons quote Monty Python.
Then again, most people would be surprised if they actually knew how close the nearest sadomasochists’ dungeon was to their own home. Advertising would cost most sadomasochists our jobs, civil relations with our parents, and for some individuals, custody of children.
My discovery essentially began my senior year of college, with a book by Luna Grey called The Kinky Girl’s Guide to Dating. Actually, I wouldn’t have bought such a book if I hadn’t already realized that I am, in fact, a kinky girl.
Incidentally, I was also on the dean’s list through all four years of college. I also come from upper-middle-class, moderately liberal, happily married suburban parents. I work in a law office. Pick your good-girl cliché.
And when puberty hit me at age 11, I started to lay awake in my bed at night and daydream about large, strong, faceless men sneaking up behind me, covering my face, and yanking me into the night before I could scream. I would pull my cotton panties as high as I could into the slit between my legs while I applied my childhood-vivid imagination to handcuffs and to knives cutting my clothing off of me.
This was before I had ever seen any R-rated movies, before I understood the vocabulary word “orgasm” — let alone “sadomasochism.”
