How do I let go of intense shame surrounding my kinks?

[Hi :)]

So, I’ve always had an interest in BDSM, since before I knew what it was. I remember when I was about 9/10 I used to look for torture scenes from movies on google, I think this was me trying to find BDSM content without having the right words to find it. I didn’t really like the scenes I watched, though, some were quite disturbing actually. I also used to look for spanking/whipping scenes in movies and I was much more interested in these.

When I was a little older, around 11, I discovered porn and that became my main tool for masturbation. But, when I was 15 I discovered the term “castratrix”, it’s a term used to describe a dominatrix who “castrates” AMAB people. Obviously, the don’t actually, it’s just like a form of CBT and psychological sadism. I have a CBT kink and I hadn’t really seen anything that relates to that kink before this. I began trying to more porn like that, but I didn’t know the term “CBT” at the time, so I just looked for castratrix porn. I couldn’t really find a lot of content doing that, so I decided to look for castration scenes in movies hoping it would be like what I saw before or arousing. I only watched a few scenes that I found on YouTube and they were quite violent and disturbing, so I didn’t do that again. Though, I did remember and rematch a scene from AHS where this woman gives a man a blowjob and bites his penis (it’s implied that she bites it completely off, but I don’t think that was shown in the scene) which I found arousing.

I feel really ashamed of myself for that. I feel like only a really twisted and evil person would get pleasure out of that kind of violence. I’m also really scared that people would think I’m sick or disgusting because of it. And, it’s not the fact that I have a CBT kink that makes me feel ashamed, it’s the fact that I got pleasure or thought I’d get pleasure out of a scene that wasn’t supposed to be pleasurable. Like, it kind of makes sense that I was aroused by the blowjob scene because it was somewhat sexual, but the other scenes were just violent. I didn’t enjoy watching the other scenes because of that, but the fact that I thought I would (which is why I looked them up and watched them in the first place) is really distressing to me.

Is what I did normal? Or am I actually just a gross person?

[Latha]

Hi there, Hi

I understand why you're worried about this, but I don't think that you are a gross person and I don't think it is particularly strange that you searched for such scenes. You said it yourself: you were looking for CBT and castratrix porn, but you didn't know how to find it. In the course of your search, you found scenes from movies that felt violent, and you learned that you were not looking for that. All of this is okay. You just thought you might be interested in those scenes when you didn't have enough information about them.

Even if you were interested in such scenes, I don't think it would necessarily be a problem. It is important to remember that there is a difference between real violence that causes harm to real people, and violence in fantasies, which cannot actually harm anyone. At no point in your post have you described hurting a real person.

When you worry about whether you're a bad person, try to ask yourself some of these questions:

• Was a real person harmed by something that you did, or are you thinking about some fantasy or hypothetical situation?

• How do you know that a person was harmed? Did they convey it to you somehow, or are you making assumptions?

• Did you intend to hurt them, or was it an accident?

• Is your response proportional to what happened? How would you respond to someone else in your situation?

I want to gently remind you of the times you've come here struggling with such concerns before. If you look back at your posts, do you notice any patterns?