So I have a sadomasochistic streak in me. I enjoy reading BDSM erotica, including some that's quite hardcore.
The thing is... I think sadism in thought/fantasy is different from how sadism expresses itself in real life, at least in the context of RACK.
There is an aspect of me that DOES enjoy the idea of causing genuine suffering. Some fiction that I read deals with torture and other disturbing things (think Game of Thrones/Sword of Truth level stuff). It's eroticised, but also genuinely disturbing. The sort of stuff that almost everyone would define as "evil".
Obviously expressing any of these urges in real life would be horrifically evil and is contrary to all my morals and ethics. I would never do anything like the fantasies I read about in real life.
Interestingly, the fact I can read this kind of erotica and find it arousing, doesn't mean I want to engage in sadistic BDSM practices in real life. In fact, if I was to engage in BDSM I would more likely be the submissive. I think it's because in fantasy I can dissociate from the personhood of the "victim" because they aren't real, they're fictional. But in real life, I empathise with suffering. And I know causing suffering is wrong. To the point that even if I knew the sub was enjoying the pain, I would still feel guilty, especially if it involved any kind of emotional pain.
I used to think I was a bad person for having sadistic thoughts. But now I think that this helps me understand people who do commit evil atrocities, so as to try and prevent them. I've read a lot of history, and there have been times in history where seemingly normal, moral people, became horrific sadists to the "other" when the conditions were right. We like to look at people who commit evil acts as inhuman, as monsters, unable to be understood. But I feel I can understand that they are in fact fully human, that sadism is a part of the human experience. The shadow.
If you knew me in real life, you would say I am a caring, gentle, pacifist, empathetic and loving person. And that is all true. And it's not ingenuine.
And yet.
The cognitive dissonance of enjoying "evil thoughts" plagued me for a long time. I have mostly come to terms with it now. But it still bothers me sometimes. Trying to reconcile this aspect of myself with the rest.
On another note - sometimes when I read erotica I also read from the perspective of the "victim", which is pleasurable too. I wonder if it's because pain/despair etc are things that I genuinely fear happening to me, and so my mind eroticises them as a way of coping with something.
In real life I do enjoy being dominated more, albeit in a safe way. I have been a Domme before but that was more as a service to my partner. I could switch but it would be more as a loving act of service rather than because it inherently turns me on to be a top.
