"BDSM is my purpose in life," says Lucie, who has been fascinated by pain since she was in primary school
Lucy, in your case, you can say you've been into BDSM since childhood. Is that right?
It sounds very strange, but it's actually kind of true. (laughs) The best part of it all is that the journey to BDSM started because of something that might have looked like a part of it at first glance, but nothing could be further away. I'm talking about the emo style. Today's generation doesn't know them anymore, but when I was in elementary school, emcees and emcees were at the height of popularity. People who were famous in the media and in society for cutting themselves with razor blades in addition to wearing black clothes and weird hairstyles. Which is complete bullshit, but you can't explain that to anyone these days. It was a scandal of a few cases, I personally have never known a single emcee to deliberately defame themselves.
Anyway, this is the reason why people might think that emars were or are close to BDSM. But it's a completely different direction, and besides, emo has nothing to do with physical pain. But not to belabor the point, the razor cutting aspect of it intrigued me. Specifically, the pain it causes. I couldn't understand what it was about it that turned someone on, why they craved it. So I started looking on the Internet. It didn't take long at all, and before the end of ninth grade, I had read a lot about the BDSM community. But that was just the beginning.
It occurs to me that the transition to high school is a pretty major life change. You've basically added a pretty unexplored, and often very intense, part of adult life at the time. I don't know what you already knew at the time, but how did all this affect you in your mid-teens?
I thought it was totally cool. And because I've never been one for extremes, once my search was directed towards them, I preferred to move on elsewhere, or stop for a while. Yeah, I was a little embarrassed. And as you say, I had other things to worry about over the holidays. I went to my high school class all by myself, so I was more worried about making new friends, how my studies were going, if I'd made the right choice... Just classic high school worries. But once I got used to the new environment and people after the first month, my interest in physical pain came back full force.
So, what were some of the things you encountered in the beginning and what practice interested you the most?
He couldn't quite separate the type of information I was reading and seeing for the first time. I was just looking for everything on pain and one of the million references was about BDSM. That when I clicked through, it opened up an article where the author briefly described in words all the different degrees and forms of BDSM. So basically, I "knew" pretty much everything at the beginning. It surprised me that it's definitely not just about pain, that it has many layers. For a lot of it I didn't even care about the picture, for some of it I looked it up and then felt embarrassed about it. It's just, I came across a lot of things in the beginning, but not all of them were things I logically wanted to try at 15. And I think I was most interested in female dominance at the time. Trying out a state of total domination over your partner. Trying to feel his pain. But I hadn't been in a relationship until then, so it was really high fantasyland.
When was the first experience?
Freshman year. He was a classmate of mine, one of those dumb dudes in class who thinks everyone is impressed by his muscles or athletic ability. Sometime in the early spring, when I started looking for a boyfriend, he approached me and asked me to come to his place for a weekend in bed as a fair trade. I agreed on the very condition that he would fulfill my wishes. And it worked. A few days later I had both my first BDSM experience and my first sex.
If anyone is interested in the details, it was just mutual nipple pinching and light choking on my part. Other than that, it was quite a romantic experience. It wasn't exactly the first time for him, but he certainly wasn't extra experienced either. We had quite a good time with each other. And then about five more times. Too bad he got caught up in some stupid party and started doing drugs. He was found pretty badly stoned in the park over the holidays, ended up in the hospital. He didn't even start his sophomore year, moved with his family to another town.
That seems a bit of a sign - first sexual experience, plus the BDSM elements that were your dream at the time. Did you take it that way? How did you actually pursue that line of work?
I didn't even have to try. In my sophomore year, I met another guy in a tea shop. He was from a different school, and I stuck with him until graduation. He and I basically explored the basic ins and outs of BDSM and other practices. He was hugely interested in sexuality as a whole, and although I was still rather fascinated by pain in particular, I also enjoyed his joy of discovery. He was very much into Kama Sutra, so I can say that by the time I was 18, I had learned far more of the practice than the vast majority of my classmates would try in their entire lives.
And as for me, I liked to switch positions in dominance. So one time I dominated, the other time he dominated. But always keep in mind how old I was and that I was living with my parents. There was definitely no room or thought for some hard whipping or hanging from ropes and literally torturing certain parts of my body. We gradually increased the intensity, but take that very much in quotes. It was still just choking, slapping and other details that I don't want to say out loud. Then he left me just after graduation, which really got to me. I really loved him as a person, but he just found someone else. I don't even know why anymore. For a while, I completely abandoned all sexual and fetishistic urges.
Did the appetite return with another partner, or was there another impulse?
This is kind of funny, too. It was work. I went through a couple of temp jobs at first, but nothing caught my eye. I was an economics major, but I wasn't into numbers. I kind of got disgusted with it all in my senior year. The whole learning system. People kept telling me to do work that I would enjoy, but the problem was that I didn't know what I enjoyed. Then one day I realised that the only thing I'd ever enjoyed in my life so far that made me crave more experience was BDSM. Or rather, after having partially tried it, I knew I would enjoy exploring it further. I even felt turned on by just the idea. But how to make a living at it? I categorically refused porn. Well, then I found an advert for a job in a sex shop and decided it might be a good start.
You still work in a sex shop today. Is it still the same one?
No, it's the other one. I worked at the first one for a year and learned the basics of everything I know today. In all areas of sex and sex toys. It was a tremendous school and I'm still so happy with myself that I decided to apply then. Too bad the management changed after that year and was not on speaking terms with in many professional and personal matters. And when a friend who happened to work for a competitor offered me better terms, I didn't hesitate. In addition, they offered specialized training in my chosen field, so my choice was clear.
Are you something of a BDSM specialist where you work? What have you actually tried on yourself?
Wow, I'd rather not tell you that (laughs) But it's really most of the absolutely non-extreme practices. Things like brutal genital kicking, needle-piercing of breasts and penises, and other genital mutilations I don't think of as BDSM, but as unnecessary stupidity. Plus, I've only tried most of the stuff once, and from a professional standpoint, I still mostly keep my head down myself, though I'm a bit harder than I was at 18, of course.
And a specialist? I don't know, that's a strong word. I just love BDSM, the pain it causes still fascinates me. Even how everyone's pain threshold is somewhere completely different. And not just a threshold, but the very definition of pain. It's an incredible phenomenon that I think deserves more attention. I'm just an ordinary sex aid saleswoman with a focus on one industry, that's all. I just found BDSM to be my purpose in life and I'm lucky enough to work in that industry as well. It's not about trying everything, it's about being able to gauge a person and advise them on what they should try and what will make the experience as enjoyable as possible. I think I do that more than well.
Do you have any advice for people who want to try BDSM but are too shy to tell their partner?
I certainly won't say anything new if I advise honesty. There is no better advice than to just confide in your partner. What else would a person want to do? Call an escort? Go to a brothel? Sure, you can do that too, but it's definitely better if you're single. What's the worst that can happen? If your other half tells you you're a pig or a pervert and leaves you, so be it. If he doesn't accept your nature, your fantasies and desires, he's not the partner for you. But from what I hear from people, this is really rare, almost never. Most of the time there's at least a tryout or some sort of compromise. Unless of course someone has the appetite for a good lashing, that's more difficult to explain. But beginners don't really do that.
