What an Abusive Relationship Taught Me About My Sexual Desires

I didn’t know how to separate dominance from violence

My sexual preferences feel transparent to me. I’m extremely aware of what I want, and I even usually have a good idea of why I want it.

That wasn’t always the case. That kind of self-knowledge took years to develop. And some of it came at a high price.

I discovered part of my sexual identity through one of the boyfriends I had as a teenager. It was one of those relationships that only lasted a summer but consumed me and felt incredibly important at the time.

He seemed out of my league, so when he gave me attention, I became completely enamored with him. He was older, so he struck me as being mature. And I was charmed by his confidence — he knew exactly what he wanted and took steps to get it.

Compared to him, I felt naïve and inexperienced. I treated him like a mentor, like someone who always knew better than me. If anything didn’t feel right about the way he behaved with me, I told myself it was only because I hadn’t figured out how to give him what he needed. So, I did my best to please him, no matter how uncomfortable it made me.

Most of his abuse was sexual in nature.

Sex with him started off the way it typically does in relationships. I was horny. He was horny. So, we’d fuck often.

It was blissful.

But the bliss didn’t last. Each time I’d be with him, he’d find some way to push things further, to pressure me to do things I didn’t want to.

Whenever I resisted his attempts to do something out of my comfort zone, he told me it was because I didn’t really love him.

That tactic worked. I felt so completely devoted to him that I was terrified of the thought that he wouldn’t realize just how much I loved him.

So, I let him do things I wasn’t ready to try. I let him fuck my ass before I felt ready to do it. I let him come in my mouth even though I didn’t find it appealing. And I even swallowed after he demanded it, even though that’s something I would have never agreed to if I didn’t feel that much pressure.

But it didn’t matter whether I let him or not. My consent was irrelevant. Whenever I asked him to stop doing something — if it was too painful or went too far — he would continue through my protests. He would gaslight me through encouragement, whispering “You can do it” or “No, you don’t need to stop — just enjoy it.”

And any time I gave him what he wanted, he soon lost interest in it and would need something more. Eventually, he didn’t want to have sex with me unless it was anal. And anal sex with him was always aggressive and painful. I would need days to recover from it — but he wouldn’t wait for me to recover before insisting on it again.

My pleasure didn’t matter to him. But that wasn’t the real problem.

The real problem is that my pain mattered.

He craved it.

He was a bona fide sadist.

I should have known it by the way he treated me and how he had no regard for my consent.

I should have realized it when he told me taking his ex-girlfriend’s vaginal and anal virginity turned him on because she screamed and cried while he fucked her.

I don’t remember ever shedding a tear when I was with him, but I see now that it’s what he was going for.

At the time, I couldn’t see what he did to me as abuse.

There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them was my own pleasure.

Not just the physical pleasure of sex. There was something compelling about the pain itself. And there was something thrilling about being so compliant to him.

Even when it crossed every limit I had, even when it became undeniably violent, there was a glimmer of excitement in it.

Looking back later, I could understand what that glimmer was. I didn’t know it at the time, but I am a sexually submissive person. I love being fucked by someone who is taking charge of the situation and exerting some control over me. I love getting manhandled and spanked. I love being told what to do and complying with whispered commands.

But I only enjoy all of those things when they’re consensual. Being dominated is only exciting when it’s done with someone who respects my autonomy and my boundaries. And pain is only pleasurable when it doesn’t cross beyond a certain threshold.

Before I knew that about myself, it just made me confused. I assumed I was just a regular girl with ordinary sexual desires. I knew I wanted penetrative and manual sex. I was curious to try oral. And anal wasn’t entirely off the table. It never occurred to me to wonder whether I might also want to be pinned down or dominated.

And not understanding that is part of what made me put up with the abuse. It was hard for me to identify the mistreatment I was subjected to as mistreatment because something about it really hit on something I desired deeply.

Finding a name for what I discovered about myself helped me process what happened to me. Understanding that I’m sexually submissive and knowing what that means taught me how to separate the dominance I desired from the abuse I should have never accepted.

I needed that kind of nuance to understand what I went through and to stop feeling shame for it or to second-guess my own trauma just because there was a tiny shred of it that I felt attracted to.

And I only got that nuance from speaking openly about it with others, with people who were close enough to me to really listen and help me work through it. I wish I could have had those kinds of conversations before. I wish I was given a richer picture of sexual desire so that I could have understood myself as soon as my hormones started raging instead of feeling like a confused mess.

I’m grateful that I discovered my submissive side — there’s nothing more fun than being able to fulfill your deepest sexual instincts. Now, I get to express that part of myself in safe, respectful, and loving relationships.

I only wish I had found it the same way.

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