Nature vs. Nurture: The Personal Saga

Recently I told a close friend of mine about my proclivities. At first she simply listened with intrigue in her voice, but a few days later she called me up--she was worried about me. She was worried that I could be putting myself in danger; she was worried that I was unhealthy in my desires. She wanted to know why I felt a need to be submissive--why I enjoyed being pushed to my limits. She wanted to know if there was anything in my past, my childhood, that could be the source of my kinks.

I loved the fact that she asked me tons of questions and pushed me to explain myself. I love the fact that she made me think about the origins of my personality. I love the fact that she gave me a venue to talk about what I had been thinking about for a while:

Nothing made me this way,
I have always been submissive
I have always enjoyed aggressive romance.

When I was a child one of my teddy bears dominated one of my other bears into sex. I had fantasies of being forced to have sex from the time I had any notion towards sex. Throughout high school, I was thought of as a good girl, but in truth I could be cajoled to do almost anything...almost--as long as a boy had an aura of command about him. As soon as I became romantic with a boy, I would become exceedingly demure. My friends and I loved to play with handcuffs and once I found myself cuffed to my boyfriends bed just as the rest of our friends were clearing out. I cannot even begin to describe how disappointed I was when he uncuffed me.

Then, a handful of years ago I had a boyfriend who gave me a wee swat on the bum while we were fooling around. I gasped in an over dramatic way and he loved it. And I loved the fact that he loved it. It never went any further than that but it certainly planted a seed within me. I asked my next boyfriend if he would spank me. He said no. And then I was with a man who was a dirty, dirty boy--it both scared and titillated me. And yet another dirty, dirty boy--this one very dominant. I was entranced by his demeanor and the excitement of it all. That summer I moved, but before I did, I bought a book of spanking stories. Randomly, I opened the book to a story about a woman who was utterly beaten while hanging on a St. Andrew's cross. When I had finished the story my first reaction was, "Wow! I don;t think I could ever take that. I am so impressed." Sure, it occurred to me that most people would have found the story upsettingly violent--I found it to be something to strive for.

I have since had the opportunity to play with a few people. I currently have two amazing partners, including Spiritually Playful. I have had my limits pushed to places I never thought possible. I have been blessed with chances to truly bask in sub-space.

And I have come to see that nothing made me this way. I have always been submissive. I have always fantasized about aggressive romance.

Just How Hard Wired are We?

At what point does a person know that he is submissive? or Dominant? At what point does a person know that she likes to be tied up? or likes to spank bad boys and girls? Are sexual proclivities hard wired into us or do we learn them from our parents, siblings, friends, lovers? Is BDSM nature or nurture?

On the one hand, there are so many fetishes that, by their very nature, must be the product of nurture, such as electro shock based fetishes, Hello Kitty fetishes, or car fetishes--none of these could have existed until such time as we invented (or in the case of electricity, harnessed) them. In the scope of human existence, they are flashes in the pan--and flashes do not imprint themselves upon our DNA...our psyche, absolutely, but not our very genome.

So, while the particulars of a fetish may rely on the world/culture/family we grow up in, what about the archetype of the fetish? Could a person, theoretically, have an inherent fetish for shock type stimuli, totems, or big powerful inanimate objects--things that have always been present throughout human existence? Could a person be born submissive? Dominant? Masochistic? Sadistic? Could a person have in hers or his genetic make-up a need to serve? A need to portray an animal? A need to humiliate another?

As is generally true of any nature vs. nurture argument, I imagine the answer will be neither one nor the other, but rather...both.

We come into this world with aspects of our dispositions already hard wired; I, for example, failed my first Apgar test because, no matter what the doctor did to me, I didn't cry (anyone here see a future stubborn masochist?) Nevertheless, how my hard wired disposition blossomed into the happy sub who writes this today has everything to do with how I have been nurtured, for better or for worse, throughout my life.

So, why this question right now? I have a teenage kid who I am watching express her overwhelming desire to be dominated (sans any of the language of the BDSM culture). I cannot help but wonder is this desire imprinted upon her DNA or is it the result of events in her life that have left her feeling distrustful of her own ability to make decisions?

Once I opened my eyes to my true self, I knew that so much of this had been with me from the very beginning. But is that necessarily true for everyone else?

What about your fetish, nature or nurture?