The difference of one word

I just finished watching "Monster" which everyone raved about and said was sooo good. I didn't really think so, to tell you the truth. I ended up skipping through the scenes to find out what happened at the end because I just wasn't interested enough to watch all the way through.

One thing struck me during the scene where she kills her first john, when he has her tied by the wrists to the door handle and he grabs her hair and yanks her head back, before pouring something on her back (I didn't catch what it was) that causes her so much pain that she screams and thrashes around until her hands come free.

I've been there. The only difference? The one little word - consent. I've been tied up, had my hair pulled, played with asphyxiation, been in so much pain that I'm whimpering and pulling at my bondage to get away, thinking "Please, please don't do that again!" ... but it's not abuse.

All of a sudden I could see the picture from a vanilla point of view. To have never experienced sadism in a consenting situation would lead one to believe that all of our consenting play between adults has roots in scenes like I watched in "Monster." Unconsenting, unenjoyable, sick and twisted and perverted.

I'm a Libra. We always seem to see situations from both points of view. Every book I've ever read about star signs says that Libras make good peacekeepers and mediators because of that quality. I have never really been able to understand a vanilla's horror of BDSM play until now, really seeing the two scenes running side-by-side in my head. The only difference between them is that I am in one of them, and therefore I know the feelings and the thoughts that run through my head and his while we play. To someone on the outside, they would look the same.

Interesting thing to think about...